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# 2024-05-27 - The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells | |
I found this short story referenced in a philosophical paper about the | |
relative merits of hearing and sight. The philosophical question of: | |
"Is it better to be blind or deaf?" | |
This story presents a thought experiment where a seeing man is | |
abruptly dumped into an all-blind community. The premise reminds me | |
a little of A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, where the | |
Connecticut Yankee has the advantage of future knowledge and | |
technology that nobody else has. Only in this story, the main | |
character, Nunez, has sight, not future knowledge. One can imagine | |
how that might turn out... | |
Without further do, here is the full text of the short story. | |
# The Country of the Blind | |
Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snows | |
of Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies that | |
mysterious mountain valley, cut off from the world of men, the Country | |
of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world | |
that men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy | |
pass into its equable meadows; and thither indeed men came, a family | |
or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an | |
evil Spanish ruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, | |
when it was night in Quito for seventeen days, and the water was boiling | |
at Yaguachi and all the fish floating dying even as far as Guayaquil; | |
everywhere along the Pacific slopes there were land-slips and swift | |
thawings and sudden floods, and one whole side of the old Arauca crest | |
slipped and came down in thunder, and cut off the Country of the Blind | |
for ever from the exploring feet of men. But one of these early settlers | |
had chanced to be on the hither side of the gorges when the world had | |
so terribly shaken itself, and he perforce had to forget his wife and | |
his child and all the friends and possessions he had left up there, and | |
start life over again in the lower world. He started it again but ill, | |
blindness overtook him, and he died of punishment in the mines; but | |
the story he told begot a legend that lingers along the length of the | |
Cordilleras of the Andes to this day. | |
He told of his reason for venturing back from that fastness, into which | |
he had first been carried lashed to a llama, beside a vast bale of | |
gear, when he was a child. The valley, he said, had in it all that the | |
heart of man could desire--sweet water, pasture, and even climate, | |
slopes of rich brown soil with tangles of a shrub that bore an excellent | |
fruit, and on one side great hanging forests of pine that held the | |
avalanches high. Far overhead, on three sides, vast cliffs of grey-green | |
rock were capped by cliffs of ice; but the glacier stream came not to | |
them but flowed away by the farther slopes, and only now and then huge | |
ice masses fell on the valley side. In this valley it neither rained | |
nor snowed, but the abundant springs gave a rich green pasture, that | |
irrigation would spread over all the valley space. The settlers did well | |
indeed there. Their beasts did well and multiplied, and but one thing | |
marred their happiness. Yet it was enough to mar it greatly. A strange | |
disease had come upon them, and had made all the children born to them | |
there--and indeed, several older children also--blind. It was to seek | |
some charm or antidote against this plague of blindness that he had with | |
fatigue and danger and difficulty returned down the gorge. In those | |
days, in such cases, men did not think of germs and infections but of | |
sins; and it seemed to him that the reason of this affliction must lie | |
in the negligence of these priestless immigrants to set up a shrine so | |
soon as they entered the valley. He wanted a shrine--a handsome, cheap, | |
effectual shrine--to be erected in the valley; he wanted relics and | |
such-like potent things of faith, blessed objects and mysterious medals | |
and prayers. In his wallet he had a bar of native silver for which | |
he would not account; he insisted there was none in the valley with | |
something of the insistence of an inexpert liar. They had all clubbed | |
their money and ornaments together, having little need for such treasure | |
up there, he said, to buy them holy help against their ill. I figure | |
this dim-eyed young mountaineer, sunburnt, gaunt, and anxious, hat-brim | |
clutched feverishly, a man all unused to the ways of the lower world, | |
telling this story to some keen-eyed, attentive priest before the great | |
convulsion; I can picture him presently seeking to return with pious and | |
infallible remedies against that trouble, and the infinite dismay with | |
which he must have faced the tumbled vastness where the gorge had once | |
come out. But the rest of his story of mischances is lost to me, save | |
that I know of his evil death after several years. Poor stray from that | |
remoteness! The stream that had once made the gorge now bursts from the | |
mouth of a rocky cave, and the legend his poor, ill-told story set going | |
developed into the legend of a race of blind men somewhere "over there" | |
one may still hear to-day. | |
And amidst the little population of that now isolated and forgotten | |
valley the disease ran its course. The old became groping and purblind, | |
the young saw but dimly, and the children that were born to them saw | |
never at all. But life was very easy in that snow-rimmed basin, lost to | |
all the world, with neither thorns nor briars, with no evil insects nor | |
any beasts save the gentle breed of llamas they had lugged and thrust | |
and followed up the beds of the shrunken rivers in the gorges up which | |
they had come. The seeing had become purblind so gradually that they | |
scarcely noted their loss. They guided the sightless youngsters hither | |
and thither until they knew the whole Valley marvellously, and when at | |
last sight died out among them the race lived on. They had even time to | |
adapt themselves to the blind control of fire, which they made carefully | |
in stoves of stone. They were a simple strain of people at the first, | |
unlettered, only slightly touched with the Spanish civilisation, but | |
with something of a tradition of the arts of old Peru and of its lost | |
philosophy. Generation followed generation. They forgot many things; | |
they devised many things. Their tradition of the greater world they | |
came from became mythical in colour and uncertain. In all things save | |
sight they were strong and able, and presently the chance of birth | |
and heredity sent one who had an original mind and who could talk and | |
persuade among them, and then afterwards another. These two passed, | |
leaving their effects, and the little community grew in numbers and in | |
understanding, and met and settled social and economic problems that | |
arose. Generation followed generation. Generation followed generation. | |
There came a time when a child was born who was fifteen generations from | |
that ancestor who went out of the valley with a bar of silver to seek | |
God's aid, and who never returned. Thereabouts it chanced that a man | |
