CHAPTER 6
The dawn of a new day broke white and glistering upon the ancientpueblo. From their hard beds of palm, and their straw mats on the dirt floors, the provincial dwellers in this abandoned treasure house of Old Spain rose already dressed to resume the monotonous routine of their lowly life. The duties which confronted them were few, scarce extending beyond the procurement of their simple food. And for all, excepting the two or three families which constituted the shabby aristocracy of Simití, this was limited in the extreme. Indian corn,panela, and coffee, with an occasional addition ofplatanosor rice, and now and then bits ofbagre, the coarse fish yielded by the adjacent lake, constituted the staple diet of the36average citizen of this decayed hamlet. A few might purchase a bit of lard at rare intervals; and this they hoarded like precious jewels. Some occasionally had wheat flour; but the long, difficult transportation, and its rapid deterioration in that hot, moist climate, where swarms of voracious insects burrow into everything not cased in tin or iron, made its cost all but prohibitive. A few had goats and chickens. Some possessed pigs. And the latter even exceeded in value the black, naked babes that played in the hot dust of the streets with them.
Josè was up at dawn. Standing in the warm, unadulterated sunlight in his doorway he watched the village awaken. At a door across theplazaa woman appeared, smoking a cigar, with the lighted end in her mouth. Josè viewed with astonishment this curious custom which prevails in theTierra Caliente. He had observed that in Simití nearly everybody of both sexes was addicted to the use of tobacco, and it was no uncommon sight to see children of tender age smoking heavy, black cigars with keen enjoyment. From another door issued two fishermen, who, seeing the priest, approached and asked his blessing on their day’s work. Some moments later he heard a loud tattoo, and soon the Alcalde of the village appeared, marching pompously through the streets, preceded by his tall, black secretary, who was beating lustily upon a small drum. At each street intersection the little procession halted, while the Alcalde with great impressiveness sonorously read a proclamation just received from the central Government at Bogotá to the effect that thereafter no cattle might be killed in the country without the payment of a tax as therein set forth. Groups ofpeonesgathered slowly about the few little stores in the main street, or entered and inspected for the thousandth time the shabby stocks. Matrons with black, shining faces cheerily greeted one another from their doorways. Everywhere prevailed a gentle decorum of speech and manners. For, however lowly the station, however pinched the environment, the dwellers in this ancient town were ever gentle, courteous and dignified. Their conversation dealt with the simple affairs of their quiet life. They knew nothing of the complex problems, social, economic, or religious, which harassed their brethren of the North. No dubious aspirations or ambitions stirred their breasts. Nothing of the frenzied greed and lust of material accumulation touched their child-like minds. They dwelt upon a plane far, far removed, in whatever direction, from the mental state of their educated and civilized brothers of the great States, who from time to time undertake to advise them how to live, while ruthlessly exploiting them for material gain. And thus they have been exploited ever since the heavy hand of the37Spaniard was laid upon them, four centuries ago. Thus they will continue to be, until that distant day when mankind shall have learned to find their own in another’s good.
As his eyes swept his environment, the untutored folk, the old church, the dismally decrepit mud houses, with an air of desolation and utter abandon brooding over all; and as he reflected that his own complex nature, rather than any special malice of fortune, had brought this to him, Josè’s heart began to sink under the sting of a condemning conscience. He turned back into his house. Its pitiful emptiness smote him sore. No books, no pictures, no furnishings, nothing that ministers to the comfort of a civilized and educated man! And yet, amid this barrenness he had resolved to live.
A song drifted to him through the pulsing heat of the morning air. It sifted through the mud walls of his poor dwelling, and poured into the open doorway, where it hovered, quivering, like the dust motes in the sunbeams. Instantly the man righted himself. It was Carmen, the child to whom his life now belonged. Resolutely he again set his wandering mind toward the great thing he would accomplish––the protection and training of this girl, even while, if might be, he found his life again in hers. Nothing on earth should shake him from that purpose! Doubt and uncertainty were powerless to dull the edge of his efforts. His bridges were burned behind him; and on the other side of the great gulf lay the dead self which he had abandoned forever.
A harsh medley of loud, angry growls, interspersed with shrill yelps, suddenly arose before his house, and Josè hastened to the door just in time to see Carmen rush into the street and fearlessly throw herself upon two fighting dogs.
“Cucumbra! Stop it instantly!” she exclaimed, dragging the angry brute from a thoroughly frightened puppy.
“Shame! shame! And after all I’ve talked to you about loving that puppy!”
