Every year on the day of Corpus he had found the same offering in the same place; an unknown had thus dedicated to the Church the first wheat of the year.
"It must be a madman," said the priest.

"What is the good of this?
What does this bunch mean?
If at least it had been a cart of sheaves as in the good old times of the tenths!" And while he threw the ears with contempt into a flower border in the garden, Gabriel thought with delight of the atavic force which had resuscitated in a Catholic church, the pagan offering: the homage to the divinity of the firstfruits of the earth fertilised by the spring.
The choir was ended and the mass beginning when Gabriel entered the Cathedral, the lower servants were discussing at the door of the sacristy the great event of the day.

His Eminence had not come down to the choir and would not assist at the procession.

He said he was ill, but those of the household laughed at this excuse, remembering that the evening before he had walked as far as the Hermitage of the Virgin de la Vega.

The truth was he would not meet his Chapter; he was furious with them, and showed his anger by refusing to preside over them in the choir.
Gabriel strolled through the naves.