came into this community from the outer world. And this is the story of | |
that man. | |
He was a mountaineer from the country near Quito, a man who had been | |
down to the sea and had seen the world, a reader of books in an original | |
way, an acute and enterprising man, and he was taken on by a party of | |
Englishmen who had come out to Ecuador to climb mountains, to replace | |
one of their three Swiss guides who had fallen ill. He climbed here | |
and he climbed there, and then came the attempt on Parascotopetl, the | |
Matterhorn of the Andes, in which he was lost to the outer world. | |
The story of the accident has been written a dozen times. Pointer's | |
narrative is the best. He tells how the little party worked their | |
difficult and almost vertical way up to the very foot of the last and | |
greatest precipice, and how they built a night shelter amidst the snow | |
upon a little shelf of rock, and, with a touch of real dramatic power, | |
how presently they found Nunez had gone from them. They shouted, and | |
there was no reply; shouted and whistled, and for the rest of that night | |
they slept no more. | |
As the morning broke they saw the traces of his fall. It seems | |
impossible he could have uttered a sound. He had slipped eastward | |
towards the unknown side of the mountain; far below he had struck a | |
steep slope of snow, and ploughed his way down it in the midst of a | |
snow avalanche. His track went straight to the edge of a frightful | |
precipice, and beyond that everything was hidden. Far, far below, and | |
hazy with distance, they could see trees rising out of a narrow, shut-in | |
valley--the lost Country of the Blind. But they did not know it was | |
the lost Country of the Blind, nor distinguish it in any way from any | |
other narrow streak of upland valley. Unnerved by this disaster, they | |
abandoned their attempt in the afternoon, and Pointer was called away to | |
the war before he could make another attack. To this day Parascotopetl | |
lifts an unconquered crest, and Pointer's shelter crumbles unvisited | |
amidst the snows. | |
And the man who fell survived. | |
At the end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in the | |
midst of a cloud of snow upon a snow slope even steeper than the one | |
above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without a | |
bone broken in his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and | |
at last rolled out and lay still, buried amidst a softening heap of the | |
white masses that had accompanied and saved him. He came to himself with | |
a dim fancy that he was ill in bed; then realised his position with a | |
mountaineer's intelligence, and worked himself loose and, after a rest | |
or so, out until he saw the stars. He rested flat upon his chest for a | |
space, wondering where he was and what had happened to him. He explored | |
his limbs, and discovered that several of his buttons were gone and his | |
coat turned over his head. His knife had gone from his pocket and his | |
hat was lost, though he had tied it under his chin. He recalled that | |
he had been looking for loose stones to raise his piece of the shelter | |
wall. His ice-axe had disappeared. | |
He decided he must have fallen, and looked up to see, exaggerated by the | |
ghastly light of the rising moon, the tremendous flight he had taken. | |
For a while he lay, gazing blankly at that vast pale cliff towering | |
above, rising moment by moment out of a subsiding tide of darkness. Its | |
phantasmal, mysterious beauty held him for a space, and then he was | |
seized with a paroxysm of sobbing laughter... | |
After a great interval of time he became aware that he was near | |
the lower edge of the snow. Below, down what was now a moonlit and | |
practicable slope, he saw the dark and broken appearance of rock-strewn | |
turf. He struggled to his feet, aching in every joint and limb, got down | |
painfully from the heaped loose snow about him, went downward until he | |
was on the turf, and there dropped rather than lay beside a boulder, | |
drank deep from the flask in his inner pocket, and instantly fell | |
asleep... | |
He was awakened by the singing of birds in the trees far below. | |
He sat up and perceived he was on a little alp at the foot of a vast | |
precipice, that was grooved by the gully down which he and his snow | |
had come. Over against him another wall of rock reared itself against | |
the sky. The gorge between these precipices ran east and west and was | |
full of the morning sunlight, which lit to the westward the mass of | |
fallen mountain that closed the descending gorge. Below him it seemed | |
there was a precipice equally steep, but behind the snow in the gully | |
he found a sort of chimney-cleft dripping with snow-water down which | |
a desperate man might venture. He found it easier than it seemed, and | |
came at last to another desolate alp, and then after a rock climb of no | |
particular difficulty to a steep slope of trees. He took his bearings | |
and turned his face up the gorge, for he saw it opened out above upon | |
green meadows, among which he now glimpsed quite distinctly a cluster | |
of stone huts of unfamiliar fashion. At times his progress was like | |
clambering along the face of a wall, and after a time the rising sun | |
ceased to strike along the gorge, the voices of the singing birds died | |
away, and the air grew cold and dark about him. But the distant valley | |
with its houses was all the brighter for that. He came presently to | |
talus, and among the rocks he noted--for he was an observant man--an | |
unfamiliar fern that seemed to clutch out of the crevices with intense | |
green hands. He picked a frond or so and gnawed its stalk and found it | |
helpful. | |
About midday he came at last out of the throat of the gorge into the | |
plain and the sunlight. He was stiff and weary; he sat down in the | |
shadow of a rock, filled up his flask with water from a spring and | |
drank it down, and remained for a time resting before he went on to the | |
houses. | |
They were very strange to his eyes, and indeed the whole aspect of | |
that valley became, as he regarded it, queerer and more unfamiliar. | |
The greater part of its surface was lush green meadow, starred with | |
many beautiful flowers, irrigated with extraordinary care, and bearing | |
evidence of systematic cropping piece by piece. High up and ringing | |
the valley about was a wall, and what appeared to be a circumferential | |
water-channel, from which the little trickles of water that fed the | |
meadow plants came, and on the higher slopes above this flocks of llamas | |
cropped the scanty herbage. Sheds, apparently shelters or feeding-places | |
for the llamas, stood against the boundary wall here and there. The | |
irrigation streams ran together into a main channel down the centre of | |
the valley, and this was enclosed on either side by a wall breast high. | |
This gave a singularly urban quality to this secluded place, a quality | |
that was greatly enhanced by the fact that a number of paths paved with | |
black and white stones, and each with a curious little kerb at the side, | |
ran hither and thither in an orderly manner. The houses of the central | |
