Carmen Ariza Part 54

"Why not?" he asked.

"Mistakes happen, as in solving my algebra problems. But good things never happen, any more than the answers to my problems happen. You know, there are rules for getting the answers; but there are no rules for making mistakes--are there? But when anything comes out according to the rule, it doesn't happen. And the mistakes, which have no rules, are not real--the answers are real, but the mistakes are not--and so nothing ever really happens. Don't you see, Padre dear?"

"Surely, I see," he acquiesced. Then, while he held the girl close to him, he reflected: Good is never fortuitous. It results from the application of the Principle of all things. The answer to a mathematical problem is a form of good, and it results from the application of the principle of mathematics. Mistakes, and the various things which "happen" when we solve mathematical problems, do not have rules, or principles. They result from ignorance of them, or their misapplication. And so in life; for chance, fate, luck, accident and the merely casual, come, not from the application of principles, but from not applying them, or from ignorance of their use. The human mind or consciousness, which is a mental activity, an activity of thought, is concerned with mixed thoughts of good and evil. But _it operates without any principle whatsoever_. For, if G.o.d is infinite good, then the beliefs of evil which the human mind holds must be false beliefs, illusions, suppositions. A supposition has no principle, no rule. And so, it is only the unreal that happens. And even that sort of "happening" can be prevented by knowing and using the principle of all good, G.o.d. A knowledge of evil is not knowledge at all. Evil has no rules. Has an accident a principle? He laughed aloud at the idea.

"What is it, Padre?" asked Carmen.

"Nothing, child--and everything! But we are neglecting our work," he hastily added, as he roused himself. "What are the lessons for to-day?

Come! come! We have much to do!" And arranging his papers, and bidding Carmen draw up to the table, he began the morning session of his very select little school.

More than six months had elapsed since Jose first set foot upon the hot shales of Simiti. In that time his mentality had been turned over like a fallow field beneath the plowshare. After peace had been established in the country he had often thought to consecrate himself to the task of collecting the fragmentary ideas which had been evolved in his mind during these past weeks of strange and almost weird experience, and trying to formulate them into definite statements of truth. Then he would enter upon the task of establis.h.i.+ng them by actual demonstration, regardless of the years that might be required to do so. He realized now that the explorer had done a great work in clearing his mind of many of its darker shadows. But it was to Carmen's purer, more spiritual influence that he knew his debt was heaviest.

Let it not seem strange that mature manhood and extensive travel had never before brought to this man's mind the truths, many of which have been current almost since the curtain first arose on the melodrama of mundane existence. Well nigh impa.s.sable limitations had been set to them by his own natal characteristics; by his acutely morbid sense of filial love which bound him, at whatever cost, to observe the bigoted, selfish wishes of his parents; and by the strictness with which his mind had been hedged about both in the seminary and in the ecclesiastical office where he subsequently labored. The first rays of mental freedom did not dawn upon his darkened thought until he was sent as an outcast to the New World. Then, when his greater lat.i.tude in Cartagena, and his still more expanded sense of freedom in Simiti, had lowered the bars, there had rushed into his mentality such a flood of ideas that he was all but swept away in the swirling current.

It is not strange that he rose and fell, to-day strong in the conviction of the immanence of infinite good, to-morrow sunken in mortal despair of ever demonstrating the truth of the ideas which were swelling his shrunken mind. His line of progress in truth was an undulating curve, slowly advancing toward the distant goal to which Carmen seemed to move in a straight, undeviating line. What though Emerson had said that Mind was "the only reality of which men and all other natures are better or worse reflectors"? Jose was unaware of the sage's mighty deduction. What though Plato had said that we move as shadows in a world of ideas? Even if Jose had known of it, it had meant nothing to him. What though the Transcendentalists called the universe "a metaph.o.r.e of the human mind"? Jose's thought was too firmly clutched by his self-centered, material beliefs to grasp it.

