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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Country of the Blind · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section thirty two of the Country of the Blind and
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Speaker 1: Other Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is
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Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley The Country
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Speaker 1: of the Blind three hundred miles and more from Chimborazzo
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Speaker 1: one hundred from the snows of Cotapaxi, in the wildest
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Speaker 1: wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley,
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Speaker 1: cut off from the world of men, the Country of
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Speaker 1: the Blind. Long years ago, that valley lay so far
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Speaker 1: open to the world that men might come at last
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Speaker 1: through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into its
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Speaker 1: equable meadows. And thither indeed men came a family or
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Speaker 1: so of Peruvian half breeds, fleeing from the lust and
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Speaker 1: tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler. Then came the stupendous
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Speaker 1: outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was night in Quito for
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Speaker 1: seventy in days, and the water was boiling at Jaguachi,
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Speaker 1: and all the fish floating dying, even as far as Guayaquil.
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Speaker 1: Everywhere along the Pacific slopes there were landslips, and swift
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Speaker 1: thawings and sudden floods, and one whole side of the
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Speaker 1: old Araka crest slipped and came down in thunder and
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Speaker 1: cut off the country of the Blind forever from the
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Speaker 1: exploring feet of men. But one of these early settlers
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Speaker 1: had chanced to be on the hither side of the
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Speaker 1: gorges when the world had so terribly shaken itself, and
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Speaker 1: he perforce had to forget his wife and his child,
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Speaker 1: and all the friends and possessions he had left up there,
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Speaker 1: and start life over again in the lower world. He
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Speaker 1: started it again, but ill blindness overtook him, and he
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Speaker 1: died of punishment in the mines. But the story he
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Speaker 1: told begot a legend that lingers along the length of
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Speaker 1: the Cordilleras of the Andes to this day. He told
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Speaker 1: of his reason for venturing back from that fastness into
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Speaker 1: which he had first been carried lashed to a lama
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Speaker 1: beside a vast bale of gear when he was a child.
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Speaker 1: The valley, he said, had in it all that the
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Speaker 1: heart of man could desire, sweet water, pasture, and even climate.
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Speaker 1: Slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub
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Speaker 1: that bore an excellent fruit, and on one side great
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Speaker 1: hanging forests of pine that held the avalanches high far overhead.
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Speaker 1: On three sides, vast cliffs of gray green rock were
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Speaker 1: capped by cliffs of ice. But the glacier stream came
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Speaker 1: not to them, but flowed away by the farther slopes.
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Speaker 1: And only now and then huge ice masses fell on
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Speaker 1: the valley side. In this valley, it neither rained nor slowed,
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Speaker 1: but the abundant springs gave a rich green pasture that
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Speaker 1: irrigation would spread all over the valley's space. The settlers
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Speaker 1: did well. Indeed there their beasts did well and multiplied,
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Speaker 1: And but one thing marred their happiness. Yet it was
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Speaker 1: enough to mar it greatly. A strange disease had come
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Speaker 1: upon them, and had made all the children born to
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Speaker 1: them there, and indeed several older children also blind. It
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Speaker 1: was to seek some charm or antidote against this plague
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Speaker 1: of blindness, that he had, with fatigue and danger and difficulty,
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Speaker 1: returned down the gorge. In those days, in such cases,
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Speaker 1: men did not think of germs and infections, but of sins.
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Speaker 1: And it seemed to him that the reason of this
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Speaker 1: affliction must lie in the negligence of these priestless immigrants
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Speaker 1: to set up a shrine so soon as they entered
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Speaker 1: the valley. He wanted a shrine, a handsome, cheap, effectual shrine,
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Speaker 1: to be erected in the valley. He wanted relics and
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Speaker 1: such like, potent things of faith, blessed objects, and mysterious
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Speaker 1: medals and prayers. In his wallet, he had a bar
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Speaker 1: of native silver, for which he could not account. He
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Speaker 1: insisted there was none in the valley. With something of
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Speaker 1: the insistence of an inexpert liar. They had all clubbed
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Speaker 1: their money and ornaments together, having little need for such treasure.
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Speaker 1: Up there, he said, to buy them holy help against
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Speaker 1: their ill. I figure this dim eyed young mountaineer, sunburnt,
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Speaker 1: gaunt and anxious, hat brim clutched feverishly, a man all
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Speaker 1: unused to the ways of the lower world, telling this
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Speaker 1: story to some keen eyed, attentive priest before the great convulsion.
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Speaker 1: I can picture him presently seeking to return with pious
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Speaker 1: and infallible remedies against that trouble and the infinite dismay
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Speaker 1: with which he must have faced the tumbled vastness where
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Speaker 1: the gorge had once come out. But the rest of
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Speaker 1: his story of mischances is lost to me, save that
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Speaker 1: I know of his evil death. After several years, poor
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Speaker 1: stray from that remoteness. The stream that had once made
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Speaker 1: the gorge now bursts from the mouth of a rocky cave,
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Speaker 1: and the legend his poor ill told story set going,
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Speaker 1: developed into the legend of a race of blind men.
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Speaker 1: Somewhere over there one may still hear to day, And
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Speaker 1: amidst the little population of that now isolated and forgotten valley,
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Speaker 1: the disease ran its course. The old became groping and purblind,
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Speaker 1: The young saw but dimly, and the children that were
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Speaker 1: born to them saw never at all. But life was
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Speaker 1: very easy in that snow rimmed basin, lost to all
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Speaker 1: the world, with neither thorns nor briars, with no evil
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Speaker 1: insects nor any beasts save the gentle breed of Lamas.
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Speaker 1: They had lugged and thrust and followed up the beds
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Speaker 1: of the shrunken rivers in the gorges up which they
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Speaker 1: had come. The seeing had become purblind so gradually that
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Speaker 1: they had scarcely noted their loss. They guided the sightless
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Speaker 1: youngsters hither and thither until they knew the whole valley marvelously,
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Speaker 1: and when at last sight died out among them, the
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Speaker 1: race lived on. They had even time to adapt themselves
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Speaker 1: to the blind control of fire, which they made carefully
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Speaker 1: in stoves of stone. They were a simple strain of
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Speaker 1: people at the first, unlettered, only slightly touched with the
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Speaker 1: Spanish civilization, but with something of a tradition of the
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Speaker 1: arts of old Peru and of its lost philosophy. Generation
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Speaker 1: followed generation. They forgot many things, they devised many things.
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Speaker 1: Their tradition of the great greater world they came from
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Speaker 1: became mythical in color and uncertain in all things save sight.
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Speaker 1: They were strong and able, and presently the chance of
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Speaker 1: birth and heredity sent one who had an original mind,
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Speaker 1: and who could talk and persuade among them, And then
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Speaker 1: afterwards another. These two passed, leaving their effects, and the
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Speaker 1: little community grew in numbers and in understanding, and met
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Speaker 1: and settled social and economic problems that arose. Generation followed generation.
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Speaker 1: Generation followed generation. There came a time when a child
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Speaker 1: was born who was fifteen generations from that ancestor who
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Speaker 1: went out of the valley with a bar of silver
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Speaker 1: to seek God's aid, and who never returned thereabouts. It
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Speaker 1: chanced that a man came into this community from the
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Speaker 1: outer world. And this is the story of that man.
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Speaker 1: He was a mountaineer from the country near Quito, a
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Speaker 1: man who had been down to the sea and had
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Speaker 1: seen the world, a reader of books in an original way,
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Speaker 1: an acute and enterprising man. And he was taken on
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Speaker 1: by a party of Englishmen who had come out to
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Speaker 1: Ecuador to climb mountains to replace one of three Swiss
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Speaker 1: guides who had fallen ill. He climbed here, and he
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Speaker 1: climbed there, and then came the attempt on Paris goota
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Speaker 1: pedal the matter horn of the Andes, in which he
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Speaker 1: was lost to the outer world. The story of the
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Speaker 1: accident has been written a dozen times. Pointers narrative is
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Speaker 1: the best. He tells how the little party worked their
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Speaker 1: difficult and almost vertical way up to the very foot
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Speaker 1: of the last and greatest precipice, and how they built
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Speaker 1: a night shelter amidst the snow upon a little shelf
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Speaker 1: of rock, and with a touch of real dramatic power,
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Speaker 1: how presently they found Nunez had gone from them. They shouted,
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Speaker 1: and there was no reply, shouted and whistled, and for
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Speaker 1: the rest of that night they slept no more as
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Speaker 1: the morning broke. They saw the traces of his fall.