The gaunt animal slunk down, with its tail between its legs.
“Did you ever gain anything at all by fighting? You know you never did! And right down in your heart you know you love that puppy. You’vegotto love him; you can’t help it! And you might as well begin right now.”
The beast whimpered at her little bare feet.
“Cucumbra, you let bad thoughts use you, didn’t you? Yes, you did; and you’re sorry for it now. Well, there’s the puppy,” pointing to the little dog, which stood hesitant some yards away. “Now go and play with him,” she urged. “Play with him!” rousing the larger dog and pointing toward the puppy. “Play with him! Youknowyou love him!”
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Cucumbra hesitated, looking alternately at the small, resolute girl and the smaller dog. Her arm remained rigidly extended, and determination was written large in her set features. The puppy uttered a sharp bark, as if in forgiveness, and began to scamper playfully about. Cucumbra threw a final glance at the girl.
“Play with him!” she again commanded.
The large dog bounded after the puppy, and together they disappeared around the street corner.
The child turned and saw Josè, who had regarded the scene in mute astonishment.
“Muy buenos dias, Señor Padre,” dropping a little courtesy. “But isn’t Cucumbra foolish to have bad thoughts?”
“Why, yes––he certainly is,” replied Josè slowly, hard pressed by the unusual question.
“He has justgotto love that puppy, or else he will never be happy, will he, Padre?”
Why would this girl persist in ending her statements with an interrogation! How could he know whether Cucumbra’s happiness would be imperfect if he failed in love toward the puppy?
“Because, you know, Padre,” the child continued, coming up to him and slipping her hand into his, “padre Rosendo once told me that God was Love; and after that I knew we just had to love everything and everybody, or else He can’t see us––can He, Padre?”
He can’t see us––if we don’t love everything and everybody! Well! Josè wondered what sort of interpretation the Vatican, with its fiery hatred of heretics, would put upon this remark.
“Can He, Padre?” insisted the girl.
“Dear child, in these matters you are teaching me; not I you,” replied the noncommittal priest.
“But, Padre, you are going to teach the people in the church,” the girl ventured quizzically.
Ah, so he was! And he had wondered what. In his hour of need the answer was vouchsafed him.
“Yes, dearest child––and I am going to teach them what I learn fromyou.”
Carmen regarded him for a moment uncertainly. “But, padre Rosendo says you are to teachme,” she averred.
“And so I am, little one,” the priest replied; “but not one half as much as I shall learn from you.”
Doña Maria’s summons to breakfast interrupted the conversation. Throughout the repast Josè felt himself subjected to the closest scrutiny by Carmen. What was running through her thought, he could only vaguely surmise. But he instinctively39felt that he was being weighed and appraised by this strange child, and that she was finding him wanting in her estimate of what manner of man a priest of God ought to be. And yet he knew that she embraced him in her great love. Oftentimes his quick glance at her would find her serious gaze bent upon him. But whenever their eyes met, her sweet face would instantly relax and glow with a smile of tenderest love––a love which, he felt, was somehow, in some way, destined to reconstruct his shattered life.
Josè’s plans for educating the girl had gradually evolved into completion during the past two days. He explained them at length to Rosendo after the morning meal; and the latter, with dilating eyes, manifested his great joy by clasping the priest in his brawny arms.
“But remember, Rosendo,” Josè said, “learning is notknowing. I can only teach her book-knowledge. But even now, an untutored child, she knows more that is real than I do.”
“Ah, Padre, have I not told you many times that she is not like us? And now you know it!” exclaimed the emotional Rosendo, his eyes suffused with tears of joy as he beheld his cherished ideals and his longing of years at last at the point of realization. What he, too, had instinctively seen in the child was now to be summoned forth; and the vague, half-understood motive which had impelled him to take the abandoned babe from Badillo into the shelter of his own great heart would at length be revealed. The man’s joy was ecstatic. With a final clasp of the priest’s hand, he rushed from the house to plunge into the work in progress at the church.
Josè summoned Carmen into the quiet of his own dwelling. She came joyfully, bringing an ancient and obsolete arithmetic and a much tattered book, which Josè discovered to be a chronicle of the heroic deeds of the earlyConquistadores.
“I’m through decimals!” she exclaimed with glistening eyes; “and I’ve read some of this, but I don’t like it,” making a littlemoueof disgust and holding aloft the battered history.
