Intuition.
[Illustration]
When Evelyn announced to the old Yaskùlskis her firm intention of
marrying the blind man, the old mother wept; but the father, after saying
a prayer to the images, declared that it was manifestly the will of God.
In due course of time, therefore, the wedding was celebrated.
Now began a new and happy life for Peter; and yet it made no great change
in him. In his happiest moments there was a shade of sadness in his
smile, as if he felt the insecurity of his happiness. When he was told
that he was about to become a father, he received the news with alarm.
Still his present life, absorbed as it was in anxiety for his wife and
future child, left him no time for brooding over the inevitable. Now and
then, in the midst of these cares the memory of that pitiful wail of
the blind men would rise in his mind and wring his heart with pity and
compassion, thereby diverting his thoughts into a different channel.
The blind man had also lost to a certain extent his extreme sensitiveness
to the outward impressions made by light, and his mental activity was
proportionately diminished. The turbulent organic force within him lay
for the moment dormant, with no conscious effort of will on his part to
rouse it into action, or to combine his manifold sensations into one
consistent whole. But who can tell?—this interior calmness may have
served to promote the work that was unconsciously to himself going on
within him; it may have facilitated the union of those vague sensations
of light with his logical thoughts on the subject, and the analogies
between light and sound. We know that in dreams the mind often creates
images and ideas which it would be totally unable to produce by the
agency of the will.