The second incident of the day may be described as a confidentialconversation between Lucilla and myself, on the subject which now equallyabsorbed us both--the momentous subject of her restoration to theblessing of sight.
She joined me at the breakfast-table with her ready distrust newlyexcited, poor thing, by Oscar. He had accounted to her for his journey toLondon by putting forward the commonplace excuse of "business." Sheinstantly suspected (knowing how he felt about it) that he was secretlybent on interfering with the performance of the operation by Herr Grosse.I contrived to compose the anxiety thus aroused in her mind, by informingher, on Oscar's own authority, that he personally disliked and distrustedthe German oculist. "Make your mind easy," I said. "I answer for his notventuring near Herr Grosse."
A long silence between us followed those words. When Lucilla nextreferred to Oscar in connection with the coming operation, the depressedstate of her spirits seemed to have quite altered her view of her ownprospects. She, of all the people in the world, now spoke indisparagement of the blessing conferred on the blind by the recovery oftheir sight!
"Do you know one thing?" she said. "If I had not been going to be marriedto Oscar, I doubt if I should have cared to put any oculist, native orforeign, to the trouble of coming to Dimchurch."
"I don't think I understand you," I answered. "You cannot surely mean tosay that you would not have been glad, under any circumstances, torecover your sight?"
"That is just what I do mean to say."
"What! you, who have written to Grosse to hurry the operation, don't careto see?"
"I only care to see Oscar. And, what is more, I only care to see himbecause I am in love with him. But for that, I really don't feel as if itwould give me any particular pleasure to use my eyes. I have been blindso long, I have learnt to do without them."
"And yet, you looked perfectly entranced when Nugent first set youdoubting whether you were blind for life?"
"Nugent took me by surprise," she answered; "Nugent startled me out of mysenses. I have had time to think since; I am not carried away by theenthusiasm of the moment now. You people who can see attach such anabsurd importance to your eyes! I set my touch, my dear, against youreyes, as much the most trustworthy, and much the most intelligent senseof the two. If Oscar was not, as I have said, the uppermost feeling withme, shall I tell you what I should have infinitely preferred torecovering my sight--supposing it could have been done?" She shook herhead with a comic resignation to circumstances. "Unfortunately, it can'tbe done!"
"What can't be done?"
She suddenly held out both her arms over the breakfast-table.
"The stretching out of _these_ to an enormous and unheard-of length. Thatis what I should have liked!" she answered. "I could find out better whatwas going on at a distance with my hands, than you could with your eyesand your telescopes. What doubts I might set at rest for instance aboutthe planetary system, among the people who can see, if I could onlystretch out far enough to touch the stars."
"This is talking sheer nonsense, Lucilla!"
"Is it? Just tell me which knows best in the dark--my touch or your eyes?Who has got a sense that she can always trust to serve her equally wellthrough the whole four-and-twenty hours? You or me? But for Oscar--tospeak in sober earnest, this time--I tell you I would much rather perfectthe sense in me that I have already got, than have a sense given to methat I have _not_ got. Until I knew Oscar, I don't think I ever honestlyenvied any of you the use of your eyes."
"You astonish me, Lucilla!"
She rattled her teaspoon impatiently in her empty cup.
"Can you always trust your eyes, even in broad daylight?" she burst out."How often do they deceive you, in the simplest things? What did I hearyou all disputing about the other day in the garden? You were looking atsome view?"
"Yes--at the view down the alley of trees at the other end of thechurchyard wall."
"Some object in the alley had attracted general notice--had it not?"
"Yes--an object at the further end of it."
"I heard you up here. You all differed in opinion, in spite of yourwonderful eyes. My father said it moved. You said it stood still. Oscarsaid it was a man. Mrs. Finch said it was a calf. Nugent ran off, andexamined this amazing object at close quarters. And what did it turn outto be? A stump of an old tree blown across the road in the night! Why amI to envy people the possession of a sense which plays them such tricksas that? No! no! Herr Grosse is going to 'cut into my cataracts,' as hecalls it--because I am going to be married to a man I love; and I fancy,like a fool, I may love him better still, if I can see him. I may bequite wrong," she added archly. "It may end in my not loving him half aswell as I do now!"
