Carmen Ariza Part 93

Rosendo and Don Jorge bowed and silently withdrew from the parish house. The former went at once to apprise the wondering Dona Maria of the events which had crowded the morning's early hours and to answer her apprehensive questionings regarding Ana. Carmen was to know only that Ana--but what could he tell her? That the woman had sacrificed herself for the girl? No; but that they had seized this opportunity to send her, under the protection of Captain Morales, to the Sisters of the Convent of Our Lady. The old man knew that the girl would see only G.o.d's hand in the event.

Jose as in a dream sought Carmen. It seemed to him that once his arms closed about her no power under the skies could tear them asunder. He found her sitting in the doorway at the rear of Rosendo's house, looking dreamily out over the placid lake. Cuc.u.mbra, now old and feeble, slept at her feet. As the man approached he heard her murmur repeatedly, "It is not true--it is not true--it is not true!"

"Carmen!" cried Jose, seizing her hand. "Come with me!"

She rose quickly. "Gladly, Padre--but where?"

"G.o.d only knows--to the end of the world!" cried the frenzied man.

"Well, Padre dear," she softly replied, as she smiled up into his drawn face, "we will start out. But I think we had better rest when we reach the shales, don't you?"

Then she put her hand in his.

CHAPTER 35

"No, Padre dear," with an energetic shake of her head, "no. Not even after all that has seemed to happen to us do I believe it true. No, I do not believe it real. Evil is not power. It does not exist, excepting in the human mind. And that, as you yourself know, can not be real, for it is all that G.o.d is not."

They were seated beneath the slowly withering _algarroba_ tree out on the burning shales. Jose still held the girl's hand tightly in his.

Again he was struggling with self, struggling to pa.s.s the borderline from, self-consciousness to G.o.d-consciousness; striving, under the spiritual influence of this girl, to break the mesmeric hold of his own mortal beliefs, and swing freely out into his true orbit about the central Sun, infinite Mind.

The young girl, burgeoning into a marvelous womanhood, sat before him like an embodied spirit. Her beauty of soul shone out in gorgeous luxuriance, and seemed to him to envelop her in a sheen of radiance.

The brilliant suns.h.i.+ne glanced sparkling from her glossy hair into a nimbus of light about her head. Her rich complexion was but faintly suggestive to him of a Latin origin. Her oval face and regular features might have indicated any of the ruddier branches of the so-called Aryan stock. But his thought was not dwelling on these things now. It was brooding over the events of the past few weeks, and their probable consequences. And this he had just voiced to her.

"Padre dear," she had said, when his tremulous voice ceased, "how much longer will you believe that two and two are seven? And how much longer will you try to make me believe it? Oh, Padre, at first you did seem to see so clearly, and you talked so beautifully to me! And then, when things seemed to go wrong, you went right back to your old thoughts and opened the door and let them all in again. And so things couldn't help getting worse for you. You told me yourself, long ago, that you would have to empty your mind of its old beliefs. But I guess you didn't get them all out. If you had cleaned house and got your mind ready for the good thoughts, they would have come in. You know, you have to get ready for the good, before it can come. You have to be receptive. But you go right on getting ready for evil. If you loved G.o.d--really _loved_ Him--why, you would not be worried and anxious to-day, and you would not be believing still that two and two are seven. You told me, oh, so long ago! that this human life was just a _sense_ of life, a series of states of consciousness, and that consciousness was only mental activity, the activity of thought. Well, I remembered that, and put it into practice--but you didn't. A true consciousness is the activity of true thought, you said. A false consciousness is the activity of false thought. True thought comes from G.o.d, who is mind. False thought is the opposite of true thought, and doesn't come from any mind at all, but is just supposition. A supposition is never really created, because it is never real--never truth. True thought becomes externalized to us in good, in harmony, in happiness. False thought becomes externalized to us in unhappiness, sickness, loss, in wrong-doing, and in death. It is unreal, and yet awfully real to those who believe it to be real. Why don't you act your knowledge, as you at first said you were going to do? I have all along tried to do this. Whenever thoughts come to me I always look carefully at them to see whether they are based on any real principle, on G.o.d. If so, I let them in. If not, I drive them away. Sometimes it has been hard to tell just which were true and which false. And sometimes I got caught, and had to pay the penalty. But every day I do better; and the time will come at last when I shall be able to tell at once which thoughts are true and which untrue. When that time comes, nothing but good thoughts will enter, and nothing but good will be externalized to me in consciousness. I shall be in heaven--all the heaven there is. It is the heaven which Jesus talked so much about, and which he said was within us all. It is so simple, Padre dear, so simple!"

