Chapter 10 - Page 2

can see as well as I ever could.'

As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man
cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street.

'That's the writer-type. He has the same modelling of the forehead as
Torp. He looks very sick. Probably heard something he didn't like.'

Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him
hold his breath as he walked into the oculist's waiting room, with the
heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints
on the wall. He recognised a reproduction of one of his own sketches.

Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was caught by
a flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book. Little children came to
that eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

'That's idolatrous bad Art,' he said, drawing the book towards himself.

'From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.' He
opened in mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in
red ink--

The next good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of three,
To see her good Son Jesus Christ
Making the blind to see;
Making the blind to see, good Lord,
And happy we may be.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity!
?

Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn came, and the doctor was
bending above him seated in an arm-chair. The blaze of the
gas-microscope in his eyes made him wince. The doctor's hand touched
the scar of the sword-cut on Dick's head, and Dick explained briefly how
he had come by it. When the flame was removed, Dick saw the doctor's
face, and the fear came upon him again. The doctor wrapped himself in a
mist of words. Dick caught allusions to 'scar,' 'frontal bone,' 'optic
nerve,' 'extreme caution,' and the 'avoidance of mental anxiety.'

'Verdict?' he said faintly. 'My business is painting, and I daren't waste
time. What do you make of it?'

Again the whirl of words, but this time they conveyed a meaning.

'Can you give me anything to drink?'

Many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room, and the
prisoners often needed cheering. Dick found a glass of liqueur brandy in
his hand.

'As far as I can gather,' he said, coughing above the spirit, 'you call it
decay of the optic nerve, or something, and therefore hopeless. What is
my time-limit, avoiding all strain and worry?'

'Perhaps one year.'

'My God! And if I don't take care of myself?'

'I really could not say. One cannot ascertain the exact amount of injury
inflicted by the sword-cut. The scar is an old one, and--exposure to the
strong light of the desert, did you say?--with excessive application to fine
work?