The door opened of itself, and out came a wave of damp steam.
I struck a match, and saw by its light a blind boy, standing motionless before me.
I must here say that I am strongly prejudiced against the blind, the deaf, the lame, the hunchbacked; in short, against the deformed in general. I have remarked that there is always a singular correspondence between the physical formation of a man and his moral nature; as though by the loss of a member the individual lost certain faculties of the soul.
I examined the child's face; but what can one make of a physiognomy without eyes? I looked at him for some time, with a feeling of compassion, when suddenly I saw on his lips a cunning smile, which produced upon me a very disagreeable impression. "Could this blind boy be not so blind as he appeared?" I said to myself. Answering my own question I said that the boy was evidently suffering from cataract, and that the appearance of cataract cannot be simulated. Why, moreover, should he affect blindness? Yet in spite of my argument I still remained vaguely suspicious.
"Is the mistress of the cabin your mother?" I said to the boy.
"No."
"Who are you, then?"
"A poor orphan," he replied.
"Has the mistress any children?"
"She has one daughter, who has gone to sea with a Tartar."