The man sat humbly before her like a rebuked child. He knew that she spoke truth. Indeed, these were the very things that he had taught her himself. Why, then, had he failed to demonstrate them? Only because he had attempted to mix error with truth--had clung to the reality and immanence of evil, even while striving to believe good omnipotent and infinite. He had worked out these theories, and they had appeared beautiful to him. But, while Carmen had eagerly grasped and a.s.similated them, even to the consistent shaping of her daily life to accord with them, he had gone on putting the stamp of genuineness and reality upon every sort of thought and upon every human event as it had been enacted in his conscious experience. His difficulty was that, having proclaimed the allness of spirit, G.o.d, he had proceeded to bow the knee to evil. Carmen had seemed to know that the mortal, material concepts of humanity would dissolve in the light of truth. He, on the other hand, had clung to them, even though they seared the mind that held them, and became externalized in utter wretchedness.

"When you let G.o.d's thoughts in, Padre, and drive out their opposites, then sickness and unhappiness will disappear, just as the mist disappears over the lake when the sun rises and the light goes through it. If you really expected to some day see the now 'unseen things' of G.o.d, you would get ready for them, and you would 'rejoice always,' even though you did seem to see the wickedness of Padre Diego, the coming of the soldiers, the death of Lazaro and Don Mario, and lots of unhappiness about yourself and me. Those men are not dead--except to your thought. You ought to know that all these things are the unreal thoughts externalized in your consciousness.

And, knowing them for what they really are, the opposites of G.o.d's thoughts, you ought to know that they can have no more power over you than anything else that you know to be supposition. We can suppose that two and two are seven, but we can't make it true. The supposition does not have any effect upon us. We know that it isn't so. But as regards just thought--and you yourself said that everything reduces to thought--why, people seem to think it is different. But it isn't. Don't you understand what the good man Jesus meant when he told the Pharisees to first cleanse the cup and platter within, that the outside might also be clean? Why, that was a clear case of externalization, if there ever was one! Cleanse your thought, and everything outside of you will then become clean, for your clean thought will become externalized. You once said that you believed in the theory that 'like attracts like.' I do, too. I believe that good thoughts attract good ones, and evil thoughts attract thoughts like themselves. I have proved it. And you ought to know that your life shows it, too. You hold fear-thoughts and worry-thoughts, and then, just as soon as these become externalized to you as misfortune and unhappiness, you say that evil is real and powerful, and that G.o.d permits it to exist. Yes, G.o.d does permit all the existence there is to a supposition--which is none. You pity yourself and all the world for being unhappy, when all you need is to do as Jesus told you, and know G.o.d to be infinite Mind, and evil to be only the suppositional opposite, without reality, without life, without power--unless you give it these things in your own consciousness. You don't have to take thought for your life. You don't have to be covetous, or envious, or fearful, or anxious. You couldn't do anything if you were. These things don't help you. Jesus said that of himself he could do nothing. But--as soon as he recognized G.o.d as the infinite principle of all, and acted that knowledge--why, then he raised the dead! And at last, when his understanding was greater, he dissolved the mental concept which people called his human body.

Don't you see it, Padre--don't you? I _know_ you do!"

Yes, he saw it. He always did when she pleaded thus. And yet:

"But, Carmen, padre Rosendo would send you out of the country with these Americans!"

"Yes, so you have said. And you have said that you have always feared you would lose me. Is that fear being externalized now? I have not feared that I would lose you. But, Padre dear--"

The ghastly look on the man's face threw wide the flood-gates of her sympathy. "Padre--all things work together for good, you know. Good is _always_ working. It never stops. Listen--" She clung more closely to him.