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Speaker 1: It seems impossible he could have uttered a sound. He
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Speaker 1: had slipped eastward towards the unknown side of the mountain.
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Speaker 1: Far below, he had struck a steep slope of snow
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Speaker 1: and plowed his way down it in the midst of
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Speaker 1: a snow avalanche. His track went straight to the edge
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Speaker 1: of a frightful precipice, and beyond that everything was hidden
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Speaker 1: far far below and hazy with distance. They could see
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Speaker 1: trees rising out of a narrow shut in valley the
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Speaker 1: Lost Country of the Blind, but they did not know
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Speaker 1: it was the Lost Country of the blind, nor distinguish
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Speaker 1: it in any way from any other narrow streak of
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Speaker 1: Upland Valley. Unnerved by this disaster, they abandoned their attempt
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Speaker 1: in the afternoon, and Pointer was called away to the
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Speaker 1: war before he could make another attack. To this day,
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Speaker 1: Paris Gota Petal lifts an unconquered crest, and Pointer's shelter
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Speaker 1: crumbles unvisited amidst the snow's and the man who fell survived.
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Speaker 1: At the end of the slope, he fell a thousand
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Speaker 1: feet and came down in the midst of a cloud
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Speaker 1: of snow upon a snow slope even steeper than the
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Speaker 1: one above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible,
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Speaker 1: but without a bone broken in his body, And then
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Speaker 1: at last came to gentler slopes, and at last rolled
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Speaker 1: out and lay still buried amidst a softening heap of
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Speaker 1: the white masses that had accompanied and saved him. He
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Speaker 1: came to himself with a dim fancy that he was
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Speaker 1: ill in bed, then realized his position with a mountaineer's intelligence,
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Speaker 1: and worked himself loose, and after a rest or so
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Speaker 1: out until he saw the stars. He rested flat upon
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Speaker 1: his chest for a space, wondering where he was and
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Speaker 1: what had happened to him. He explored his limbs and
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Speaker 1: discovered that several of his buttons were gone, and his
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Speaker 1: coat turned over his head. His knife had gone from
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Speaker 1: his pocket, and his hat was lost, though he had
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Speaker 1: tied it under his chin. He recalled that he had
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Speaker 1: been looking for loose stones to raise his piece of
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Speaker 1: the shelter wall. His ice axe had disappeared. He decided
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Speaker 1: he must have fallen, and looked up to see, exaggerated
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Speaker 1: by the ghastly light of the rising moon, the tremendous
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Speaker 1: flight he had taken. For a while, he lay gazing
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Speaker 1: blankly at that vast, pale cliff towering above, rising moment
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Speaker 1: by moment out of a subsiding tide of darkness. Its
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Speaker 1: phantasmal mysterious beauty held him for a space, and then
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Speaker 1: he was seized with a paroxysm of sobbing laughter. After
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Speaker 1: a great interval of time, he became aware that he
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Speaker 1: was near the lower edge of the snow below. Down
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Speaker 1: what was now a moonlit and practicable slope, he saw
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Speaker 1: the dark and broken appearance of rock strewn turf. He
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Speaker 1: struggled to his feet, aching in every joint and limb,
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Speaker 1: got down painfully from the heaped, loose snow about him,
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Speaker 1: went downward until he was on the turf, and there dropped,
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Speaker 1: rather than lay beside a boulder, drank deep from the
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Speaker 1: flask in his inner pocket, and instantly fell asleep. He
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Speaker 1: was awakened by the singing of birds in the trees
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Speaker 1: far below. He sat up and perceived he was on
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Speaker 1: a little alp at the foot of a vast precipice
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Speaker 1: that was grooved by the gully down which he and
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Speaker 1: his snow had come over Against him, another wall of
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Speaker 1: rock reared its self against the sky. The gorge between
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Speaker 1: these precipices ran east and west, and was full of
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Speaker 1: the morning sunlight, which lit to the westward the mass
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Speaker 1: of fallen mountain that closed the descending gorge. Below him,
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Speaker 1: it seemed there was a precipice equally steep, But behind
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Speaker 1: the snow in the gully he found a sort of
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Speaker 1: chimney cleft, dripping with snow water, down which a desperate
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Speaker 1: man might venture. He found it easier than it seemed,
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Speaker 1: and came at last to another desolate alp, and then,
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Speaker 1: after a rock climb of no particular difficulty, to a
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Speaker 1: steep slope of trees. He took his bearings and turned
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Speaker 1: his face up the gorge, for he saw it opened
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Speaker 1: out above upon green meadows, among which he now glimpsed
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Speaker 1: quite distinctly a cluster of stone huts of unfamiliar fashion.
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Speaker 1: At times his progress was like clambering along the face
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Speaker 1: of a wall. And after a time the rising sun
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Speaker 1: ceased to strike along the gorge, the voices of the
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Speaker 1: singing birds died away, and the air grew cold and
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Speaker 1: dark about him, But the distant valley, with its houses
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Speaker 1: was all the brighter for that he came presently to Talus,
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Speaker 1: and among the rocks he noted, for he was an
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Speaker 1: observant man an unfamiliar fern that seemed to clutch out
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Speaker 1: of the crevices with intense green hands. He picked a
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Speaker 1: frond or so and gnawed its stalk, and found it helpful.
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Speaker 1: About midday he came at last out of the throat
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Speaker 1: of the gorge into the plain and the sunlight. He
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Speaker 1: was stiff and weary. He sat down in the shadow
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Speaker 1: of a rock, filled up his flask with water from
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Speaker 1: a spring, and drank it down, and remained for a
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Speaker 1: time resting, before he went on to the houses. They
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Speaker 1: were very strange to his eyes, and indeed the whole
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Speaker 1: last inspect of that valley became, as he regarded it,
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Speaker 1: queerer and more unfamiliar. The greater part of its surface
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Speaker 1: was lush green meadow, starred with many beautiful flowers, irrigated
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Speaker 1: with extraordinary care, and bearing evidence of systematic cropping piece
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Speaker 1: by piece. High up and ringing the valley about was
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Speaker 1: a wall and what appeared to be a circumferential water channel,
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Speaker 1: from which the little trickles of water that fed the
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Speaker 1: meadow plants came and on the higher slopes above this,
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Speaker 1: flocks of lamas cropped. The scanty herbage sheds, apparently shelters
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Speaker 1: or feeding places for the lamas, stood against the boundary wall.
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Speaker 1: Here and there the irrigation streams ran together into a
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Speaker 1: main channel down the center of the valley, and this
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Speaker 1: was enclosed on either side by a wall breast high.
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Speaker 1: This gave a singularly urban quality to this secluded place,
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Speaker 1: a quality that was greatly enhanced by the fact that
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Speaker 1: a number of paths, paved with black and white stones,
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Speaker 1: and each with a curious little curb at the side,
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Speaker 1: ran hither and thither in an orderly manner. The houses
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Speaker 1: of the central village were quite unlike the casual and
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Speaker 1: higgeldy piggledy agglomeration of the mountain villages he knew. They
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Speaker 1: stood in a continuous row on either side of a
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Speaker 1: central street of astonishing cleanness. Here and there their party
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Speaker 1: colored facade was pierced by a door, and not a
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Speaker 1: solitary window broke their even frontage. They were party colored
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Speaker 1: with extraordinary irregularity, smeared with a sort of plaster that
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Speaker 1: was sometimes gray, sometimes drab, sometimes slate colored, or dark brown,
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Speaker 1: and It was the sight of this wild plastering first
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Speaker 1: brought the word blind into the thoughts of the explorer.