“Padre Rosendo told me to show it to you,” she continued. “But it is all about murder, you know. And yet,” with a little sigh, “he has nothing else to read, excepting old newspapers which the steamers sometimes leave at Bodega Central. And they are all about murder, and stealing, and bad things, too. Padre, why don’t people write about good things?”
Josè gazed at her reverently, as of old the sculptor Phidias might have stood in awe before the vision which he saw in the unchiseled marble.
“Padre Rosendo helped me with the fractions,” went on the girl, flitting lightly to another topic; “but I had to learn the40decimals myself. He couldn’t understand them. And they are so easy, aren’t they? I just love arithmetic!” hugging the old book to her little bosom.
Both volumes, printed in Madrid, were reliques of Spanish colonial days.
“Read to me, Carmen,” said Josè, handing her the history.
The child took the book and began to read, with clear enunciation, the narrative of Quesada’s sanguinary expedition to Bogotá, undertaken in the name of the gentle Christ. Josè wondered as he listened what interpretation this fresh young mind would put upon the motives of that renowned exploit. Suddenly she snapped the book shut.
“Tell me about Jesus,” she demanded.
The precipitation with which the question had been propounded almost took his breath away. He raised his eyes to hers, and looked long and wonderingly into their infinite depths. And then the vastness of the problem enunciated by her demand loomed before him. What, after all, did he know about Jesus? Had he not arrived in Simití in a state of agnosticism regarding religion? Had he not come there enveloped in confusion, baffled, beaten, hopeless? And then, after his wonderful talk with Rosendo, had he not agreed with him that the child’s thought must be kept free and open––that her own instinctive religious ideas must be allowed to develop normally, unhampered and unfettered by the external warp and bias of human speculation? It was part of his plan that all reference to matters theological should be omitted from Carmen’s educational scheme. Yet here was that name on her lips––the first time he had ever heard it voiced by her. And it smote him like a hammer. He made haste to divert further inquiry.
“Not now, little one,” he said hastily. “I want to hear you read more from your book.”
“No,” she replied firmly, laying the volume upon the table. “I don’t like it; and I shouldn’t think you would, either. Besides, it isn’t true; it never really happened.”
“Why, of course it is true, child! It is history, the story of how the brave Spaniards came into this country long ago. We will read a great deal more about them later.”
“No,” with a decisive shake of her brown head; “not if it is like this. It isn’t true; I told padre Rosendo it wasn’t.”
“Well, what do you mean, child?” asked the uncomprehending priest.
“It is only a lot of bad thoughts printed in a book,” she replied slowly. “And it isn’t true, because God iseverywhere.”
Clearly the man was encountering difficulties at the outset; and a part, at least, of his well-ordered curriculum stood in41grave danger of repudiation at the hands of this earnest little maid.
The girl stood looking at him wistfully. Then her sober little face melted in smiles. With childish impulsiveness she clambered into his lap, and twining her arms about his neck, impressed a kiss upon his cheek.
“I love you, Padre,” she murmured; “and you love me, don’t you?”
He pressed her to him, startled though he was. “God knows I do, little one!” he exclaimed.
“Of course He does,” she eagerly agreed; “and He knows you don’t want to teach me anything that isn’t true, doesn’t He, Padre dear?”
Yea, and more; for Josè was realizing now, what he had not seen before, thatit was beyond his power to teach her that which was not true. The magnitude and sacredness of his task impressed him as never before. His puzzled brain grappled feebly with the enormous problem. She had rebuked him for trying to teach her things which, if he accepted the immanence of God as fact, her logic had shown him were utterly false. Clearly the grooves in which this child’s pure thought ran were not his own. And if she would not think as he did, what recourse was there left him but to accept the alternative and think with her? For he would not, even if he could, force upon her his own thought-processes.
“Then, Carmen,” he finally ventured, “you do not wish to learn about people and what they have done and are doing in the big world about you?”
“Oh, yes, Padre; tell me all about the good things they did!”
“But they did many wicked things too,chiquita. And the good and the bad are all mixed up together.”
“No,” she shook her head vigorously; “there isn’t any bad. There is only good, for God is everywhere––isn’t He?”
She raised up and looked squarely into the priest’s eyes. Dissimulation, hypocrisy, quibble, cant––nothing but fearless truth could meet that gaze.
Suddenly a light broke in upon his clouded thought. This girl––this tender plant of God––why, she had shown it from the very beginning! And he, oh, blind that he was! he could not see nor accept it. The secret of her power, of her ecstasy of life––what was it but this?––she knew no evil!
