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london/short-story/to-build-a-fire
To Build a Fire
by Jack London (/author/jack-london/bio-books-stories)
Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when
the man turned aside from the main
Yukon trail and climbed the high earth- bank, where a dim and
little-travelled trail led eastward through the
fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for
breath at the top, excusing the act to
himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o'clock. There was
no sun nor hint of sun, though there was
not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed
an intangible pall over the face of things, a
subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the
absence of sun. This fact did not worry the
man. He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he
had seen the sun, and he knew that a
few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south,
would just peep above the skyline and dip
immediately from view.
The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The
Yukon lay a mile wide and hidden under
three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow.
It was all pure white, rolling in gentle
undulations where the ice-jams of the freeze-up had formed.
North and south, as far as his eye could see,

it was unbroken white, save for a dark hair-line that curved and
twisted from around the spruce- covered
island to the south, and that curved and twisted away into the
north, where it disappeared behind another
spruce-covered island. This dark hair-line was the trail--the
main trail--that led south five hundred miles to
the Chilcoot Pass, Dyea, and salt water; and that led north
seventy miles to Dawson, and still on to the
north a thousand miles to Nulato, and finally to St. Michael on
Bering Sea, a thousand miles and half a
thousand more.
But all this--the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail, the
absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous
cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all--made no
impression on the man. It was not because he
was long used to it. He was a new-comer in the land, a
chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The
trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was
quick and alert in the things of life, but only
in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below
zero meant eighty odd degrees of frost.
Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and
that was all. It did not lead him to
meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon
man's frailty in general, able only to live
within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on
it did not lead him to the conjectural field
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of immortality and man's place in the universe. Fifty degrees

below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt
and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-
flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks.
Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees
below zero. That there should be anything
more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.
As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp,
explosive crackle that startled him. He
spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the
snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty
below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled
in the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than
fifty below--how much colder he did not know. But the
temperature did not matter. He was bound for the
old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys
were already. They had come over across
the divide from the Indian Creek country, while he had come the
roundabout way to take a look at the
possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in
the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six
o'clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but the boys would be
there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper
would be ready. As for lunch, he pressed his hand against the
protruding bundle under his jacket. It was
also under his shirt, wrapped up in a handkerchief and lying
against the naked skin. It was the only way to
keep the biscuits from freezing. He smiled agreeably to himself
as he thought of those biscuits, each cut
open and sopped in bacon grease, and each enclosing a generous
slice of fried bacon.
He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was faint. A
foot of snow had fallen since the last sled
had passed over, and he was glad he was without a sled,
travelling light. In fact, he carried nothing but

the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised,
however, at the cold. It certainly was cold, he
concluded, as he rubbed his numbed nose and cheek-bones with
his mittened hand. He was a warm-
whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect the high
cheek-bones and the eager nose that
thrust itself aggressively into the frosty air.
At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper
wolf-dog, grey-coated and without any
visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild
wolf. The animal was depressed by the
tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling. Its
instinct told it a truer tale than was told to
the man by the man's judgment. In reality, it was not merely
colder than fifty below zero; it was colder
than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below
zero. Since the freezing-point is thirty-two
above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost
obtained. The dog did not know
anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no
sharp consciousness of a condition of
very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had its
instinct. It experienced a vague but
menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along
at the man's heels, and that made it
question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if
expecting him to go into camp or to seek
shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned fire,
and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under
the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air.

of 12http://americanliterature.com/author/jack-
The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a
fine powder of frost, and especially were its
jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystalled breath.
The man's red beard and moustache were
likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form
of ice and increasing with every warm, moist
breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the
muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly that
he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The
result was that a crystal beard of the
colour and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his
chin. If he fell down it would shatter itself, like
glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind the appendage.
It was the penalty all tobacco- chewers
paid in that country, and he had been out before in two cold
snaps. They had not been so cold as this, he
knew, but by the spirit thermometer at Sixty Mile he knew they
had been registered at fifty below and at
fifty-five.
He held on through the level stretch of woods for several miles,
crossed a wide flat of nigger-heads, and
dropped down a bank to the frozen bed of a small stream. This
was Henderson Creek, and he knew he
was ten miles from the forks. He looked at his watch. It was ten
o'clock. He was making four miles an
hour, and he calculated that he would arrive at the forks at half-
past twelve. He decided to celebrate that
event by eating his lunch there.
The dog dropped in again at his heels, with a tail drooping
discouragement, as the man swung along the
creek-bed. The furrow of the old sled-trail was plainly visible,

but a dozen inches of snow covered the
marks of the last runners. In a month no man had come up or
down that silent creek. The man held
steadily on. He was not much given to thinking, and just then
particularly he had nothing to think about
save that he would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o'clock
he would be in camp with the boys. There
was nobody to talk to and, had there been, speech would have
been impossible because of the ice-
muzzle on his mouth. So he continued monotonously to chew
tobacco and to increase the length of his
amber beard.
Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very
cold and that he had never experienced such
cold. As he walked along he rubbed his cheek-bones and nose
with the back of his mittened hand. He
did this automatically, now and again changing hands. But rub
as he would, the instant he stopped his
cheek-bones went numb, and the following instant the end of his
nose went numb. He was sure to frost
his cheeks; he knew that, and experienced a pang of regret that
he had not devised a nose-strap of the
sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passed across the
cheeks, as well, and saved them. But it
didn't matter much, after all. What were frosted cheeks? A bit
painful, that was all; they were never
serious.
Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenly
observant, and he noticed the changes in the
creek, the curves and bends and timber- jams, and always he
sharply noted where he placed his feet.
Once, coming around a bend, he shied abruptly, like a startled
horse, curved away from the place where
he had been walking, and retreated several paces back along the

