Los sabios del lugar aconsejan que Nunez sea operado
para extraerle los ojos, ya que estos interferían en la vida normal del recién
llegado. Se le comunica esta sugerencia al protagonista quien por momentos
siente que debe someterse para ser feliz con su nuevo amor. The Country of the Blind, de H. G. Wells…
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 did not care for my
daughter."
It was Medina-saroté 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 on 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 your sweet, serene face, your kindly
lips, your dear, beautiful hands folded together… It is these eyes of mine you
won, these eyes that hold me to you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must
touch you, hear you, and never see you again. I must come under that roof of
rock and stone and darkness, that horrible roof under which your imagination
stoops… No; you would not have me do that?"