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Oh, great God! It was the first––the very first––lesson42which Thou didst teach Thy child, Israel, as the curtain rose upon the drama of human life! And the awful warning has rung down through the corridors of time from the mouths of the prophets, whom we slew lest they wake us from our mesmeric sleep! Israel forgot Thy words; and the world has forgotten them, long, long since. Daily we mix our perfumed draft of good and evil, and sink under its lethal influence! Hourly we eat of the forbidden tree, till the pangs of death encompass us!
And when at last the dark angel hovered over the sin-stricken earth and claimed it for his own, the great Master came to sound again the warning––“As a man thinketh in his heart,so is he!” But they would have none of him, and nailed him to a tree!
Oh, Jerusalem! Oh, ye incarnate human mind! Even the unique Son of God wept as he looked with yearning upon you! Why? Because of your stubborn clinging to false ways, false beliefs, false thoughts of God and man! Because ye would not be healed; ye would not be made whole! Ye loved evil––ye gave it life and power, and ye rolled it like a sweet morsel beneath your tongue––and so ye died! So came death into this fair world, through the heart, the brain, the mind of man,who sought to know what God could not!
“Padre dear, you are so quiet.” The girl nestled closer to the awed priest. Aye! And so the multitude on Sinai had stood in awed quiet as they listened to the voice of God.
This child knew no evil! The man could not grasp the infinite import of the marvelous fact. And yet he had sought to teach her falsities––to teach her that evil did exist, as real and as potent as good, and that it was to be accepted and honored by mankind! But she had turned her back upon the temptation.
“Padre, are you going to tell me about Jesus?”
The priest roused from his deep meditation.
“Yes, yes––I want to know nothing else! I will get my Bible, and we will read about him!”
“Bible? What is that, Padre dear?”
“What! You don’t know what the Bible is?” cried the astonished priest.
“No, Padre.”
“But have you never––has your padre Rosendo never told you that it is the book that tells––?”
“No,” the girl shook her head. “But,” her face kindling, “he told me that Jesus was God’s only son. But we are all His children, aren’t we?”
“Yes––especially you, little one! But Jesus was the greatest––”
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“Did Jesus write the Bible, Padre?” the girl asked earnestly.
“No––we don’t know who did. People used to think God wrote it; but I guess He didn’t.”
“Then we will not read it, Padre.”
The man bent reverently over the little brown head and prayed again for guidance. What could he do with this child, who dwelt with Jehovah––who saw His reflection in every flower and hill and fleecy cloud––who heard His voice in the sough of the wind, and the ripple of the waters on the pebbly shore! And, oh, that some one had bent over him and prayed for guidance when he was a tender lad and his heart burned with yearning for truth!
“God wrote the arithmetic––I mean, He told people how to write it, didn’t He, Padre?”
Surely the priest could acquiesce in this, for mathematics is purely metaphysical, and without guile.
“Yes,chiquita. And we will go right through this little book. Then, if I can, I will send for others that will teach you wonderful things about what we call mathematics.”
The child smiled her approval. The priest had now found the only path which she would tread with him, and he continued with enthusiasm.
“And God taught people how to talk, little one; but they don’t all talk as we do. There is a great land up north of us, which we call the United States, and there the people would not understand us, for we speak Spanish. I must teach you their language,chiquita, and I must teach you others, too, for you will not always live in Simití.”
“I want to stay here always, Padre. I love Simití.” “No, Carmen; God has work for you out in His big world. You have something to tell His people some day, a message for them. But you and I have much work to do here first. And so we will begin with the arithmetic and English. Later we will study other languages, and we will talk them to each other until you speak them as fluently as your own. And meanwhile, I will tell you about the great countries of the world, and about the people that live in them. And we will study about the stars, and the rocks, and the animals; and we will read and work and read and work all day long, every day!” The priest’s face was aglow with animation.
“But, Padre, when shall I have time to think?”
“Why, you will be thinking all the time, child!”
“No, you don’t understand. I have to think about other things.”
Josè looked at her with a puzzled expression. “What other things do you have to think about,chiquita?”
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“About all the people here who are sick and unhappy, and who quarrel and don’t love one another.”
“Do you think about people when they are sick?” he asked with heightened curiosity.
“Yes, always!” she replied vigorously “When they are sick I go where nobody can find me and then just think that it isn’t so.”
“Hombre!” the priest ejaculated, his astonishment soaring Then––
“But when people are sick it is really so, isn’t it,chiquita?”
