Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins (heaven official's blessing novel english txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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I thought of Oscarâs face, and felt a sickening fear that she might be speaking far more seriously than she suspected. I tried to change the subject. No! Her imaginative nature had found its way into a new region of speculation before I could open my lips.
âI associate light,â she said thoughtfully, âwith all that is beautiful and heavenlyâand dark with all that is vile and horrible and devilish. I wonder how light and dark will look to me when I see?â
âI believe they will astonish you,â I answered, âby being entirely unlike what you fancy them to be now.â
She started. I had alarmed her without intending it.
âWill Oscarâs face be utterly unlike what I fancy it to be now?â she asked, in suddenly altered tones. âDo you mean to say that I have not had the right image of him in my mind all this time?â
I tried again to draw her off to another topic. What more could I doâwith my tongue tied by the Germanâs 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.
âHave I no means of judging rightly what Oscar is like?â she said. âI touch my own face; I know how long it is and how broad it is; I know how big the different features are, and where they are. And then I touch Oscar, and compare his face with my knowledge of my own face. Not a single detail escapes me. I see him in my mind as plainly as you see me across this table. Do you mean to say, when I see him with my eyes, that I shall discover something perfectly new to me? I donât believe it!â She started up impatiently, and took a turn in the room. âOh!â she exclaimed, with a stamp of her foot, âwhy canât I take laudanum enough, or chloroform enough to kill me for the next six weeksâand then come to life again when the German takes the bandage off my eyes!â She sat down once more, and drifted all on a sudden into a question of pure morality. âTell me this,â she said. âIs the greatest virtue, the virtue which it is most difficult to practice?â
âI suppose so,â I answered.
She drummed with both hands on the table, petulantly, viciously, as hard as she could.
âThen, Madame Pratolungo,â she said, âthe greatest of all the virtues isâPatience. Oh, my friend, how I hate the greatest of all the virtues at this moment!â
That ended itâthere the conversation found its way into other topics at last.
Thinking afterwards of the new side of her mind which Lucilla had shown to me, I derived one consolation from what had passed at the breakfast-table. If Mr. Sebright proved to be right, and if the operation failed after all, I had Lucillaâs word for it that blindness, of itself, is not the terrible affliction to the blind which the rest of us fancy it to beâbecause we can see.
Towards half-past seven in the evening, I went out alone, as I had planned, 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. Even through its livid discoloration, the poor fellowâs face looked radiant with happiness as he came nearer. He waved his walking-stick exultingly in the air. âGood news!â he called out at the top of his voice. âMr. Sebright has made me a happy man again!â I had never before seen him so like Nugent in manner, as I now saw him when we met and he shook hands with me.
âTell me all about it,â I said.
He gave me his arm; and, talking all the way, we walked back slowly to Dimchurch.
âIn the first place,â he began, âMr. Sebright holds to his own opinion more firmly than ever. He feels absolutely certain that the operation will fail.â
âIs that your good news?â I asked reproachfully.
âNo,â he said. âThough, mind, I own to my shame there was a time when I almost hoped it would fail. Mr. Sebright has put me in a better frame of mind. I have little or nothing to dread from the success of the operationâif, by any extraordinary chance, it should succeed. I remind you of Mr. Sebrightâs opinion merely to give you a right idea of the tone which he took with me at starting. He only consented under protest to contemplate the event which Lucilla and Herr Grosse consider to be a certainty. âIf the statement of your position requires it,â he said, âI will admit that it is barely possible she may be able to see you two months hence. Now begin.â I began by informing him of my marriage engagement.â
âShall I tell you how Mr. Sebright received the information?â I said. âHe held his tongue, and made you a bow.â
Oscar laughed.
âQuite true!â he answered. âI told him next of Lucillaâs extraordinary antipathy to dark people, and dark shades of color of all kinds. Can you guess what he said to me when I had done?â
I owned that my observation of Mr. Sebrightâs character did not extend to guessing that.