trail. The creek he knew was frozen
clear to the bottom--no creek could contain water in that arctic
winter--but he knew also that there were
springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran along under
the snow and on top the ice of the creek.
He knew that the coldest snaps never froze these springs, and he
knew likewise their danger. They were
traps. They hid pools of water under the snow that might be
three inches deep, or three feet. Sometimes
a skin of ice half an inch thick covered them, and in turn was
covered by the snow. Sometimes there were
alternate layers of water and ice-skin, so that when one broke
through he kept on breaking through for a
while, sometimes wetting himself to the waist.
That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the give
under his feet and heard the crackle of a
snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a
temperature meant trouble and danger. At the
very least it meant delay, for he would be forced to stop and
build a fire, and under its protection to bare
his feet while he dried his socks and moccasins. He stood and
studied the creek-bed and its banks, and
decided that the flow of water came from the right. He reflected
awhile, rubbing his nose and cheeks,
then skirted to the left, stepping gingerly and testing the footing
for each step. Once clear of the danger,
he took a fresh chew of tobacco and swung along at his four-

mile gait.
In the course of the next two hours he came upon several
similar traps. Usually the snow above the
hidden pools had a sunken, candied appearance that advertised
the danger. Once again, however, he
had a close call; and once, suspecting danger, he compelled the
dog to go on in front. The dog did not
want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and
then it went quickly across the white,
unbroken surface. Suddenly it broke through, floundered to one
side, and got away to firmer footing. It
had wet its forefeet and legs, and almost immediately the water
that clung to it turned to ice. It made
quick efforts to lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in
the snow and began to bite out the ice that
had formed between the toes. This was a matter of instinct. To
permit the ice to remain would mean sore
feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious
prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its
being. But the man knew, having achieved a judgment on the
subject, and he removed the mitten from
his right hand and helped tear out the ice- particles. He did not
expose his fingers more than a minute,
and was astonished at the swift numbness that smote them. It
certainly was cold. He pulled on the mitten
hastily, and beat the hand savagely across his chest.
At twelve o'clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was
too far south on its winter journey to clear
the horizon. The bulge of the earth intervened between it and
Henderson Creek, where the man walked
under a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past
twelve, to the minute, he arrived at the forks
of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made. If he
kept it up, he would certainly be with the

boys by six. He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and drew forth
his lunch. The action consumed no more
than a quarter of a minute, yet in that brief moment the
numbness laid hold of the exposed fingers. He did
not put the mitten on, but, instead, struck the fingers a dozen
sharp smashes against his leg. Then he sat
down on a snow-covered log to eat. The sting that followed
upon the striking of his fingers against his leg
ceased so quickly that he was startled, he had had no chance to
take a bite of biscuit. He struck the
fingers repeatedly and returned them to the mitten, baring the
other hand for the purpose of eating. He
tried to take a mouthful, but the ice-muzzle prevented. He had
forgotten to build a fire and thaw out. He
chuckled at his foolishness, and as he chuckled he noted the
numbness creeping into the exposed
fingers. Also, he noted that the stinging which had first come to
his toes when he sat down was already
passing away. He wondered whether the toes were warm or
numbed. He moved them inside the
moccasins and decided that they were numbed.
He pulled the mitten on hurriedly and stood up. He was a bit
frightened. He stamped up and down until
the stinging returned into the feet. It certainly was cold, was his
thought. That man from Sulphur Creek
had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in
the country. And he had laughed at him at

the time! That showed one must not be too sure of things. There
was no mistake about it, it was cold. He
strode up and down, stamping his feet and threshing his arms,
until reassured by the returning warmth.
Then he got out matches and proceeded to make a fire. From the
undergrowth, where high water of the
previous spring had lodged a supply of seasoned twigs, he got
his firewood. Working carefully from a
small beginning, he soon had a roaring fire, over which he
thawed the ice from his face and in the
protection of which he ate his biscuits. For the moment the cold
of space was outwitted. The dog took
satisfaction in the fire, stretching out close enough for warmth
and far enough away to escape being
singed.
When the man had finished, he filled his pipe and took his
comfortable time over a smoke. Then he pulled
on his mittens, settled the ear-flaps of his cap firmly about his
ears, and took the creek trail up the left
fork. The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the
fire. This man did not know cold. Possibly
all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of
real cold, of cold one hundred and seven
degrees below freezing-point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry
knew, and it had inherited the
knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in
such fearful cold. It was the time to lie
snug in a hole in the snow and wait for a curtain of cloud to be
drawn across the face of outer space
whence this cold came. On the other hand, there was keen
intimacy between the dog and the man. The
one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had
ever received were the caresses of the
whip- lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that
threatened the whip-lash. So the dog made no

effort to communicate its apprehension to the man. It was not
concerned in the welfare of the man; it was
for its own sake that it yearned back toward the fire. But the
man whistled, and spoke to it with the sound
of whip-lashes, and the dog swung in at the man's heels and
followed after.
The man took a chew of tobacco and proceeded to start a new
amber beard. Also, his moist breath
quickly powdered with white his moustache, eyebrows, and
lashes. There did not seem to be so many
springs on the left fork of the Henderson, and for half an hour
the man saw no signs of any. And then it
happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the soft,
unbroken snow seemed to advertise
solidity beneath, the man broke through. It was not deep. He
wetted himself half-way to the knees before
he floundered out to the firm crust.
He was angry, and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to get
into camp with the boys at six o'clock,
and this would delay him an hour, for he would have to build a
fire and dry out his foot-gear. This was
imperative at that low temperature--he knew that much; and he
turned aside to the bank, which he
climbed. On top, tangled in the underbrush about the trunks of
several small spruce trees, was a high-
water deposit of dry firewood--sticks and twigs principally, but
also larger portions of seasoned branches

and fine, dry, last-year's grasses. He threw down several large
pieces on top of the snow. This served for
a foundation and prevented the young flame from drowning
itself in the snow it otherwise would melt. The
flame he got by touching a match to a small shred of birch-bark
that he took from his pocket. This burned
even more readily than paper. Placing it on the foundation, he
fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass
and with the tiniest dry twigs.
He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his danger.
Gradually, as the flame grew stronger, he
increased the size of the twigs with which he fed it. He squatted
in the snow, pulling the twigs out from
their entanglement in the brush and feeding directly to the
flame. He knew there must be no failure. When
it is seventy- five below zero, a man must not fail in his first
attempt to build a fire--that is, if his feet are
wet. If his feet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail
for half a mile and restore his circulation. But
the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by
running when it is seventy-five below. No
matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the harder.
All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told
him about it the previous fall, and now he
was appreciating the advice. Already all sensation had gone out
of his feet. To build the fire he had been
forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone
numb. His pace of four miles an hour had
kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and to
all the extremities. But the instant he
stopped, the action of the pump eased down. The cold of space
smote the unprotected tip of the planet,
and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of
the blow. The blood of his body recoiled

