My aunt, whose spirits are always affected by bad weather, kept me a long time in her sitting-room, amusing herself by making me exercise my sight. Oscar was present by special invitation, and assisted the old lady in setting this new seeing-sense of mine all sorts of tasks. He tried hard to prevail on me to let him see my writing. I refused. It is improving as fast as it can; but it is not good enough yet.
I notice here what a dreadfully difficult thing it is to get back—in such a case as mine—to the exercise of one's sight.
We have a cat and a dog in the house. Would it be credited, if I was telling it to the world instead of telling it to my Journal, that I actually mistook one for the other to-day?—after seeing so well, too, as I do now, and being able to write with so few false strokes in making my letters! It is nevertheless true that I did mistake the two animals; having trusted to nothing but my memory to inform my eyes which was which, instead of helping my memory by my touch. I have now set this right. I caught up puss, and shut my eyes (oh, that habit! when shall I get over it?) and felt her soft fur (so different from a dog's hair!) and opened my eyes again, and associated the feel of the fur for ever afterwards with the sight of a cat.
To-day's experience has also informed me that I make slow progress in teaching myself to judge correctly of distances.
In spite of this drawback, however, there is nothing I enjoy so much in using my sight as looking at a great wide prospect of any kind—provided I am not asked to judge how far or how near objects may be. It seems like escaping out of prison, to look (after having been shut up in my blindness) at the view over the town, and the bold promontory of the pier, and the grand sweep of the sea beyond—all visible from our windows.
The moment my aunt begins to question me about distances, she makes a toil of my pleasure. It is worse still when I am asked about the relative sizes of ships and boats. When I see nothing but a boat, I fancy it larger than it is. When I see the boat in comparison with a ship, and then look back at the boat, I instantly go to the other extreme, and fancy it smaller than it is. The setting this right still vexes me almost as keenly as my stupidity vexed me some time since, when I saw my first horse and cart from an upper window, and took it for a dog drawing a wheelbarrow! Let me add in my own defence that both horse and cart were figured at least five times their proper size in my blind fancy, which makes my mistake, I think, not so very stupid after all.
Well, I amused my aunt. And what effect did I produce on Oscar?
If I could trust my eyes, I should say I produced exactly the contrary effect on him—I made him melancholy. But I don't trust my eyes. They must be deceiving me when they tell me that he looked, in my company, a moping, anxious, miserable man.
Or is it, that he sees and feels something changed in Me? I could scream with vexation and rage against myself. Here is my Oscar—and yet he is not the Oscar I knew when I was blind. Contradictory as it seems, I used to understand how he looked at me, when I was unable to see it. Now that I can see it, I ask myself, Is this really love that is looking at me in his eyes? or is it something else? How should I know? I knew when I had only my own fancy to tell me. But now, try as I may, I cannot make the old fancy and the new sight serve me in harmony both together. I am afraid he sees that I don't understand him. Oh, dear! dear! why did I not meet my good old Grosse, and become the new creature that he has made me, before I met Oscar? I should have had no blind memories and prepossessions to get over then. I shall become used to my new self, I hope and believe, with time—and that will accustom me to my new impressions of Oscar—and so it may all come right in the end. It is all wrong enough now. He put his arm round me, and gave me a little tender squeeze, while we were following Miss Batchford down to the dining-room this afternoon. Nothing in me answered to it. I should have felt it all over me a few months since.
Here is a tear on the paper. What a fool I am! Why can't I write about something else?