I think I forgot the blind man for several months. I only remembered him when I was sitting at home, or when I was at the other side of the town, and sometimes I thought I made myself little excuses not to pass through the passage. Our motives are so vague, so complex and many, that one is never quite sure why one does a thing, and if I were to say that I did not give the blind man pennies that winter because I believed it better to deprive him of his means of livelihood and force him out of life than to help him to remain in life and suffer, I should be saying what was certainly untrue, yet the idea was in my mind, and I experienced more than one twinge of conscience when I passed through the passage. I experienced remorse when I hurried past him, too selfish to unbutton my coat, for every time I happened to pass him it was raining or blowing very hard, and every time I hurried away trying to find reasons why he bore his miserable life. I hurried to my business, my head full of chatter about St. Simon's Stylites, telling myself that he saw God far away at the end of the sky, His immortal hands filled with immortal recompenses; reason chattered about the compensation of celestial choirs, but instinct told me that the blind man standing in the stone passage knew of such miraculous consolations. As the winter advanced, as the winds grew harsher, my avoidance of the passage grew more marked, and one day I stopped to think, and asked myself why I avoided it. There was a faint warmth in the sky, and I heard my heart speaking to me quite distinctly, and it said:-- "Go to the blind man--what matter about your ten minutes' delay; you have been unhappy since you refrained from alms-giving, and the blind beggar can feel the new year beginning." "You see, sir, I have added some shirt buttons and studs to the pencils. I don't know how they will go, but one never knows till one tries." Then he told me it was smallpox that destroyed his eyes, and he was only eighteen at the time. "You must have suffered very much when they told you your sight was going?" "Yes, sir. I had the hump for six weeks." "What do you mean?" "It doubled me up, that it did. I sat with my head in my hands for six weeks." "And after that?" "I didn't think any more about it--what was the good?" "Yes, but it must be difficult not to think, sitting here all alone." "One mustn't allow one's self to give way. One would break down if one did. I've some friends, and in the evening I get plenty of exercise." "What do you do in the evenings?" "I turn a hay-cutting machine in a stable." "And you're quite contented?" "I don't think, sir, a happier man than I passes through this gate-way once a month." He told me his little boy came to fetch him in the evening. "You're married?" "Yes, sir, and I've got four children. They're going away for their holidays next week." "Where are they going?" "To the sea. It will do them good; a blow on the beach will do them a power of good."