THE PATRIARCH OF ALDEACORBA.
“The cows are just being milked,” he began, without wishing them
good-evening. “I thought you would all like some milk. I hope to see
you well, Señora Sofía--and you Don Teodoro. The sight of you is good
for sore eyes. But what is the matter with María Canela--a little lame
paw? How long have you been so spoiled, little one?”
The whole party turned into the court-yard. They could hear the deep
lowing of the cows, which had just been driven to their stables, and
the homely sound, with the fresh country smell of the hay, which the
laborers were carrying from the lofts, soothed the senses and the mind.
The doctor seated Nela on a stone bench, while she, speechless with
surprise and respect, dared not budge an inch, but could only wonder at
this delightful state of things.
“And where is Pablo?” the engineer enquired.
“He is just gone down into the garden,” said Señor de Penáguilas, as he
offered Sofía a rustic seat. “You might run off and join him Nela.”
“No, no, I do not wish her to go yet,” said Teodoro detaining her.
“Besides, she is going to have some milk with us.”
“Do you wish to see my son this evening?” asked Penáguilas.
“No, yesterday’s examination was quite satisfactory,” replied Golfin.
“The operation can be performed.”
“And successfully?”
“Ah!--as to that I cannot say. How great a pleasure it would be to give
sight to a young fellow who so richly deserves it, I need not tell you!
Your son has a most superior intelligence, a brilliant imagination, and
a most delightful nature. His total ignorance of the outer, visible
world, only throws his beautiful qualities into relief; they stand out
in conspicuous simplicity, with the naked charm and dignity of a work
of Nature, untouched and unspoiled by the hand of man. He is full of
idealism, it affects all his thoughts--a grand and beautiful idealism.
It reminds me of a colossal mass of unwrought marble--a block as it
lies in the quarry. He knows nothing of reality, he lives a charmed
life, a life of pure illusion. If we could but give him sight! Still,
I say to myself--supposing that by giving him sight we should make him
a man instead of an angel.--It is a question that raises doubts in my
mind. However, we are bound to try to make a man of him; it is the
duty of science; we will drag him out of the world of fancy into that
of reality, and then, with his powerful mind, he would rapidly gain
accurate information and sound judgment. He would soon acquire the
invaluable power of estimating the true relative value of things.”
Three cups of milk were now brought in, white, warm, fragrant, and
frothy to the very rim. Penáguilas handed a cup first to Sofía, and the
two gentlemen took the others; but Teodoro Golfin offered his to Nela,
who was overwhelmed with bashfulness and refused to touch it.
“Come, little woman,” said Sofía, “do not be so rude; take what is
given you.”
“Another cup of milk for Don Teodoro,” said Don Francisco to the
servant. And then they heard the milk as it flowed into the pails from
the full udders of the cows.
“He will appreciate the true relative value of things,” said Don
Francisco, repeating the doctor’s last words, which had made a deep
impression on his mind. “That is an admirable observation, Don Teodoro.
And with regard to the subject under discussion, I must explain to you
the doubts I have felt for some days past. But I may as well sit down.”
And Don Francisco seated himself on a stool he had in his hand. The
others had already been accommodated with chairs brought out of the
house, and Nela was still perched on the stone bench. The milk she had
drunk as she was bidden had left a thin white moustache on her upper
lip.
“I must tell you Don Teodoro that for some days I have been very uneasy
at the excited state in which my son has been; I attribute it to the
hope that has been held out to him--but still, there is something
else--something more than that. You know that I am in the habit of
reading to him out of various books. I believe that this reading has
done much to fire his imagination and instruct his mind, and that many
ideas have been developed in his brain, which are, as it were, above
the comprehension of a blind man. I do not know whether I am making
myself clear.”
“Perfectly.”
“There is no end to his discussions and arguments; I am astounded
by the depth and acuteness of his remarks, though I feel that his
knowledge is mixed up with a thousand misconceptions, from want of
method and from his ignorance of the visible world.”
“It could not be otherwise.”
“But the strangest thing is that, carried away by his
imagination--which is like a young Hercules fettered with chains within
a dungeon, and struggling to burst its bonds and break down walls....”
“Good, very good, well said.”
“His imagination, I was saying, cannot rest in the darkness of his
sense, and strives to reach our world of daylight, making up for his
want of sight by the boldness of its assumptions. Pablo has a wonderful
spirit of enquiry, but it is like a noble bird whose wings are clipped.