before it. The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it
wanted to hide away and cover itself up
from the fearful cold. So long as he walked four miles an hour,
he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the
surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down into the recesses
of his body. The extremities were the
first to feel its absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his
exposed fingers numbed the faster, though
they had not yet begun to freeze. Nose and cheeks were already
freezing, while the skin of all his body
chilled as it lost its blood.
But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be only
touched by the frost, for the fire was
beginning to burn with strength. He was feeding it with twigs
the size of his finger. In another minute he
would be able to feed it with branches the size of his wrist, and
then he could remove his wet foot-gear,
and, while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by the
fire, rubbing them at first, of course, with
snow. The fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the
advice of the old-timer on Sulphur
Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in
laying down the law that no man must travel
alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he
had had the accident; he was alone; and he
had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish,
some of them, he thought. All a man had to

do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who was
a man could travel alone. But it was
surprising, the rapidity with which his cheeks and nose were
freezing. And he had not thought his fingers
could go lifeless in so short a time. Lifeless they were, for he
could scarcely make them move together to
grip a twig, and they seemed remote from his body and from
him. When he touched a twig, he had to
look and see whether or not he had hold of it. The wires were
pretty well down between him and his
finger-ends.
All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and
crackling and promising life with every
dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were
coated with ice; the thick German socks
were like sheaths of iron half-way to the knees; and the
mocassin strings were like rods of steel all twisted
and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment he tugged
with his numbed fingers, then, realizing
the folly of it, he drew his sheath-knife.
But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own
fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not
have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it
in the open. But it had been easier to pull
the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire.
Now the tree under which he had done this
carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for
weeks, and each bough was fully
freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated
a slight agitation to the tree--an
imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an
agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster.
High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This
fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them.

This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole
tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it
descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the
fire was blotted out! Where it had burned
was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.
The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his
own sentence of death. For a moment he
sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been. Then he grew
very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on
Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail-mate he
would have been in no danger now. The trail-
mate could have built the fire. Well, it was up to him to build
the fire over again, and this second time there
must be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely
lose some toes. His feet must be badly
frozen by now, and there would be some time before the second
fire was ready.
Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them. He
was busy all the time they were passing
through his mind, he made a new foundation for a fire, this time
in the open; where no treacherous tree
could blot it out. Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs
from the high-water flotsam. He could not
bring his fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to
gather them by the handful. In this way he
got many rotten twigs and bits of green moss that were
undesirable, but it was the best he could do. He

worked methodically, even collecting an armful of the larger
branches to be used later when the fire
gathered strength. And all the while the dog sat and watched
him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its
eyes, for it looked upon him as the fire-provider, and the fire
was slow in coming.
When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for a second
piece of birch-bark. He knew the bark
was there, and, though he could not feel it with his fingers, he
could hear its crisp rustling as he fumbled
for it. Try as he would, he could not clutch hold of it. And all
the time, in his consciousness, was the
knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. This thought
tended to put him in a panic, but he
fought against it and kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with
his teeth, and threshed his arms back and
forth, beating his hands with all his might against his sides. He
did this sitting down, and he stood up to
do it; and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolf-brush of
a tail curled around warmly over its
forefeet, its sharp wolf-ears pricked forward intently as it
watched the man. And the man as he beat and
threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge of envy as
he regarded the creature that was warm
and secure in its natural covering.
After a time he was aware of the first far-away signals of
sensation in his beaten fingers. The faint tingling
grew stronger till it evolved into a stinging ache that was
excruciating, but which the man hailed with
satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and
fetched forth the birch-bark. The exposed
fingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out his
bunch of sulphur matches. But the

tremendous cold had already driven the life out of his fingers.
In his effort to separate one match from the
others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He tried to pick it out
of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers
could neither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove
the thought of his freezing feet; and nose,
and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the
matches. He watched, using the sense of
vision in place of that of touch, and when he saw his fingers on
each side the bunch, he closed them--
that is, he willed to close them, for the wires were drawn, and
the fingers did not obey. He pulled the
mitten on the right hand, and beat it fiercely against his knee.
Then, with both mittened hands, he
scooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow, into his
lap. Yet he was no better off.
After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between
the heels of his mittened hands. In this
fashion he carried it to his mouth. The ice crackled and snapped
when by a violent effort he opened his
mouth. He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the
way, and scraped the bunch with his
upper teeth in order to separate a match. He succeeded in
getting one, which he dropped on his lap. He
was no better off. He could not pick it up. Then he devised a
way. He picked it up in his teeth and
scratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before he
succeeded in lighting it. As it flamed he held
it with his teeth to the birch-bark. But the burning brimstone
went up his nostrils and into his lungs,
causing him to cough spasmodically. The match fell into the
snow and went out.

