The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories
"One might think," he said, "from the tone you take, that you did not care
for my daughter."
It was Medina-saroté who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons.
"_You_ do not want me," he said, "to lose my gift of sight?"
She shook her head.
"My world is sight."
Her head drooped lower.
"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things--the flowers,
the lichens among the rocks, the lightness and softness on a piece of fur,
the far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets and the stars.
And there is _you_. For you alone it is good to have sight, to see
your sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful hands
folded together... It is these eyes of mine you won, these eyes that hold
me to you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must touch you, hear you,
and never see you again. I must come under that roof of rock and stone and
darkness, that horrible roof under which your imagination stoops...
No; you would not have me do that?"
A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped, and left the thing a
question.
"I wish," she said, "sometimes----" She paused.
"Yes," said he, a little apprehensively.
"I wish sometimes--you would not talk like that."
"Like what?"
"I know it's pretty--it's your imagination. I love it, but _now_----"
He felt cold. "_Now_?" he said faintly.
She sat quite still.
"You mean--you think--I should be better, better perhaps-----"
He was realising things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed, anger at the
dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding--a
sympathy near akin to pity.
"_Dear_," he said, and he could see by her whiteness how intensely
her spirit pressed against the things she could not say. He put his arms
about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence.
"If I were to consent to this?" he said at last, in a voice that was very
gentle.
She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. "Oh, if you would," she
sobbed, "if only you would!"
* * * * *
For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitude
and inferiority to the level of a blind citizen, Nunez knew nothing of
sleep, and all through the warm sunlit hours, while the others slumbered
happily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his mind
to bear on his dilemma. He had given his answer, he had given his consent,
and still he was not sure. And at last work-time was over, the sun rose in
splendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision began for
him. He had a few minutes with Medina-saroté before she went apart to
sleep.
"To-morrow," he said, "I shall see no more."
"Dear heart!" she answered, and pressed his hands with all her strength.
"They will hurt you but little," she said; "and you are going through this
pain--you are going through it, dear lover, for _me_... Dear, if a
woman's heart and life can do it, I will repay you. My dearest one, my
dearest with the tender voice, I will repay."
He was drenched in pity for himself and her.
He held her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers, and looked on her
sweet face for the last time. "Good-bye!" he whispered at that dear sight,
"good-bye!"
And then in silence he turned away from her.
She could hear his slow retreating footsteps, and something in the rhythm
of them threw her into a passion of weeping.
He had fully meant to go to a lonely place where the meadows were
beautiful with white narcissus, and there remain until the hour of his
sacrifice should come, but as he went he lifted up his eyes and saw the
morning, the morning like an angel in golden armour, marching down the
steeps...
It seemed to him that before this splendour he, and this blind world in
the valley, and his love, and all, were no more than a pit of sin.
He did not turn aside as he had meant to do, but went on, and passed
through the wall of the circumference and out upon the rocks, and his eyes
were always upon the sunlit ice and snow.
He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to the
things beyond he was now to resign for ever.
He thought of that great free world he was parted from, the world that was
his own, and he had a vision of those further slopes, distance beyond
distance, with Bogota, a place of multitudinous stirring beauty, a glory
by day, a luminous mystery by night, a place of palaces and fountains and
statues and white houses, lying beautifully in the middle distance. He
thought how for a day or so one might come down through passes, drawing
ever nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways. He thought of the
river journey, day by day, from great Bogota to the still vaster world
beyond, through towns and villages, forest and desert places, the rushing
river day by day, until its banks receded and the big steamers came
splashing by, and one had reached the sea--the limitless sea, with its
thousand islands, its thousands of islands, and its ships seen dimly far
away in their incessant journeyings round and about that greater world.
And there, unpent by mountains, one saw the sky--the sky, not such a disc
as one saw it here, but an arch of immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps in
which the circling stars were floating...
His eyes scrutinised the great curtain of the mountains with a keener
inquiry.
For example, if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, then
one might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round in a sort
of shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge.
And then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb might be
found to take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; and if
that chimney failed, then another farther to the east might serve his
purpose better. And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit snow
there, and half-way up to the crest of those beautiful desolations.