For some few days he has been almost delirious; he does not sleep and
his passion for information has been almost madness. At all hours of
the day he asks for some new book, and at every pause he makes the
keenest observations, but with such a mixture of simple innocence,
that he makes me laugh. He asserts and maintains the absurdest things,
and if I contradict him--I am really afraid of his going out of his
mind--of his brain softening. If you could only see how melancholy and
how disputatious he sometimes is. He takes up an idea and, come what
may, it is impossible to get it out of his head. Now, for some days, he
has had a fixed idea, which is as touching as it is preposterous. He
will have it that Nela is pretty.”
They all laughed, and Nela turned scarlet.
“That Nela is pretty!” exclaimed Teodoro kindly. “Well, and so she is.”
“Oh! sweetly pretty, particularly with that moustache!” said Sofía.
“She has a dear little face of her own,” repeated Teodoro, putting his
hand under her chin; “Sofía, lend me your handkerchief. Come, we will
get rid of the moustache.”
Teodoro returned the handkerchief to Sofía after wiping Nela’s face.
Don Francisco told the girl to go and join the blind boy, and she
hobbled away.
“And if I contradict him,” he then went on, “my son tells me that,
perhaps the gift of sight has weakened my perception of the true aspect
of things--a quaint paradox!”
“Do not contradict him at all, and for the present discontinue
your readings. For a few days we must adopt a regimen of absolute
tranquillity. The brain must be treated with the utmost consideration
before attempting any operation of this kind.”
“If it is indeed God’s will that my son should receive his sight,”
said Penáguilas devoutly, “I shall regard you as the greatest and most
beneficent of men. The darkness of his eyes is the darkness of my life;
that black shadow has saddened all my days, and clouds all the wealth
and ease of which I am master. For I am rich--but of what use are
riches? How can I care for the things he cannot see. Only a month ago I
fell heir to a fine fortune--you know, Don Cárlos, my cousin Faustino
died at Matamoros. He had no children, so my brother Manuel and I
are his heirs. It is throwing pearls before swine--not as regards my
brother, who has a daughter, a sweet girl, old enough to marry--but so
far as I am concerned, a wretched man who can never see his son enjoy
the best pleasures of a respectable and easy position.”
A long silence followed, interrupted only by the gentle lowing of the
cows in the adjoining stable.
“And then,” added the worthy father in melancholy tones, “he knows
nothing of the pleasures of work, the greatest pleasure of all.
Ignorant, as he is, of the beauties of Nature, what can he know of
the delights of the country or the charms of agriculture? I cannot
imagine how God can bear to deprive a human creature of the pleasure
of admiring a fat beast, a tree loaded with pears, or a green pasture;
of seeing the fruits of the earth in their abundance; of sending out
the laborers to their day’s toil, and reading the signs of the weather
in the sky. For him life is simply a fevered dream--it is lonely too;
solitary, for he can never have the comfort of a family round him. When
I die what family will the poor blind boy have? He will not want to
marry, nor will he find a woman of good family who would engage herself
to him, in spite of his wealth; nor, indeed, could I advise him to
marry. So that when Don Teodoro gave me a hope, I felt as if heaven was
opened to me; I had visions of a young and happy and sensible marriage;
cherubs--my grandchildren--fluttered round me; I saw my tombstone
graced and fragrant with the blossoms of a future generation, and the
loving care which even after death should follow me to the grave.--You
cannot enter into all this; you cannot know how my brother, who is as
good as gold, God bless him!--as soon as he heard of my hopes, began
to plot and plan and dream.--Here, this is what he says”--and he took
out a parcel of letters which he turned over for a few minutes without
finding the one he wanted.--“Well, to make a long story short, he
was beside himself with delight and he said to me: ‘I will marry my
Florentina to your Pablo, and so we shall get compound interest on
the half million of _pesos_ left by cousin Faustino.’--I can see him,
poor old Manuel, rubbing his hands and strutting about as his way is
when he has hit on a good idea. I am expecting him and his daughter
to arrive at any hour; they are coming to stay with me for the 4th of
October, and to see what comes of this attempt to bless my son with the
light of day.”