“No!” emphatically. “It can’t be––not if God is everywhere. Does He make them sick?” The child drove the heart-searching question straight into him.
“Why––no, I can’t say that He does. And yet they somehow get sick.”
“Because they think bad things, Padre. Because they don’t think about God. They don’t think He is here. And they don’t care about Him––they don’t love Him. And so they get sick,” she explained succinctly.
Josè’s mind reverted to what Rosendo had told him. When he lay tossing in delirium Carmen had said that he would not die. And yet that was perfectly logical, if she refused to admit the existence of evil.
“I thought lots about you last week, Padre.”
The soft voice was close to his ear, and every breath swept over his heartstrings and made them vibrate.
“Every night when I went to sleep I told God IknewHe would cure you.”
The priest’s head sank upon his breast.
Verily, I have not seen such faith, no, not in Israel! And the faith of this child had glorified her vision until she saw “the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
“Carmen”––the priest spoke reverently––“do the sick ones always get well when you think about them?”
There was not a shade of euphemism in the unhesitating reply––
“They are never really sick, Padre.”
“But, by that you mean––”
“They only have bad thoughts.”
“Sick thoughts, then?” he suggested by way of drawing out her full meaning.
“Yes, Padre––for God, you know, reallyiseverywhere.”
“Carmen!” cried the man. “What put such ideas into your little head? Who told you these things?”
Her brown eyes looked full into his own. “God, Padre dear.”
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God! Yes, of a verity she spoke truth. For nothing but her constant communion with Him could have filled her pure thought with a deeper, truer lore than man has ever quaffed at the world’s great fountains of learning. He himself, trained by Holy Church, deeply versed in letters, science, and theology, grounded in all human learning, sat in humility at her feet, drinking in what his heart told him he had at length found––Truth.
He had one more question to ask. “Carmen, how do you know, how are you sure, that He told you?”
“Because it is true, Padre.”
“But just how do you know that it is true?” he insisted.
“Why––it comes out that way; just like the answers to the problems in arithmetic. I used to try to see if by thinking only good thoughts to-day I would be better and happier to-morrow.”
“Yes, and––?”
“Well, I always was, Padre. And so now I don’t think anything but good thoughts.”
“That is, you think only about God?”
“I always think about Himfirst, Padre.”
He had no further need to question her proofs, for he knew she was taught by the Master himself.
“That will be all for this morning, Carmen,” he said quietly, as he put her down. “Leave me now. I, too, have some thinking to do.”
When Carmen left him, Josè lapsed into profound meditation. Musing over his life experiences, he at last summed them all up in the vain attempt to evolve an acceptable concept of God, an idea of Him that would satisfy. He had felt that in Christianity he had hold of something beneficent, something real; but he had never been able to formulate it, nor lift it above the shadows into the clear light of full comprehension. And the result of his futile efforts to this end had been agnosticism. His inability conscientiously to accept the mad reasoning of theologians and the impudent claims of Rome had been the stumbling block to his own and his family’s dearest earthly hopes. He knew that popular Christianity was a disfigurement of truth. He knew that the theological claptrap which the Church, with such oracular assurance, such indubitable certainty and gross assumption of superhuman knowledge, handed out to a suffering world, was a travesty of the divinely simple teachings of Jesus, and that it had estranged mankind from their only visible source of salvation, the Bible. He saw more clearly than ever before that in the actual achievements of popular theology there had been ridiculously little that a seriously-minded46man could accept as supports to its claims to be a divinely revealed scheme of salvation. Yet there was no vital question on which certainty was so little demanded, and seemingly of so little consequence, as this, even though the joints of the theologians’ armor flapped wide to the assaults of unprejudiced criticism.
But if the slate were swept clean––if current theological dogma were overthrown, and the stage set anew––what could be reared in their stead? Is it true that the Bible is based upon propositions which can be verified by all? The explorer in Cartagena had given Josè a new thought in Arnold’s concept of God as “the Eternal, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.” And it was not to be denied that, from first to last, the Bible is a call to righteousness.
But what is righteousness? Ethical conduct? Assuredly something vastly more profound, for even that “misses the mark.” No, righteousness was right conduct until the marvelous Jesus appeared. But he swept it at once from the material into the mental; from the outward into the inward; and defined it asright-thinking!