"Padre, it may be best, after all. You do not want me to stay always in Simiti. And if I go, you will go with me, or soon follow. Oh, Padre dear, you have told me that up in that great country above us the people do not know G.o.d as you and I are learning to know Him. Padre--I want to go and tell them about Him! I've wanted to for a long, long time."

The girl's eyes shone with a holy light. Her wistful face glowed with a love divine.

"Padre dear, you have so often said that I had a message for the world. Do not the people up north need that message? Would you keep me here then? The people of Simiti are too dull to hear the message now. But up there--Oh, Padre, it may be right that I should go!

And, if it is right, nothing can prevent it, for the right _will_ be externalized! Right _will_ prevail!"

True, there was the girl's future. Such a spirit as hers could not long be confined within the narrow verges of Simiti. He must not oppose his egoism to her interests. And, besides, he might follow soon. Perhaps go with her! Who knew? it might be the opening of the way to the consummation of that heart-longing for--

Ah, the desperate joy that surged through his yearning soul at the thought! The girl was fifteen. A year, two, three, and he would still be a young man! She loved him--never had man had such proofs as he of an affection so divine! And he wors.h.i.+ped her! Why hesitate longer?

Surely the way was unfolding!

"Carmen," he said tenderly, drawing her closer to him, "you may be right. Yes--we will both go with the Americans. Once out of this environment and free from ecclesiastical chains, I shall do better."

The girl looked up at him with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. "Padre dear," she whispered, "I want to go--away from Simiti. Juan--he asks me almost every day to marry him. And he becomes angry when I refuse. Even in the church, when Don Mario was trying to get us, Juan said he would save me if I would promise to marry him. He said he would go to Cartagena and kill the Bishop. He follows me like a shadow. He--Padre, he is a good boy. I love him. But--I do not--want to marry him."

They sat silent for some moments. Jose knew how insistent Juan had become. The lad adored the girl. He tormented the priest about her.

"Padre, you--you are not always going to be a priest--are you?

And--I--I--oh, Padre dear, I love you so!" She turned impulsively and threw both arms about his neck. "I want to see you work out your problem. I will help you. You can go with me--and I can always live with you--and some day--some day--" She buried her face in his shoulder. The artless girl had never seemed to think it unmaidenly to declare her love for him, to show him unmistakably that she hoped to become his wife.

The man's heart gave a mighty leap. The beautiful child in his arms was human! Young in years, and yet a woman by the conventions of these tropic lands. He bent his head and kissed her. Why, she had long insisted that she would wait for him! And why should he now oppose the externalization of that sweet thought?

"Ah, _chiquita_," he murmured, "I will indeed go with you now! I will send my resignation to the Bishop at once. No, I will wait and send it from the States. I will renounce my oath, abjure my promise--"

The girl sat suddenly upright and looked earnestly into his eyes.

"What do you mean, Padre?" she queried dubiously. "What did you promise?"

"Ah, I have never told you. But--I promised my mother, dearest one, that I would always remain a priest--unless, indeed, the Church herself should eject me from the priesthood. But, it was foolish--"

"And your mother--she expects you to keep your word?"

"Yes, _chiquita_."

The girl sat in pensive silence for a moment. "But, Padre," she resumed, "honesty--it is the very first thing that G.o.d requires of us.

We have to be--we _must_ be honest, for He is Truth. He cannot see or recognize error, you know. And so He cannot see you and help you if you are dishonest."

"I know, child. And I tried to be honest, even when circ.u.mstances and my own poor resistive force combined to direct me into the priesthood.

But--since that day I have lived a life of hypocrisy, not knowing how to shape my course. Then, at length, I met you. It was--too late!"

"But, Padre, the Church has not put you out? You are still a priest?"

"Yes," sadly; "and no."

"But, if you went to the States--with me--would you be put out of the Church?"

"Possibly, _chiquita_."

"And what would that mean, Padre?"

"The disgrace that always attaches to an apostate priest, child."

"And, Padre--your mother--what would she say?"

Jose hung his head. "It would kill her," he replied slowly.