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the
moment of controlled despair that ensued:
after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner. He beat his
hands, but failed in exciting any sensation.
Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his
teeth. He caught the whole bunch between
the heels of his hands. His arm-muscles not being frozen
enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly
against the matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg.
It flared into flame, seventy sulphur
matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept
his head to one side to escape the
strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birch-bark.
As he so held it, he became aware of
sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell it.
Deep down below the surface he could
feel it. The sensation developed into pain that grew acute. And
still he endured it, holding the flame of the
matches clumsily to the bark that would not light readily
because his own burning hands were in the way,
absorbing most of the flame.
At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his hands
apart. The blazing matches fell sizzling into
the snow, but the birch-bark was alight. He began laying dry
grasses and the tiniest twigs on the flame.
He could not pick and choose, for he had to lift the fuel between
the heels of his hands. Small pieces of
rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit them
off as well as he could with his teeth. He
cherished the flame carefully and awkwardly. It meant life, and

it must not perish. The withdrawal of blood
from the surface of his body now made him begin to shiver, and
he grew more awkward. A large piece of
green moss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it out
with his fingers, but his shivering frame
made him poke too far, and he disrupted the nucleus of the little
fire, the burning grasses and tiny twigs
separating and scattering. He tried to poke them together again,
but in spite of the tenseness of the effort,
his shivering got away with him, and the twigs were hopelessly
scattered. Each twig gushed a puff of
smoke and went out. The fire-provider had failed. As he looked
apathetically about him, his eyes chanced
on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the fire from him, in the
snow, making restless, hunching
movements, slightly lifting one forefoot and then the other,
shifting its weight back and forth on them with
wistful eagerness.
The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He
remembered the tale of the man, caught in a
blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and
so was saved. He would kill the dog and
bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of
them. Then he could build another fire.
He spoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was a
strange note of fear that frightened the
animal, who had never known the man to speak in such way
before. Something was the matter, and its
suspicious nature sensed danger,--it knew not what danger but
somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose
an apprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the
sound of the man's voice, and its restless,
hunching movements and the liftings and shiftings of its
forefeet became more pronounced but it would
not come to the man. He got on his hands and knees and crawled

toward the dog. This unusual posture
again excited suspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away.
The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled for
calmness. Then he pulled on his mittens, by
means of his teeth, and got upon his feet. He glanced down at
first in order to assure himself that he was
really standing up, for the absence of sensation in his feet left
him unrelated to the earth. His erect position
in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion from the dog's
mind; and when he spoke peremptorily, with
the sound of whip-lashes in his voice, the dog rendered its
customary allegiance and came to him. As it
came within reaching distance, the man lost his control. His
arms flashed out to the dog, and he
experienced genuine surprise when he discovered that his hands
could not clutch, that there was neither
bend nor feeling in the lingers. He had forgotten for the moment
that they were frozen and that they were
freezing more and more. All this happened quickly, and before
the animal could get away, he encircled its
body with his arms. He sat down in the snow, and in this
fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined
and struggled.
But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in his arms
and sit there. He realized that he could not
kill the dog. There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands
he could neither draw nor hold his sheath-

knife nor throttle the animal. He released it, and it plunged
wildly away, with tail between its legs, and still
snarling. It halted forty feet away and surveyed him curiously,
with ears sharply pricked forward. The man
looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found
them hanging on the ends of his arms. It
struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in
order to find out where his hands were. He
began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened
hands against his sides. He did this for five
minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up to the
surface to put a stop to his shivering.
But no sensation was aroused in the hands. He had an
impression that they hung like weights on the
ends of his arms, but when he tried to run the impression down,
he could not find it.
A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This
fear quickly became poignant as he
realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his
fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and
feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances
against him. This threw him into a panic,
and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail.
The dog joined in behind and kept up
with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he
had never known in his life. Slowly, as he
ploughed and floundered through the snow, he began to see
things again--the banks of the creek, the old
timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The running made
him feel better. He did not shiver.
Maybe, if he ran on, his feet would thaw out; and, anyway, if he
ran far enough, he would reach camp and
the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toes
and some of his face; but the boys would
take care of him, and save the rest of him when he got there.

And at the same time there was another
thought in his mind that said he would never get to the camp
and the boys; that it was too many miles
away, that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he
would soon be stiff and dead. This
thought he kept in the background and refused to consider.
Sometimes it pushed itself forward and
demanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to think
of other things.
It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet so frozen
that he could not feel them when they
struck the earth and took the weight of his body. He seemed to
himself to skim along above the surface
and to have no connection with the earth. Somewhere he had
once seen a winged Mercury, and he
wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the
earth.
His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys had
one flaw in it: he lacked the endurance.
Several times he stumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up,
and fell. When he tried to rise, he failed.
He must sit and rest, he decided, and next time he would merely
walk and keep on going. As he sat and
regained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm and
comfortable. He was not shivering, and
it even seemed that a warm glow had come to his chest and
trunk. And yet, when he touched his nose or

cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would not thaw them
out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and
feet. Then the thought came to him that the frozen portions of
his body must be extending. He tried to
keep this thought down, to forget it, to think of something else;
he was aware of the panicky feeling that it
caused, and he was afraid of the panic. But the thought asserted
itself, and persisted, until it produced a
vision of his body totally frozen. This was too much, and he
made another wild run along the trail. Once he
slowed down to a walk, but the thought of the freezing
extending itself made him run again.
And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When he fell
down a second time, it curled its tail over
its forefeet and sat in front of him facing him curiously eager
and intent. The warmth and security of the
animal angered him, and he cursed it till it flattened down its
ears appeasingly. This time the shivering
came more quickly upon the man. He was losing in his battle
with the frost. It was creeping into his body
from all sides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no
more than a hundred feet, when he staggered
and pitched headlong. It was his last panic. When he had
recovered his breath and control, he sat up and
entertained in his mind the conception of meeting death with
dignity. However, the conception did not
come to him in such terms. His idea of it was that he had been
making a fool of himself, running around
like a chicken with its head cut off--such was the simile that
occurred to him. Well, he was bound to
freeze anyway, and he might as well take it decently. With this
new-found peace of mind came the first
glimmerings of drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep
off to death. It was like taking an
anaesthetic. Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There

were lots worse ways to die.
He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly he
found himself with them, coming along the
trail and looking for himself. And, still with them, he came
around a turn in the trail and found himself lying
in the snow. He did not belong with himself any more, for even
then he was out of himself, standing with
the boys and looking at himself in the snow. It certainly was
cold, was his thought. When he got back to
the States he could tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted
on from this to a vision of the old-timer on
Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and
comfortable, and smoking a pipe.
"You were right, old hoss; you were right," the man mumbled to
the old-timer of Sulphur Creek.
Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most
comfortable and satisfying sleep he had
ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day
drew to a close in a long, slow twilight.
There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in
the dog's experience had it known a man
to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight
drew on, its eager yearning for the fire
mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it
whined softly, then flattened its ears down in

anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained
silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And
still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death.
This made the animal bristle and back
away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that
leaped and danced and shone brightly in the
cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction
of the camp it knew, where were the other
food-providers and fire-providers.
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1
Cathedral
By Raymond Carver (1981)
This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way
to
spend the night. His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead
wife’s
relatives in Connecticut. He called my wife from his in-law’s.
Arrangements
were made. He would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my
wife would
meet him at the station. She hadn’t seen him since she worked
for him one
summer in Seattle ten years ago. But she and the blind man had
kept in
touch. They made tapes and mailed them back and forth. I

wasn’t
enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his
being blind
bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the
movies, the
blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were
led by seeing-
eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked
forward to.
That summer in Seattle she had needed a job. She didn’t have
any
money. The man she was going to marry at the end of the
summer was in
officers’ training school. He didn’t have any money, either. But
she was in
love with the guy, and he was in love with her, etc. She’d seen
something in
the paper: HELP WANTED—Reading to Blind Man, and a
telephone
number. She phoned and went over, was hired on the spot. She
worked with
this blind man all summer. She read stuff to him, case studies,
reports, that
sort of thing. She helped him organize his little office in the
county social-
service department. They’d become good friends, my wife and
the blind
man. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he
could touch her
face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to
every part of
her face, her nose—even her neck! She never forgot it. She even
tried to
write a poem about it. She was always trying to write a poem.
She wrote a

poem or two every year, usually after something really
important had
happened to her.
When we first started going out together, she showed me the
poem. In
the poem, she recalled his fingers and the way they had moved
around over
her face. In the poem, she talked about what she had felt at the
time, about
what went through her mind when the blind man touched her
nose and lips. I
can remember I didn’t think much of the poem. Of course, I
didn’t tell her
that. Maybe I just don’t understand poetry. I admit it’s not the
first thing I
reach for when I pick up something to read.
Anyway, this man who’d first enjoyed her favors, this officer-
to-be,
he’d been her childhood sweetheart. So okay. I’m saying that at
the end of
the summer she let the blind man run his hands over her face,
said good-bye
2
to him, married her childhood etc., who was now a
commissioned officer,
and she moved away from Seattle. But they’d keep in touch, she
and the
blind man. She made the first contact after a year or so. She
called him up
one night from an Air Force base in Alabama. She wanted to

talk. They
talked. He asked her to send him a tape and tell him about her
life. She did
this. She sent the tape. On the tape, she told the blind man she
loved her
husband but she didn’t like it where they lived and she didn’t
like it that he
was a part of the military-industrial thing. She told the blind
man she’d
written a poem and he was in it. She told him that she was
writing a poem
about what it was like to be an Air Force officer’s wife. The
poem wasn’t
finished yet. She was still writing it. The blind man made a
tape. He sent her
the tape. She made a tape. This went on for years. My wife’s
officer was
posted to one base and then another. She sent tapes from Moody
AFB,
McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near Sacramento,
where one night
she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing
in that
moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it
another step. She
went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine
chest and
washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot
bath and
passed out.
But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer—
why
should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and
what more
does he want?—came home from somewhere, found her, and

called the
ambulance. In time, she put it all on tape and sent the tape to
the blind man.
Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the
tapes off
lickety-split. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was
her chief
means of recreation. On one tape, she told the blind man she’d
decided to
live away from her officer for a time. On another tape, she told
him about
her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told
her blind man
about it. She told him everything, or so it seemed to me. Once
she asked me
if I’d like to hear the latest tape from the blind man. This was a
year ago. I
was on the tape, she said. So I said okay, I’d listen to it. I got
us drinks and
we settled down in the living room. We made ready to listen.
First she
inserted the tape into the player and adjusted a couple of dials.
Then she
pushed a lever. The tape squeaked and someone began to talk in
this loud
voice. She lowered the volume. After a few minutes of harmless
chitchat, I
heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind
man I didn’t
even know! And then this: “From all you’ve said about him, I
can only
conclude—“ But we were interrupted, a knock at the door,
something, and
we didn’t ever get back to the tape. Maybe it was just as well.
I’d heard all I
wanted to.

3
Now this same blind man was coming over to sleep in my
house.
“Maybe I could take him bowling,” I said to my wife. She was
at the
draining board doing scalloped potatoes. She put down the knife
she was
using and turned around.
“If you love me,” she said, “you can do this for me. If you don’t
love
me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend
came to visit,
I’d make him feel comfortable.” She wiped her hands with the
dish towel.
“I don’t have any blind friends,” I said.
“You don’t have any friends,” she said. “Period. Besides,” she
said,
“goddamn it, his wife’s just died! Don’t you understand that?
The man’s lost
his wife!”
I didn’t answer. She’d told me a little about the blind man’s
wife. Her
name was Beulah. Beulah! That’s a name for a colored woman.
“Was his wife a Negro?” I asked.
“Are you crazy?” my wife said. “Have you just flipped or

something?” She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor, then
roll under the
stove. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m just asking,” I said.
Right then my wife filled me in with more detail than I cared to
know.
I made a drink and sat at the kitchen table to listen. Pieces of
the story began
to fall into place.
Beulah had gone to work for the blind man the summer after my
wife
had stopped working for him. Pretty soon Beulah and the blind
man had
themselves a church wedding. It was a little wedding—who’d
want to go to
such a wedding in the first place?—just the two of them, plus
the minister
and the minister’s wife. But it was a church wedding just the
same. It was
what Beulah had wanted, he’d said. But even then Beulah must
have been
carrying the cancer in her glands. After they had been
inseparable for eight
years—my wife’s word, inseparable—Beulah’s health went into
a rapid
decline. She died in a Seattle hospital room, the blind man
sitting beside the
bed and holding on to her hand. They’d married, lived and
worked together,
slept together—had sex, sure—and then the blind man had to
bury her. All
this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman
looked like. It