By this time it was growing dark and the party of four became aware of
a most appetizing vapor issuing from the house, and announcing a savory
farm-supper. The village patriarch, who seemed the very incarnation of
the spirit of the place--a tranquil melancholy--spoke again presently:
“My brother’s happiness and my own depends on my having a son, whom I
may propose as a husband for his daughter, who is as sweet and fair as
the Holy Virgin, as we see her represented when the angel of the Lord
comes to say: ‘The Lord is with thee.’ My blind boy is not the man--but
my Pablo, with his eyesight, would realize my fondest dreams and bring
the blessing of God into my house.”
They were all silent, deeply impressed by the worthy father’s simple
and pathetic utterances, and he himself raised his rough, brown hand,
hardened by labor, to wipe away a tear.
“What have you to say to all this?” Cárlos asked his brother.
“I can say no more than that I have conscientiously examined the
case, and can find no sufficient reason for saying it is hopeless,
as the other distinguished operators have said whom our good friend
has consulted. I cannot pledge myself to succeed, nor can I think it
impossible. The examination I made yesterday revealed no defect or
injury in the retina, and no disease in the optic nerve. If the retina
is perfect, all that is needed is the removal of some impediment in
front of it. The crystalline lens often becomes opaque--sometimes hard
and stony--and this is what does the mischief. If all the other parts
of the organ are healthy and work--but, in the commonwealth of the eye,
many individual portions are only too ready to become atrophied by
idleness.”
“So that, in short, it amounts simply to congenital cataract,” said
Penáguilas eagerly.
“Oh no, Señor; if it were no more than that, it would be a happy thing
for us! All that would be needed would be to get rid of the part that
does its duty so badly. It ought to let the light in and instead of
that, it is congested, degenerate, stony, and as opaque as a wall.
No--there is something more than that, Don Francisco. The iris is
defective, the pupil must be taken in hand.--Still, I can laugh all
these details to scorn if, when I enter into possession, as it were, of
this dormant organ, I only find the choroid and the retina uninjured.
If, on the other hand, when I have removed the opaque lens and let the
light in, I find complete amaurosis--if it were only partial, that
would be something--but if it is total.... When the nerve of sight is
dead we can do nothing. The deep mysteries of life are closed against
us. There is nothing for it but patience. This case is to me a most
interesting one; there are symptoms which lead me to believe that the
internal function is unimpaired. The retina, as Sovereign lord, seems
quite disposed to receive the light I shall introduce to it, and that
high functionary, the vitreous humor, will probably find it no novelty.
If from long want of exercise it has sunk into a state of incipient
glaucoma--a kind of melancholy--we will treat it for that. All will
then be well in that darkened chamber. But there is another thing to
be considered. A fissured iris, and an ordinary cataract usually admit
some gleam of light, and our patient sees not a glimmer. This made
me hesitate. In fact, the sclerotic too is very much thickened; the
impediments to the admission of light are many and serious.... However,
we shall see, Don Francisco. Have you courage for anything?”
“Courage! What should I have courage for?” asked Don Francisco.
“Sir, you will want all your courage if....”
“Well, if...?”
“If, after undergoing a painful operation, your son is still as blind
as before. I said to you, plainly: The case is not desperate; shall I
operate?”
“And I answered, and I answer once more; Yes--operate; and God’s will
be done. Onwards!”
“Aye, onwards! You have taken my motto.”
Don Francisco rose and wrung the surgeon’s hands, that were so like a
lion’s paws.
“In this climate the operation may be favorably performed early in
October,” Golfin went on. “To-morrow we will decide on the regimen to
which we must subject our patient. Meanwhile we will be going, for it
is fresh up on this hill.”
Penáguilas pressed shelter and supper on his friends, but they would
not accept. They set out homewards with Nela, whom Teodoro insisted
on taking with him, and Don Francisco kept them company as far as the
works.
Soothed by the silence and beauty of the night, they fell into
conversation on lighter themes--on the yield and profits of the
mines, and other local matters. The Golfins having reached home, Don
Francisco turned back alone and heavy-hearted, walking slowly, with
his eyes fixed on the ground. He was thinking of the terrible days of
doubt and hope, of expectation and anxiety which were coming on him.
Presently he was met by Choto, and the pair lazily climbed the wooden
stair. The moon gave them light, and the old man’s shadow went up in
front of him, broken by the steps into a zigzag monster that leaped
from plank to plank. The dog trotted by its side and Don Francisco, in
the absence of any other mortal to whom he could confide the thoughts
that wearied his brain, presently said:
“Oh Choto! will it succeed?”