第17章

THE SPIRIT-MAID

The promise which Israel made to Ruth at her death, that Naomi should not lack for love and tending, he faithfully fulfilled.

From that time forward he became as father and mother both to the child.

At the outset of his charge he made a survey of her condition, and found it more terrible than imagination of the mind could think or words of the tongue express.It was easy to say that she was deaf and dumb and blind, but it was hard to realise what so great an affliction implied.It implied that she was a little human sister standing close to the rest of the family of man, yet very far away from them.

She was as much apart as if she had inhabited a different sphere.

No human sympathy could reach her in joy or pain and sorrow.

She had no part to play in life.In the midst of a world of light she was in a land of darkness, and she was in a world of silence in the midst of a land of sweet sounds.She was a living and buried soul.

And of that soul itself what did Israel know? He knew that it had memory, for Naomi had remembered her mother; and he knew that it had love, for she had pined for Ruth, and clung to her.But what were love and memory without sight and speech? They were no more than a magnet locked in a casket--idle and useless to any purposes of man or the world.

Thinking of this, Israel realised for the first time how awful was the affliction of his motherless girl.To be blind was to be afflicted once, but to be both blind and deaf was not only to be afflicted twice, but twice ten thousand times, and to be blind and deaf and dumb was not merely to be afflicted thrice, but beyond all reckonings of human speech.

For though Naomi had been blind, yet, if she could have had hearing, her father might have spoken with her, and if she had sorrows he must have soothed them, and if she had joys he must have shared them, and in this beautiful world of God, so full of things to look upon and to love, he must have been eyes of her eyes that could not see.

On the other hand, though Naomi had been deaf, yet if she could have had sight her father might have held intercourse with her by the light of her eyes, and if she felt pain he must have seen it, and if she had found pleasure he must have known it, and what man is, and what woman is, and what the world and what the sea and what the sky, would have been as an open book for her to read.But, being blind and deaf together, and, by fault of being deaf, being dumb as well, what word was to describe the desolation of her state, the blank void of her isolation--cut off, apart, aloof, shut in, imprisoned, enchained, a soul without communion with other souls: alive, and yet dead?

Thus, realising Naomi's condition in; the deep infirmity of her nature, Israel set himself to consider how he could reach her darkened and silent soul.And first he tried to learn what good gifts were left to her, that he might foster them to her advantage and nourish them to his own great comfort and joy.Yet no gift whatever could he find in her but the one gift only whereof he had known from the beginning--the gift of touch and feeling.With this he must make her to see, or else her light should always be darkness, and with this he must make her to hear, or silence should be her speech for ever.

Then he remembered that during his years in England he had heard strange stories of how the dumb had been made to speak though they could not hear, and the blind and deaf to understand and to answer.

So he sent to England for many books written on the treatment of these children of affliction, and when they were come he pondered them closely and was thrilled by the marvellous works they described.

But when he came to practise the precepts they had given him, his spirits flagged, for the impediments were great.Time after time he tried, and failed always, to touch by so much as one shaft of light the hidden soul of the child through its tenement of flesh and blood.

Neither the simplest thought nor the poorest element of an idea found any way to her mind, so dense were the walls of the prison that encompassed it."Yes" was a mystery that could not at first be revealed to her, and "No" was a problem beyond her power to apprehend.

Smiles and frowns were useless to teach her.No discipline could be addressed to her mind or heart.Except mere bodily restraint, no control could be imposed upon her.She was swayed by her impulses alone.

Israel did not despair.If he was broken down today he strengthened his hands for tomorrow.At length he had got so far, after a world of toil and thought, that Naomi knew when he patted her head that it was for approval, and when he touched her hand it was for assent.

Then he stopped very suddenly.His hope had not drooped, and neither had his energy failed, but the conviction had fastened upon him that such effort in his case must be an offence against Heaven.

Naomi was not merely an infirm creature from the left hand of Nature;she was an afflicted being from the right hand of God.

She was a living monument of sin that was not her own.

It was useless to go farther.The child must be left where God had placed her.

But meanwhile, if Naomi lacked the senses of the rest of the human kind, she seemed to communicate with Nature by other organs than they possessed.

It was as if the spiritual world itself must have taught her, and from that source alone could she have imbibed her power.

To tell of all she could do to guide her steps, and to minister to her pleasures, and to cherish her affections, would be to go beyond the limit of belief.Truly it seemed as if Naomi, being blind with her bodily eyes, could yet look upon a light that no one else could see, and, being deaf with her bodily ears, could yet listen to voices that no one else could hear.