Doubt of the reality of things material succ.u.mbed to the evidence of the physical senses and the ridicule of his seminary preceptors. True, he believed with Paul, that the "things that are seen are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." But this pregnant utterance conveyed nothing more to him than a belief of a material heaven to follow his exit from a world of matter. It had never occurred to him that the world of matter might be the product of those same delusive physical senses, through which he believed he gained his knowledge of it. It is true that while in the seminary, and before, he had insisted upon a more spiritual interpretation of the mission of Jesus--had insisted that Christian priests should obey the Master's injunction, and heal the sick as well as preach the gospel. But with the advent of the troubles which filled the intervening years, these things had gradually faded; and the mounting sun that dawned upon him six months before, as he lay on the damp floor of his little cell in the ecclesiastical dormitory in Cartagena, awaiting the Bishop's summons, illumined only a sh.e.l.l, in which agnosticism sat enthroned upon a stool of black despair.

Then Carmen entered his life. And her beautiful love, which enfolded him like a garment, and her sublime faith, which moved before him like the Bethlehem star to where the Christ-principle lay, were, little by little, dissolving the mist and revealing the majesty of the great G.o.d.

In a.s.suming to teach the child, Jose early found that the outer world meant nothing to her until he had purged it of its carnal elements.

Often in days past, when he had launched out upon the dramatic recital of some important historical event, wherein crime and bloodshed had shaped the incident, the girl would start hastily from her chair and put her little hand over his mouth.

"Don't, Padre dear! It is not true!" she would exclaim. "G.o.d didn't do it, and it isn't so!"

And thereby he learned to differentiate more closely between those historical events which sprang from good motives, and those which manifested only human pa.s.sion, selfish ambition, and the primitive question, "Who shall be greatest?" Moreover, he had found it best in his frequent talks to the people in the church during the week to omit all reference to the evil methods of mankind in their dealings one with another, and to pa.s.s over in silence the criminal aims and low motives, and their externalization, which have marked the unfolding of the human mind, and which the world preserves in its annals as historical fact. The child seemed to divine the great truth that history is but the record of human conduct, conduct manifesting the mortal mind of man, a mind utterly opposed to the mind that is G.o.d, and therefore unreal, supposit.i.tious, and bearing the "minus" sign.

Carmen would have none of it that did not reflect good. She refused utterly to turn her mental gaze toward recorded evil.

"Padre," she once protested, "when I want to see the sun rise, I don't look toward the west. And if you want to see the good come up, why do you look at these stories of bad men and their bad thoughts?"

Jose admitted that they were records of the mortal mind--and the mind that is mortal is _no_ mind.

"I am learning," he frequently said to himself, after Carmen had left at the close of their day's work. "But my real education did not commence until I began to see, even though faintly, that the Creator is mind and infinite good, and that there is nothing real to the belief in evil; that the five physical senses give us _no_ testimony of any nature whatsoever; and that real man never could, never did, fall."

Thus the days glided swiftly past, and Jose completed his first year amid the drowsy influences of this little town, slumbering peacefully in its sequestered nook at the feet of the green _Cordilleras_. No further event ruffled its archaic civilization; and only with rare frequency did fugitive bits of news steal in from the outer world, which, to the untraveled thought of this primitive folk, remained always a realm vague and mysterious. Quietly the people followed the routine of their colorless existence. Each morn broke softly over the limpid lake; each evening left the blush of its roseate sunset on the gla.s.sy waters; each night wound its velvety arms gently about the nodding town, while the stars beamed like jewels through the clear, soft atmosphere above, or the yellow moonbeams stole noiselessly down the old, sunken trail to dream on the lake's invisible waves.

Each month, with unvarying regularity, Rosendo came and went. At times Jose thought he detected traces of weariness, insidious and persistently lurking, in the old man's demeanor. At times his limbs trembled, and his step seemed heavy. Once Jose had found him, seated back of his cottage, rubbing the knotted muscles of his legs, and groaning aloud. But when he became aware of Jose presence, the groans ceased, and the old man sprang to his feet with a look of such grim determination written across his face that the priest smothered his apprehensions and forbore to speak. Rosendo was immolating himself upon his love for the child. Jose knew it; but he would not, if he could, prevent the sacrifice.

