“Then neither do we, Padre,” replied Rosendo, sitting again. “The child, Carmen––she––Padre, she loves you with a love that is not of the earth.”
Morning found the old man’s conviction still unshaken. Josè sought the quiet of his cottage to reflect. But his meditations were interrupted by Carmen.
“Padre,” she began, sparkling like a mountain rill in the sunlight as she seated herself before him. “Pepito––Anita’s babe––he is not blind, you know.” Her head bobbed vigorously, as was her wont when she sought to give emphasis to her dramatic statements.
Josè smiled, and resigned himself to the inevitable. He had been expecting this.
“And, Padre, have you been thankful that he isn’t?”
“Isn’t what, child?”
“Blind. You know, Padre Diego thought he couldn’t see the reality. He looked always at his bad thoughts. And so the not seeing, and the seeing of only bad things, were 286 both––externalized, and the babe came to us without sight. That is, without what the human mind calls sight. And now,” she went on excitedly, “you and I have just got to know that it isn’t so! The babe sees. God’s children all see. And I have thanked Him all morning that this is so, and that you and I see it. Don’t we, Padre dear? Yes, we do.”
“Well––I suppose so,” replied Josè abstractedly, his thought still occupied with the danger that hung over the little town.
“Suppose so! You know so, Padre! There isn’t any ‘suppose’ about it! Now look: what makes sight? The eye? No. The eye is made by the sight. The human mind just gets it twisted about. It thinks that sight depends upon the optic nerve, and upon the fleshly eye. But it isn’t so. It is the sight that externalizes the ‘meaty’ eye. You see, the sight is within, not without. It is mental. God is all-seeing; and so, sight is eternal. Don’t you see? Of course you do!”