I thought of Oscar's face, and felt a sickening fear that she might bespeaking far more seriously than she suspected. I tried to change thesubject. No! Her imaginative nature had found its way into a new regionof speculation before I could open my lips.
"I associate light," she said thoughtfully, "with all that is beautifuland heavenly--and dark with all that is vile and horrible and devilish. Iwonder how light and dark will look to me when I see?"
"I believe they will astonish you," I answered, "by being entirely unlikewhat you fancy them to be now."
She started. I had alarmed her without intending it.
"Will Oscar's face be utterly unlike what I fancy it to be now?" sheasked, in suddenly altered tones. "Do you mean to say that I have not hadthe right image of him in my mind all this time?"
I tried again to draw her off to another topic. What more could Ido--with my tongue tied by the German's warning to us not to agitate her,in the face of the operation to be performed on the next day?
It was quite useless. She went on, as before, without heeding me.
"Have I no means of judging rightly what Oscar is like?" she said. "Itouch my own face; I know how long it is and how broad it is; I know howbig the different features are, and where they are. And then I touchOscar, and compare his face with my knowledge of my own face. Not asingle detail escapes me. I see him in my mind as plainly as you see meacross this table. Do you mean to say, when I see him with my eyes, thatI shall discover something perfectly new to me? I don't believe it!" Shestarted up impatiently, and took a turn in the room. "Oh!" she exclaimed,with a stamp of her foot, "why can't I take laudanum enough, orchloroform enough to kill me for the next six weeks--and then come tolife again when the German takes the bandage off my eyes!" She sat downonce more, and drifted all on a sudden into a question of pure morality."Tell me this," she said. "Is the greatest virtue, the virtue which it ismost difficult to practice?"
"I suppose so," I answered.
She drummed with both hands on the table, petulantly, viciously, as hardas she could.
"Then, Madame Pratolungo," she said, "the greatest of all the virtuesis--Patience. Oh, my friend, how I hate the greatest of all the virtuesat this moment!"
That ended it--there the conversation found its way into other topics atlast.
Thinking afterwards of the new side of her mind which Lucilla had shownto me, I derived one consolation from what had passed at thebreakfast-table. If Mr. Sebright proved to be right, and if the operationfailed after all, I had Lucilla's word for it that blindness, of itself,is not the terrible affliction to the blind which the rest of us fancy itto be--because we can see.
Towards half-past seven in the evening, I went out alone, as I hadplanned, to meet Oscar on his return from London.
At a long straight stretch of the road, I saw him advancing towards me.He was walking more rapidly than usual, and singing as he walked. Eventhrough its livid discoloration, the poor fellow's face looked radiantwith happiness as he came nearer. He waved his walking-stick exultinglyin the air. "Good news!" he called out at the top of his voice. "Mr.Sebright has made me a happy man again!" I had never before seen him solike Nugent in manner, as I now saw him when we met and he shook handswith me.
"Tell me all about it," I said.
He gave me h
is arm; and, talking all the way, we walked back slowly toDimchurch.
"In the first place," he began, "Mr. Sebright holds to his own opinionmore firmly than ever. He feels absolutely certain that the operationwill fail."
"Is that your good news?" I asked reproachfully.
"No," he said. "Though, mind, I own to my shame there was a time when Ialmost hoped it would fail. Mr. Sebright has put me in a better frame ofmind. I have little or nothing to dread from the success of theoperation--if, by any extraordinary chance, it should succeed. I remindyou of Mr. Sebright's opinion merely to give you a right idea of the tonewhich he took with me at starting. He only consented under protest tocontemplate the event which Lucilla and Herr Grosse consider to be acertainty. 'If the statement of your position requires it,' he said, 'Iwill admit that it is barely possible she may be able to see you twomonths hence. Now begin.' I began by informing him of my marriageengagement."
"Shall I tell you how Mr. Sebright received the information?" I said. "Heheld his tongue, and made you a bow."
Oscar laughed.
"Quite true!" he answered. "I told him next of Lucilla's extraordinaryantipathy to dark people, and dark shades of color of all kinds. Can youguess what he said to me when I had done?"