village were quite unlike the casual and higgledy-piggledy agglomeration | |
of the mountain villages he knew; they stood in a continuous row on | |
either side of a central street of astonishing cleanness; here and | |
there their particoloured facade was pierced by a door, and not a | |
solitary window broke their even frontage. They were particoloured with | |
extraordinary irregularity, smeared with a sort of plaster that was | |
sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimes slate-coloured or dark brown; | |
and it was the sight of this wild plastering first brought the word | |
"blind" into the thoughts of the explorer. "The good man who did that," | |
he thought, "must have been as blind as a bat." | |
He descended a steep place, and so came to the wall and channel that ran | |
about the valley, near where the latter spouted out its surplus contents | |
into the deeps of the gorge in a thin and wavering thread of cascade. He | |
could now see a number of men and women resting on piled heaps of grass, | |
as if taking a siesta, in the remoter part of the meadow, and nearer | |
the village a number of recumbent children, and then nearer at hand | |
three men carrying pails on yokes along a little path that ran from the | |
encircling wall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments | |
of llama cloth and boots and belts of leather, and they wore caps of | |
cloth with back and ear flaps. They followed one another in single file, | |
walking slowly and yawning as they walked, like men who have been up all | |
night. There was something so reassuringly prosperous and respectable in | |
their bearing that after a moment's hesitation Nunez stood forward as | |
conspicuously as possible upon his rock, and gave vent to a mighty shout | |
that echoed round the valley. | |
The three men stopped, and moved their heads as though they were | |
looking about them. They turned their faces this way and that, and | |
Nunez gesticulated with freedom. But they did not appear to see him for | |
all his gestures, and after a time, directing themselves towards the | |
mountains far away to the right, they shouted as if in answer. Nunez | |
bawled again, and then once more, and as he gestured ineffectually the | |
word "blind" came up to the top of his thoughts. "The fools must be | |
blind," he said. | |
When at last, after much shouting and wrath, Nunez crossed the stream by | |
a little bridge, came through a gate in the wall, and approached them, | |
he was sure that they were blind. He was sure that this was the Country | |
of the Blind of which the legends told. Conviction had sprung upon him, | |
and a sense of great and rather enviable adventure. The three stood side | |
by side, not looking at him, but with their ears directed towards him, | |
judging him by his unfamiliar steps. They stood close together like men | |
a little afraid, and he could see their eyelids closed and sunken, as | |
though the very balls beneath had shrunk away. There was an expression | |
near awe on their faces. | |
"A man," one said, in hardly recognisable Spanish--"a man it is--a man | |
or a spirit--coming down from the rocks." | |
But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who enters upon | |
life. All the old stories of the lost valley and the Country of the | |
Blind had come back to his mind, and through his thoughts ran this old | |
proverb, as if it were a refrain-- | |
"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King." | |
"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King." | |
And very civilly he gave them greeting. He talked to them and used his | |
eyes. | |
"Where does he come from, brother Pedro?" asked one. | |
"Down out of the rocks." | |
"Over the mountains I come," said Nunez, "out of the country beyond | |
there--where men can see. From near Bogota, where there are a hundred | |
thousands of people, and where the city passes out of sight." | |
"Sight?" muttered Pedro. "Sight?" | |
"He comes," said the second blind man, "out of the rocks." | |
The cloth of their coats Nunez saw was curiously fashioned, each with a | |
different sort of stitching. | |
They startled him by a simultaneous movement towards him, each with a | |
hand outstretched. He stepped back from the advance of these spread | |
fingers. | |
"Come hither," said the third blind man, following his motion and | |
clutching him neatly. | |
And they held Nunez and felt him over, saying no word further until they | |
had done so. | |
"Carefully," he cried, with a finger in his eye, and found they thought | |
that organ, with its fluttering lids, a queer thing in him. They went | |
over it again. | |
"A strange creature, Correa," said the one called Pedro. "Feel the | |
coarseness of his hair. Like a llama's hair." | |
"Rough he is as the rocks that begot him," said Correa, investigating | |
Nunez's unshaven chin with a soft and slightly moist hand. "Perhaps he | |
will grow finer." Nunez struggled a little under their examination, but | |
they gripped him firm. | |
"Carefully," he said again. | |
"He speaks," said the third man. "Certainly he is a man." | |
"Ugh!" said Pedro, at the roughness of his coat. | |
"And you have come into the world?" asked Pedro. | |
"_Out_ of the world. Over mountains and glaciers; right over above | |
there, half-way to the sun. Out of the great big world that goes down, | |
twelve days' journey to the sea." | |
They scarcely seemed to heed him. "Our fathers have told us men may be | |
made by the forces of Nature," said Correa. "It is the warmth of things | |
and moisture, and rottenness--rottenness." | |
"Let us lead him to the elders," said Pedro. | |
"Shout first," said Correa, "lest the children be afraid... This is a | |
marvellous occasion." | |
So they shouted, and Pedro went first and took Nunez by the hand to lead | |
him to the houses. | |
He drew his hand away. "I can see," he said. | |
"See?" said Correa. | |
"Yes, see," said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against | |
Pedro's pail. | |
"His senses are still imperfect," said the third blind man. "He | |
stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand." | |
"As you will," said Nunez, and was led along, laughing. | |
It seemed they knew nothing of sight. | |
Well, all in good time he would teach them. | |
He heard people shouting, and saw a number of figures gathering together | |
in the middle roadway of the village. | |
He found it tax his nerve and patience more than he had anticipated, | |
that first encounter with the population of the Country of the Blind. | |
The place seemed larger as he drew near to it, and the smeared | |
plasterings queerer, and a crowd of children and men and women (the | |
women and girls, he was pleased to note, had some of them quite sweet | |
faces, for all that their eyes were shut and sunken) came about him, | |
holding on to him, touching him with soft, sensitive hands, smelling | |
at him, and listening at every word he spoke. Some of the maidens and | |
children, however, kept aloof as if afraid, and indeed his voice seemed | |
coarse and rude beside their softer notes. They mobbed him. His three | |
guides kept close to him with an effect of proprietorship, and said | |
again and again, "A wild man out of the rock." | |
