At first it gave me unbounded delight to be dependent
on him thus for every little thing. It was a means of keeping him by my
side, and my desire to have him with me had become intense since my
blindness. That share of his presence, which my eyes had lost, my other
senses craved. When he was absent from my side, I would feel as if I
were hanging in mid-air, and had lost my hold of all things tangible.
Formerly, when my husband came back late from the hospital, I used to
open my window and gaze at the road. That road was the link which
connected his world with mine. Now when I had lost that link through my
blindness, all my body would go out to seek him. The bridge that united
us had given way, and there was now this unsurpassable chasm. When he
left my side the gulf seemed to yawn wide open. I could only wait for
the time when he should cross back again from his own shore to mine.
But such intense longing and such utter dependence can never be good. A
wife is a burden enough to a man, in all conscience, and to add to it
the burden of this blindness was to make his life unbearable.
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