“Righteousness!” murmured Josè, sitting with head buried in his hands. “Aye, the whole scheme of salvation is held in that one word! And the wreck of my life has been caused by my blind ignorance of its tremendous meaning! For righteousness is salvation. But Carmen, wise little soul, divined it instinctively; for, if there is one thing that is patent, it is that if a thing is evil it does not exist for her. Righteousness! Of course it meansthinking no evil! Jesus lived his thorough understanding of it. And so does Carmen. And so would the world, but for the withering influence of priestly authority!”
At that moment Carmen reappeared to summon him to lunch.
“Come here, little girl,” said Josè, drawing her to him. “You asked me to tell you about Jesus. He was the greatest and best man that ever lived. And it was because he never had a bad thought.”
“Did he know that God was everywhere?” The little face turned lovingly up to his.
“He did, sweet child. And so do I––now; for I have found Him even in desolate Simití.”
47CHAPTER 7
Carmen’s studies began in earnest that afternoon. In the quiet of his humble cottage Josè, now “a prisoner of the Lord,” opened the door of his mental storehouse and carefully selected those first bits of knowledge for the foundation stones on which to rear for her, little by little, a broad education.
He found her a facile learner; her thorough ease in the rudiments of arithmetic and in the handling of her own language delighted him. His plan of tutelage, although the result of long contemplation, and involving many radical ideas regarding the training of children, ideas which had been slowly developing in his mind for years, he nevertheless felt in her case to be tentative. For he was dealing with no ordinary child; and so the usual methods of instruction were here wholly out of the question.
But on several points he was already firmly resolved. First, he would get well below the surface of this child’s mind, and he would endeavor to train her to live in a depth of thought far, far beneath the froth and superficiality of the every-day thinking of mankind. Fortunately, she had had no previous bad training to be counteracted now. Nature had been her only tutor; and Rosendo’s canny wisdom had kept out all human interference. Her associates in Simití were few. Her unusual and mature thought had set up an intellectual barrier between herself and the playmates she might have had. Fortunately, too, Josè had now to deal with a child who all her life had thought vigorously––and, he was forced to conclude, correctly. Habits of accurate observation and quick and correct interpretation would not be difficult to form in such a mind. Moreover, to this end he would aim to maintain her interest at the point of intensity in every subject undertaken; yet without forcing, and without sacrifice of the joys of childhood. He would be, not teacher only, but fellow-student. He would strive to learn with her to conceive the ideal without losing sight of the fact that it was a human world in which they dwelt. When she wished to play, he would play with her. But he would contrive and direct their amusements so as to carry instruction, to elucidate and exemplify it, to point morals, and steadily to contribute to her store of knowledge. His plan was ideal, he knew. But he could not know then that Nature––if we may thus call it––had anticipated him, and that the child, long since started upon the quest for truth, would quickly outstrip him48in the matter of conceiving the ideal and living in this world of relative fact with an eye single to the truth which shines so dimly through it.
Josè knew, as he studied Carmen and planned her training, that whatever instruction he offered her must be without taint of evil, so far as he might prevent. And yet, the thought of any attempt to withhold from her a knowledge of evil brought a sardonic smile to his lips. She had as yet everything to learn of the world about her. Could such learning be imparted to her free from error or hypothesis, and apart from the fiat of the speculative human mind? It must be; for he knew from experience that she would accept his teaching only as he presented every apparent fact, every object, every event, as a reflection in some degree of her immanent God, and subject to rigid demonstration. Where historical events externalized only the evil motives of the carnal mind, he must contrive to omit them entirely, or else present them as unreality, the result of “bad thoughts” and forgetfulness of God. In other words, only as he assumed to be the channel through which God spoke to her could he hope for success. To impart to her a knowledge of both good and evil was, at least at present, impossible. To force it upon her later would be criminal. Moreover,why not try the audacious experiment of permitting and aiding this child to grow up without a knowledge of evil?––that is, in her present conviction that only good is real, potent and permanent, while evil is impotent illusion and to be met and overcome on that basis. Would the resultant training make of her a tower of strength––or would it render her incapable of resisting the onslaughts of evil when at length she faced the world? His own heart sanctioned the plan; and––well, the final judgment should be left to Carmen herself.
The work proceeded joyously. At times Cucumbra interrupted by bounding in, as if impatient of the attention his little mistress was giving her tutor. Frequently the inquisitive Cantar-las-horas stalked through the room, displaying a most dignified and laudable interest in the proceedings. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was low, Bosendo appeared at the door. As he stood listening to Josè’s narrative of men and places in the outside world, his eyes bulged. At length his untutored mind became strained to its elastic limit.
