Besa la mano,

JOAQUIN.


* * * * *


NICHOLAUS BERG.

30th October, 18--.

DEAR JOSÉ:

I am still at the cloister, though I have done nothing it seems to me
during the past week but sleep, and am hardly strong enough now to carry
the pen over the paper as I write to you.

The statue over the door stands there as it ever has, but it is too far
away for me to see the awful eyes, so I can say nothing about them. But
now my dear friend I have something more wonderful than ever to tell
you.

Every night when the moon shines, this image of the Virgin comes down
from her niche and wanders about the church; I have seen her four or
five times, and she has often come under my window in these lone walks,
and once I spoke to her, but the moment my voice sounded on the night
air she was gone, and the same gray, stone image stood silent and dead
in the niche.