was beyond my understanding. Hearing this, I felt sorry for the
blind man
for a little bit. And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful
life this
woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see
herself as she
was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go
on day after
day and never receive the smallest compliment from her
beloved. A woman
whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be
it misery or
something better. Someone who could wear makeup or not—
what difference
4
to him? She could if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around
one eye, a
straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks, and purple shoes, no
matter. And
then to slip off into death, the blind man’s hand on her hand, his
blind eyes
streaming tears—I’m imagining now—her last thought maybe
this: that he
never even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to
the grave.
Robert was left with a small insurance policy and half of a
twenty-peso
Mexican coin. The other half of the coin went into the box with
her.
Pathetic.
So when the time rolled around, my wife went to the depot to

pick
him up. With nothing to do but wait—sure, I blamed him for
that—I was
having a drink and watching the TV when I heard the car pull
into the drive.
I got up from the sofa with my drink and went to the window to
have a look.
I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car. I saw her get out
of the
car and shut the door. She was still wearing a smile. Just
amazing. She went
around to the other side of the car to where the blind man was
already
starting to get out. This blind man, feature this, he was wearing
a full beard!
A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say. The blind man
reached into the
backseat and dragged out a suitcase. My wife took his arm, shut
the car door,
and, talking all the way, moved him down the drive and then up
the steps to
the front porch. I turned off the TV. I finished my drink, rinsed
the glass,
dried my hands. Then I went to the door.
My wife said, “I want you to meet Robert. Robert, this is my
husband.
I’ve told you all about him.” She was beaming. She had this
blind man by
his coat sleeve.
The blind man let go of his suitcase and up came his hand.
I took it. He squeezed hard, held my hand, and then he let it go.
“I feel like we’ve already met,” he boomed.
“Likewise,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. Then I said,

“Welcome. I’ve heard a lot about you.” We began to move then,
a little
group, from the porch into the living room, my wife guiding
him by the arm.
The blind man was carrying his suitcase in his other hand. My
wife said
things like, “To your left here, Robert. That’s right. Now watch
it, there’s a
chair. That’s it. Sit down right here. This is the sofa. We just
bought this
sofa two weeks ago.”
I started to say something about the old sofa. I’d liked that old
sofa.
But I didn’t say anything. Then I wanted to say something else,
small-talk,
about the scenic ride along the Hudson. How going to New
York, you
should sit on the right-hand side of the train, and coming from
New York,
the left-hand side.
“Did you have a good train ride?” I said. “Which side of the
train did
5
you sit on, by the way?”
“What a question, which side!” my wife said. “What’s it matter
which
side?” she said.
“I just asked,” I said.

“Right side,” the blind man said. “I hadn’t been on a train in
nearly
forty years. Not since I was a kid. With my folks. That’s been a
long time.
I’d nearly forgotten the sensation. I have winter in my beard
now, “ he said.
“So I’ve been told, anyway. Do I look distinguished, my dear?”
the blind
man said to my wife.
“You look distinguished, Robert,” she said. “Robert,” she said.
“Robert, it’s just so good to see you.”
My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at
me. I
had the feeling she didn’t like what she saw. I shrugged.
I’ve never met, or personally known, anyone who was blind.
This
blind man was late forties, a heavy-set, balding man with
stooped shoulders,
as if he carried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks,
brown shoes, a
light-brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this
full beard. But
he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always
thought dark
glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wish he had a
pair. At first
glance, his eyes looked like anyone else’s eyes. But if you
looked close,
there was something different about them. Too much white in
the iris, for
one thing, and the pupils seemed to move around in the sockets
without his

knowing it or being able to stop it. Creepy. As I stared at his
face, I saw the
left pupil turn in toward his nose while the other made an effort
to keep in
one place. But it was only an effort, for that one eye was on the
roam
without his knowing it or wanting it to be.
I said, “Let me get you a drink. What’s your pleasure? We have
a little
bit of everything. It’s one of our pastimes.”
“Bub, I’m a Scotch man myself,” he said fast enough in this big
voice.
“Right,” I said. Bub! “Sure you are. I knew it.”
He let his fingers touch his suitcase, which was sitting
alongside the
sofa. He was taking his bearings. I didn’t blame him for that.
“I’ll move that up to your room,” my wife said.
“No, that’s fine,” the blind man said loudly. “It can go up when
I go
up.”
“A little water with the Scotch?” I said.
“Very little,” he said.
“I knew it, “ I said.
He said, “Just a tad. The Irish actor, Barry Fitzgerald? I’m like
that
fellow. When I drink water, Fitzgerald said, I drink water.
When I drink
6

whiskey, I drink whiskey.” My wife laughed. The blind man
brought his
hand up under his beard. He lifted his beard slowly and let it
drop.
I did the drinks, three big glasses of Scotch with a splash of
water in
each. Then we made ourselves comfortable and talked about
Robert’s
travels. First the long flight from the West Coast to
Connecticut, we covered
that. Then from Connecticut up here by train. We had another
drink
concerning that leg of the trip.
I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t
smoke
because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t see the smoke they
exhaled. I
though I knew that much and that much only about blind people.
But this
blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit
another one.
This blind man filled his ashtray and my wife emptied it.
When we sat down at the table for dinner, we had another drink.
M
wife heaped Robert’s plate with cube steak, scalloped potatoes,
green beans.
I buttered him up two slices of bread. I said, “Here’s bread and
butter for
you.” I swallowed some of my drink. “Now let us pray,” I said,
and the blind
man lowered his head. My wife looked at me, her mouth agape.
“Pray the

phone won’t ring and the food doesn’t get cold,” I said.
We dug in. We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We
ate
like there was no tomorrow. We didn’t talk. We ate. We scarfed.
We grazed
the table. We were into serious eating. The blind man had right
away located
his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I
watched with
admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat. He’d cut
two pieces of
the meat, fork the meat into his mouth, and then go all out for
the scalloped
potatoes, the beans next, and then he’d tear off a hunk of
buttered bread and
eat that. He’d follow this up with a big drink of milk. It didn’t
seem to
bother him to use his fingers once in a while, either.
We finished everything, including half a strawberry pie. For a
few
moments, we sat as if stunned. Swear beaded on our faces.
Finally, we got
up from the table and left the dirty plates. We didn’t look back.
We took
ourselves into the living room and sank into our places again.
Robert and my
wife sat on the sofa. I took the big chair. We had us two or three
more drinks
while they talked about the major things that had come to pass
for them in
the past ten years. For the most part, I just listened. Now and
then I joined
in. I didn’t want him to think I’d left the room, and I didn’t
want her to think