“Is that true, Padre?” he could not refrain from interrupting, when Josè had spoken of the fast trains of England. “Why, the Simití trail to Tachí is one hundred and fifty miles long; and it always took me six days to walk it. And do you say there are trains that travel that distance in as many hours?”
“There are trains, Rosendo, that traverse the distance in three hours.”
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“Na, Padre, it can’t be done!” cried the incredulous Rosendo, shaking his head.
“Leave us, unbeliever!” laughed Josè, motioning him away. “I have more pliable material here to handle than you.”
But Rosendo remained; and it was evident to the priest that he had come on an errand of importance. Moreover, the supper hour was at hand, and perhaps Doña Maria needed Carmen’s help. So, dismissing the child, Josè turned to Rosendo.
“You were right,” he began, as if taking up the thread of a broken discourse. “Carmenwasleft on the river bank by the angels.”
“Then you do think it was a miracle!” said Rosendo in a voice of awe, as he sank into a chair.
The priest smiled. “Everything is a miracle, friend; for a miracle is simply a sign of God’s presence. And finding Carmen in this musty, forgotten place is one of the greatest. For where she is, He is.”
“Yes, Padre, that is true,” assented Rosendo gravely.
“I was led here,” continued Josè; “I see it now. Rosendo, all my life I have regarded evil as just as real and powerful as good. And my life has been one of bitterness and woe. Carmen sees only the good God everywhere. And she dwells in heaven. What is the logical inference? Simply that my mental attitude has been all wrong, my views erroneous, my thinking bad. I have tried to know both good and evil, to eat of the forbidden tree. And for so doing I was banished from paradise. Do you understand me?”
“Why––well, no, Padre––that is, I––” The honest fellow was becoming confused.
“Well, just this, then,” explained the priest with animation. “I haven’t gotten anywhere in life, and neither have you, because we have limited ourselves and crippled our efforts by yielding to fear, pride, ignorance, and the belief in evil as a real power opposed to good.”
“I have often wondered myself, Padre, how there could be a devil if God is almighty. For in that case He would have had to make the devil, wouldn’t He?”
“Just so!” cried Josè enthusiastically. “And as He did make everything, then either He made the devil, or else there isn’t any.”
“But that is pretty hard to see, Padre,” replied the puzzled Rosendo. “Something makes us do wicked things.”
“Simply the belief that there is a power apart from God.”
“But doesn’t that belief come from the devil?”
“Surely––the devil of imagination! Listen, Rosendo:50Carmen is daily putting into practice her instinctive knowledge of a mighty fact. She will reveal it all to us in due time. Let us patiently watch her, and try to see and understand and believe as she does. But in the meantime, let us guard our minds as we would a treasure house, and strive never to let a thought of evil get inside! My past life should serve as a perpetual warning.”
Rosendo did not reply at once, but sat staring vacantly at the ground. Josè knew that his thoughts were with his wayward daughter. Then, as if suddenly remembering the object of his call, he took from his wallet two letters, which he handed to Josè with the comment: “Juan brought them up from Bodega Central this morning.”
Josè took them with quickening pulse. One was from Spain, from his uncle. He devoured it eagerly. It was six weeks old when it arrived in Simití, and had been written before the news of his removal from Cartagena had reached Seville. His mother was well; and her hopes for her son’s preferment were steadily reviving, after the cruel blow which his disgrace in Rome had given them. For his uncle’s part, he hoped that Josè had now seen the futility of opposition to Holy Church, and that, yielding humbly to her gentle chastisement for the great injury he had inflicted upon her, he would now make amends and merit the favors which she was sure to bestow upon him in due season. To this end the uncle would bring to bear his own influence and that of His Eminence, the Archbishop of Seville. The letter closed with an invocation to the Saints and the ever-blessed Virgin.
