Blindness

by Henry Green

The misery of hating himself as much as he did.

How unlucky he was to have been born like that, so infinitely superior to the common ruck. The herd did not feel all that he did, all his private tortures, and he was unfit to die like this, shut up in the traditional living tomb. A priest ought to have said offices over him as the glass entered his head and caused the white-hot pains there. And now the darkness pressed down on him, and he was not ready. He was not sufficient in himself. He did not know. He had been wandering off on expeditions in a mental morass before, and now all chance of retreat was cut off. He must live on himself, on his own reserves of mental fat, which would be increased a trifle perhaps when Mamma or Nan read to him, as steam rollers go over roads, levelling all sense, razing all imagery to the ground with their stupidity. And when he learned Braille it would be too slow. And it terrifies, the darkness, it chokes. Where is he? Where? What’s that? Nothing. No, he is lost. Ah, the wall, and he is still in bed and has hurt his hand in the blow he gave it. The bell should be here to the left—yes, here it is, how smoothly everything goes if you keep your head. His hand tastes salt, he must have skinned it against the wall.

There are steps on stair carpets, four quick steps on the linoleum, and the nurse enters, prettily out of breath.

“Well, and how are we? Did you ring, Mr. John? I am so sorry, I was having my tea.”

“Oh, nurse, I was frightened. Look, I have skinned my knuckles, haven’t I?”

“Silly, whatever did you do that for? That was very naughty of you. Now I shall have to bind it up.”

She washes it. . . . She has such a pretty voice that he would like to squeeze her hand as she is holding his. And he wanted sympathy. But it would be too terrifying, he had had enough awkward scenes to-day, he did not feel strong enough for another if she were to object. And a nice sight he must be with bandages all over him. Besides, being a professional, she would not be intrigued by bandages as others might. No, he could do nothing.

And she? Well, he wasn’t a very interesting case, was he? It was not as if he had eyes left in their sockets, eyes that needed fighting for to save. There was nothing interesting in his condition. How she loved difficult cases. She had only just graduated, so she hadn’t had any. And he was quite healthy, he was really healing very quickly, and he hadn’t a trace of shock. They had always told her in the profession that she would soon get out of it once she had had one, but her dream was a case of delirium tremens; to hear the patient describe the blue mist and the snakes, snakes crawling over everything. But she hadn’t had one yet. They fought, there had to be two of you, it kept your hands full. She was sorry for the poor boy, but then he was not really suffering. Suffering made you a great well of pity, and that of course was love.

Her hands felt the bandages and then started work. The pain redoubles, torn face with white-hot bars of pain shooting across it. He was in agonies. He was like a bird in a white-hot cage, the pain pursuing him wherever he turned, and he began to squirm, physically now, in bed. Agony filled his head and his body and everything of him. She was changing the dressing, it would be over soon, and he must not moan, for that was not strong or beautiful. Aah. There, he had done it, and the pain died down again to the old glow. She had finished and he had moaned just a second before everything had been over. All for nothing, and it did not seem much now. She was despising him for moaning, he could sense it. And the athlete would have riddled his lips with his strong teeth before he uttered a sound, and then only to ask for a cigarette. Poor woman. And he was blind, was he?

So that he would grow on into a lonely old age. He would know his way round the house, and there would be his favourite walk in the garden. As all blind men he would do everything by touch, and he would have tremendous powers of hearing. He would play music divinely, on the gramophone. And the tears would course from behind his sightless eyeballs—but had he any? He had never thought of that. He felt with his hand, but the bandages were too tight. He remembered that men with amputated legs could still waggle the toes which by that time were in the dustbin. He squinted, and was sure that his eyes were there.