Each month their contributions were sent to Cartagena; and as regularly came a message from Wenceslas, admonis.h.i.+ng them to greater efforts. With the money that was sent to the Bishop went also a smaller packet to the two women who were caring for the unfortunate Maria's little babe. The sources of Jose's remittances to Cartagena were never questioned by Wenceslas. But Simiti slowly awakened to the mysterious monthly trips of Rosendo; and Don Mario's suspicion became conviction. He bribed men to follow Rosendo secretly. They came back, footsore and angry. Rosendo had thrown them completely off the scent.

Then Don Mario outfitted and sent his paid emissary after the old man.

He wasted two full months in vain search along the Guamoco trail. But the fever came upon him, and he refused to continue the hunt. The Alcalde counted the cost, then loudly cursed himself and Rosendo for the many good _pesos_ so ruthlessly squandered. Then he began to ply Jose and Rosendo with skillfully framed questions. He worried the citizens of the village with his suggestions. Finally he bethought himself to apprise the Bishop of his suspicions. But second consideration disclosed that plan as likely to yield him nothing but loss. He knew Rosendo was getting gold from some source. But, too, he was driving a good trade with the old man on supplies. He settled back upon his fat haunches at last, determined to keep his own counsel and let well-enough alone for the present, while he awaited events.

Rosendo's vivid interest in Carmen's progress was almost pathetic.

When in Simiti he hung over the child in rapt absorption as she worked out her problems, or recited her lessons to Jose. Often he shook his head in witness of his utter lack of comprehension. But Carmen understood, and that sufficed. His admiration for the priest's learning was deep and reverential. He was a silent wors.h.i.+per, this great-hearted man, at the shrine of intellect; but, alas! he himself knew only the rudiments, which he had acquired by years of patient, struggling effort, through long days and nights filled with toil. His particular pa.s.sion was his Castilian mother-tongue; and the precision with which he at times used it, his careful selection of words, and his wide vocabulary, occasioned Jose no little astonishment. One day, after returning from the hills, he approached Jose as the latter was hearing Carmen's lessons, and, with considerable embarra.s.sment, offered him a bit of paper on which were written in his ample hand several verses. Jose read them, and then looked up wonderingly at the old man.

"Why, Rosendo, these are beautiful! Where did you get them?"

"I--they are mine, Padre," replied Rosendo, his face glowing with pleasure.

"Yours! Do you mean that you wrote them?" Jose queried in astonishment.

"Yes, Padre. Nights, up in Guamoco, when I had finished my work, and when I was so lonely, I would sometimes light my candle and try to write out the thoughts that came to me."

Jose could not keep back the tears. He turned his head, that Rosendo might not see them. Of the three little poems, two were indited to the Virgin Mary, and one to Carmen. He lingered over one of the verses of the latter, for it awoke responsive echoes in his own soul:

"Without you, the world--a desert of sadness; But with you, sweet child--a vale of delight; You laugh, like the sunbeam--my gloom becomes gladness; You sing--from my heart flee the shadows of night."

"I--I have written a good deal of poetry during my life, Padre. I will show you some of it, if you wish," Rosendo advanced, encouraged by Jose's approbation.

"Decidedly, I would!" returned Jose with animation. "And to think, without instruction, without training! What a lesson!"

"Yes, Padre, when I think of the blessed Virgin or the little Carmen, my thoughts seem to come in poetry." He stooped over the girl and kissed her. The child reached up and clasped her arms about his black neck.

"Padre Rosendo," she said sweetly, "you are a poem, a big one, a beautiful one."

"Aye," seconded Jose, and there was a hitch in his voice, "you are an epic--and the world is the poorer that it cannot read you!"

But, though showing such laudable curiosity regarding the elements which entered into their simple life in Simiti, Rosendo seldom spoke of matters pertaining to religion. Yet Jose knew that the old faith held him, and that he would never, on this plane of existence, break away from it. He clung to his _escapulario_; he prostrated himself before the statue of the Virgin; he invoked the aid of Virgin and Saints when in distress; and, unlike most of the male inhabitants of the town, he scrupulously prayed his rosary every night, whether at home, or on the lonely margins of the Tigui. He had once said to Jose that he was glad Padre Diego had baptised the little Carmen--he felt safer to have it so. And yet he would not have her brought up in the Holy Catholic faith. Let her choose or formulate her own religious beliefs, they should not be influenced by him or others.