I owned that my observation of Mr. Sebright's character did not extend toguessing that.
"He said it was a common antipathy in his experience of the blind. It wasone among the many strange influences exercised by blindness on the mind.'The physical affliction has its mysterious moral influence,' he said.'We can observe it, but we can't explain it. The special antipathy whichyou mention, is an incurable antipathy, except on one condition--therecovery of the sight.' There he stopped. I entreated him to go on. No!He declined to go on until I had finished what I had to say to him first.I had my confession still to make to him--and I made it."
"You concealed nothing?"
"Nothing. I laid my weakness bare before him. I told him that Lucilla wasstill firmly convinced that Nugent's was the discolored face, instead ofmine. And then I put the question--What am I to do?"
"And how did he reply?"
"In these words:--'If you ask me what you are to do, in the event of herremaining blind (which I tell you again will be the event), I decline toadvise you. Your own conscience and your own sense of honor must decidethe question. On the other hand, if you ask me what you are to do, in theevent of her recovering her sight, I can answer you unreservedly in theplainest terms. Leave things as they are; and wait till she sees.' Thosewere his own words. Oh, the load that they took off my mind! I made himrepeat them--I declare I was almost afraid to trust the evidence of myown ears."
I understood the motive of Oscar's good spirits, better than I understoodthe motive of Mr. Sebright's advice. "Did he give his reasons?" I asked.
"You shall hear his reasons directly. He insisted on first satisfyinghimself that I thoroughly understood my position at that moment. 'Theprime condition of success, as Herr Grosse has told you,' he said, 'isthe perfect tranquillity of the patient. If you make your confession tothe young lady when you get back to-night to Dimchurch, you throw herinto a state of excitement which will render it impossible for my Germancolleague to operate on her to-morrow. If you defer your confession, themedical necessities of the case force you to be silent, until theprofessional attendance of the oculist has ceased. There is yourposition! My advice to you is to adopt the last alternative. Wait (andmake the other persons in the secret wait) until the result of theoperation has declared itself.' There I stopped him. 'Do you mean that Iam to be present, on the first occasion when she is able to use hereyes?' I asked. 'Am I to let her see me, without a word beforehand toprepare her for the color of my face?'"
We were now getting to the interesting part of it. You English people,when you are out walking and are carrying on a conversation with afriend, never come to a standstill at the points of interest. Weforeigners, on the other hand, invariably stop. I surprised Oscar bysuddenly pulling him up in the middle of the road.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Go on!" I said impatiently.
"I can't go on," he rejoined. "You're holding me."
I held him tighter than ever, and ordered him more resolutely than everto go on. Oscar resigned himself to a halt (foreign fashion) on the highroad.
"Mr. Sebright met my question by putting a question on his side," heresumed. "He asked me how I proposed to prepare her for the color of myface."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I said I had planned to make an excuse for leaving Dimchurch--and, onceaway, to prepare her, by writing, for what she might expect to see when Ireturned."
"What did he say to that?"
"He wouldn't hear of it. He said, 'I strongly recommend you to be presenton the first occasion when she is capable (if she ever is capable) ofusing her sight. I attach the greatest importance to her being able tocorrect the hideous and absurd image now in her mind of a face likeyours, by seeing you as you really are at the earliest availableopportunity.'"
We were just walking on again, when certain words in that last sentencestartled me. I stopped short once more.
"Hideous and absurd image?" I repeated, thinking instantly of myconversation of that morning with Lucilla. "What did Mr. Sebright mean byusing such language as that?"
"Just what I asked him. His reply will interest you. It led him into thatexplanation of his motives which you inquired for just now. Shall we walkon?"
My petrified foreign feet recovered their activity. We went on again.