I was feeling left out. They talked of things that had happened
to them—to
them!—these past ten years. I waited in vain to hear my name
on my wife’s
sweet lips: “And then my dear husband came into my life”—
something like
that. But I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert.
Robert had done a
little of everything, it seemed, a regular blind jack-of-all-trades.
But most
7
recently he and his wife had had an Amway distributorship,
from which, I
gathered, they’d earned a living, such as it was. The blind man
was also a
ham radio operator. He talked in his loud voice about
conversations he’d had
with fellow operators in Guam, in the Philippines, in Alaska,
and even in
Tahiti. He said he’d have a lot of friends there if her ever
wanted to go visit
those places. From time to time, he’d turn his blind face toward
me, put his
hand under his beard, ask me something. How long had I been
in my present
position? (Three years.) Did I like my work? (I didn’t.) Was I
going to stay
with it? (What were the options?) Finally, when I thought he
was beginning
to run down, I got up and turned on the TV.
My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a

boil.
Then she looked at the blind man and said, “Robert, do you
have a TV?”
The blind man said, “My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color
set and
a black-and-white thing, an old relic. It’s funny, but if I turn the
TV on, and
I’m always turning it on, I turn on the color set. It’s funny,
don’t you think?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing to
say to
that. No opinion. So I watched the news program and tried to
listen to what
the announcer was saying.
“This is a color TV,” the blind man said. “Don’t ask me how,
but I
can tell.”
“We traded up a while ago,” I said.
The blind man had another taste of his drink. He lifted his
beard,
sniffed it, and let it fall. He leaned forward on the sofa. He
positioned his
ashtray on the coffee table, then put the lighter to his cigarette.
He leaned
back on the sofa and crossed his legs at the ankles.
My wife covered her mouth, and then she yawned. She
stretched. She
said, “I think I’ll go upstairs and put on my robe. I think I’ll
change into
something else. Robert, you make yourself comfortable,” she

said.
“I’m comfortable,” the blind man said.
“I want you to feel comfortable in this house,” she said.
“I am comfortable,” the blind man said.
After she’d left the room, he and I listened to the weather report
and
then to the sports roundup. By that time, she’d been gone so
long I didn’t
know if she was going to come back. I thought she might have
gone to bed. I
wished she’d come back downstairs. I didn’t want to be left
alone with a
blind man. I asked him if he wanted another drink, and he said
sure. Then I
asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me. I said I’d just
rolled a
number. I hadn’t, but I planned to do so in about two shakes.
8
“I’ll try some with you,” he said.
“Damn right,” I said. “That’s the stuff.”
I got our drinks and sat down on the sofa with him. Then I
rolled us
two fat numbers. I lit one and passed it. I brought it to his
fingers. He took it
and inhaled.
“Hold it as long as you can,” I said. I could tell he didn’t know

the
first thing.
My wife came back downstairs wearing her pink robe and her
pink
slippers.
“What do I smell?” she said.
“We thought we’d have us some cannabis,” I said.
My wife gave me a savage look. Then she looked at the blind
man and
said, “Robert, I didn’t know you smoked.”
He said, “I do now, my dear. There’s a first time for everything.
But I
don’t feel anything yet.”
“This stuff is pretty mellow,” I said. “This stuff is mild. It’s
dope you
can reason with,” I said. “It doesn’t mess you up.”
“Not much it doesn’t, bub,” he said, and laughed.
My wife sat on the sofa between the blind man and me. I passed
her
the number. She took it and toked and then passed it back to me.
“Which
way is this going?” she said. Then she said, “I shouldn’t be
smoking this. I
can hardly keep my eyes open as it is. That dinner did me in. I
shouldn’t
have eaten so much.”
“It was the strawberry pie,” the blind man said. “That’s what
did it,”
he said, and he laughed his big laugh. Then he shook his head.

“There’s more strawberry pie,” I said.
“Do you want some more, Robert?” my wife said.
“Maybe in a little while,” he said.
We gave our attention to the TV. My wife yawned again. She
said,
“Your bed is made up when you feel like going to bed, Robert. I
know you
must have had a long day. When you’re ready to go to bed, say
so.”
She pulled his arm. “Robert?”
He came to and said, “I’ve had a real nice time. This beats
tapes,
doesn’t it?”
I said, “Coming at you,” and I put the number between his
fingers. He
inhaled, held the smoke, and then let it go. It was like he’d been
doing this
since he was nine years old.
“Thanks, bub,” he said. “But I think this is all for me. I think
I’m
beginning to feel it,” he said. He held the burning roach out for
my wife.
“Same here,” she said. “Ditto. Me, too.” She took the roach and
9
passed it to me. “I may just sit here for a while between you two

guys with
my eyes closed. But don’t let me bother you, okay? Either one
of you. If it
bothers you, say so. Otherwise, I may just sit here with my eyes
closed until
you’re ready to go to bed,” she said. “Your bed’s made up,
Robert, when
you’re ready. It’s right next to our room at the top of the stairs.
We’ll show
you up when you’re ready. You wake me up now, you guys, if I
fall asleep.”
She said that and then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
The news program ended. I got up and changed the channel. I
sat back
down on the sofa. I wished my wife hadn’t pooped out. Her
head lay across
the back of the sofa, her mouth open. She’d turned so that he
robe had
slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. I reached to
draw her
robe back over her, and it was then that I glanced at the blind
man. What the
hell! I flipped the robe open again.
“You say you when you want some strawberry pie,” I said.
“I will,” he said.
I said, “Are you tired? Do you want me to take you up to your
bed?
Are you ready to hit the hay?”
“Not yet,” he said. “No, I’ll stay up with you, bub. If that’s all
right.
I’ll stay up until you’re ready to turn in. We haven’t had a
chance to talk.

