by Brian Friel
And interestingly interestingly this very same problem was debated three hundred years ago by two philosophers, William Molyneux and his friend, John Locke. I came across this discussion in a Do-It-Yourself magazine of all places! Fascinating stuff, philosophy – absolutely fascinating. Anyhow – anyhow. If you are blind, said Molyneux – he was an Irishman by the way and in fact his wife was blind – if you are blind you can learn to distinguish between a cube and a sphere just by touching them, by feeling them. Right? Right. Now, supposing your vision is suddenly restored, will you be able – by sight alone, without touching, without feeling – will you be able to tell which object is the cube and which the sphere? Sorry, friend, said Locke – incidentally he went to Westminster School where he was flogged regularly – sorry, friend, you will not be able to tell which is which.
Then who comes along to join in the debate but another philosopher, George Berkeley, with his essay entitled An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. Another Irishman incidentally; Bishop Berkeley. And actually when I say along came the Bishop, his ‘Essay’ didn’t appear until seventeen years after the discussion I told you about between Locke and Molyneux. Anyhow – anyhow. When the problem was put to the Lord Bishop, he came to the same conclusion as his friends. But he went even further. He said that there was no necessary connection at all between the tactile world – the world of touch – and the world of sight; and that any connection between the two could be established only by living, only by experience, only by learning the connection.
Which, indeed, is really what Rice said to Molly three hundred years later. That most of us are born with all five senses; and with all the information they give us, we build up a sight world from the day we are born – a world of objects and ideas and meanings. We aren’t given that world, he said. We make it ourselves – through our experience, by our memory, by making categories, by interconnections. Now Molly had only ten months of sight and what she had seen in that time was probably forgotten. So, if her sight were restored, everything would have to be learned anew: she would have to learn to see. She would have to build up a whole repertory of visual engrams and then, then she would have to establish connections between these new imprints and the tactile engrams she already possessed. Put it another way: she would have to create a whole new world of her own.
How in God’s name did I get into all that? The goats! Engrams! Three o’clock every bloody morning! I’ll tell you something: three and a half years on that damned island and I lost four stone weight. And not an ounce of cheese – ever!
Not that it mattered, I suppose. I didn’t go to Inis Beag to make my fortune. God knows why I went. God knows why I’ve spent my life at dozens of mad schemes. Crazy … Billy Hughes – Billy’s an old pal of mine – Billy says I’m haunted for God’s sake, always looking for … whatever …
Anyhow – anyhow. To go back for a second to our friend who knew what a cube was by touching it but couldn’t identify it by sight alone. Rice talked a lot to Molly about all that stuff. He said neurologists had a word for people in that condition – seeing but not knowing, not recognizing, what it is they see. A word first used in this context by Freud, apparently. He said that people in that condition are called agnosic. Yes. Agnosic. Strange; because I always thought that word had to do with believing or not believing.
Molly I didn’t like Mr Rice when I first met him. But I got to like him. I suppose because I trusted him. Frank never warmed to him. He was put off by his manner and the way he spoke. But I thought that for all his assurance there was something … unassured about him.
He was said to have been one of the most brilliant ophthalmologists ever in the country. Worked in the top eye hospitals all over the world – America, Japan, Germany. Married a Swiss girl. They had two daughters. Then she left him – according to the gossip; went off with a colleague of his from New York. The daughters lived with her parents in Geneva. For years after that there are gaps in his story. Nobody seems to know what became of him. They say that he had a breakdown; that he worked as a labourer in Bolivia; that he ran a pub in Glasgow. Anyhow he turned up here in Ballybeg and got a job in the hospital and took a rented bungalow at the outskirts of the town. He looked after himself in a sort of way. Walked a bit. Did a lot of fly-fishing during the season – Frank said he was beautiful to watch. People thought him a bit prickly, a bit uppity, but that was probably because he didn’t mix much. I’m sure a brilliant man like that never thought he’d end up in a Regional Hospital in the northwest of Donegal. When I wondered what he looked like I imagined a face with an expression of some bewilderment.