"Bogota," he said. "Bogota. Over the mountain crests." | |
"A wild man--using wild words," said Pedro. "Did you hear that-- | |
_Bogota_? His mind is hardly formed yet. He has only the beginnings of | |
speech." | |
A little boy nipped his hand. "Bogota!" he said mockingly. | |
"Ay! A city to your village. I come from the great world--where men have | |
eyes and see." | |
"His name's Bogota," they said. | |
"He stumbled," said Correa, "stumbled twice as we came hither." | |
"Bring him to the elders." | |
And they thrust him suddenly through a doorway into a room as black as | |
pitch, save at the end there faintly glowed a fire. The crowd closed in | |
behind him and shut out all but the faintest glimmer of day, and before | |
he could arrest himself he had fallen headlong over the feet of a seated | |
man. His arm, outflung, struck the face of someone else as he went down; | |
he felt the soft impact of features and heard a cry of anger, and for a | |
moment he struggled against a number of hands that clutched him. It was | |
a one-sided fight. An inkling of the situation came to him, and he lay | |
quiet. | |
"I fell down," he said; "I couldn't see in this pitchy darkness." | |
There was a pause as if the unseen persons about him tried to understand | |
his words. Then the voice of Correa said: "He is but newly formed. | |
He stumbles as he walks and mingles words that mean nothing with his | |
speech." | |
Others also said things about him that he heard or understood | |
imperfectly. | |
"May I sit up?" he asked, in a pause. "I will not struggle against you | |
again." | |
They consulted and let him rise. | |
The voice of an older man began to question him, and Nunez found himself | |
trying to explain the great world out of which he had fallen, and the | |
sky and mountains and sight and such-like marvels, to these elders who | |
sat in darkness in the Country of the Blind. And they would believe | |
and understand nothing whatever he told them, a thing quite outside | |
his expectation. They would not even understand many of his words. For | |
fourteen generations these people had been blind and cut off from all | |
the seeing world; the names for all the things of sight had faded and | |
changed; the story of the outer world was faded and changed to a child's | |
story; and they had ceased to concern themselves with anything beyond | |
the rocky slopes above their circling wall. Blind men of genius had | |
arisen among them and questioned the shreds of belief and tradition | |
they had brought with them from their seeing days, and had dismissed | |
all these things as idle fancies, and replaced them with new and saner | |
explanations. Much of their imagination had shrivelled with their eyes, | |
and they had made for themselves new imaginations with their ever more | |
sensitive ears and finger-tips. Slowly Nunez realised this; that his | |
expectation of wonder and reverence at his origin and his gifts was not | |
to be borne out; and after his poor attempt to explain sight to them had | |
been set aside as the confused version of a new-made being describing | |
the marvels of his incoherent sensations, he subsided, a little dashed, | |
into listening to their instruction. And the eldest of the blind men | |
explained to him life and philosophy and religion, how that the world | |
(meaning their valley) had been first an empty hollow in the rocks, and | |
then had come, first, inanimate things without the gift of touch, and | |
llamas and a few other creatures that had little sense, and then men, | |
and at last angels, whom one could hear singing and making fluttering | |
sounds, but whom no one could touch at all, which puzzled Nunez greatly | |
until he thought of the birds. | |
He went on to tell Nunez how this time had been divided into the warm | |
and the cold, which are the blind equivalents of day and night, and how | |
it was good to sleep in the warm and work during the cold, so that now, | |
but for his advent, the whole town of the blind would have been asleep. | |
He said Nunez must have been specially created to learn and serve the | |
wisdom, they had acquired, and that for all his mental incoherency and | |
stumbling behaviour he must have courage, and do his best to learn, and | |
at that all the people in the doorway murmured encouragingly. He said | |
the night--for the blind call their day night--was now far gone, and it | |
behoved every one to go back to sleep. He asked Nunez if he knew how to | |
sleep, and Nunez said he did, but that before sleep he wanted food. | |
They brought him food--llama's milk in a bowl, and rough salted | |
bread--and led him into a lonely place, to eat out of their hearing, and | |
afterwards to slumber until the chill of the mountain evening roused | |
them to begin their day again. But Nunez slumbered not at all. | |
Instead, he sat up in the place where they had left him, resting his | |
limbs and turning the unanticipated circumstances of his arrival over | |
and over in his mind. | |
Every now and then he laughed, sometimes with amusement, and sometimes | |
with indignation. | |
"Unformed mind!" he said. "Got no senses yet! They little know they've | |
been insulting their heaven-sent king and master. I see I must bring | |
them to reason. Let me think--let me think." | |
He was still thinking when the sun set. | |
Nunez had an eye for all beautiful things, and it seemed to him that | |
the glow upon the snowfields and glaciers that rose about the valley on | |
every side was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His eyes went | |
from that inaccessible glory to the village and irrigated fields, fast | |
sinking into the twilight, and suddenly a wave of emotion took him, and | |
he thanked God from the bottom of his heart that the power of sight had | |
been given him. | |
He heard a voice calling to him from out of the village. "Ya ho there, | |
Bogota! Come hither!" | |
At that he stood up smiling. He would show these people once and for all | |
what sight would do for a man. They would seek him, but not find him. | |
"You move not, Bogota," said the voice. | |
He laughed noiselessly, and made two stealthy steps aside from the path. | |
"Trample not on the grass, Bogota; that is not allowed." | |
Nunez had scarcely heard the sound he made himself. He stopped amazed. | |
The owner of the voice came running up the piebald path towards him. | |
He stepped back into the pathway. "Here I am," he said. | |
"Why did you not come when I called you?" said the blind man. "Must you | |
be led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?" | |
Nunez laughed. "I can see it," he said. | |
"There is no such word as _see_," said the blind man, after a pause. | |
"Cease this folly, and follow the sound of my feet." | |
Nunez followed, a little annoyed. | |
"My time will come," he said. | |
"You'll learn," the blind man answered. "There is much to learn in the | |
world." | |
"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is | |
King'?" | |
"What is blind?" asked the blind man carelessly over his shoulder. | |
Four days passed, and the fifth found the King of the Blind still | |
incognito, as a clumsy and useless stranger among his subjects. | |
It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than he had | |
supposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his _coup d'etat,_ he | |
did what he was told and learnt the manners and customs of the Country | |
of the Blind. He found working and going about at night a particularly | |
irksome thing, and he decided that that should be the first thing he | |
would change. | |
They led a simple, laborious life, these people, with all the elements | |
of virtue and happiness, as these things can be understood by men. They | |
toiled, but not oppressively; they had food and clothing sufficient for | |
their needs; they had days and seasons of rest; they made much of music | |
and singing, and there was love among them, and little children. | |
It was marvellous with what confidence and precision they went about | |
their ordered world. Everything, you see, had been made to fit their | |
needs; each of the radiating paths of the valley area had a constant | |
angle to the others, and was distinguished by a special notch upon its | |
kerbing; all obstacles and irregularities of path or meadow had long | |
since been cleared away; all their methods and procedure arose naturally | |
from their special needs. Their senses had become marvellously acute; | |
they could hear and judge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces | |
away--could hear the very beating of his heart. Intonation had long | |
replaced expression with them, and touches gesture, and their work with | |
hoe and spade and fork was as free and confident as garden work can be. | |
Their sense of smell was extraordinarily fine; they could distinguish | |
individual differences as readily as a dog can, and they went about the | |
tending of the llamas, who lived among the rocks above and came to the | |
wall for food and shelter, with ease and confidence. It was only when at | |
last Nunez sought to assert himself that he found how easy and confident | |
their movements could be. | |
He rebelled only after he had tried persuasion. | |
He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight. "Look you | |
here, you people," he said. "There are things you do not understand in | |
me." | |
Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with faces | |
downcast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his | |
best to tell them what it was to see. Among his hearers was a girl, | |
with eyelids less red and sunken than the others, so that one could | |
almost fancy she was hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade. | |
He spoke of the beauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of | |
the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity | |
that presently became condemnatory. They told him there were indeed | |
no mountains at all, but that the end of the rocks where the llamas | |
grazed was indeed the end of the world; thence sprang a cavernous | |
roof of the universe, from which the dew and the avalanches fell; and | |
when he maintained stoutly the world had neither end nor roof such | |
as they supposed, they said his thoughts were wicked. So far as he | |
could describe sky and clouds and stars to them it seemed to them a | |
hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of the smooth roof to | |
things in which they believed--it was an article of faith with them | |
that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch. He saw that | |
in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matter | |
altogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. One | |
morning he saw Pedro in the path called Seventeen and coming towards | |
the central houses, but still too far off for hearing or scent, and he | |
told them as much. "In a little while," he prophesied, "Pedro will be | |
here." An old man remarked that Pedro had no business on path Seventeen, | |
and then, as if in confirmation, that individual as he drew near turned | |
and went transversely into path Ten, and so back with nimble paces | |
towards the outer wall. They mocked Nunez when Pedro did not arrive, and | |
afterwards, when he asked Pedro questions to clear his character, Pedro | |
denied and outfaced him, and was afterwards hostile to him. | |
Then he induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping meadows | |
towards the wall with one complacent individual, and to him he promised | |
to describe all that happened among the houses. He noted certain goings | |
and comings, but the things that really seemed to signify to these | |
people happened inside of or behind the windowless houses--the only | |
things they took note of to test him by--and of these he could see or | |
tell nothing; and it was after the failure of this attempt, and the | |
ridicule they could not repress, that he resorted to force. He thought | |
of seizing a spade and suddenly smiting one or two of them to earth, and | |
so in fair combat showing the advantage of eyes. He went so far with | |
that resolution as to seize his spade, and then he discovered a new | |
thing about himself, and that was that it was impossible for him to hit | |
a blind man in cold blood. | |
He hesitated, and found them all aware that he had snatched up the | |
spade. They stood alert, with their heads on one side, and bent ears | |
towards him for what he would do next. | |
"Put that spade down," said one, and he felt a sort of helpless horror. | |
He came near obedience. | |
Then he thrust one backwards against a house wall, and fled past him and | |
out of the village. | |
He went athwart one of their meadows, leaving a track of trampled grass | |
behind his feet, and presently sat down by the side of one of their | |
ways. He felt something of the buoyancy that comes to all men in the | |
beginning of a fight, but more perplexity. He began to realise that you | |
cannot even fight happily with creatures who stand upon a different | |
mental basis to yourself. Far away he saw a number of men carrying | |
spades and sticks come out of the street of houses, and advance in | |
a spreading line along the several paths towards him. They advanced | |
slowly, speaking frequently to one another, and ever and again the whole | |
cordon would halt and sniff the air and listen. | |
The first time they did this Nunez laughed. But afterwards he did not | |
laugh. | |
One struck his trail in the meadow grass, and came stooping and feeling | |
his way along it. | |
For five minutes he watched the slow extension of the cordon, and then | |
his vague disposition to do something forthwith became frantic. He stood | |
up, went a pace or so towards the circumferential wall, turned, and | |
went back a little way. There they all stood in a crescent, still and | |
listening. | |
He also stood still, gripping his spade very tightly in both hands. | |
Should he charge them? | |
The pulse in his ears ran into the rhythm of "In the Country of the | |
Blind the One-eyed Man is King!" | |
Should he charge them? | |
He looked back at the high and unclimbable wall behind--unclimbable | |
because of its smooth plastering, but withal pierced with many little | |
doors, and at the approaching line of seekers. Behind these others were | |
now coming out of the street of houses. | |
Should he charge them? | |
"Bogota!" called one. "Bogota! where are you?" | |
He gripped his spade still tighter, and advanced down the meadows | |
