If now and again anyone was taken ill in the night, it was necessary to wake Don Antolin who, plunging his hand into the depths of his cassock, would produce his key, and deign to restore communication with the outer world.
He was about seventy years of age, small and wizened; age had scarcely tinged his shaven crown with grey, his forehead was broad and square, and rose straight beneath the silk cap he wore in winter.

His features were rather drawn out, without a single wrinkle, and devoid of any expression that showed emotion, the jaw-bone narrow and sharp, and the eyes as inexpressive and motionless as the rest of the face, but with a cold, penetrating glance that was extremely disconcerting.
Gabriel had known him from his childhood; he was, to use his own expression, like a private soldier of the church, who by reason of his years and services had attained the rank of sergeant, but who could rise no further.

When Luna first entered the seminary Don Antolin had just been ordained priest, and since then had passed his life in the sacristy of the Primacy where he had begun as acolyte.
On account of his absolute and irrational faith and his unbending adhesion to the Church, the professors in the seminary had pushed him on in his career, in spite of his ignorance; he was a son of the soil, having been born in a village in the mountains round Toledo.

The Holy Metropolitan Church was to him the second house of God in the world, only ranking after Saint Peter's in Rome, and all ecclesiastical learning was to him like rays emanating from the Divine wisdom, which blinded him, and were to be adored with the profound respect of ignorance.
He had that blessed and entire want of education so appreciated by the Church in former years.

Gabriel felt sure that if Silver Stick had been born in the flourishing times of Catholicism he would have become a saint on dedicating himself to the spiritual life, or he would have played an excellent part in the Inquisition on the arrival of that militant society.