âHe said it was a common antipathy in his experience of the blind. It was one among the many strange influences exercised by blindness on the mind. âThe physical affliction has its mysterious moral influence,â he said. âWe can observe it, but we canât explain it. The special antipathy which you mention, is an incurable antipathy, except on one conditionâthe recovery of the sight.â 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 himâand I made it.â
âYou concealed nothing?â
âNothing. I laid my weakness bare before him. I told him that Lucilla was still firmly convinced that Nugentâs was the discolored face, instead of mine. And then I put the questionâWhat am I to do?â
âAnd how did he reply?â
âIn these words:ââIf you ask me what you are to do, in the event of her remaining blind (which I tell you again will be the event), I decline to advise you. Your own conscience and your own sense of honor must decide the question. On the other hand, if you ask me what you are to do, in the event of her recovering her sight, I can answer you unreservedly in the plainest terms. Leave things as they are; and wait till she sees.â Those were his own words. Oh, the load that they took off my mind! I made him repeat themâI declare I was almost afraid to trust the evidence of my own ears.â
I understood the motive of Oscarâs good spirits, better than I understood the motive of Mr. Sebrightâs advice. âDid he give his reasons?â I asked.
âYou shall hear his reasons directly. He insisted on first satisfying himself that I thoroughly understood my position at that moment. âThe prime condition of success, as Herr Grosse has told you,â he said, âis the perfect tranquillity of the patient. If you make your confession to the young lady when you get back tonight to Dimchurch, you throw her into a state of excitement which will render it impossible for my German colleague to operate on her tomorrow. If you defer your confession, the medical necessities of the case force you to be silent, until the professional attendance of the oculist has ceased. There is your position! My advice to you is to adopt the last alternative. Wait (and make the other persons in the secret wait) until the result of the operation has declared itself.â There I stopped him. âDo you mean that I am to be present, on the first occasion when she is able to use her eyes?â I asked. âAm I to let her see me, without a word beforehand to prepare her for the color of my face?â â
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 a friend, never come to a standstill at the points of interest. We foreigners, on the other hand, invariably stop. I surprised Oscar by suddenly pulling him up in the middle of the road.
âWhat is the matter?â he asked.
âGo on!â I said impatiently.
âI canât go on,â he rejoined. âYouâre holding me.â
I held him tighter than ever, and ordered him more resolutely than ever to go on. Oscar resigned himself to a halt (foreign fashion) on the high road.
âMr. Sebright met my question by putting a question on his side,â he resumed. âHe asked me how I proposed to prepare her for the color of my face.â
âAnd what did you tell him?â
âI said I had planned to make an excuse for leaving Dimchurchâand, once away, to prepare her, by writing, for what she might expect to see when I returned.â
âWhat did he say to that?â
âHe wouldnât hear of it. He said, âI strongly recommend you to be present on the first occasion when she is capable (if she ever is capable) of using her sight. I attach the greatest importance to her being able to correct the hideous and absurd image now in her mind of a face like yours, by seeing you as you really are at the earliest available opportunity.â â
We were just walking on again, when certain words in that last sentence startled me. I stopped short once more.
âHideous and absurd image?â I repeated, thinking instantly of my conversation of that morning with Lucilla. What did Mr. Sebright mean by using such language as that?â
âJust what I asked him. His reply will interest you. It led him into that explanation of his motives which you inquired for just now. Shall we walk on?â
My petrified foreign feet recovered their activity. We went on again.
âWhen I had spoken to Mr. Sebright of Lucillaâs inveterate prejudice,â Oscar continued, âhe had surprised me by saying that it was common in his experience, and was only curable by her restoration to sight. In support of those assertions, he now told me of two interesting cases which had occurred in his professional practice. The first was the case of the little daughter of an Indian officerâblind from infancy like Lucilla. After operating successfully, the time came when he could permit his patient to try her sightâthat is to say, to try if she could see sufficiently well at first, to distinguish dark objects from light. Among the members of the household assembled to witness the removal of the bandage, was an Indian nurse who had accompanied the family to England. The first person the child saw was her motherâa fair woman. She clasped her little hands in astonishment, and that was all. At the next turn of her head, she saw the dark Indian nurse and
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