San Salvador

by Mary Agnes Tincker

Professor Pearlstein was a striking figure. His handsome face was calm and pallid, his hair and beard were white; and he wore a long robe of white wool with a scarlet sash, and a scarlet skull-cap like a cardinal’s. He was carefully dressed, even to the scarlet straps of his russet sandals; and an air of peace and orderliness hung like a perfume about him and his small domain.

Tacita, screened by her vine-leaves, listened for half an hour, eager to catch the thoughts through the veil of this beautiful language which was so sonorous and so musical, and was spoken with little motions of head, throat, and shoulders, like a singing bird.

Then a boy addressed his master in French.

“I considered the ways of a tree,” he said, holding his manuscript in hand, but without looking at it. “As soon as the seed wakes, it sends out two shoots. One goes down into the dark earth, seeking to fix itself firmly and find nourishment. The other rises into the light, putting up two little leaves, like praying hands, laid palm to palm. The root searches in that chemical laboratory, which is the earth, and is itself a chemist, and the tree sucks up its ichor, and increases. The tree also searches for food and color in sun and air. The root feels the ever increasing weight which rests upon it, and clings hard to rocks, and strikes deeper when it feels the strain of a storm in its fibres. It does not know what the sun is, except as an unknown power that sends a gentle warmth down into the dark, and calls its juices upward. It does not know that of the particles of air which here and there give it such a delicate touch as seems a miracle, a fathomless and boundless sea exists above where all its gatherings go to build the tree. It does not know what beautiful thing it is building there, all flowers and fruit and rustling music. It crawls and gathers with the worm and the ant, obedient to the law of its being, and draws sweetness out of corruption, and clasps a rock for a friend.

“Master, I could not be content to think that there is no more than this visible tree to reward such labor, and that anything so beautiful as the tree should be meant only to please the eye, gratify the palate, and then return to chaos.

“May there not be yet a third stage of this creature, some indestructible tree of Paradise, all ethereal music, perfume, and sweetness? That beauty would be not in its mere existence, but in the good that it has done; in the shade and refreshment it has given to man; in shelter to nestling birds, and to all the little wild creatures which fly to it for protection; in the music of its playing with the breeze and with the tempest.

“When it drops off the perishable part which was but the instrument of its perfection, the humble instinct in the root understands at last for what and with what it labored.

“I remembered, O my master, that we in the flesh are but the root of our higher selves, our sense feeding our intelligence, which works visibly; while above the body and the studious mind rises some quintessence of intelligence which the spark of life was sent to elaborate out of the universe on which it feeds, a being all pure, all beautiful, which at last gathers itself up into the light of Paradise, dropping off corruption.”

“The picture-book of nature has given thee a fair lesson, Provence,” said Professor Pearlstein, smiling kindly on the boy; and then, with a few suggestions and verbal corrections, allowed him to resume his seat.

Tacita did not need to be told that the boy who rose next was Iona’s brother. He was graceful and proud-looking, with an oval olive face, black eyes and dark hair tossed back in locks that had the look of plumes. He spoke in Italian, which he pronounced exquisitely, with fullness and deliberation.