The country of the blind

A young mountaineer, Nunez, has reached by accident a strange mountain valley cut off from the world of men. All its inhabitants have been blind for generations. Nunez tells them about the world and sight, but they aren't interested in either. Finally Nunez becomes the servant of Yacob and falls in love with his daughter, Medina-sarote. But Yacob thinks Nunez is not quite normal and he has him examined by a great doctor.



"I have examined Nunez," he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I think very probably he might be cured."
"That is what I have always hoped," said old Yacob.
"His brain is affected," said the blind doctor.
"Now, what affects it?"
"Those queer things that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable soft depression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Nunez, in such a way as to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, and his eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constant irritation and destruction."
"Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?"
"And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is simple and easy surgical operation-namely, to remove these irritant bodies."
"And then he will be sane?"
"Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen."
"Thank heaven for science!" said old Yacob, and went forth at once to tell Nunez of his happy hopes.
But Nunez's manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold and disappointing.
"One might think," he said, "from the tone you take, that you do not care for my daughter."
It was Medina-sarote who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons.
"You do not want me," he said, "to lose my gift of sight?"
She shook her head.
"My world is sight."
Her head drooped lower.
"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things - the flowers, the lichens among the rocks, the lightness and softness of a piece of fur, the far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets and the stars. And there is you. For you alone it is good to have sight, to see you sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful hands folded together."
"I wish," she said, "sometimes-" She paused.
"Yes?" said he, a little apprehensively.
"I wish sometimes- you would not talk like that."
"Like what?"
"I know it's pretty- it's your imagination. I love it, but now-"
He felt cold. "Now?" he said faintly.
She sat quite still.
"You mean- you think -I should be better, better perhaps-"
He was realizing things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed, anger at the dull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding- a sympathy near akin to pity.
"Dear," he said. He put his arms about her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence.
"If I were to consent to this?" he said at last, in a voice that was very gentle.
She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. "Oh, if you would," she sobbed, "if only you would!"

H.G. WELLS (1927)