"Then you never saw me before?" I said, and it hurt me to find it so.
"What is the difference?" he cried out. "If I didn't see you before, I see you now; and at that time the other one must have resembled you. Isn't that just the same?"
I laughed. "What do you mean, 'just the same'?"
"Why not?"
"Because I am I, and the other one is the other one."
"Are you better than he?"
"I don't know."
"I don't know either."
I looked at him and was overcome with impatience. I wanted him to speak and speak without end. He poured out his tea and continued talking hastily:
"Yes, the other one was a one-eyed fellow, and it made him wretched. All the lame and the crippled, whether in body or in mind, are the essence of egoism. 'I am crippled,' they say, or 'I am lame; but you people, don't you dare notice it.' He was that kind of a fellow. He said to me,' All people are rascals. When they see that I have one eye they say to me, "you are one-eyed." That is why they are scoundrels.' 'My dear boy,' I said to him, 'you are a scoundrel and a rascal yourself, and perhaps a fool also. You can take your choice. Understand this: The important thing is not how people look at you but how you look at people. That is why, my friend, we become one-eyed or blind—because we look at other people, hunting for their dark spots and put out our own light in their darkness. If you would light up the other's darkness with your light, the world would be pleasant for you. Man sees no good in any one else but himself, that is why the whole world is a wretched wilderness for him.'"