He glanced back at the village, then turned right round and regarded it
steadfastly.
He thought of Medina-saroté, and she had become small and remote.
He turned again towards the mountain wall, down which the day had come to
him.
Then very circumspectly he began to climb.
When sunset came he was no longer climbing, but he was far and high. He
had been higher, but he was still very high. His clothes were torn, his
limbs were blood-stained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as if
he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face.
From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit and nearly a
mile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow, though the mountain
summits around him were things of light and fire. The mountain summits
around him were things of light and fire, and the little details of the
rocks near at hand were drenched with subtle beauty--a vein of green
mineral piercing the grey, the flash of crystal faces here and there, a
minute, minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his face. There were
deep mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening into purple, and
purple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the illimitable vastness
of the sky. But he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite inactive
there, smiling as if he were satisfied merely to have escaped from the
valley of the Blind in which he had thought to be King.
The glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay
peacefully contented under the cold clear stars.
XXXIII.
THE BEAUTIFUL SUIT.
There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit of
clothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe how
delicate and fine it was, and there was a tie of orange fluffiness that
tied up under his chin. And the buttons in their newness shone like stars.
He was proud and pleased by his suit beyond measure, and stood before the
long looking-glass when first he put it on, so astonished and delighted
with it that he could hardly turn himself away. He wanted to wear it
everywhere, and show it to all sorts of people. He thought over all the
places he had ever visited, and all the scenes he had ever heard
described, and tried to imagine what the feel of it would be if he were to
go now to those scenes and places wearing his shining suit, and he wanted
to go out forthwith into the long grass and the hot sunshine of the meadow
wearing it. Just to wear it! But his mother told him "No." She told him he
must take great care of his suit, for never would he have another nearly
so fine; he must save it and save it, and only wear it on rare and great
occasions. It was his wedding-suit, she said. And she took the buttons and
twisted them up with tissue paper for fear their bright newness should be
tarnished, and she tacked little guards over the cuffs and elbows, and
wherever the suit was most likely to come to harm. He hated and resisted
these things, but what could he do? And at last her warnings and
persuasions had effect, and he consented to take off his beautiful suit
and fold it into its proper creases, and put it away. It was almost as
though he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it, and
of the supreme occasions when some day it might be worn without the
guards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, utterly and delightfully,
never caring, beautiful beyond measure.
One night, when he was dreaming of it after his habit, he dreamt he took
the tissue paper from one of the buttons, and found its brightness a
little faded, and that distressed him mightily in his dream. He polished
the poor faded button and polished it, and, if anything, it grew duller.
He woke up and lay awake, thinking of the brightness a little dulled, and
wondering how he would feel if perhaps when the great occasion (whatever
it might be) should arrive, one button should chance to be ever so little
short of its first glittering freshness, and for days and days that
thought remained with him distressingly. And when next his mother let him
wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation just
to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed the buttons
were keeping as bright as ever.
He went trimly along on his way to church, full of this wild desire. For
you must know his mother did, with repeated and careful warnings, let him
wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for example, to and fro from church,
when there was no threatening of rain, no dust blowing, nor anything to
injure it, with its buttons covered and its protections tacked upon it,
and a sun-shade in his hand to shadow it if there seemed too strong a
sunlight for its colours. And always, after such occasions, he brushed it
over and folded it exquisitely as she had taught him, and put it away
again.
Now all these restrictions his mother set to the wearing of his suit he
obeyed, always he obeyed them, until one strange night he woke up and saw
the moonlight shining outside his window. It seemed to him the moonlight
was not common moonlight, nor the night a common night, and for awhile he
lay quite drowsily, with this odd persuasion in his mind. Thought joined
on to thought like things that whisper warmly in the shadows. Then he sat
up in his little bed suddenly very alert, with his heart beating very
fast, and a quiver in his body from top to toe. He had made up his mind.
He knew that now he was going to wear his suit as it should be worn. He
had no doubt in the matter. He was afraid, terribly afraid, but glad,
glad.
He got out of his bed and stood for a moment by the window looking at the
moonshine-flooded garden, and trembling at the thing he meant to do. The
air was full of a minute clamour of crickets and murmurings, of the
infinitesimal shoutings of little living things. He went very gently