wretched retina of his, after Balzac's famous
story. He could still see with the left of it and at the bottom, but
a veil had come over the middle and all the rest; by daylight he
could see through this veil, but every object he saw was discolored
and distorted and deformed--it was worse than darkness itself; and
this was so distressing, and so interfered with the sight of the
other eye, that when the sun went down, the total darkness in the
ruined portion of his left retina came as a positive relief. He took
all this very desperately to heart and had very terrible
forebodings. For he had never known an ache or a pain, and had
innocently gloried all his life in the singular perfection of his
five wits.

Then his money was coming to an end; he would soon have to sing in
the streets, like Veronese, with Lady Archibald's guitar.

Dear Lady Archibald! When things went wrong with her she would always
laugh, and say:

"Les miseres du jour font le bonheur du lendemain!"

This he would say or sing to himself over and over again, and go to
bed at night quite hopeful and sanguine after a merry day spent
among his many friends; and soon sink into sleep, persuaded that his
trouble was a bad dream which next morning would scatter and dispel.
But when he woke, it was to find the grim reality sitting by his
pillow, and he couldn't dry-cup it away. The very sunshine was an
ache as he went out and got his breakfast with his blue spectacles
on; and black care would link its bony arm in his as he listlessly
strolled by the much-sounding sea--and cling to him close as he swam
or dived; and he would wonder what he had ever done that so serious
and tragic a calamity should have befallen so light a person as
himself; who could only dance and sing and play the fool to make
people laugh--Rigoletto--Triboulet--a mere grasshopper, no ant or
bee or spider, not even a third-class beetle--surely this was not
according to the eternal fitness of things!

And thus in the unutterable utterness of his dejection he would make
himself such evil cheer that he sickened with envy at the mere sight
of any living thing that could see out of two eyes--a homeless
irresponsible dog, a hunchback beggar, a crippled organ-grinder and
his monkey--till he met some acquaintance; even but a rolling
fisherman with a brown face and honest blue eyes--a pair of
them--and then he would forget his sorrow and his envy in chat and
jokes and laughter with him over each a c