Maybe I liked him because of all the doctors who examined me over the years he was the only one who never quizzed me about what it felt like to be blind – I suppose because he knew everything about it. The others kept asking me what the idea of colour meant to me, or the idea of space, or the notion of distance. You live in a world of touch, a tactile world, they’d say. You depend almost entirely on tactile perceptions, on knowing things by feeling their shape. Tell us: How do you think your world compares with the world the rest of us know, the world you would share with us if you had visual perception as well?
He never asked me questions like that. He did ask me once did the idea, the possibility, of seeing excite me or frighten me. It certainly excited Frank, I said. But why should it be frightening? A stupid question, I know, he said. Very stupid.
Why indeed should it be frightening? And how could I answer all those other questions? I know only my own world. I didn’t think of it as a deprived world.
Disadvantaged in some ways; of course it was. But at that stage I never thought of it as deprived. And Mr Rice knew that.
And how could I have told those other doctors how much pleasure my world offered me? From my work, from the radio, from walking, from music, from cycling. But especially from swimming. Oh I can’t tell you the joy I got from swimming. I used to think – and I know this sounds silly – but I really did believe I got more pleasure, more delight, from swimming than sighted people can ever get. Just offering yourself to the experience – every pore open and eager for that world of pure sensation, of sensation alone – sensation that could not have been enhanced by sight – experience that existed only by touch and feel; and moving swiftly and rhythmically through that enfolding world; and the sense of such assurance, such liberation, such concordance with it … Oh I can’t tell you the joy swimming gave me. I used to think that the other people in the pool with me, the sighted people, that in some way their pleasure was actually diminished because they could see, because seeing in some way qualified the sensation; and that if they only knew how full, how total my pleasure was, I used to tell myself that they must, they really must envy me.
Silly I suppose. Of course it was. I tried to explain how I felt to Mr Rice.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said.
And I think he did know.
Yes, maybe he was a bit pompous. And he could be sarcastic at times. And Frank said he didn’t look at all bewildered; ever. But although I never saw my father’s face, I imagine it never revealed any bewilderment either.
Mr Rice In the present state of medicine nothing can be done for people who are born blind, the clinically blind. Their retinas are totally insensitive to light and so are non-functional. There are no recorded cases of recovery from clinical blindness.
Molly Sweeney wasn’t born blind. She was functionally blind and lived in a blind world for forty years. But she wasn’t clinically blind: her retinas weren’t totally insensitive to light. For God’s sake how often did the husband, Mr Autodidact, tell me that she was aware of the shadow of his hand in front of her face?
So in theory, perhaps – purely theoretically – her case wasn’t exactly hopeless. But I did make a point of giving her and her husband the only statistic available to us; and a dispiriting statistic it is. The number of cases known to us – of people who became blind shortly after birth and had their sight restored many years later –
the number of cases over the past ten centuries is not more than twenty. Twenty people in a thousand years.
I know she believed me. I wasn’t at all sure Frank Constantine did.
Anyhow, as a result of that first cursory examination in my home I decided to bring her into the clinic for tests.
Frank Well of course the moment Rice said in that uppity voice of his, ‘In theory – in theory – in theory – perhaps in theory – perhaps – perhaps’ – the first time Molly met him – after a few general questions, a very quick examination – ten o’clock in the morning in his house – I’ll never forget it – the front room in the rented bungalow – no fire – the remains of last night’s supper on a tray in the fireplace – teapot, crusts, cracked mug – well of course, goddamit, of course the head exploded! Just ex-ploded!
Molly was going to see! I knew it! For all his perhapses! Absolutely no doubt about it! A new world – a new life! A new life for both of us!
Miracle of Molly Sweeney. Gift of sight restored to middle-aged woman. ‘I’ve been given a new world,’ says Mrs Sweeney.
Unemployed husband cries openly.
And why not?