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Speaker 1: The good man who did that, he thought, must have
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Speaker 1: been as blind as a bat. Sended a steep place,
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Speaker 1: and so came to the wall and channel that ran
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Speaker 1: about the valley, Near where the latter spouted out its
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Speaker 1: surplus contents into the deeps of the gorge in a
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Speaker 1: thin and wavering thread of cascade. He could now see
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Speaker 1: a number of men and women resting on piled heaps
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Speaker 1: of grass, as if taking a siesta, in the remoter
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Speaker 1: part of the meadow, and nearer the village a number
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Speaker 1: of recumbent children, and then nearer at hand, three men
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Speaker 1: carrying pails on yokes along a little path that ran
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Speaker 1: from the encircling wall towards the houses. These latter were
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Speaker 1: clad in garments of larmer cloth and boots and belts
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Speaker 1: of leather, and they wore caps of cloth with back
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Speaker 1: and ear flaps. They followed one another in single file,
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Speaker 1: walking slowly and yawning as they walked, like men who
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Speaker 1: have been up all night. There was something so reassuringly
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Speaker 1: prosperous and respons spectable in their bearing that, after a
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Speaker 1: moment's hesitation, Nunez stood forward as conspicuously as possible upon
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Speaker 1: his rock, and gave vent to a mighty shout that
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Speaker 1: echoed round the valley. The three men stopped and moved
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Speaker 1: their heads as though they were looking about them. They
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Speaker 1: turned their faces this way and that, and Nunees gesticulated
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Speaker 1: with freedom. But they did not appear to see him
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Speaker 1: for all his gestures, and after a time, directing themselves
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Speaker 1: towards the mountains far away to the right, they shouted,
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Speaker 1: as if in answer. Nunes bawled again, and then once more,
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Speaker 1: and as he gestured ineffectually, the word blind came up
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Speaker 1: to the top of his thoughts. The fools must be blind,
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Speaker 1: he said. When at last, after much shouting and wrath,
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Speaker 1: Nunees crossed the stream by a little bridge, came through
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Speaker 1: a gate in the wall, and approached them. He was
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Speaker 1: sure that they were blind. He was sure that this
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Speaker 1: was the country of the blind of which the legends told.
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Speaker 1: Conviction had sprung upon him and a sense of great
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Speaker 1: and rather enviable adventure. The three stood side by side,
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Speaker 1: not looking at him, but with their ears directed towards him,
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Speaker 1: judging him by his unfamiliar steps, They stood close together,
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Speaker 1: like men a little afraid, and he could see their
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Speaker 1: eyelids closed and sunken, as though the very balls beneath
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Speaker 1: had shrunk away. There was an expression near awe on
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Speaker 1: their faces. A man, one said, in hardly recognizable Spanish,
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Speaker 1: A man. It is a man or a spirit coming
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Speaker 1: down from the rocks. But Nunes advanced with the confident
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Speaker 1: steps of a youth who enters upon life. All the
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Speaker 1: old stories of the lost valley and the country of
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Speaker 1: the Blind had come back to his mind, and through
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Speaker 1: his thoughts ran this old proverb, as if it were
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Speaker 1: a refrain. In the country of the blind, the one
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Speaker 1: eyed man is king. In the country of the blind,
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Speaker 1: the one eyed man is king, and very civilly. He
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Speaker 1: gave them greeting. He talked to them and used his eyes.
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Speaker 1: Where is he come from, brother Pedro, asked one down
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Speaker 1: out of the rocks, over the mountains. I come, said Nunez,
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Speaker 1: out of the country beyond there, where men can see
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Speaker 1: from near Bogatar, where there are a hundred thousands of people,
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Speaker 1: and where the city passes out of sight. Sight, muttered Pedro. Sight,
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Speaker 1: he comes, said the second blind man, out of the rocks.
20:43
Speaker 1: The cloth of their coats, Nunez saw, was curiously fashioned,
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Speaker 1: each with a different sort of stitching. They startled him
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Speaker 1: by a simultaneous movement towards him, each with a hand outstretched.
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Speaker 1: He stepped back from the advance of these spread fingers.
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Speaker 1: Come hither, said the third blind man, following his motion
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Speaker 1: and clutching him neatly. And they held Newn's and felt
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Speaker 1: him over, saying no word further until they had done
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Speaker 1: so carefully. He cried with a finger in his eye,
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Speaker 1: and found they thought that organ, with its fluttering lids,
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Speaker 1: a queer thing in him. They went over it again,
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Speaker 1: a strange creature, Corier said, the one called Pedro. Feel
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Speaker 1: the coarseness of his hair like a lama's hair. Rough
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Speaker 1: he is as the rocks that begot him, said Corier,
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Speaker 1: investigating Nunez's unshaven chin with a soft and slightly moist hand.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps he will grow finer. Nunez struggled a little under
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Speaker 1: their examination, but they gripped him firm carefully. He said, again,
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Speaker 1: he speaks, said the third man. Certainly he is a man,
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Speaker 1: hu said Pedro at the roughness of his coat. And
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Speaker 1: you have come into the world, asked Pedro, out of
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Speaker 1: the world, over mountains and glaciers, right over above there,
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Speaker 1: half way to the sun, out of the great, big
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Speaker 1: world that goes down twelve days journey to the sea.
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Speaker 1: They scarcely seemed to heed him. Our fathers have told
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Speaker 1: us men may be made by the forces of nature,
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Speaker 1: said Coreer. It is the warmth of things, and moisture
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Speaker 1: and rottenness, rottenness. Let us lead him to the elders,
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Speaker 1: said Pedro. Shout first, said Coreer, lest the children be afraid.
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Speaker 1: This is a marvelous occasion. So they shouted, and Pedro
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Speaker 1: went first and took Nunes by the hand to lead
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Speaker 1: him to the houses. He drew his hand away. I
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Speaker 1: can see, he said, See, said Corea. Yes, see, said Nunez,
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Speaker 1: turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro's pale. His senses
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Speaker 1: are still imperfect, said the third blind man. He stumbles
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Speaker 1: and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand, as
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Speaker 1: you will, said Nunez, and was led along, laughing. It
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Speaker 1: seemed they knew nothing of sight. Well, all, in good time,
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Speaker 1: he would teach them. He heard people shouting, and saw
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Speaker 1: a number of figures gathering together in the middle roadway
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Speaker 1: of the village. He found it tax his nerve and
23:22
Speaker 1: patience more than he had anticipated that first encounter with
23:26
Speaker 1: the population of the country of the Blind. The place
23:30
Speaker 1: seemed larger as he drew near to it, and the
23:33
Speaker 1: smeared plasterings queerer, and a crowd of children and men
23:37
Speaker 1: and women. The women and girls he was pleased to note,
23:41
Speaker 1: and some of them quite sweet faces, for all that
23:45
Speaker 1: their eyes were shut and sunken, came about him, holding
23:48
Speaker 1: on to him, touching him with soft, sensitive hands, smelling
23:53
Speaker 1: at him, and listening at every word he spoke. Some
23:56
Speaker 1: of the maidens and children, however, kept aloof as if afraid,
24:00
Speaker 1: and indeed his voice seemed coarse and rude beside their
24:05
Speaker 1: softer notes. They mobbed him. His three guides kept close
24:09
Speaker 1: to him with an effect of proprietorship, and said, again
24:13
Speaker 1: and again, a wild man out of the rocks, Bogatar,
24:16
Speaker 1: he said, Bogatar over the mountain crests, a wild man
24:22
Speaker 1: using wild words, said Pedro, did you hear that, Bogeitar?
24:26
Speaker 1: His mind is hardly formed, yet he has only the
24:30
Speaker 1: beginnings of speech. A little boy nipped his hand. Bogetar,
24:34
Speaker 1: he said, mockingly, Aye, a city to your village. I
24:39
Speaker 1: come from the great world where men have eyes and see.
24:43
Speaker 1: His name's Bogatar, they said. He stumbled, said Corier, stumbled
24:48
Speaker 1: twice as we came hither. Bring him to the eldest,
24:52
Speaker 1: And they thrust him suddenly through a doorway into a
24:55
Speaker 1: room as black as pitch, save at the end there
24:58
Speaker 1: faintly glowed a fire. The crowd closed in behind him
25:02
Speaker 1: and shut out all but the faintest glimmer of day.
