More than a year passed thus; periods of gloom alternating in the young
man’s nature with a nervous irritability; and at the same time his
senses, especially that of hearing, grew more and more acute. That his
entire organism was susceptible to the light was evident even by night;
he always knew when the moon was shining, and would often remain out
of doors, sitting motionless and sad, when all the others in the house
were sleeping,—giving himself up to the influence of that dreamy and
fantastic light, his pale face meanwhile turned ever in the direction
of the luminous globe that was traversing the dark-blue sky, and his
eyes reflecting the lustre of its cold rays. But when the globe, growing
larger and larger as it drew near the earth, became veiled by a heavy
red mist and finally disappeared below the horizon line, the face of the
blind man would soften and grow calm, and he would rise and go to his
room.
As to his thoughts during these long nights, it would not be easy to
describe them. Every one who has experienced the joys and sorrows of
self-consciousness is familiar with the crisis that occurs at a certain
period of life, when a man, still pausing on the threshold strives to
define to himself the place he occupies in Nature, his object in life,
and his relations to the surrounding world. This is, so to speak, a
“dead point;” and fortunate is the man whom the impetus of life’s power
carries through it unharmed. In Peter’s case this crisis was seriously
complicated. To the question, “What is the object of one’s life?” he
added another: “What is the object of a blind man’s life?” Finally, into
this travail of sad thoughts entered another element,—an almost physical
pressure of unsatisfied desire, which re-acted on his disposition; he
grew more and more nervous and irritable, without an apparent cause.
“I long to see,” he said when this mood had so far relaxed that he could
speak of it with Evelyn,—“I long to see, and I cannot overcome this
desire. Could I but once, even in a dream, see heaven and earth and the
bright sunlight, and remember it all,—could I but thus see my father
and mother, you and Uncle Maxim,—I should be satisfied, and never be
distressed again.”
And he persistently clung to that idea. When alone he would take up
different objects, feel of them with unusual attention, and then
putting them aside try to recall their familiar outlines. In the same
way he studied the difference between bright-colored surfaces, which
the abnormally keen perceptions of his nervous system enabled him to
distinguish quite readily by the touch. But all this simply conveyed
to Peter’s mind information in regard to his own relations to things,
without giving him a clearly defined idea of their intrinsic properties.
He could distinguish the difference between day and night from the
fact that the sunbeams, in some mysterious way, penetrated his brain,
irritating still more keenly his agonizing queries.