Blindness

by Henry Green

  Mamma was coming back, her footsteps rang heavily on the stairs, and as she came in and shut the door he roused himself, saying that he was only feverish and that it would pass with a night’s rest. She came up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you all right, dear?”

  “Yes, yes, quite all right.”

  Why did they go on nagging him?

  “Shall I shut the window? Don’t you find this noise terrible?”

  “No, please leave it open so that I can listen.” She sat down and took up some knitting. That doctor was a fool. What was the matter with the boy? She could only sit and watch, there was nothing to be done with him, he was in one of his moods. Their walk was out of the question now.

  He passed a hand over his forehead, the skin was dry and burning, electric. Again he felt that he was being enveloped, this time by the close room and by the sun which throbbed outside. He was growing afraid at the way in which the walls pressed in and crowded the flowers together so that their scent rose up in a fog mixed with the turmoil outside and made to overwhelm him, when suddenly and for no reason, like a gust of wind through the room, purifying it, came the sound of bells from the church along the street, tearing through the room, bells catching each other up, tripping, tumbling and then starting off again in cascades. Theirs was such a wild joy and they trembled at it between the strokes so that they hummed, making a background for the peals. He loved bells and, inexpressibly happy, he was swept back to Barwood and June—“Listen, June, how the sound of them comes over the country,” and her father being hunted by them through the mazes that gin had created in his brain, and their walks stretched in a gesture to the sky, they had been so unfortunate in their lives.

  Then, for no reason, the bells began to stop one by one and the humming grew fainter, and he remembered an evening on the river when the sound of them had glided over the water, but a lorry mumbled along beneath, and one by one the bells stopped till even their humming had gone. Barwood was being sold, and after all, those walks of theirs had come to nothing.

  He must ask B. G. and Seymour round to see him. But perhaps they would be bored and would laugh at his ideas after the time they had spent at Oxford. And he was not going to let them see him crushed under his blindness, they would despise him for it. He must first make out how he stood with life in general so that he could show them how much better off he was than they. He would start a crusade against people who had eyesight. It was the easiest thing in the world to see, and so very many were content with only the superficial appearance of things; it would teach them so much if they were to go blind, though blindness was a burden at first and he was heavy with memories.

  Those bells, everything, brought them jostling back in one’s mind. But there had been something different about the bells, they had left him trembling, and when he passed a hand over his chair he was surprised at how stolid and unaltered the plush remained, for he was certain that the wild peal of them had made a great difference, their vibration had loosened and freed everything, until even the noise of the streets became invigorating. He felt a stirring inside him; it was true, they had made a difference, he felt it, and in a minute something was going to happen. He waited, taut, in the chair.

  Mrs. Haye knitted. The bells carried one back to Barwood. He would have been better there, you could not breathe in London, and fresh air was good for one if one was feelin’ seedy. But it was no use thinkin’ about Barwood, one must be practical, and everything would change once they had a house of their own. This caretaker and his wife were impossible, it was so like Edward to have servants like that. You could not speak to the man he was so rude, and that woman was hardly any better, though she did seem to take some trouble with the boy. But there again you never quite knew, he might form one of his terrible attachments for her, and then there would be the old worry of the Entwhistle creature all over again. She ought to have stood up to him at the time and told him straight out that it was ridiculous and that she would not have it, it was wrong of her not to have done that, but then his blindness had come upon them so suddenly and it had been so soon after. You could not speak out to him when his life had been taken from him like that. Anyway, they had gone and it was done—so much of her was there, in the village and the Town Council and all those things, but of course one understood his wanting to get away from all the old places where he had seen, and he was so brave making a new life for himself like this. And she would make a home for him, they would start again up here, it was rather excitin’ really, of course it was. She would get hold of Lorna and they would find some young things. He must marry. If he did, perhaps she could go back there?

  Lorna had altered, she was so fashionable now, one felt shy meetin’ her again. It had been good of her to come round, she was goin’ to be a real help, for they must find something to distract the boy. She had bought that lily, one would have thought he’d like it, it had cost quite a sum being so early in the year, but he had pushed it away. Better not to mention that. These motor cars, it was a disgrace the noise they made. But he seemed to like it, for he was lookin’ happy almost for the first time since he had been up here. He had said all the time that he was very happy, but she had felt that he had been worried really, and mainly as to whether she was happy in London, but of course she went where he went. It was difficult to understand his moods. Perhaps they could go for their walk now, and that she had only been imaginin’ things when she thought he was ill.

  Oh, these waves of sickness that came suddenly over him, stirring through his brain. And it was as if there were something straining behind his eyeballs to get out. He dropped his face into his hands, there was such a feeling of happiness surging through him.

  Mamma’s voice, a long way away it seemed, and anxious:

  “What is it, dear?”

  “I’m frightened.”

  “Why? What is there to be frightened of? Why?”

  But he was frightened at such joy. In a minute he felt it would burst out of him in a great wind and like a kite he would soar on it, and that the mist which lay between him and the world would be lifted by it also. Rising, rising up.

  He was rising through the mist, blown on a gust of love, lifting up, straining at a white light that he would bathe in. He half rose.

  “John!”

  And when he bathed there he would know all, why he was blind, why life had been so to him. He was nearer. To rise on this love, how wonderful to rise on this love. He was near now.

  “John!!”

  A ladder, bring a ladder. In his ears his own voice cried loudly, and a deeper blindness closed in upon him.

  *

  As they carried him to his room, the bells suddenly broke out again from along the street. Probably they were practising for some great event. It was the first thing he heard as he came back to the world, and he smiled at them.

  A letter

  Dear B. G.

  They tell me I have had some sort of a fit, but it has passed now. Apparently my father was liable to them, so that anyway I have one behind me after this. But it is so divine to be in London again near to you, and with the sun shining down on me as I lie in bed as if it had never shone before, while underneath, in the street, the traffic glides past in busy vibrations, I am so happy to be in the centre of things again, and to be alive. How stimulating a town is—but perhaps you think me silly. You have led such a different life to mine, I hardly know what you think or feel. Come round and look me up again, you know how I love talking. I have had a wonderful experience. I am going to settle down to writing now, I have a lot to tell. Mamma read me your article in the “New World” and it was wonderful—really, I mean, for that is not flattery. Why am I so happy today?

  Yrs.

  John.

 

 

 
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