Oh my God …
Sight …
I saw an Austrian psychiatrist on the television one night. Brilliant man. Brilliant lecture. He said that when the mind is confronted by a situation of overwhelming intensity – a moment of terror or ecstasy or tragedy – to protect itself from overload, from overcharge, it switches off and focuses on some trivial detail associated with the experience.
And he was right. I know he was. Because that morning in that front room in the chilly bungalow – immediately after that moment of certainty, that explosion in the head – my mind went numb; fused; and all I could think of was that there was smell of fresh whiskey off Rice’s breath. And at ten o’clock in the morning that seemed the most astonishing thing in the world and I could barely stop myself from saying to Molly, ‘Do you not smell the whiskey off his breath? The man’s reeking of whiskey!’
Ridiculous …
Mr Rice Tests revealed that she had thick cataracts on both eyes. But that wasn’t the main problem. She also had retinitis pigmentosa; as the name suggests, a discoloration of the retina. She seemed to have no useful retinal function. It wasn’t at all surprising that other doctors had been put off.
There were scars of old disease, too. But what was encouraging – to put it at its very best – was that there was no current, no active disease process. So that if I were to decide to operate and if the operation were even partially successful, her vision, however impaired, ought to be stable for the rest of her life.
So in theory perhaps …
Frank On the morning of Tuesday, October 7, he operated on the right eye to remove a cataract and implant a new lens.
I was told not to visit her until the following day because the eye would be bandaged for twenty-four hours and she had to have as much rest and quiet as possible. Naturally, of course …
And a wonderful thing happened that night when I was at home by myself. I got a call from London; from a friend I knew in Nigeria in the old days. Chap called Winterman, Dick Winterman. Inviting me to set up and supervise a food convoy to Ethiopia. Was I interested?
Of course I was interested. The first job I’d been offered in months. But not now. How could I go now for God’s sake? Molly was on the verge of a new life. I had to be with her now. Anyhow, as I told Dick, those rambling days were over.
All the same it was nice to be remembered. And to be remembered on that night – I thought that was a good omen.
Mr Rice I’m ashamed to say that within a week I crossed the frontier into the fantasy life again. The moment I decided I was going to operate on Molly I had an impulse – a dizzying, exuberant, overmastering, intoxicating instinct to phone Roger Bloomstein in New York and Hans Girder in Berlin and Hiroko Matoba in Kyoto – even old Murnahan in Dublin – and tell them what I was about to do. Yes, yes, especially old Murnahan in Dublin; and say to him, ‘Paddy Rice here, Professor. Of course you remember him! You called him a rogue star once – oh, yes, that caused a titter. Well, he works in a rundown hospital in Donegal now. And I suspect, I think, I believe for no good reason at all that Paddy Rice is on the trembling verge. Professor. He has a patient who has been blind for forty years. And do you know what? He is going to give her vision – the twenty-first recorded case in over a thousand years! And for the first time in her life – how does Saint Mark put it in the gospel? – for the first time in her life she will ‘see men walking as if like trees’.
Delirium … hubris … the rogue star’s token insurrection … a final, ridiculous flourish. For God’s sake, a routine cataract operation?
Of course I made no calls. Instead I wrote to my daughters, Aisling and Helga in Geneva, and enclosed what money I could afford. Then to Maria, my ex-wife, in New York; yet another open-heart letter, full of candour and dreary honesty. I told her I was busy and in good spirits and involved in a new case that was unusual in some respects.
Then I made supper; had a few drinks; fell asleep in the armchair. I woke again at 4.00 a.m., my usual hour, and sat there waiting for a new day, and said to myself over and over again: Why the agitation over this case? You remove cataracts every day of the week, don’t you? And isn’t the self-taught husband right? (angrily) What has she to lose for Christ’s sake? Nothing! Nothing at all!
Molly What a party we had the night before the operation! Three o’clock in the morning before we got the house cleared. Oh, God! And I had to be in the hospital for ten – fasting. Frank wanted to get a taxi but I said we should walk to get all that alcohol out of the system.
