The Blind Musician

by Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko

“Pray understand me, Anna,” said Maxim in a gentler tone, “I would not reiterate these cruel truths had I no object. This boy’s nervous organization is extremely sensitive; hence it is possible so to develop his other faculties that their acuteness will compensate him, at least to a certain degree, for his blindness. But to attain this he must use his faculties; and the use of one’s faculties must be compelled by necessity. An unwise solicitude, that prevents him from making any effort, will ruin his chances for living a full life.”

The mother was sensible, and therefore knew how to control that instinctive impulse which urged her, at every pitiful cry of the child, to rush to him.

A few months after this conversation the boy could creep about the rooms with ease and rapidity; he listened intently to every sound, and by his sense of touch eagerly examined every object that happened to come within his reach. He soon learned to know his mother by her footstep, by the rustling of her dress, and by certain other signs perceptible to him alone; it made no difference to him whether there were many persons in the room or not, or if they changed their positions,—he never failed to turn with unerring accuracy toward the spot where she sat. When she lifted him in her arms he knew at once that he was sitting in his mother’s lap. When others took him up, he would pass his little hands rapidly over the face of the person, thus recognizing almost at once the nurse, Uncle Maxim, or his father. But if it happened to be a stranger, then the movements of the tiny hands were more deliberate; the boy passed them carefully and attentively over the unfamiliar face, his features betraying his intense interest. He seemed to be looking at the strange face with his finger-tips.

By nature the blind boy was a very lively and active child; but as month succeeded month, blindness set its impress on the boy’s temperament, which began to manifest its true character. He gradually lost his rapidity of motion. He would sit perfectly still for hours in some remote corner, with unchanging expression, as if listening. When at times the various sounds that usually distracted his attention ceased, and the room became quiet, the child would sit absorbed in thought, and upon his beautiful face, serious beyond his years, an expression of bewilderment and surprise would appear.

Uncle Maxim was right. The exquisite organization of the child manifested itself in an extraordinary susceptibility of the senses of hearing and touch, by means of which he verified to a certain extent the correctness of his impressions. All who saw him were amazed at the wonderful delicacy of his touch. Occasionally it even seemed as if he were able to distinguish colors; for when, as sometimes happened, bits of bright-colored cloth fell into his hands, his slender fingers would linger over them, while a look half of perplexity, half of interest, would flash across his face. As time went on, however, it grew more and more evident that his susceptibility was principally developed in the sense of hearing. He quickly learned to distinguish the different rooms in the house by sound; he recognized the steps of the members of the household, the creaking of his invalid uncle’s chair, the dry and measured whiz of the thread in his mother’s hands, or the regular ticking of the clock. Sometimes, as he felt his way along the side of the room, he would hear a slight rustle inaudible to others, and put out his hand to catch a fly crawling on the wall. When the startled insect rose and flew away, an expression of painful surprise would come over the face of the blind boy. He could not account for the mysterious disappearance of the fly. But the next moment, in spite of his perplexity, his face assumed an expression of intelligent interest; he turned his head in the direction taken by the fly,—his acute sense of hearing having caught in the air the scarcely perceptible sound of the insect’s wings.

Of all the glittering, murmuring, bustling world without, the blind child could form no conception save by its sounds. That peculiar expression characteristic of an intense concentration of the sense of hearing had become habitual to his face: the lower jaw was a little depressed, the brows contracted, and the head inclined slightly forward on its slender neck. But the beautiful eyes, with their unchanging gaze, imparted to the face of the blind child a stern and at the same time a touching aspect.

V.

The second winter of the boy’s life was drawing to a close. The snow outside had begun to thaw, and the streamlets to sing their spring songs. At the same time the boy’s health changed for the better. He had been rather delicate during the winter, and had in consequence been kept in the house, and never permitted to breathe the outdoor air. The double windows were now removed, and spring with all the vigor of new life burst into the rooms. The cheerful sun shone in at the glittering windows; the leafless branches of the beech-trees swayed to and fro; the distant fields were black, save for the white patches of melting snow still lying here and there, and the spots where the young grass had begun to look green. On every side the stimulating influence of the spring imparted new vigor and life. One seemed to breathe more freely.

To the blind boy within the room spring manifested its presence only by the swiftness of its sounds. He could hear the rushing of the floods running a race, as it were, leaping over the stones, and sinking deep into the moistened soil; the faint resonance of the whispering birch-trees as their tossing branches beat against the windows, and the rapid dripping of the icicles that hung from the roof, which since the sun had set them free from the chill embrace of the night frost were hurrying away, their ringing footsteps followed by a thousand echoes. All these sounds made their way into the room like a storm of pebble-stones beating a hurried tattoo upon the ground. Above all these harmonies of Nature could be heard from time to time the calls of the storks echoing softly from the distant heights, and dying gradually away as if melting in air.