25:06
Speaker 1: And before he could arrest himself, he had fallen headlong
25:09
Speaker 1: over the feet of a seated man. His arm outflung
25:13
Speaker 1: struck the face of some one else. As he went down,
25:15
Speaker 1: he felt the soft impact of features, had heard a
25:18
Speaker 1: cry of anger, and for a moment he struggled against
25:21
Speaker 1: a number of hands that clutched him. It was a
25:24
Speaker 1: one sided fight. An inkling of the situation came to him,
25:28
Speaker 1: and he lay quiet. I fell down, he said, I
25:32
Speaker 1: couldn't see in this pitchy darkness. There was a pause,
25:36
Speaker 1: as if the unseen persons about him tried to understand
25:40
Speaker 1: his words. Then the voice of career said, he is
25:44
Speaker 1: but newly formed. He stumbles as he walks, and mingles
25:47
Speaker 1: words that mean nothing with his speech. Others also said
25:51
Speaker 1: things about him that he heard or understood imperfectly. May
25:55
Speaker 1: I sit up, he asked, in a pause, I will
25:59
Speaker 1: not struggle against you again. They consulted and let him rise.
26:04
Speaker 1: The voice of an older man began to question him,
26:07
Speaker 1: and Nuna's found himself trying to explain the great world
26:11
Speaker 1: out of which he had fallen, and the sky and
26:13
Speaker 1: mountains and sight and such like marvels to these elders
26:18
Speaker 1: who sat in darkness in the country of the blind,
26:22
Speaker 1: And they would believe and understand nothing whatever he told them,
26:27
Speaker 1: a thing quite outside his expectation. They would not even
26:30
Speaker 1: understand many of his words. For fourteen generations, these people
26:35
Speaker 1: had been blind and cut off from all the seeing world.
26:39
Speaker 1: The names for all the things of sight had faded
26:42
Speaker 1: and changed. The story of the outer world was faded
26:46
Speaker 1: and changed to a child's story, and they had ceased
26:50
Speaker 1: to concern themselves with anything beyond the rocky slopes above
26:55
Speaker 1: their circling wall. Blind men of genius had arisen among
27:00
Speaker 1: them and questioned the shreds of belief and tradition they
27:04
Speaker 1: had brought with them from their seeing days, and had
27:09
Speaker 1: dismissed all these things as idle fancies and replaced them
27:13
Speaker 1: with new and saner explanations. Much of their imagination had
27:19
Speaker 1: shriveled with their eyes, and they had made for themselves
27:23
Speaker 1: new imaginations with their ever more sensitive ears and finger tips.
27:28
Speaker 1: Slowly Nunes realized this that his expectation of wonder and
27:34
Speaker 1: reverence at his origin and his gifts was not to
27:38
Speaker 1: be borne out. And after his poor attempt to explain
27:42
Speaker 1: sight to them had been set aside as the confused
27:46
Speaker 1: version of a new made being describing the marvels of
27:50
Speaker 1: his incoherent sensations, he subsided a little dashed into listening
27:56
Speaker 1: to their instruction, and the eldest of the blind man
27:59
Speaker 1: excit blamed to him life and philosophy and religion, how
28:05
Speaker 1: that the world, meaning their valley, had been first an
28:09
Speaker 1: empty hollow in the rocks, and then had come first
28:13
Speaker 1: inanimate things without the gift of touch, and lamas and
28:17
Speaker 1: a few other creatures that had little sense, and then men,
28:22
Speaker 1: and at last angels, whom one could hear singing and
28:26
Speaker 1: making fluttering sounds, but whom no one could touch at all,
28:31
Speaker 1: which puzzled Nuns greatly until he thought of the birds.
28:35
Speaker 1: He went on to tell Nunez how this time had
28:39
Speaker 1: been divided into the warm and the cold, which are
28:43
Speaker 1: the blind equivalents of day and night, and how it
28:46
Speaker 1: was good to sleep in the warm and work during
28:49
Speaker 1: the cold, so that now, but for his advent, the
28:52
Speaker 1: whole town of the blind, would have been asleep. He said,
28:56
Speaker 1: Nuns must have been specially created to learn and serve
28:59
Speaker 1: the wisdom they had acquired, and that for all his
29:03
Speaker 1: mental incoherency and stumbling behavior, he must have courage and
29:09
Speaker 1: do his best to learn. And at that all the
29:12
Speaker 1: people in the doorway murmured encouragingly. He said, the night
29:16
Speaker 1: for the blind, called their day night, was now far gone,
29:21
Speaker 1: and it behooved everyone to go back to sleep. He
29:24
Speaker 1: asked Nuns if he knew how to sleep, and Nunes
29:28
Speaker 1: said he did, but that before sleep he wanted food.
29:32
Speaker 1: They brought him food lama's milk in a bowl and
29:36
Speaker 1: rough salted bread, and led him into a lonely place
29:40
Speaker 1: to eat out of their hearing, and afterwards to slumber
29:44
Speaker 1: until the chill of the mountain. Evening roused them to
29:47
Speaker 1: begin their day again. But Nunes slumbered not at all. Instead,
29:52
Speaker 1: he sat up in the place where they had left him,
29:55
Speaker 1: resting his limbs and turning the unanticipated circumstances of his
30:00
Speaker 1: arrival over and over in his mind. Every now and
30:04
Speaker 1: then he laughed, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with indignation.
30:09
Speaker 1: Unformed mind, he said, God, no senses, Yet they little
30:13
Speaker 1: know they've been insulting their heaven sent king and Master.
30:16
Speaker 1: I see, I must bring them to reason. Let me think,
30:19
Speaker 1: Let me think. He was still thinking when the sun set.
30:23
Speaker 1: Nunes had an eye for all beautiful things, and it
30:27
Speaker 1: seemed to him that the glow upon the snow fields
30:30
Speaker 1: and glaciers that rose about the valley on every side
30:34
Speaker 1: was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His
30:37
Speaker 1: eyes went from that inaccessible glory to the village and
30:41
Speaker 1: irrigated fields fast sinking into the twilight. And suddenly a
30:46
Speaker 1: wave of emotion took him, and he thanked God from
30:49
Speaker 1: the bottom of his heart that the power of sight
30:52
Speaker 1: had been given him. He heard a voice calling to
30:55
Speaker 1: him from out of the village. Yaho, there, Bogata, come hither.
31:00
Speaker 1: At that, he stood up, smiling. He would show these
31:03
Speaker 1: people once and for all what sight would do for
31:06
Speaker 1: a man. They would seek him, but not find him.
31:09
Speaker 1: You move, not Bogata, said the voice. He laughed noiselessly,
31:14
Speaker 1: and made two stealthy steps aside from the path. Tremble
31:19
Speaker 1: not on the grass, Bogata, that is not allowed. Nuns
31:22
Speaker 1: had scarcely heard the sound he made himself. He stopped, amazed.
31:27
Speaker 1: The owner of the voice came running up the piebald
31:30
Speaker 1: path towards him. He stepped back into the pathway. Here
31:34
Speaker 1: I am, he said, Why did you not come when
31:37
Speaker 1: I called? You, said the blind man. Must you be
31:40
Speaker 1: led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as
31:43
Speaker 1: you walk? Nunes laughed, I can see it, he said.
31:47
Speaker 1: There is no such word as see, said the blind man,
31:51
Speaker 1: after a pause, Cease this folly and follow the sound
31:54
Speaker 1: of my feet. Nuns followed, a little annoyed. My time
31:59
Speaker 1: will come, he said, you'll learn. The blind man answered,
32:03
Speaker 1: there is much to learn in the world. Has no
32:06
Speaker 1: one told you? In the country of the blind, the
32:09
Speaker 1: one eyed man is king? What is blind? Asked the
32:12
Speaker 1: blind man carelessly over his shoulder. Four days passed, and
32:18
Speaker 1: the fifth found the King of the Blind still incognito,
32:23
Speaker 1: as a clumsy and useless stranger among his subjects. It
32:28
Speaker 1: was he found much more difficult to proclaim himself than
32:31
Speaker 1: he had supposed, And in the meantime, while he meditated
32:36
Speaker 1: his coupd'ttar, he did what he was told and learnt
32:40
Speaker 1: the manners and customs of the country of the blind.