And it wasn’t that we had organized anything that night. A few neighbours just dropped in to wish me luck; and then a few more; and then Frank said, ‘Come on! This is beginning to feel like a wake!’ and away he went to the off-licence and came back with a load of stuff.
Who was there? Tony and Betty from this side; with Molly, their baby; they called her after me; she was just a toddler then. And the Quinns from that side; Jack and Mary. Jack wasn’t drinking for some reason and Mary certainly was; so that was a delicate situation. And old Mr O’Neill from across the street; first time outside his house since his wife, Louise, died three months before; and Frank just took him by the arm and said he would fall into a decline if he didn’t pull himself together. Anyhow, after two or three beers, what does Mr O’Neill do? Up on top of the table and begins reciting ‘A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon’ – or whatever the right name is! Yes! Little timid Mr O’Neill, the mourning widower! And he acted it out so seriously. And of course we all began to snigger. And the more we sniggered, the more melodramatic he became. So that by the time he got to ‘The woman that kissed him and pinched his poke was the lady that’s known as Lou’ – he always called Louise, his dead wife, Lou – well of course by that time we were falling about. Oh, he was furious. Sulked in the corner for ages. God!
Who else? Billy Hughes was there; an old bachelor friend of Frank. Years ago Frank and he borrowed money from the bank and bought forty beehives; but I gather that didn’t work out. And Dorothy and Joyce; they’re physiotherapists in the hospital. And Tom McLaughlin, another of Frank’s bachelor friends. He’s a great fiddler, Tom. And that was it. And of course Rita, Rita Cairns, my oldest, my closest friend. She managed the health club I was working in. Rita probably knows me better than anybody.
There was a lot of joking that there were thirteen of us if you counted the baby. And Billy Hughes, who was already well tanked by the time he arrived, he suggested that maybe Jack – from that side – maybe Jack would do the decent and volunteer to leave since he was in a bad mood and wasn’t drinking anyway. And Mary, Jack’s wife, she said that was the brightest idea all evening. So that was an even trickier situation.
And at some point in the night – it must have been about two – I’m afraid I had a brainwave. Here we are, all friends together, havi
ng a great time; so shouldn’t I phone Mr Rice and ask him to join us? Wasn’t he a friend, too? And I made for the phone and dialled the number. But Frank, thank God, Frank pulled the phone out of my hand before he answered. Imagine the embarrassment that would have been!
Anyway we chatted and we played tapes and we sang and we drank. And Tony and Betty from this side, Molly’s parents, they sang ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’ and there was so much tension between them you knew they weren’t performing at all. And Dorothy and Joyce did their usual Laurel and Hardy imitation. And Billy Hughes, the bee-man, told some of his jokes that only Frank and he found funny. And as usual Rita, Rita Cairns, sang ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’, her party piece. That was my father’s song, too. She has a sweet voice, really a child’s voice, and she sings it beautifully. And as usual, when she had finished, so she tells me, she nodded her head and smiled and cried all at the same time. That’s what she – ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’! That’s the title of Mr O’Neill’s poem! Poor old Mr O’Neill. Somebody told me recently that he’s in a hospice now.
And shortly after midnight – long before I had the brainwave to phone Mr Rice – Tom McLaughlin, Tom the fiddler, played ‘The Lament for Limerick’! He played it softly, delicately. And suddenly, suddenly I felt utterly desolate. Maybe it was Rita singing, ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’ earlier. Or maybe it was because all that night nobody once mentioned the next day or how they thought the operation might go; and because nothing was said, maybe that made the occasion a bit unreal, a bit frantic. Or maybe it was because I was afraid that if things turned out as Frank and Mr Rice hoped, I was afraid that I would never again know these people as I knew them now, with my own special knowledge of each of them, the distinctive sense each of them exuded for me; and knowing them differently, experiencing them differently, I wondered – I wondered would I ever be as close to them as I was now.