Josè opened the second letter. It was nominally from the Bishop of Cartagena, although written, he well knew, by Wenceslas. His Reverence regretted that Josè had not come to him again before leaving Cartagena. He deplored exceedingly the necessity of assigning him to so lowly a parish; but it was discipline. His tenure of the parish would be a matter of probation. Assuming a penitent desire on the part of the priest to make reparation for past indiscretions, His Grace extended assurances of his support and tender consideration. And, regarding him still as a faithful son, he was setting forth herewith certain instructions which Josè would zealously carry out, to the glory of the sacred Mother Church and the blessed Virgin, and to his own edification, to wit: In the matter of the confessional he must be unremittingly zealous, not failing to put such questions to the people of Simití as would draw out their most secret thoughts. In the present crisis it was especially necessary to learn their political views. Likewise, he must not fail to impress upon them the sin of concealing wealth, and of51withholding contributions to the support of the glorious Mother. He, as priest of the parish, would be held personally responsible for the collection of an adequate “Peter’s Pence,” which must be sent to Cartagena at frequent intervals for subsequent shipment to Rome. For all contributions he was to allow liberal plenary indulgences. In the matter of inciting zeal for the salvation of those unfortunate souls lingering in the torments of purgatory, Josè must be unflagging. Each family in the parish should be constantly admonished and threatened, if necessary, to have Masses said for their deceased members; and he must forward the proceeds from such Masses at once to Cartagena. No less important, he must keep constantly before him the great fact that the hope of the blessed Mother lay in her young. To this end he must see that all children in his parish were in due time confirmed, and every effort made to have the females sent to the convent of Mompox. To encourage his parishioners, he might assure them of His Reverence’s tender regard for them as his beloved children, and that he had certain special favors to grant to them in due time. Also, that a statue of the Virgin, which had arrived from Rome, and which carried the most potent blessing of the Holy Father, was to be bestowed upon that church in the diocese which within the next twelve months should contribute the largest amount of Peter’s Pence in proportion to population. This plan should be especially attractive to the people of Simití, as the town lay on the confines of a district renowned in the ancient annals for its mineral wealth. Herein, too, lay a great opportunity for the priest; and His Reverence rejoiced in the certain knowledge that he would embrace it. Invoking the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Ever-Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph, His Grace awaited with interest the priest’s first report from the parish of Simití.
The letter fell like a wet blanket upon Josè, chilling him to the marrow, for it revived with cruel poignancy the fact that he was still a servant of Rome. In the past few happy days he had dwelt apart from the world in the consciousness of a new heaven and a new earth, revealed by Carmen. This sudden call to duty was like a summons from Mephistopheles to the fulfillment of a forgotten pact.
He carefully read the letter again. Beneath the specious kindliness of Wenceslas lay sinister motives, he knew. Among them, greed, of course. But––a darker thought––did Wenceslas know of Carmen’s existence? Could Cartagena have received any intimation of his plans for her? Refusal to comply with these instructions meant––he dared not think what! On the other hand, strict compliance with them certainly was out of the question.
52
As for Peter’s Pence, what could the impoverished folk of this decrepit town furnish! And yet, if a reasonable sum could only be contributed at frequent intervals, would not the vampire Wenceslas rest content, at least for a while? Oh, for a fortune of his own, that he might dump it all into the yawning maw of Holy Church, and thus gain a few years’ respite for himself and Carmen!
“Bad news, Padre?” Rosendo inquired, anxiously regarding the priest’s strained features.
What could the man do or say, limited, hounded, and without resources? Could he force these simple people to buy Masses? Could he take their money on a pretext which he felt to be utterly false? Yet Cartagenamustbe kept quiet at any hazard!
“Rosendo,” he asked earnestly, “when you had a priest in Simití, did the people have Masses offered for their dead?”
“Na, Padre, we have little money for Masses,” replied Rosendo sadly.
“But you have bought them?”
“At times––long ago––for my first wife, when she died without a priest, up in the Tiguí country. But not when Padre Diego was here. I couldn’t see how Masses said by that drunken priest could please God, or make Him release souls from purgatory––and Padre Diego was drunk most of the time.”
Josè became desperate. “Rosendo, wemustsend money to the Bishop in Cartagena. Imuststay here––Imust! And I can stay only by satisfying Wenceslas! If I can send him money he will think me too valuable to remove. It is not the Church, Rosendo, but Wenceslas who is persecuting me. It is he who has placed me here. He is using the Church for his own evil ends. It is he who must be placated. But I––I can’t make these poor people buy Masses! And––but here, read his letter,” thrusting it into Rosendo’s hand.
Rosendo shook his head thoughtfully, and a cloud had gathered over his strong face when he returned the Bishop’s letter to Josè.
“Padre, we will be hard pressed to support the church and you, without buying Masses. There are about two hundred people here, perhaps fifty families. But they are very, very poor. Only a few can afford to pay even apeso oroa month to the schoolmaster to have their children taught. They may be able to give twentypesosa month to support you and the church. But hardly more.”
It seemed to Josè that his soul must burst under its limitations.
“Rosendo, let us take Carmen and flee!” he cried wildly.