"You can never make me believe, Padre," he would sometimes say to the priest, "that the little Carmen was not left by the angels on the river bank."

"But, Rosendo, how foolis.h.!.+" remonstrated Jose. "You have Escolastico's account, and the boat captain's."

"Well, and what then? Even the blessed Saviour was born of a woman; and yet he came from heaven. The angels brought him, guarded him as he lay in the manger, protected him all his life, and then took him back to heaven again. And I tell you, Padre, the angels brought Carmen, and they are always with her!"

Jose ceased to dispute the old man's contentions. For, had he been pressed, he would have been forced to admit that there was in the child's pure presence a haunting spell of mystery--perhaps the mystery of G.o.dliness--but yet an undefinable _something_ that always made him approach her with a feeling akin to awe.

And in the calm, untroubled seclusion of Simiti, in its mediaeval atmosphere of romance, and amid its ceaseless dreams of a stirring past, the child unfolded a nature that bore the stamp of divinity, a nature that communed incessantly with her G.o.d, and that read His name in every trivial incident, in every stone and flower, in the sunbeams, the stars, and the whispering breeze. In that ancient town, crumbling into the final stages of decrepitude, she dwelt in heaven. To her, the rude adobe huts were marble castles; the shabby rawhide chairs and hard wooden beds were softest down; the coa.r.s.e food was richer than a king's spiced viands; and over it all she cast a mantle of love that was rich enough, great enough, to transform with the grace of fresh and heavenly beauty the ruins and squalor of her earthly environment.

"Can a child like Carmen live a sinless life, and still be human?"

Jose often mused, as he watched her flitting through the sunlit hours.

"It is recorded that Jesus did. Ah, yes; but he was born of a virgin, spotless herself. And Carmen? Is she any less a child of G.o.d?" Jose often wondered, wondered deeply, as he gazed at her absorbed in her tasks. And yet--how was she born? Might he not, in the absence of definite knowledge, accept Rosendo's belief--accept it because of its beautiful, haunting mystery--that she, too, was miraculously born of a virgin, and "left by the angels on the river bank"? For, as far as he might judge, her life was sinless. It was true, she did at rare intervals display little outbursts of childish temper; she sometimes forgot and spoke sharply to her few playmates, and even to Dona Maria; and he had seen her cry for sheer vexation. And yet, these were but tiny shadows that were cast at rarest intervals, melting quickly when they came into the glorious sunlight of her radiant nature.

But the mystery shrouding the child's parentage, however he might regard it, often roused within his mind thoughts dark and apprehensive.

Only one communication had come from Padre Diego, and that some four months after his precipitous flight. He had gained the Guamoco trail, it said, and finally arrived at Remedios. He purposed returning to Banco ultimately; and, until then, must leave the little Carmen in the care of those in whom he had immovable confidence, and to whom he would some day try, however feebly, to repay in an appropriate manner his infinite debt of grat.i.tude.

"_Caramba!_" muttered Rosendo, on reading the note. "Does the villain think we are fools?"

But none the less could the old man quiet the fear that haunted him, nor still the apprehension that some day Diego would make capital of his claim. What that claim might accomplish if laid before Wenceslas, he shuddered to think. And so he kept the girl at his side when in Simiti, and bound Jose and the faithful Juan to redoubled vigilance when he was again obliged to return to the mountains.

Time pa.s.sed. The care-free children of this tropic realm drowsed through the long, hot days and gossiped and danced in the soft airs of night. Rosendo held his unremitting, lonely vigil of toil in the ghastly solitudes of Guamoco. Jose, exiled and outcast, clung desperately to the child's hand, and strove to rise into the spiritual consciousness in which she dwelt. And thus the year fell softly into the yawning arms of the past and became a memory.

Then one day Simiti awoke from its lethargy in terror, with the spectre of pestilence stalking through her narrow streets.

CHAPTER 19