towards the place of habitations, and directly he moved they converged | |
upon him. "I'll hit them if they touch me," he swore; "by Heaven, I | |
will. I'll hit." He called aloud, "Look here, I'm going to do what I | |
like in this valley. Do you hear? I'm going to do what I like and go | |
where I like!" | |
They were moving in upon him quickly, groping, yet moving rapidly. It | |
was like playing blind man's buff, with everyone blindfolded except one. | |
"Get hold of him!" cried one. He found himself in the arc of a loose | |
curve of pursuers. He felt suddenly he must be active and resolute. | |
"You don't understand," he cried in a voice that was meant to be great | |
and resolute, and which broke. "You are blind, and I can see. Leave me | |
alone!" | |
"Bogota! Put down that spade, and come off the grass!" | |
The last order, grotesque in its urban familiarity, produced a gust of | |
anger. | |
"I'll hurt you," he said, sobbing with emotion. "By Heaven, I'll hurt | |
you. Leave me alone!" | |
He began to run, not knowing clearly where to run. He ran from the | |
nearest blind man, because it was a horror to hit him. He stopped, and | |
then made a dash to escape from their closing ranks. He made for where a | |
gap was wide, and the men on either side, with a quick perception of the | |
approach of his paces, rushed in on one another. He sprang forward, and | |
then saw he must be caught, and _swish_! the spade had struck. He felt | |
the soft thud of hand and arm, and the man was down with a yell of pain, | |
and he was through. | |
Through! And then he was close to the street of houses again, and blind | |
men, whirling spades and stakes, were running with a sort of reasoned | |
swiftness hither and thither. | |
He heard steps behind him just in time, and found a tall man rushing | |
forward and swiping at the sound of him. He lost his nerve, hurled his | |
spade a yard wide at his antagonist, and whirled about and fled, fairly | |
yelling as he dodged another. | |
He was panic-stricken. He ran furiously to and fro, dodging when there | |
was no need to dodge, and in his anxiety to see on every side of him at | |
once, stumbling. For a moment he was down and they heard his fall. Far | |
away in the circumferential wall a little doorway looked like heaven, | |
and he set off in a wild rush for it. He did not even look round at his | |
pursuers until it was gained, and he had stumbled across the bridge, | |
clambered a little way among the rocks, to the surprise and dismay of | |
a young llama, who went leaping out of sight, and lay down sobbing for | |
breath. | |
And so his _coup d'etat_ came to an end. | |
He stayed outside the wall of the valley of the Blind for two nights | |
and days without food or shelter, and meditated upon the unexpected. | |
During these meditations he repeated very frequently and always with | |
a profounder note of derision the exploded proverb: "In the Country | |
of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King." He thought chiefly of ways of | |
fighting and conquering these people, and it grew clear that for him no | |
practicable way was possible. He had no weapons, and now it would be | |
hard to get one. | |
The canker of civilisation had got to him even in Bogota, and he could | |
not find it in himself to go down and assassinate a blind man. Of | |
course, if he did that, he might then dictate terms on the threat of | |
assassinating them all. But--sooner or later he must sleep!... | |
He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable under | |
pine boughs while the frost fell at night, and--with less confidence--to | |
catch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it--perhaps by | |
hammering it with a stone--and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. | |
But the llamas had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful | |
brown eyes, and spat when he drew near. Fear came on him the second | |
day and fits of shivering. Finally he crawled down to the wall of the | |
Country of the Blind and tried to make terms. He crawled along by the | |
stream, shouting, until two blind men came out to the gate and talked to | |
him. | |
"I was mad," he said. "But I was only newly made." | |
They said that was better. | |
He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done. | |
Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and | |
they took that as a favourable sign. | |
They asked him if he still thought he could "_see_" | |
"No," he said. "That was folly. The word means nothing--less than | |
nothing!" | |
They asked him what was overhead. | |
"About ten times ten the height of a man there is a roof above the | |
world-- of rock--and very, very smooth." ... He burst again into | |
hysterical tears. "Before you ask me any more, give me some food or I | |
shall die." | |
He expected dire punishments, but these blind people were capable of | |
toleration. They regarded his rebellion as but one more proof of his | |
general idiocy and inferiority; and after they had whipped him they | |
appointed him to do the simplest and heaviest work they had for anyone | |
to do, and he, seeing no other way of living, did submissively what he | |
was told. | |
He was ill for some days, and they nursed him kindly. That refined his | |
submission. But they insisted on his lying in the dark, and that was | |
a great misery. And blind philosophers came and talked to him of the | |
wicked levity of his mind, and reproved him so impressively for his | |
doubts about the lid of rock that covered their cosmic casserole that he | |
almost doubted whether indeed he was not the victim of hallucination in | |
not seeing it overhead. | |
So Nunez became a citizen of the Country of the Blind, and these | |
people ceased to be a generalised people and became individualities | |
and familiar to him, while the world beyond the mountains became more | |
and more remote and unreal. There was Yacob, his master, a kindly | |
man when not annoyed; there was Pedro, Yacob's nephew; and there was | |
Medina-sarote, who was the youngest daughter of Yacob. She was little | |
esteemed in the world of the blind, because she had a clear-cut face, | |
and lacked that satisfying, glossy smoothness that is the blind man's | |
ideal of feminine beauty; but Nunez thought her beautiful at first, and | |
presently the most beautiful thing in the whole creation. Her closed | |
eyelids were not sunken and red after the common way of the valley, but | |
lay as though they might open again at any moment; and she had long | |
eyelashes, which were considered a grave disfigurement. And her voice | |
was strong, and did not satisfy the acute hearing of the valley swains. | |
So that she had no lover. | |
There came a time when Nunez thought that, could he win her, he would be | |
resigned to live in the valley for all the rest of his days. | |
He watched her; he sought opportunities of doing her little services, | |
and presently he found that she observed him. Once at a rest-day | |
gathering they sat side by side in the dim starlight, and the music | |
was sweet. His hand came upon hers and he dared to clasp it. Then very | |
tenderly she returned his pressure. And one day, as they were at their | |
meal in the darkness, he felt her hand very softly seeking him, and as | |