32:43
Speaker 1: He found working and going about at night a particularly
32:48
Speaker 1: irksome thing, and he decided that that should be the
32:51
Speaker 1: first thing he would change. They led a simple, laborious life,
32:57
Speaker 1: these people, with all the elements of virtue and happiness,
33:01
Speaker 1: as these things can be understood by men. They toiled,
33:05
Speaker 1: but not oppressively. They had food and clothing sufficient for
33:09
Speaker 1: their needs. They had days and seasons of rest. They
33:13
Speaker 1: made much of music and singing, and there was love
33:16
Speaker 1: among them and little children. It was marvelous with what
33:20
Speaker 1: confidence and precision they went about their ordered world. Everything
33:25
Speaker 1: you see had been made to fit their needs. Each
33:28
Speaker 1: of the radiating paths of the valley area had a
33:31
Speaker 1: constant angle to the others, and was distinguished by a
33:35
Speaker 1: special notch upon its curbing. All obstacles and irregularities of
33:40
Speaker 1: path or meadow had long since been cleared away. All
33:44
Speaker 1: their methods and procedure arose naturally from their special needs.
33:49
Speaker 1: Their senses had become marvelously acute. They could hear and
33:52
Speaker 1: judge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces away,
33:57
Speaker 1: could hear the very beating of his heart. Intonation had
34:01
Speaker 1: long replaced expression with them, and touches gesture, and their
34:06
Speaker 1: work with hoe and spade and fork was as free
34:10
Speaker 1: and confident as garden work can be. Their sense of
34:13
Speaker 1: smell was extraordinarily fine. They could distinguish individual differences as
34:19
Speaker 1: readily as a dog can, and they went about the
34:22
Speaker 1: tending of the Lamas who lived among the rocks above
34:25
Speaker 1: and came to the wall for food and shelter, with
34:29
Speaker 1: ease and confidence. It was only when at last Nunes
34:33
Speaker 1: sought to assert himself that he found how easy and
34:37
Speaker 1: confident their movements could be. He rebelled only after he
34:42
Speaker 1: had tried persuasion. He tried, at first, on several occasions,
34:46
Speaker 1: to tell them of sight. Look you hear you people,
34:50
Speaker 1: He said, there are things you do not understand in me.
34:54
Speaker 1: Once or twice one or two of them attended to him.
34:57
Speaker 1: They sat with faces downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him,
35:03
Speaker 1: and he did his best to tell them what it
35:05
Speaker 1: was to see. Among his hearers was a girl with
35:08
Speaker 1: eyelids less red and sunken than the others, so that
35:11
Speaker 1: one could almost fancy she was hiding eyes whom especially
35:16
Speaker 1: he hoped to persuade. He spoke of the beauties of sight,
35:20
Speaker 1: of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise,
35:25
Speaker 1: and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently became condemnatory.
35:31
Speaker 1: They told him there were indeed no mountains at all,
35:35
Speaker 1: but that the end of the rocks where the lamers
35:38
Speaker 1: grazed was indeed the end of the world. Thence sprang
35:43
Speaker 1: a cavernous roof of the universe, from which the dew
35:46
Speaker 1: and the avalanches fell. And when he maintained stoutly the
35:51
Speaker 1: world had neither end nor roof such as they supposed,
35:55
Speaker 1: they said his thoughts were wicked, so far as he
35:58
Speaker 1: could describe skye and clouds and stars. To them, it
36:03
Speaker 1: seemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness, in
36:07
Speaker 1: the place of the smooth roof to things in which
36:11
Speaker 1: they believed it was an article of faith with them
36:14
Speaker 1: that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch.
36:19
Speaker 1: He saw that in some manner he shocked them and
36:23
Speaker 1: gave up that aspect of the matter altogether, and tried
36:26
Speaker 1: to show them the practical value of sight. One morning
36:30
Speaker 1: he saw Pedro in the path called seventeen and coming
36:34
Speaker 1: towards the central houses, but still too far off for
36:38
Speaker 1: hearing or sent and he told them as much. In
36:41
Speaker 1: a little while, he prophesied, Pedro will be here. An
36:45
Speaker 1: old man remarked that Pedro had no business on Path seventeen,
36:49
Speaker 1: and then, as if in confirmation, that individual, as he
36:53
Speaker 1: drew near, turned and went transversely into Path ten, and
36:58
Speaker 1: so back with nimble paces towards the outer wall. They
37:02
Speaker 1: mocked nuns when Pedro did not arrive, and afterwards, when
37:07
Speaker 1: he asked Pedro questions to clear his character, Pedro denied
37:11
Speaker 1: and outfaced him, and was afterwards hostile to him. Then
37:15
Speaker 1: he induced them to let him go a long way
37:18
Speaker 1: up the sloping meadows towards the wall with one complaisant individual,
37:23
Speaker 1: and to him he promised to describe all that happened
37:27
Speaker 1: among the houses. He noted certain goings and comings, but
37:31
Speaker 1: the things that really seemed to signify to these people
37:34
Speaker 1: happened inside of or behind the windowless houses. The only
37:39
Speaker 1: things they took note of to test him by, and
37:42
Speaker 1: of these he could see or tell nothing. And it
37:45
Speaker 1: was after the failure of this attempt and the ridicule
37:49
Speaker 1: they could not repress, that he resorted to force. He
37:53
Speaker 1: thought of seizing a spade and suddenly smiting one or
37:56
Speaker 1: two of them to earth, and so in fair combat,
37:59
Speaker 1: showing the advantage of eyes. He went so far with
38:02
Speaker 1: that resolution as to seize his spade. And then he
38:06
Speaker 1: discovered a new thing about himself, and that was that
38:10
Speaker 1: it was impossible for him to hit a blind man
38:13
Speaker 1: in cold blood. He hesitated and found them all aware
38:18
Speaker 1: that he had snatched up the spade. They stood alert,
38:21
Speaker 1: with their heads on one side, and bent ears towards him.
38:25
Speaker 1: For what he would do next. Put that spade down,
38:28
Speaker 1: said one, and he felt a sort of helpless horror.
38:32
Speaker 1: He came near obedience. Then he thrust one backwards against
38:37
Speaker 1: a house wall, and fled past him and out of
38:39
Speaker 1: the village. He went athwart one of their meadows, leaving
38:43
Speaker 1: a track of trampled grass behind his feet, and presently
38:47
Speaker 1: sat down by the side of one of their ways.
38:49
Speaker 1: He felt something of the buoyancy that comes to all
38:52
Speaker 1: men in the beginning of a fight, but more perplexity.
38:57
Speaker 1: He began to realize that you cannot even fight happily
39:01
Speaker 1: with creatures who stand upon a different mental basis to yourself.
39:05
Speaker 1: Far away, he saw a number of men carrying spades
39:09
Speaker 1: and sticks come out of the street of houses and
39:12
Speaker 1: advance in a spreading line along the several paths towards him.
39:17
Speaker 1: They advanced slowly, speaking frequently to one another, and ever
39:22
Speaker 1: and again the whole cordon would halt and sniff the
39:25
Speaker 1: air and listen. The first time they did this, Nune's laughed,
39:30
Speaker 1: but afterwards he did not laugh. One struck his trail
39:34
Speaker 1: in the meadow grass and came stooping and feeling his
39:37
Speaker 1: way along it. For five minutes he watched the slow
39:41
Speaker 1: extension of the cordon, and then his vague disposition to
39:44
Speaker 1: do something forthwith became frantic. He stood up, went a
39:49
Speaker 1: pace or so towards the circumferential wall, turned and went
39:53
Speaker 1: back a little way. There they all stood in a crescent,
39:56
Speaker 1: still and listening. He also stood still, gripping his spade
40:01
Speaker 1: very tightly in both hands. Should he charge them? The
40:05
Speaker 1: pulse in his ears ran into the rhythm of in
40:08
Speaker 1: the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
40:11
Speaker 1: Should he charge them? He looked back at the high
40:15
Speaker 1: and unclimbable wall behind, unclimbable because of its smooth plastering,
40:21
Speaker 1: but withal pierced with many little doors, and at the
40:25
Speaker 1: approaching line of seekers behind. These others were now coming
40:30
Speaker 1: out of the street of houses. Should he charge them?
