Looking round, I could see that he was taking off his little cape,
for it had ceased raining. But in a few weeks it would rain every
day, and the wind would blow from the river in great gusts. "Will
he brave another winter?" I asked myself. "Iron blasts will sweep
through the passage; they will find him through the torn shirt and
the poor grey trousers, the torn waist-coat, the black jacket, and
the threadbare over-coat--someone's cast-off garment.... Now, he
may have been born blind, or he may have become blind; in any case
he has been blind for many years, and if he persist in living he
will have to brave many winters in that passage, for he is not an
old man. What instinct compels him to bear his dark life? Is he
afraid to kill himself? Does this fear spring from physical or
from religious motives? Fear of hell? Surely no other motive would
enable him to endure his life."
In my intolerance for all life but my own I thought I could
estimate the value of the Great Mockery, and I asked myself
angrily why he persisted in living. I asked myself why I helped
him to live. It would be better that he should throw himself at
once into the river. And this was reason talking to me, and it
told me that the most charitable act I could do would be to help
him over the parapet. But behind reason there is instinct, and in
obedience to an impulse, which I could not weigh or appreciate, I
went to the blind man and put some money into his hand; the small
coin slipped through his fingers; they were so cold that he could
not retain it, and I had to pick it from the ground.
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