it chanced the fire leapt then and he saw the tenderness of her face. | |
He sought to speak to her. | |
He went to her one day when she was sitting in the summer moonlight | |
spinning. The light made her a thing of silver and mystery. He sat | |
down at her feet and told her he loved her, and told her how beautiful | |
she seemed to him. He had a lover's voice, he spoke with a tender | |
reverence that came near to awe, and she had never before been touched | |
by adoration. She made him no definite answer, but it was clear his | |
words pleased her. | |
After that he talked to her whenever he could take an opportunity. The | |
valley became the world for him, and the world beyond the mountains | |
where men lived in sunlight seemed no more than a fairy tale he would | |
some day pour into her ears. Very tentatively and timidly he spoke to | |
her of sight. | |
Sight seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she listened | |
to his description of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet | |
white-lit beauty as though it was a guilty indulgence. She did not | |
believe, she could only half understand, but she was mysteriously | |
delighted, and it seemed to him that she completely understood. | |
His love lost its awe and took courage. Presently he was for demanding | |
her of Yacob and the elders in marriage, but she became fearful and | |
delayed. And it was one of her elder sisters who first told Yacob that | |
Medina-sarote and Nunez were in love. | |
There was from the first very great opposition to the marriage of Nunez | |
and Medina-sarote; not so much because they valued her as because | |
they held him as a being apart, an idiot, incompetent thing below the | |
permissible level of a man. Her sisters opposed it bitterly as bringing | |
discredit on them all; and old Yacob, though he had formed a sort of | |
liking for his clumsy, obedient serf, shook his head and said the thing | |
could not be. The young men were all angry at the idea of corrupting | |
the race, and one went so far as to revile and strike Nunez. He struck | |
back. Then for the first time he found an advantage in seeing, even by | |
twilight, and after that fight was over no one was disposed to raise a | |
hand against him. But they still found his marriage impossible. | |
Old Yacob had a tenderness for his last little daughter, and was grieved | |
to have her weep upon his shoulder. | |
"You see, my dear, he's an idiot. He has delusions; he can't do anything | |
right." | |
"I know," wept Medina-sarote. "But he's better than he was. He's getting | |
better. And he's strong, dear father, and kind--stronger and kinder than | |
any other man in the world. And he loves me--and, father, I love him." | |
Old Yacob was greatly distressed to find her inconsolable, and, | |
besides-- what made it more distressing--he liked Nunez for many things. | |
So he went and sat in the windowless council-chamber with the other | |
elders and watched the trend of the talk, and said, at the proper time, | |
"He's better than he was. Very likely, some day, we shall find him as | |
sane as ourselves." | |
Then afterwards one of the elders, who thought deeply, had an idea. He | |
was the great doctor among these people, their medicine-man, and he had | |
a very philosophical and inventive mind, and the idea of curing Nunez | |
of his peculiarities appealed to him. One day when Yacob was present he | |
returned to the topic of Nunez. | |
"I have examined Bogota," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I | |
think very probably he might be cured." | |
"That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob. | |
"His brain is affected," said the blind doctor. | |
The elders murmured assent. | |
"Now, _what_ affects it?" | |
"Ah!" said old Yacob. | |
"_This_," said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queer | |
things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable | |
soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in | |
such a way as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has | |
eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a | |
state of constant irritation and distraction." | |
"Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?" | |
"And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to | |
cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical | |
operation--namely, to remove these irritant bodies." | |
"And then he will be sane?" | |
"Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen." | |
"Thank Heaven for science!" said old Yacob, and went forth at once to | |
tell Nunez of his happy hopes. | |
But Nunez's manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold | |
and disappointing. | |
"One might think," he said, "from the tone you take, that you did not | |
care for my daughter." | |
It was Medina-sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons. | |
"_You_ do not want me," he said, "to lose my gift of sight?" | |
She shook her head. | |
"My world is sight." | |
Her head drooped lower. | |
"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things--the | |
flowers, the lichens among the rocks, the lightness and softness on a | |
piece of fur, the far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets | |
and the stars. And there is _you_. For you alone it is good to have | |
sight, to see your sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, | |
beautiful hands folded together... It is these eyes of mine you won, | |
these eyes that hold me to you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must | |
touch you, hear you, and never see you again. I must come under that | |
roof of rock and stone and darkness, that horrible roof under which your | |
imagination stoops... No; you would not have me do that?" | |
A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped, and left the thing a | |
question. | |
"I wish," she said, "sometimes----" She paused. | |
"Yes," said he, a little apprehensively. | |
"I wish sometimes--you would not talk like that." | |
"Like what?" | |
"I know it's pretty--it's your imagination. I love it, but _now_----" | |
He felt cold. "_Now_?" he said faintly. | |
She sat quite still. | |
"You mean--you think--I should be better, better perhaps-----" | |
He was realising things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed, anger | |
at the dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of | |
understanding--a sympathy near akin to pity. | |
"_Dear_," he said, and he could see by her whiteness how intensely her | |
spirit pressed against the things she could not say. He put his arms | |
about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence. | |
"If I were to consent to this?" he said at last, in a voice that was | |
very gentle. | |
She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. "Oh, if you would," she | |
sobbed, "if only you would!" | |
* * * * * | |
For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitude | |
and inferiority to the level of a blind citizen, Nunez knew nothing of | |
sleep, and all through the warm sunlit hours, while the others slumbered | |
happily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his | |
mind to bear on his dilemma. He had given his answer, he had given his | |