40:34
Speaker 1: Bogatar called one, Bogetar, where are you? He gripped his
40:38
Speaker 1: spade still tighter, and advanced down the meadows towards the
40:42
Speaker 1: place of habitations, and directly he moved. They converged upon him.
40:47
Speaker 1: I'll hit them if they touch me, he swore, my heaven,
40:50
Speaker 1: I will I'll hit He called aloud. Look here, I'm
40:54
Speaker 1: going to do what I like in this valley, Do
40:56
Speaker 1: you hear? I'm going to do what I like and
40:59
Speaker 1: go where I lie. They were moving in upon him, quickly, groping,
41:03
Speaker 1: yet moving rapidly. It was like playing blind Man's buff
41:07
Speaker 1: with every one blindfolded except one. Get hold of him,
41:11
Speaker 1: cried one. He found himself in the ark of a
41:14
Speaker 1: loose curve of pursuers. He felt suddenly he must be
41:18
Speaker 1: active and resolute. You don't understand, he cried, in a
41:22
Speaker 1: voice that was meant to be great and resolute, and
41:25
Speaker 1: which broke. You are blind, and I can see. Leave
41:30
Speaker 1: me alone, Bogatar, put down that spade and come off
41:34
Speaker 1: the grass. The last order, grotesque in its urban familiarity,
41:39
Speaker 1: produced a gust of anger. I'll hurt you, he said,
41:42
Speaker 1: sobbing with emotion by heaven, I'll hurt you. Leave me alone.
41:47
Speaker 1: He began to run, not knowing clearly where to run.
41:51
Speaker 1: He ran from the nearest blind man because it was
41:53
Speaker 1: a horror to hit him. He stopped and then made
41:57
Speaker 1: a dash to escape from their closing ranks. He made
42:00
Speaker 1: for where a gap was wide, and the men on
42:02
Speaker 1: either side, with a quick perception of the approach of
42:05
Speaker 1: his paces, rushed in on one another. He sprang forward
42:09
Speaker 1: and then saw he must be caught, and swish the
42:12
Speaker 1: spade had struck. He felt the soft thud of hand
42:15
Speaker 1: and arm, and the man was down with a yell
42:18
Speaker 1: of pain. And he was through through. And then he
42:22
Speaker 1: was close to the street of houses again, and blind men,
42:25
Speaker 1: whirling spades and stakes, were running with a sort of
42:28
Speaker 1: reasoned swiftness hither and thither. He heard steps behind him
42:33
Speaker 1: just in time, and found a tall man rushing forward
42:36
Speaker 1: and swiping. At the sound of him. He lost his nerve,
42:40
Speaker 1: hurled his spade a yard wide at his antagonist, and
42:43
Speaker 1: whirled about and fled fairly, yelling as he dodged another.
42:47
Speaker 1: He was panic stricken. He ran furiously to and fro
42:50
Speaker 1: dodging when there was no need to dodge, and in
42:53
Speaker 1: his anxiety to see on every side of him at once,
42:56
Speaker 1: stumbling for a moment he was down, and they heard
42:59
Speaker 1: his foe far away in the circumferential wall. A little
43:03
Speaker 1: doorway looked like heaven, and he set off in a
43:06
Speaker 1: wild rush for it. He did not even look round
43:09
Speaker 1: at his pursuers until it was gained, and he had
43:12
Speaker 1: stumbled across the bridge, clambered a little way among the rocks,
43:16
Speaker 1: to the surprise and dismay of a young lama, who
43:19
Speaker 1: went leaping out of sight and lay down sobbing for breath.
43:24
Speaker 1: And so his coudetta came to an end. He stayed
43:30
Speaker 1: outside the wall of the Valley of the Blind for
43:33
Speaker 1: two nights and days, without food or shelter, and meditated
43:37
Speaker 1: upon the unexpected. During these meditations he repeated very frequently,
43:42
Speaker 1: and always with a profounder note of derision, the exploded
43:46
Speaker 1: proverb in the country of the blind, the one eyed
43:49
Speaker 1: man is king. He thought chiefly of ways of fighting
43:53
Speaker 1: and conquering these people, and it grew clear that for
43:57
Speaker 1: him no practicable way was possible. He had no weapons,
44:02
Speaker 1: and now it would be hard to get one. The
44:04
Speaker 1: canker of civilization had got to him even in Bogata,
44:09
Speaker 1: and he could not find it in himself to go
44:12
Speaker 1: down and assassinate a blind man. Of course, if he
44:16
Speaker 1: did that, he might then dictate terms on the threat
44:20
Speaker 1: of assassinating them all, but sooner or later he must sleep.
44:26
Speaker 1: He tried also to find food among the pine trees,
44:29
Speaker 1: to be comfortable among pine boughs while the frost fell
44:32
Speaker 1: at night, and with less confidence, to catch alarmer by artifice,
44:38
Speaker 1: in order to try to kill it, perhaps by hammering
44:41
Speaker 1: it with a stone, and so finally perhaps to eat
44:45
Speaker 1: some of it. But the lamers had a doubt of
44:49
Speaker 1: him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes, and spat
44:54
Speaker 1: when he drew near. Fear came on him the second day,
44:58
Speaker 1: and fits of shivering fin he crawled down to the
45:01
Speaker 1: wall of the country of the blind and tried to
45:05
Speaker 1: make terms. He crawled along by the stream, shouting, until
45:09
Speaker 1: two blind men came out to the gate and talked
45:12
Speaker 1: to him. I was mad, he said, but I was
45:16
Speaker 1: only newly made. They said that was better. He told
45:20
Speaker 1: them he was wiser now and repented of all he
45:23
Speaker 1: had done. Then he wept without intention, for he was
45:28
Speaker 1: very weak and ill now, and they took that as
45:31
Speaker 1: a favorable sign. They asked him if he still thought
45:35
Speaker 1: he could see. No. He said that was folly. The
45:39
Speaker 1: word means nothing less than nothing. They asked him what
45:43
Speaker 1: was overhead? About ten times ten the height of a man.
45:47
Speaker 1: There is a roof above the world of rock, and
45:51
Speaker 1: very very smooth. He burst again into hysterical tears. Before
45:55
Speaker 1: you ask me any more, give me some food or
45:58
Speaker 1: I shall die. He expected dire punishments, but these blind
46:03
Speaker 1: people were capable of toleration. They regarded his rebellion as
46:08
Speaker 1: but one more proof of his general idiocy and inferiority.
46:12
Speaker 1: And after they had whipped him, they appointed him to
46:15
Speaker 1: do the simplest and heaviest work they had for any
46:19
Speaker 1: one to do, and he, seeing no other way of living,
46:23
Speaker 1: did submissively what he was told. He was ill for
46:27
Speaker 1: some days, and they nursed him kindly. That refined his submission.
46:33
Speaker 1: But they insisted on his lying in the dark, and
46:36
Speaker 1: that was a great misery. And blind philosophers came and
46:41
Speaker 1: talked to him of the wicked levity of his mind,
46:44
Speaker 1: and reproved him so impressively for his doubts about the
46:48
Speaker 1: lid of rock that covered their cosmic casserole, that he
46:52
Speaker 1: almost doubted whether indeed he was not the victim of
46:56
Speaker 1: hallucination in not seeing it overhead. So Nunes became a
47:02
Speaker 1: citizen of the country of the blind, and these people
47:06
Speaker 1: ceased to be a generalized people and became individualities and
47:11
Speaker 1: familiar to him, while the world beyond the mountains became
47:15
Speaker 1: more and more remote and unreal. There was Jacob, his master,
47:20
Speaker 1: a kindly man when not annoyed. There was Pedro, Jacob's nephew.
47:25
Speaker 1: And there was Medina Sarote, who was the youngest daughter
47:29
Speaker 1: of Jacob. She was little esteemed in the world of
47:32
Speaker 1: the blind because she had a clear cut face and
47:37
Speaker 1: lacked that satisfying glossy smoothness that is the blind man's
47:41
Speaker 1: ideal of feminine beauty. But Nunes thought her beautiful at first,
47:47
Speaker 1: and presently the most beautiful thing in the whole creation.
