No. "Disappointed" is not the word. I can't find the word. There was a moment—I hardly dare write it: it seems so atrociously wicked—there was a moment when I actually wished myself blind again.
He took me in his arms; he held my hand in his. In the time when I was blind, how I should have felt it! how the delicious tingle would have run through me when he touched me! Nothing of the kind happened now. He might have been Oscar's brother for all the effect he produced on me. I have myself taken his hand since, and shut my eyes to try and renew my blindness, and put myself back completely as I was in the old time. The same result still. Nothing, nothing, nothing!
Is it that he is a little restrained with me on his side? He certainly is! I felt it the moment he came into the room—I have felt it ever since.
No: it is not that. In the old time, when we were only beginning to love each other, he was restrained with me. But it made no difference then. I was not the insensible creature in those days that I have become since.
I can only account for it in one way. The restoration of my sight has made a new creature of me. I have gained a sense—I am no longer the same woman. This great change must have had some influence over me that I never suspected until Oscar came here. Can the loss of my sense of feeling be the price that I have paid for the recovery of my sense of sight?
When Grosse comes next, I shall put that question to him.
In the meanwhile, I have had a second disappointment. He is not nearly so beautiful as I thought he was when I was blind.
On the day when my bandage was taken off for the first time, I could only see indistinctly. When I ran into the room at the rectory, I guessed it was Oscar rather than knew it was Oscar. My father's grey head, and Mrs. Finch's woman's dress, would no doubt have helped anybody in my place to fix as I did on the right man. But this is all different now. I can see his features in detail—and the result is (though I won't own it to any of them) that I find my idea of him in the days of my blindness—oh, so unlike the reality! The one thing that is not a disappointment to me, is his voice. When he cannot see me, I close my eyes, and let my ears feel the old charm again—so far.
And this is what I have gained, by submitting to the operation, and enduring my imprisonment in the darkened room!
What am I writing? I ought to be ashamed of myself! Is it nothing to have had all the beauty of land and sea, all the glory of cloud and sunshine, revealed to me? Is it nothing to be able to look at my fellow-creatures—to see the bright faces of children smile at me when I speak to them? Enough of myself! I am unhappy and ungrateful when I think of myself.