"When I had spoken to Mr. Sebright of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice,"Oscar continued, "he had surprised me by saying that it was common in hisexperience, and was only curable by her restoration to sight. In supportof those assertions, he now told me of two interesting cases which hadoccurred in his professional practice. The first was the case of thelittle daughter of an Indian officer--blind from infancy like Lucilla.After operating successfully, the time came when he could permit hispatient to try her sight--that is to say, to try if she could seesufficiently well at first, to distinguish dark objects from light. Amongthe members of the household assembled to witness the removal of thebandage, was an Indian nurse who had accompanied the family to England.The first person the child saw was her mother--a fair woman. She claspedher little hands in astonishment, and that was all. At the next turn ofher head, she saw the dark Indian nurse and instantly screamed withterror. Mr. Sebright owned to me that he could not explain it. The childcould have no possible association with colors. Yet there neverthelesswas the most violent hatred and horror of a dark object (the hatred andhorror peculiar to the blind) expressing itself unmistakably in a childof ten years old! My first thought, while he was telling me this, was ofmyself, and of my chance with Lucilla. My first question was, 'Did thechild get used to the nurse?' I can give you his answer in his own words.'In a week's time, I found the child sitting in the nurse's lap ascomposedly as I am sitting in this chair.'--"That is encouraging--isn'tit?"
"Most encouraging--nobody can deny it."
"The second instance was more curious still. This time the case was thecase of a grown man--and the object was to show me what strange fantasticimages (utterly unlike the reality) the blind form of the people aboutthem. The patient was married, and was to see his wife (as Lucilla is oneday to see me) for the first time. He had been told, before he marriedher, that she was personally disfigured by the scar of a wound on one ofher cheeks. The poor woman--ah, how well I can understand her!--trembledfor the consequences. The man who had loved her dearly while he wasblind, might hate her when he saw her scarred face. Her husband had beenthe first to console her when the operation was determined on. Hedeclared that his sense of touch, and the descriptions given to him byothers, had enabled him to form, in his own mind, the most complete andfaithful image of his wife's face. Nothing that Mr. Sebright could saywould induce him to believe that it was physically impossible for him toform a really correct idea of any object, animate or inani
mate, which hehad never seen. He wouldn't hear of it. He was so certain of the result,that he held his wife's hand in his, to encourage her, when the bandagewas removed from him. At his first look at her, he uttered a cry ofhorror, and fell back in his chair in a swoon. His wife, poor thing, wasdistracted. Mr. Sebright did his best to compose her, and waited till herhusband was able to answer the questions put to him. It then appearedthat his blind idea of his wife, and of her disfigurement had beensomething so grotesquely and horribly unlike the reality, that it washard to know whether to laugh or to tremble at it. She was as beautifulas an angel, by comparison with her husband's favorite idea of her--andyet, because it was his idea, he was absolutely disgusted and terrifiedat the first sight of her! In a few weeks he was able to compare his wifewith other women, to look at pictures, to understand what beauty was andwhat ugliness was--and from that time they have lived together as happy amarried couple as any in the kingdom."
I was not quite sure which way this last example pointed. It alarmed mewhen I thought of Lucilla. I came to a standstill again.
"How did Mr. Sebright apply this second case to Lucilla and to you?" Iasked.
"You shall hear," said Oscar. "He first appealed to the case assupporting his assertion that Lucilla's idea of me must be utterly unlikewhat I am myself. He asked if I was now satisfied that she could have nocorrect conception of what faces and colors were really like? and if Iagreed with him in believing that the image in her mind of the man withthe blue face, was in all probability something fantastically andhideously unlike the reality? After what I had heard, I agreed with himas a matter of course. 'Very well,' says Mr. Sebright. 'Now let itsremember that there is one important difference between the case of MissFinch, and the case that I have just mentioned. The husband's blind ideaof his wife was the husband's favorite idea. The shock of the first sightof her, was plainly a shock to him on that account. Now Miss Finch'sblind idea of the blue face is, on the contrary, a hateful idea toher--the image is an image that she loathes. Is it not fair to concludefrom this, that the first sight of you as you really are, is likely tobe, in her case, a relief to her instead of a shock? Reasoning from myexperience, I reach that conclusion; and I advise you, in your owninterests, to be present when the bandage is taken off. Even if I proveto be mistaken--even if she is not immediately reconciled to the sight ofyou--there is the other example of the child and the Indian nurse tosatisfy you that it is only a question of time. Sooner or later, she willtake the discovery as any other young lady would take it. At first, shewill be indignant with you for deceiving her; and then, if you are sureof your place in her affections, she will end in forgiving you.--There ismy view of your position, and there are the grounds on which I form it!In the meantime, my own opinion remains unshaken. I firmly believe thatyou will never have occasion to act on the advice that I have given toyou. When the bandage is taken off, the chances are five hundred to onethat she is no nearer to seeing you then than she is now.' These were hislast words--and on that we parted."