47:51
Speaker 1: Her closed eyelids were not sunken and red after the
47:55
Speaker 1: common way of the valley, but lay as though they
47:58
Speaker 1: might open again at any moment. And she had long eyelashes,
48:02
Speaker 1: which were considered a grave disfigurement. And her voice was
48:06
Speaker 1: strong and did not satisfy the acute hearing of the
48:10
Speaker 1: valley swains, so that she had no lover. There came
48:13
Speaker 1: a time when Nunes thought that could he win her,
48:17
Speaker 1: he would be resigned to live in the valley for
48:19
Speaker 1: all the rest of his days. He watched her, he
48:23
Speaker 1: sought opportunities of doing her little services, and presently he
48:28
Speaker 1: found that she observed him. Once at a rest day gathering,
48:32
Speaker 1: they sat side by side in the dim starlight, and
48:36
Speaker 1: the music was sweet. His hand came upon hers, and
48:39
Speaker 1: he dared to clasp it. Then very tenderly she returned
48:43
Speaker 1: his pressure, And one day, as they were at their
48:46
Speaker 1: meal in the darkness, he felt her hand very softly
48:50
Speaker 1: seeking him, And as it chanced, the fire leapt then,
48:55
Speaker 1: and he saw the tenderness of her face. He sought
48:58
Speaker 1: to speak to her. He went to her one day,
49:01
Speaker 1: when she was sitting in the summer moonlight, spinning. The
49:04
Speaker 1: light made her a thing of silver and mystery. He
49:08
Speaker 1: sat down at her feet and told her he loved her,
49:12
Speaker 1: and told her how beautiful she seemed to him. He
49:15
Speaker 1: had a lover's voice. He spoke with a tender reverence
49:19
Speaker 1: that came near to awe, and she had never before
49:22
Speaker 1: been touched by adoration. She made him no definite answer,
49:27
Speaker 1: but it was clear his words pleased her. After that,
49:31
Speaker 1: he talked to her whenever he could take an opportunity.
49:34
Speaker 1: The valley became the world for him, and the world
49:37
Speaker 1: beyond the mountains, where men lived in sunlight, seemed no
49:43
Speaker 1: more than a fairy tale. He would some day pour
49:46
Speaker 1: into her ears. Very tentatively and timidly, he spoke to
49:50
Speaker 1: her of sight. Sight seemed to her the most poetical
49:55
Speaker 1: of fancies, and she listened to his description of the
49:58
Speaker 1: stars and the mountains and her own sweet, white lit beauty,
50:04
Speaker 1: as though it was a guilty indulgence. She did not believe,
50:09
Speaker 1: she could only half understand, but she was mysteriously delighted,
50:13
Speaker 1: and it seemed to him that she completely understood. His
50:18
Speaker 1: love lost its awe and took courage. Presently, he was
50:22
Speaker 1: for demanding her of Jakob and the elders in marriage,
50:26
Speaker 1: but she became fearful and delayed, and it was one
50:30
Speaker 1: of her elder sisters who first told Yacob that Medina
50:34
Speaker 1: Seroti and Nunez were in love. There was from the
50:38
Speaker 1: first very great opposition to the marriage of Nuna's and
50:43
Speaker 1: Medina Cerroti, not so much because they valued her, as
50:47
Speaker 1: because they held him as a being a part, an idiot,
50:51
Speaker 1: incompetent thing below the permissible level of a man. Her
50:55
Speaker 1: sisters opposed it bitterly as bringing discredit on them all,
51:00
Speaker 1: and Old Yakob, though he had formed a sort of
51:02
Speaker 1: liking for his clumsy, obedient serf, shook his head and
51:07
Speaker 1: said the thing could not be. The young men were
51:10
Speaker 1: all angry at the idea of corrupting the race, and
51:14
Speaker 1: one went so far as to revile and strike nunes
51:18
Speaker 1: He struck back. Then for the first time he found
51:21
Speaker 1: an advantage in seeing even by twilight, and after that
51:25
Speaker 1: fight was over, no one was disposed to raise a
51:29
Speaker 1: hand against him, but they still found his marriage impossible.
51:34
Speaker 1: Old Jacob had a tenderness for his last little daughter,
51:38
Speaker 1: and was grieved to have her weep upon his shoulder.
51:41
Speaker 1: You see, my dear, he's an idiot. He has delusions.
51:45
Speaker 1: He can't do anything right. I know wept Medina serote.
51:50
Speaker 1: But he's better than he was. He's getting better, and
51:54
Speaker 1: he's strong, dear father, and kind, stronger and kinder than
51:59
Speaker 1: any other man in the world. And he loves me,
52:02
Speaker 1: and father, I love him. Old Yakob was greatly distressed
52:07
Speaker 1: to find her inconsolable, and besides, what made it more distressing,
52:12
Speaker 1: he liked Nunez for many things. So he went and
52:15
Speaker 1: sat in the windowless council chamber with the other elders
52:19
Speaker 1: and watched the trend of the talk and said, at
52:22
Speaker 1: the proper time, he's better than he was. Very likely
52:26
Speaker 1: some day we shall find him as sane as ourselves.
52:29
Speaker 1: Then afterwards, one of the elders, who thought deeply, had
52:33
Speaker 1: an idea. He was the great doctor among these people,
52:36
Speaker 1: their medicine man, and he had a very philosophical and
52:40
Speaker 1: inventive mind, and the idea of curing Nunez of his
52:44
Speaker 1: peculiarities appealed to him. One day, when Yakob was present,
52:48
Speaker 1: he returned to the topic of Nunez. I have examined Bogata,
52:52
Speaker 1: he said, and the case is clearer to me. I
52:55
Speaker 1: think very probably he might be cured. That is what
52:58
Speaker 1: I have always hoped, said Old Jacob. His brain is affected,
53:02
Speaker 1: said the blind doctor. The elders murmured assent. Now what
53:07
Speaker 1: affects it, ah, said Old Jacob. This said the doctor,
53:13
Speaker 1: answering his own question. Those queer things that are called
53:17
Speaker 1: the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft
53:20
Speaker 1: depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Pogatar,
53:25
Speaker 1: in such a way as to affect his brain. They
53:27
Speaker 1: are greatly distended. He has eyelashes, and his eyelids move,
53:32
Speaker 1: and consequently his brain is in a state of constant
53:35
Speaker 1: irritation and distraction. Herees, said Old Jacob. Yes, and I
53:40
Speaker 1: think I may say with reasonable certainty that in order
53:43
Speaker 1: to cure him completely, all that we need do is
53:47
Speaker 1: a simple and easy surgical operation, namely, to remove these
53:51
Speaker 1: irritant bodies, and then he will be sane. Then he
53:55
Speaker 1: will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen. Thank
54:00
Speaker 1: for science, said Old Jakob, and went forth at once
54:03
Speaker 1: to tell Nunez of his happy hopes. But Nunes's manner
54:08
Speaker 1: of receiving the good news struck him as being cold
54:12
Speaker 1: and disappointing. One might think, he said, from the tone
54:16
Speaker 1: you take that you do not care for my daughter.
54:20
Speaker 1: It was Medina Sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the
54:23
Speaker 1: blind surgeons. You do not want me, he said, to
54:27
Speaker 1: lose my gift of sight. She shook her head. My
54:31
Speaker 1: world is sight. Her head dropped lower. There are the
54:35
Speaker 1: beautiful things, the beautiful little things, the flowers, the lichens,
54:40
Speaker 1: among the rocks, the lightness and softness on a piece
54:44
Speaker 1: of fur, the far sky with its drifting down of clouds,
54:49
Speaker 1: the sunsets and the stars. And there is you, for
54:53
Speaker 1: you alone. It is good to have sight, to see
54:56
Speaker 1: your sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful
55:02
Speaker 1: hands folded together. It is these eyes of mine, new one,
55:06
Speaker 1: these eyes that hold me to you, that these idiots
55:10
Speaker 1: seek instead. I must touch you, hear you, and never
55:15
Speaker 1: see you again. I must come under that roof of
55:19
Speaker 1: rock and stone and darkness, that horrible roof under which
55:24
Speaker 1: your imagination stoops. No, you would not have me do that.
