Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

to attach no importance whatever to the investigations of the doctor; his bearing was that of one who feels quite sure of the result.

“The child must be blind,” he kept repeating. “Better for it, too, had it never been born.”

The young doctor made no reply, but continued his observations in silence. At last he laid aside the ophthalmoscope, and his calm, encouraging voice echoed through the room: “The pupil contracts; the child sees!”

Peter started, and rose instantly to his feet. But although the act gave proof that he heard the doctor’s words, the expression of his face showed no comprehension of their significance. Resting his trembling hands upon the window-seat, and with his pale face and set features uplifted, he looked like one petrified. Until the present moment he had been in a state of unusual excitement, apparently unconscious of himself, and yet every nerve quivering with expectation. The darkness that surrounded him was an actual object, which he realized in all its immensity as something apart from himself, enveloping him as it were, while he strove to gain by an effort of imagination some adequate idea of its relation to himself. He threw himself before it as if he would shield his child from that illimitable tossing sea of impenetrable darkness.

Such had been Peter’s state of mind while the doctor was silently carrying on his preparations. He had wavered between hope and fear; but now the latter, rising to its highest pitch, had won entire control of his excited nerves, while hope withdrew to the innermost recesses of his heart. Then came the words, “The child sees!” and his feelings underwent a sudden transformation; his fears vanished, and assurance took the place of hope, illuminating the inner world of imagination in which the blind man dwelt. Like a stroke of lightning it burst upon the darkness of his soul, effecting a complete revolution. Now he knew the meaning of the words, “sound possessing the attribute of light.” The doctor’s words were like a pillar of fire in his brain; it was as if an electric spark had suddenly kindled in the secret recesses of his soul. Everything vibrated within him, and he himself quivered, as a tightly strung chord quivers under a sudden touch.

Directly upon this flash, strange shapes rose before those eyes blind from birth. Were these rays of light, or sounds? He could not tell. They seemed like vivified sounds, that had taken the form and the motion of light. They were radiant as the firmament, and their course was as that of the sun in the heavens above; waving to and fro, they whispered and rustled like the green steppe, and swayed like the branches of the pensive beech-trees. And all the time these branches were mysteriously but clearly outlined against the sky; the steppe stretched far, far away; the bright blue surface of the river rippled musically.

Someone touched the blind man’s hand. Yes! he knows, he hears, he feels, he sees this touch! Here again come the ray-sounds, shaping themselves into visible images. From his childhood he has known that bright vision, so dear to his heart, reproduced in his soul with such marvellous fidelity! He hears his mother’s gentle voice; her tender blue eyes rest lovingly and sadly upon his face, and somewhere in the depths of his heart the reflection of her gaze faintly glimmers. The silvery white hair, the clear, pure ringing tones of her voice⁠—he not only hears, he also sees and feels that fondly loved, that pure and gentle being, the embodiment of holy love!

A young, anxious, and sympathetic cry!⁠—His heart beats with passionate excitement. Can it be that he has never seen her before⁠—his friend, his wife, his best-beloved? Behold, she now lies before him, distinct and wonderful! Pain, love, and alarm may be seen upon her face⁠—Eyes blue like his mother’s; and in her voice the scarlet tones of love, vivid and intense, unlike that of a mother⁠—those tones that kindled in his heart the bright flame of passion! She has light “fair” hair⁠—he knew of course it must be so; he felt it and now he sees it. He is conscious with every instinct of his being that she half rises from her bed, her eyes dilating to greet his rapture.

And this?⁠—A discord; the tapping of a crutch; a stifled exclamation! He reaches out his hands toward the tutor who has devoted his life to him. He knows the keen glance, the dogged persistency, the energetic voice, the heavy and ungainly figure that seems to belong to the harsh, abrupt tones⁠—a succession of discordant sounds against a background of controlled emotions!

But now again comes the darkness, sweeping once more in waves across the blind man’s brain; and this form loses all distinctness of outline, and the other images waver and mingle one with the other, and all that is left glides down the gigantic radius into utter darkness! Thus intermingling, wavering, trembling, like the vibrations of a slender wire, first high and loud, then soft and low, these image-sounds were hushed at last.

Silence and darkness, with certain vague object-sounds, fantastic of outline, yet still striving to rise to the surface! Peter could not grasp their tones, forms, or colors, but somewhere from the depths he could still hear the resonant modulations of the scale, and seemed to see the rows of ivory keys flashing in the darkness, as they glided down into space. Suddenly the sounds began to reach him in their ordinary way. It was as if he had just waked, and bright and joyous began to press the hands of Maxim and of his mother.

“What is it?” asked his mother, in alarm.

“Nothing! I thought I⁠—saw you all. I am not sleeping, am I?”

“And now?” she asked anxiously. “Do you remember? Shall you remember?”

The blind man breathed a deep sigh. “Nothing,” he replied with an effort. “I shall transmit it all⁠—I have already transmitted it to the child.”

The blind man tottered, and fell fainting to the