A
simple man lived decently for thirty years, without excesses, then he
lost his sight. He could no longer dress himself properly, and
washing too proved difficult. Things came to such a pass that death
would have been a release--and not only for him.
And
yet he bore the the beginning with a certain composure. This lasted
about as long as he remained able to see at night in his dreams.
Then things got worse.
He
had two brothers who let him live with them and who kept an eye on
him. During the daytime they went to work; then the blind man
was all alone in the house. For eight hours a day or more.
For eight long hours the man who for thirty years had had his
sight without being aware of it, sat on his bed in the dark or walked
around the room. Early on men with whom he had formerly played
cards for low stakes came to see him. They talked about
politics, women, the future. The man they were looking at had none of
these three things, and no work either. The men told him what
they knew and never came again. Some people die sooner
thanothers. The blind man walked up and down his room for at
least eight hours a day is he was lucky. After three days he
stopped bumping into things. Just to keep himself amused he
thought of everything that had ever happened to him. He even
recalled with pleasure the blows that he had been given by his parents
as a child to make him grow up into a good person. All this went on
for a certain time. The person in question was thirty years of age and
a few months. So he could hope for another forty years. His
brothers let him know that he was growing visibly fatter. That came
from his easy life. If things went on like this he might eventually
get too fat to squeeze through a door. Then, when the time came,
they would have to cut up his corpse if they didn't want to damage the
door. For far too long he entertained himself with thoughts of
this kind. In the evening he told his brothers he had been to
the music-hall. They laughed.
After
a while his brothers remembered that it was many weeks since he had
last been out. They took him along once: he felt faint.
When a child took him out for a walk it ran off to play and he was
seized by a great fear and was not brought home till late at night.
Then the brothers who had been worried about him laughed and said:
'You must have been with a woman,' and 'We can't get rid of you, you
see'. They meant it as a joke, being glad to have him back
again.
That
night he could not get to sleep for a long time. Those two sentences
settled down like squatters and made themselves at home in his brain
which had become as inhospitable to the brighter side of life as a
house without windows is to cheerful lodgers. He had not seen
their faces; their remarks were nasty. When he had thought about
this for a long time without coming to any conclusion, he put such
thoughts aside like chewed-up grape skins which lie on the dirty floor
and make your feet slip.
One
of the brothers once said to him at mealtime: 'Don't push your food
with you hand. Use two spoons instead.' Deeply shocked, he
put down his fork and in the air he saw children eating. They
straight-away calmed him down but after a while that brother started
having his food brought to him in the factory. This was because
of the long journey. The blind man, who went walking by himself
for at least eight hours a day, had not yet composed his thoughts
about it when the other brother idly asked if he was having a lot of
difficulty washing himself. From that day on the blind man had
aversion to water, like a dog with rabies. For now it appeared
to him that he had been patient long enough and that there was no
reason why his brothers should live in pleasure if he was perishing in
misery and loneliness.
He
grew a beard and could no longer recognize himself. His clothes
were cleaned by his brothers but from then on the stains from the food
which he spilt on his shirt grew worse and worse. Around the
same time he acquired the inexplicable habit of wanting to lie on the
ground like an animal.
He
grew so dirty that his brothers could not take him anywhere. Now
he had to spend all Sunday alone, going for walks. On such
Sundays various mishaps occurred. Once he fell with the
washbasin and spilt it on his brother's bed, which took a long time to
dry. Another time he put on his brother's trousers and soiled
them. When the brothers realized that he was doing this
deliberately they felt very sorry for him at first, then they asked
him not to do such things; their misfortune was great enough. He
listened quietly, his head bowed, and guarded the sentence in his
heart.
They
also tried to get him to work. They had absolutely no success.
He was so purposely clumsy that he ruined the material. They
came to see that he was growing more ill-natured every day, but could
not do anything about it.
So
the blind man walked in darkness and pondered how he could increase
his sufferings in order to endure them better. For it seemed to
him that a great torment was easier to bear than a small one.
He
who had always been so clean that his mother in her life-time had held
him up as an example to his brothers, now began to foul himself by
urinating into his clothes.
This
made his brothers deliberate how to get him into an institution. He
listened to their deliberations from an adjoining room. And when
he though of the institution, all his past suffering seemed bright and
beautiful, so much did he hate the prospect. There are more
people like me there, he thought, ones who have come to terms with
their misery, ones who endure it better; in that place we shall be
tempted to forgive God; I'm not going there.
When
the brothers had left he sat for a long time in deep contemplation,
and five minutes before he expected them back he turned on the gas
tap. He turned it off again when they were delayed.
However, when he heard them on the stairs he turned it on once more
and lay down on his bed. They found him there and were seized
with a great fear. They took pains with him for one whole
evening and tried to revive his interest in life. Obstinately he
resisted their offers. That was one of the best days of his
life. But then the procedure to admit him to an Institution for the
Blind was speeded up.
On
the evening before the appointed day the blind man was in their home
alone and set fire to it. His brothers returned unexpectedly
early and put out the blaze. While doing so one of them could
not contain his anger and began to yell at the blind man. He
enumerated all the misfortunes they had endured on his account,
omitting no cause of ignominy or occasion for anxiety but on the
contrary exaggerating every single point. The blind man listened
patiently and his face showed his distress. Then the other brother,
who still took pity on him, tried to comfort him as much as possible.
He sat up with him for half the night and held him in his arms.
But the blind brother did not say a word.
The
next day the brothers had to go to work, and did so with a heavy
heart. And when they came home that evening to take him to the
Institution, the blind man had disappeared.
When
evening came, on hearing the town clocks strike, the blind man had
descended the steps. Towards what? Towards death. He
has groped his way laboriously through the streets, had fallen, been
laughed at, pushed and berated. Then he reached the edge of the town.
It
was a very cold winter's day. The blind man was actually glad to
be freezing cold. He had been driven out of his house.
Everyone had turned against him. He didn't care. He made
use of the cold sky for his own destruction. God was not
forgiven.
He
could not accept it. An injustice and had been done to him.
He had gone blind, blind through no fault of his own, and had then
been driven out in the ice and the snowy wind. This was the work
of his own brothers, who were privileged to see.
The
blind man crossed a meadow till he came to a stream. He stepped
in. He thought: Now I shall die. Now I shall be
forced into the river. Job was not blind. Never has anyone
borne greater sufferin. Then he swam down the stream