consent, and still he was not sure. And at last work-time was over, the | |
sun rose in splendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision | |
began for him. He had a few minutes with Medina-sarote before she went | |
apart to sleep. | |
"To-morrow," he said, "I shall see no more." | |
"Dear heart!" she answered, and pressed his hands with all her strength. | |
"They will hurt you but little," she said; "and you are going through | |
this pain--you are going through it, dear lover, for _me_... Dear, if a | |
woman's heart and life can do it, I will repay you. My dearest one, my | |
dearest with the tender voice, I will repay." | |
He was drenched in pity for himself and her. | |
He held her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers, and looked on | |
her sweet face for the last time. "Good-bye!" he whispered at that dear | |
sight, "good-bye!" | |
And then in silence he turned away from her. | |
She could hear his slow retreating footsteps, and something in the | |
rhythm of them threw her into a passion of weeping. | |
He had fully meant to go to a lonely place where the meadows were | |
beautiful with white narcissus, and there remain until the hour of his | |
sacrifice should come, but as he went he lifted up his eyes and saw the | |
morning, the morning like an angel in golden armour, marching down the | |
steeps... | |
It seemed to him that before this splendour he, and this blind world in | |
the valley, and his love, and all, were no more than a pit of sin. | |
He did not turn aside as he had meant to do, but went on, and passed | |
through the wall of the circumference and out upon the rocks, and his | |
eyes were always upon the sunlit ice and snow. | |
He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to | |
the things beyond he was now to resign for ever. | |
He thought of that great free world he was parted from, the world that | |
was his own, and he had a vision of those further slopes, distance | |
beyond distance, with Bogota, a place of multitudinous stirring beauty, | |
a glory by day, a luminous mystery by night, a place of palaces and | |
fountains and statues and white houses, lying beautifully in the middle | |
distance. He thought how for a day or so one might come down through | |
passes, drawing ever nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways. | |
He thought of the river journey, day by day, from great Bogota to the | |
still vaster world beyond, through towns and villages, forest and desert | |
places, the rushing river day by day, until its banks receded and | |
the big steamers came splashing by, and one had reached the sea--the | |
limitless sea, with its thousand islands, its thousands of islands, | |
and its ships seen dimly far away in their incessant journeyings round | |
and about that greater world. And there, unpent by mountains, one saw | |
the sky--the sky, not such a disc as one saw it here, but an arch of | |
immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps in which the circling stars were | |
floating... | |
His eyes scrutinised the great curtain of the mountains with a keener | |
inquiry. | |
For example, if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, | |
then one might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round | |
in a sort of shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above | |
the gorge. And then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb | |
might be found to take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; | |
and if that chimney failed, then another farther to the east might serve | |
his purpose better. And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit | |
snow there, and half-way up to the crest of those beautiful desolations. | |
He glanced back at the village, then turned right round and regarded it | |
steadfastly. | |
He thought of Medina-sarote, and she had become small and remote. | |
He turned again towards the mountain wall, down which the day had come | |
to him. | |
Then very circumspectly he began to climb. | |
When sunset came he was no longer climbing, but he was far and high. He | |
had been higher, but he was still very high. His clothes were torn, his | |
limbs were blood-stained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as | |
if he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face. | |
From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit and nearly | |
a mile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow, though the | |
mountain summits around him were things of light and fire. The mountain | |
summits around him were things of light and fire, and the little details | |
of the rocks near at hand were drenched with subtle beauty--a vein of | |
green mineral piercing the grey, the flash of crystal faces here and | |
there, a minute, minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his | |
face. There were deep mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening | |
into purple, and purple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the | |
illimitable vastness of the sky. But he heeded these things no longer, | |
but lay quite inactive there, smiling as if he were satisfied merely to | |
have escaped from the valley of the Blind in which he had thought to be | |
King. | |
The glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay | |
peacefully contented under the cold clear stars. | |
# The Relative Value of Sight and Hearing | |
H.G. Wells, in his fanciful novelette, The Country of the Blind, has | |
a well-thought-out sequence of the various phenomena that would | |
accompany total and universal blindness in an entire community. In | |
the case of the full-sensed intruder, Nunez, sight is described as a | |
handicap rendering its possessor a degraded and undesirable addition, | |
to be regarded with contempt, pity and even aversion. The main | |
complaint against Nunez is that he has too much imagination, and his | |
descriptions of the splendors of the outside world are regarded as | |
the vagaries of a madman. When it is discovered that his affliction | |
seems due to his eyes and mobile lids, lacking among the natives, it | |
is proposed to remove his handicap with a surgical operation that, | |
after cutting out the eyeballs, it was hoped would lift him, from a | |
grossly inferior plane to the level of the normal citizen. | |
The domestic life, the limitations imposed by blindness, the various | |
ingenious means and makeshifts to render it a minimum of a handicap, | |
the living and routine habits rendered not merely convenient but | |
imperative, are interestingly described. The seeing man, Nunez, is at | |
an acute disadvantage in his blind entourage, and so far from being a | |
help, his vision is a detriment. In a country of the blind, not even a | |
full-visioned man, let alone a one-eyed man, can be king. | |
-- George Williams Veditz | |
From: gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/relativevalueofs00geor | |
author: Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946, | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_Country_of_the_Blind | |
LOC: PR5774 .C6 | |
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/1/1/8/7/11870/ | |
tags: ebook,fiction | |
title: The Country of the Blind | |
# Tags | |
ebook | |
fiction |