Page 20 - ramona-text

RAMONA
12
"I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to
take place till the Father comes, would it?" asked the
Seiiora, hesitatingly, as if the thing were evenly balanced in
her mind. "The Father has not that hold on the younger
men he used to have, and I have thought that even in Juan
himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is
spreading in the country since the Americans are run-
ning up and down everywhere seeking money, like dogs with
their noses to the ground! It might vex Juan if he knew
that you were waiting only for the Father. What do you
think?"
"I think it is enough for him to know that the sheep-
shearing waits for my pleasure," answered Felipe, still wrath-
ful, "and that is the end of it." And so it was; and, moreover,
precisely the end which Senora Moreno had had in her own
mind from the beginning; but not even Juan Canito himself
suspected its being solely her purpose, and not her son's. As
for Felipe, if any person had suggested to him that it was
his mother, and not he, who had decided that the sheep-
shearing would be better deferred until the arrival of Father
Salvierderra from Santa Barbara, and that nothing should
be said on the ranch about this being the real reason of the
postponing, Felipe would have stared in astonishment, and
have thought that person either crazy or a fool.
To attain one's ends in this way is the consummate tri-
umph of art. Never to appear as a factor in the situation; to
be able to wield other men, as instruments, with the same
direct and implicit response to will that one gets from a
hand or a foot,—this is to triumph, indeed: to be as nearly
controller and conqueror of Fates as fate permits. There
have been men prominent in the world's affairs at one time
and another, who have sought and studied such a power
and have acquired it to a great degree. By it they have
manipulated legislators, ambassadors, sovereigns; and have
grasped, held, and played with the destinies of empires. But
it is to be questioned whether even in these notable instances
there has ever been such marvellous completeness of success
as is sometimes seen in the case of a woman in whom the
power is an instinct and not an attainment; a passion rathe?