from the new decameron, by various hands. copyright, 1919, by robert m. mcbride and company. by permission of the publishers.
when i was a little boy i once went with my father to call on adrian borlsover. i played on the floor with a black spaniel while my father appealed for a subscription. just before we left my father said, "mr. borlsover, may my son here shake hands with you? it will be a thing to look back upon with pride when he grows to be a man."
i came up to the bed on which the old man was lying and put my hand in his, awed by the still beauty of his face. he spoke to me kindly, and hoped that i should always try to please my father. then he placed his right hand on my head and asked for a blessing to rest upon me. "amen!" said my father, and i followed him out of the room, feeling as if i wanted to cry. but my father was in excellent spirits.
"that old gentleman, jim," said he, "is the most wonderful man in the whole town. for ten years he has been quite blind."
"but i saw his eyes," i said. "they were ever so black and shiny; they weren't shut up like nora's puppies. can't he see at all?"
and so i learnt for the first time that a man might have eyes that looked dark and beautiful and shining without being able to see.
"just like mrs. tomlinson has big ears," i said, "and can't hear at all except when mr. tomlinson shouts."
"jim," said my father, "it's not right to talk about a lady's ears. remember what mr. borlsover said about pleasing me and being a good boy."
that was the only time i saw adrian borlsover. i soon forgot about him and the hand which he laid in blessing on my head. but for a week i prayed that those dark tender eyes might see.
"his spaniel may have puppies," i said in my prayers, "and he will never be able to know how funny they look with their eyes all closed up. please let old mr. borlsover see."
adrian borlsover, as my father had said, was a wonderful man. he came of an eccentric family. borlsovers' sons, for some reason, always seemed to marry very ordinary women, which perhaps accounted for the fact that no borlsover had been a genius, and only one borlsover had been mad. but they were great champions of little causes, generous patrons of odd sciences, founders of querulous sects, trustworthy guides to the bypath meadows of erudition.
adrian was an authority on the fertilization of orchids. he had held at one time the family living at borlsover conyers, until a congenital weakness of the lungs obliged him to seek a less rigorous climate in the sunny south coast watering-place where i had seen him. occasionally he would relieve one or other of the local clergy. my father described him as a fine preacher, who gave long and inspiring sermons from what many men would have considered unprofitable texts. "an excellent proof," he would add, "of the truth of the doctrine of direct verbal inspiration."
adrian borlsover was exceedingly clever with his hands. his penmanship was exquisite. he illustrated all his scientific papers, made his own woodcuts, and carved the reredos that is at present the chief feature of interest in the church at borlsover conyers. he had an exceedingly clever knack in cutting silhouettes for young ladies and paper pigs and cows for little children, and made more than one complicated wind instrument of his own devising.
when he was fifty years old adrian borlsover lost his sight. in a wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new conditions of life. he quickly learned to read braille. so marvelous indeed was his sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in botany. the mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was sufficient means for its identification, though occasionally he would use his lips. i have found several letters of his among my father's correspondence. in no case was there anything to show that he was afflicted with blindness and this in spite of the fact that he exercised undue economy in the spacing of lines. towards the close of his life the old man was credited with powers of touch that seemed almost uncanny: it has been said that he could tell at once the color of a ribbon placed between his fingers. my father would neither confirm nor deny the story.