Oscar and I walked on again for a little way, in silence.
I had nothing to say against Mr. Sebright's reasons; it was impossible toquestion the professional experience from which they were drawn. As toblind people in general, I felt no doubt that his advice was good, andthat his conclusions were arrived at correctly. But Lucilla's was noordinary character. My experience of her was better experience than Mr.Sebright's--and the more I thought of the future, the less inclined Ifelt to share Oscar's hopeful view. She was just the person to saysomething or do something, at the critical moment of the experiment,which would take the wisest previous calculation by surprise. Oscar'sprospects never had looked darker to me than they looked at that moment.
It would have been useless and cruel to have said to him what I have justsaid here. I put as bright a face on it as I could, and asked if heproposed to follow Mr. Sebright's advice.
"Yes," he said. "With a certain reservation of my own, which occurred tome after I had left his house."
"May I ask what it is?"
"Certainly. I mean to beg Nugent to leave Dimchurch, before Lucilla triesher sight for the first time. He will do that, I know, to please me."
"And when he has done it, what then?"
"Then I mean to be present--as Mr. Sebright suggested--when the bandageis taken off."
"Previously telling Lucilla," I interposed, "that it is you who are inthe room?"
"No. There I take the precaution that I alluded to just now. I propose toleave Lucilla under the impression that it is I who have left Dimchurch,and that Nugent's face is the face she sees. If Mr. Sebright proves to beright, and if her first sensation is a sensation of relief, I will ownthe truth to her the same day. If not, I will wait to make my confessionuntil she has become reconciled to the sight of me. That plan meets everypossible emergency. It is one of the few good ideas that my stupid headhas hit on since I have been at Dimchurch."
He said those last words with such an innocent air of triumph, that Ireally could not find it in my heart to damp his ardor by telling himwhat I thought of his idea. All I said was, "Don't forget, Oscar, thatthe cleverest plans are at the mercy of circumstances. At the lastmoment, an accident may happen which will force you to speak out."
We came in sight of the rectory as I gave him that final warning. Nugentwas strolling up and down the road on the look-out for us. I left Oscarto tell his story over again to his brother, and went into the house.
Lucilla was at her piano when I entered the sitting-room. She was notonly playing--but (a rare thing with her) singing too. The song was,poetry and music both, of her own composing. "I shall see him! I shallsee him!" In those four words the composition began and ended. Sheadapted them to all the happy melodies in her memory. She accompaniedthem with hands that seemed to be mad for joy--hands that threatenedevery moment to snap the chords of the instrument. Never, since my firstday at the rectory, had I heard such a noise in our quiet sitting-room asI heard now. She was in a fever of exhilaration which, in my forebodingframe of mind at that moment, it pained and shocked me to see. I liftedher off the music-stool, and shut up the piano by main force.
"Compose yourself for heaven's sake," I said. "Do you want to becompletely exhausted when the German comes tomorrow?"
That consideration instantly checked her. She suddenly became quiet, withthe abrupt facility of a child.
"I forgot that," she said, sitting down in a corner, with a face ofdismay. "He might refuse to perform the operation! Oh, my dear, quiet medown somehow. Get a book, and read to me."
I got the book. Ah, the poor author! Neither she nor I paid the slightestattention to him. Worse still, we abused him for not interesting us--andthen shut him up with a bang, and pushed him rudely into his place on thebook-shelf, and left him upside down and went to bed.
She was standing at her window when I went in to wish her good night. Themellow moonlight fell tenderly on her lovely face.
"Moon that I have never seen," she murmured softly, "I feel you lookingat me! Is the time coming when I shall look at You?" She turned from thewindow, and eagerly put my fingers on her pulse. "Am I quite composedagain?" she asked. "Will he find me well to-morrow? Feel it! feel it! Isit quiet now?"
I felt it--throbbing faster and faster.
"Sleep will quiet it," I said--and kissed her, and left her.