“... don’t, of course not. Of course you help, because I can feel that there is someone there, someone standing by who can really help when I want it. That’s what you are to me, a real friend.” The weather had beaten all real sympathy out of her. She was so hard, so desperately rugged. There was a great deal to be said against going out in the rain. Hot-house flowers were better than hardy annuals, but then he would never understand the names of flowers now. Mrs. Fane was the ideal, so tantalising, so feminine. Mummy would have been like that. And now he would never see a painting, he would just become a vegetable like Mamma, a fine cabbage. And he would have had such a marvellous time with flowers, and with women, who were so close to flowers. But what was this? One must not slobber, sentimentality was intolerable. But how nice to slobber sometimes. What’s that she was saying, a story? Which one? Ah, yes, the new one, about the waste of pig-wash. There’s the rain outside, and the chuckling of the gutter pipes. It will be grey in the room now, or is it dark? Blind, so he didn’t know. Light, no more light. And if he were to lift the bandages, surely there was only that between him and light, not a whole lifetime. There is a click. “Is that the light on.” “Yes, dear. Well, I must go to tea. Don’t let it all worry you too much, dear.” She could not bear it any more. And she was gone. What did she mean by her “and don’t let it all worry you too much”? Worry? Worry? He was blind. They did not seem to realise that he was blind, that he would never see again. Nothing but black. Why, it was absurd, stifling. He was blind and they did not mind that he was blind and would never see again. But it was silly to say that you would never see anything again, that was impossible. You could not see black for ever, you would have to see something, or you would go mad. Mad. So he was blind. He had always heard of blind people. But of course it meant absolutely nothing. It was silly. There were slow steps up stair carpet, three wavering steps on the linoleum, and the door opened. Nanny comes in. “Master John, I have brought you your tea.” She puts something down that clinks. “Thanks.” “Did you have a nice sleep?” “No.” “Would you like a nice cup o’ tea, Master John?” Was everything nice and like her religion, comfortable? “All right, Nan.” He was being very good. Tea drinking was a vice in some walks of life, and in tea there was tannin, a harmful drug. But he was blind, he could not see. And the pain. So that he was like a blind worm in a fire, squirming, squirming to get out. “Nice hot tea. You love your tea, don’t you, Nan?”