id simply. "I can see one side of your face, one side of
your body, one leg and one arm. But the other side don't seem to be
there." I looked up at him a moment.

"Let's go out for a walk," I suggested. We went for a stroll in the
Gardens. And here I was surprised and just a bit ashamed to find that
while I had a real sympathy for him I had just as real curiosity. For
here was a living illustration of the horror of going blind. I could see
his jaws set like a vise, I could hear his low voice talking steadily on
as though to keep from thinking. What was he thinking? What was he
feeling? We talked of the most commonplace things. But moment by moment,
through his voice and his grip on my arm, those sudden waves now of
sickening fear, now of keen suspense, now of angry groping around for a
foothold, seemed pouring from him right into me, became part of
me--while the other part of me stood off and listened.

"By God, this is life!" said one part of me. "No, it isn't; it's hell,"
growled the other part. "This thing has got to be settled!"

I took him to an oculist, and there I had another close view, this time
of intense relief.

"Blind? Why, no, you're not going blind," said the oculist kindly. "All
you need is"--I heard nothing more. I had never had any idea before of
how swift and deep relief could be. On the street outside I heard it not
only in his unsteady laugh but in my own as well. We celebrated long
that night, and very late he took me to his favorite place down on the
lower quay of the river, where with the lights and the sounds of the
city far off it felt like some old dungeon. But just over our heads hung
the heavy black arch of a stone bridge, and looking up through this arch
as a frame we could see close above a gray, luminous mass rising and
rising in great sweeping lines till it filled half the sky--silent,
tremendous, Notre Dame. From down here the old edifice seemed alive. And
though my friend talked little here, I felt him again coming into me.
And this time it was his religion that came, his curious passion for
building.

When at last we went home he could see my whole body, and I felt as
though I had seen his whole soul.

Then I carefully wrote this down on paper. I put in every touch that I
could remember. I rewrote it to make it big, and I made it so big I
spoiled it all. I tore this up and began again. For about two weeks I
wrote nothing else. But at last I tore up everything. After all, he was