55:29
Speaker 1: A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped and
55:33
Speaker 1: left the thing. A question, I wish she said, sometimes
55:38
Speaker 1: She paused, Yes, said he a little apprehensively. I wish
55:44
Speaker 1: sometimes you would not talk like that. Like what I know.
55:49
Speaker 1: It's pretty, it's your imagination. I love it. But now
55:54
Speaker 1: he felt cold. Now, he said faintly. She sat quite still.
55:59
Speaker 1: You I mean, you think I should be better? Better?
56:03
Speaker 1: Perhaps he was realizing things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed,
56:09
Speaker 1: anger at the dull course of fate, but also sympathy
56:13
Speaker 1: for her lack of understanding, a sympathy near akin to pity. Dear,
56:19
Speaker 1: he said, And he could see by her whiteness how
56:22
Speaker 1: intensely her spirit pressed against the things she could not say.
56:27
Speaker 1: He put his arm about her, he kissed her ear,
56:30
Speaker 1: and they sat for a time in silence. If I
56:33
Speaker 1: were to consent to this, he said at last, in
56:36
Speaker 1: a voice that was very gentle. She flung her arms
56:40
Speaker 1: about him, weeping wildly. Oh if you would, she sobbed,
56:45
Speaker 1: If only you would. For a week before the operation
56:49
Speaker 1: that was to raise him from his servitude and inferiority
56:53
Speaker 1: to the level of a blind citizen, nunes knew nothing
56:57
Speaker 1: of sleep, and all through the warm sunlit, while the
57:01
Speaker 1: others slumbered happily, he sat brooding or wandering aimlessly, trying
57:06
Speaker 1: to bring his mind to bear on his dilemma. He
57:09
Speaker 1: had given his answer. He had given his consent, and
57:13
Speaker 1: still he was not sure. And at last work time
57:17
Speaker 1: was over. The sun rose in splendor over the golden crests,
57:22
Speaker 1: and his last day of vision began for him. He
57:25
Speaker 1: had a few minutes with Medina Serotte before she went
57:29
Speaker 1: apart to sleep to morrow. He said, I shall see
57:33
Speaker 1: no more, dear heart, she answered, and pressed his hands
57:38
Speaker 1: with all her strength. They will hurt you but little,
57:41
Speaker 1: she said, And you are going through this pain. You
57:43
Speaker 1: are going through it, dear lover, for me, dear, if
57:47
Speaker 1: a woman's heart and life can do it, I will
57:51
Speaker 1: repay you, my dearest one, my dearest, with the tender voice,
57:56
Speaker 1: I will repay. He was drenched in pity for himself
58:01
Speaker 1: and her. He held her in his arms and pressed
58:04
Speaker 1: his lips to hers, and looked on her sweet face
58:08
Speaker 1: for the last time. Good Bye, he whispered at that
58:12
Speaker 1: dear sight, good bye, and then in silence he turned
58:16
Speaker 1: away from her. She could hear his slow retreating footsteps,
58:21
Speaker 1: and something in the rhythm of them threw her into
58:24
Speaker 1: a passion of weeping. He had fully meant to go
58:28
Speaker 1: to a lonely place where the meadows were beautiful with
58:31
Speaker 1: white Narcissus and there remain until the hour of his
58:35
Speaker 1: sacrifice should come. But as he went he lifted up
58:39
Speaker 1: his eyes and saw the morning, the morning like an
58:43
Speaker 1: angel in golden armor, marching down the steeps. It seemed
58:49
Speaker 1: to him that before this splendor, he and this blind
58:53
Speaker 1: world in the valley, and his love and all were
58:57
Speaker 1: no more than a pit of sin. He did not
59:00
Speaker 1: turn aside as he had meant to, but went on
59:03
Speaker 1: and passed through the wall of the circumference and out
59:07
Speaker 1: upon the rocks, and his eyes were always upon the
59:11
Speaker 1: sunlit ice and snow. He saw their infinite beauty, and
59:15
Speaker 1: his imagination soared over them, to the things beyond. He
59:19
Speaker 1: was now to resign for ever he thought of that
59:24
Speaker 1: great free world he was parted from the world that
59:28
Speaker 1: was his own. And he had a vision of those
59:31
Speaker 1: further slopes, distance beyond distance, with Bogata, a place of multitudinous,
59:38
Speaker 1: stirring beauty, a glory by day, a luminous mystery by night,
59:43
Speaker 1: a place of palaces and fountains and statues and white houses.
59:48
Speaker 1: Lying beautifully in the middle distance. He thought, how for
59:52
Speaker 1: a day or so one might come down through passes,
59:56
Speaker 1: drawing ever nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: He thought of the river journey day by day from
1:00:03
Speaker 1: great Bogata to the still vaster world beyond, through towns
1:00:08
Speaker 1: and villages, forest and desert places, the rushing river, day
1:00:13
Speaker 1: by day, until its banks receded and the big steamers
1:00:17
Speaker 1: came splashing by. And one had reached the sea, the
1:00:21
Speaker 1: limitless sea, with its thousand islands, its thousands of islands,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: and its ships seen dimly far away in their incessant
1:00:32
Speaker 1: journeyings round and about that greater world. And there, unpent
1:00:39
Speaker 1: by mountains, one saw the sky. The sky not such
1:00:44
Speaker 1: a disk as one saw it here, but an arch
1:00:48
Speaker 1: of immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps in which the
1:00:52
Speaker 1: circling stars were floating. His eyes scrutinized the great curtain
1:00:58
Speaker 1: of the mountains with a keener inquiry. For example, if
1:01:03
Speaker 1: one went so up that gully and to that chimney there,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: then one might come out high among those stunted pines
1:01:13
Speaker 1: that ran round in a sort of shelf, and rose
1:01:16
Speaker 1: still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: And then that talus might be managed. Thence, perhaps a
1:01:25
Speaker 1: climb might be found to take him up to the
1:01:28
Speaker 1: precipice that came below the snow, and if that chimney failed,
1:01:32
Speaker 1: then another farther to the east might serve his purpose better.
1:01:37
Speaker 1: And then then one would be out upon the amberlet
1:01:42
Speaker 1: snow there, and half way up to the crest of
1:01:46
Speaker 1: those beautiful desolations. He glanced back at the village, then
1:01:51
Speaker 1: turned right round and regarded it steadfastly. He thought of
1:01:56
Speaker 1: Medina Sirote, and she had become small and remote. He
1:02:02
Speaker 1: turned again towards the mountain wall, down which the day
1:02:05
Speaker 1: had come to him. Then, very circumspectly, he began to climb.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: When sunset came, he was no longer climbing, but he
1:02:16
Speaker 1: was far and higher. He had been higher, but he
1:02:20
Speaker 1: was still very high. His clothes were torn, his limbs
1:02:24
Speaker 1: were blood stained, he was bruised in many places, but
1:02:27
Speaker 1: he lay as if he were at his ease, and
1:02:31
Speaker 1: there was a smile on his face. From where he rested,
1:02:35
Speaker 1: the valley seemed as if it were in a pit,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: and nearly a mile below already it was dim with
1:02:41
Speaker 1: haze and shadow. Though the mountain summits around him were
1:02:45
Speaker 1: things of light and fire. The mountain summits around him
1:02:49
Speaker 1: were things of light and fire, and the little details
1:02:52
Speaker 1: of the rocks near at hand were drenched with subtle beauty,
1:02:57
Speaker 1: a vein of green mineral piercing the gray flash of
1:03:00
Speaker 1: crystal faces here and there a minute, minutely beautiful orange lichen.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: Close beside his face. There were deep, mysterious shadows in
1:03:12
Speaker 1: the gorge, blue deepening into purple, and purple into a
1:03:16
Speaker 1: luminous darkness. And overhead was the illimitable vastness of the sky.
1:03:23
Speaker 1: But he heeded these things no longer, and lay quite
1:03:27
Speaker 1: inactive there, smiling as if he were satisfied merely to
1:03:32
Speaker 1: have escaped from the valley of the blind in which
1:03:36
Speaker 1: he had thought to be king. The glow of the
1:03:40
Speaker 1: sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: peacefully contented under the cold, clear stars. End of Section
1:03:53
Speaker 1: thirty two.