Know what I mean? I feel like me and her monopolized the
evening. “ He
lifted his beard and he let it fall. He picked up his cigarettes and
his lighter.
“That’s all right,” I said. Then I said, “I’m glad for the
company.”
And I guess I was. Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as
long
as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went
to bed at the
same time. When I did go to sleep, I had these dreams.
Sometimes I’d wake
up from one of them, my heart going crazy.
Something about the church and the Middle Ages was on the
TV. Not
your run-of-the-mill TV fare. I wanted to watch something else.
I turned to
the other channels. But there was nothing on them, either. So I
turned back
to the first channel and apologized.
“Bub, it’s all right,” the blind man said. “It’s fine with me.
Whatever
you want to watch is okay. I’m always learning something.
Learning never
ends. It won’t hurt me to learn something tonight. I got ears,”
he said.
We didn’t say anything for a time. He was leaning forward with
his

head turned at me, his right ear aimed in the direction of the set.
Very
disconcerting. Now and then his eyelids drooped and then they
snapped
open again. Now and then he put his fingers into his beard and
tugged, like
he was thinking about something he was hearing on the
television.
10
On the screen, a group of men wearing cowls was being set
upon and
tormented by men dressed in skeleton costumes and men
dressed as devils.
The men dressed as devils wore devil masks, horns, and long
tails. This
pageant was part of a procession. The Englishman who was
narrating the
thing said it took place in Spain once a year. I tried to explain
to the blind
man what was happening.
“Skeletons,” he said. “I know about skeletons,” he said, and he
nodded.
The TV showed this one cathedral. Then there was a long, slow
look
at another one. Finally, the picture switched to the famous one
in Paris, with
its flying buttresses and its spires reaching up to the clouds. The
camera
pulled away to show the whole of the cathedral rising above the
skyline.

There were times when the Englishman who was telling the
thing
would shut up, would simply let the camera move around over
the
cathedrals. Or else the camera would tour the countryside, men
in fields
walking behind oxen. I waited as long as I could. Then I felt I
had to say
something. I said, “They’re showing the outside of this
cathedral now.
Gargoyles. Little statues carved to look like monsters. Now I
guess they’re
in Italy. Yeah, they’re in Italy. There’s paintings on the walls of
this one
church.”
“Are those fresco painting, bub?” he asked, and he sipped from
his
drink.
I reached for my glass. But it was empty. I tried to remember
what I
could remember. “You’re asking me are those frescoes?” I said.
“That’s a
good question. I don’t know.”
The camera moved to a cathedral outside Lisbon. The difference
in
the Portugese cathedral compared with the French and Italian
were not that
great. But they were there. Mostly the interior stuff. Then
something
occurred to me, and I said, “Something has occurred to me. Do
you have any
idea what a cathedral is? What they look like, that is? Do you

follow me? If
somebody says cathedral to you, do you have any notion what
they’re
talking about? Do you the difference between that and a Baptist
church,
say?”
He let the smoke dribble from his mouth. “I know they took
hundreds
of workers fifty or a hundred years to build,” he said. “I just
heard the man
say that, of course. I know generations of the same families
worked on a
cathedral. I heard him say that, too. The men who began their
life’s work on
them, they never lived to see the completion of their work. In
that wise, bub,
they’re no different from the rest of us, right?” He laughed.
Then his eyelids
drooped again. His head nodded. He seemed to be snoozing.
Maybe he was
11
imagining himself in Portugal. The TV was showing another
cathedral now.
This one was in Germany. The Englishman’s voice droned on.
“Cathedrals,”
the blind man said. He sat up and rolled his head back and forth.
“If you
want the truth, bub, that’s about all I know. What I just said.
What I heard
him say. But maybe you could describe one to me? I wish you’d
do it. I’d

like that. If you want to know, I really don’t have a good idea.”
I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I
even
begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life
was being
threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else.
I stared some more at the cathedral before the picture flipped
off into
the countryside. There was no use. I turned to the blind man and
said, “To
begin with, they’re very tall.” I was looking around the room
for clues.
“They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. They’re so
big, some of
them, they have to have these supports. To help hold them up,
so to speak.
These supports are called buttresses. They remind of viaducts,
for some
reason. But maybe you don’t know viaducts, either? Sometimes
the
cathedrals have devils and such carved into the front.
Sometimes lords and
ladies. Don’t ask me why this is,” I said.
He was nodding. The whole upper part of his body seemed to be
moving back and forth.
“I’m not doing so good, am I?” I said.
He stopped nodding and leaned forward on the edge of the sofa.
As he
listened to me, he was running his fingers through his beard. I
wasn’t getting
through to him, I could see that. But he waited for me to go on

just the same.
He nodded, like he was trying to encourage me. I tried to think
what else to
say. “They’re really big,” I said. They’re massive. They’re built
of stone.
Marble, too, sometimes. In those olden days, when they built
cathedrals,
men wanted to be close to God. In those olden days, God was an
important
part of everyone’s life. You could tell this from their cathedral-
building. I’m
sorry,” I said, “but it looks like that’s the best I can do for you.
I’m just no
good at it.”
“That’s all right, bub,” the blind man said. “Hey, listen. I hope
you
don’t mind my asking you. Can I ask you something? Let me
ask you a
simple question, yes or no. I’m just curious and there’s no
offense. You’re
my host. But let me ask if you are in any way religious? You
don’t mind my
asking?”
I shook my head. He couldn’t see that, though. A wink is the
same as
a nod to a blind man. “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything.
Sometimes
it’s hard. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sure, I do,” he said.
12

“Right,” I said.
The Englishman was still holding forth. My wife sighed in her
sleep.
She drew a long breath and went on with her sleeping.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” I said. “But I can’t tell you what a
cathedral looks like. It just isn’t in me to do it. I can’t do any
more than I’ve
done.”
The blind man sat very still, his head down, as he listened to
me.
I said, “The truth is, cathedrals don’t mean anything special to
me.
Nothing. Cathedrals. They’re something to look at on late-night
TV. That’s
all they are.”
It was then that the blind man cleared his throat. He brought
something up. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket.
Then he said, “I
get it, bub. It’s okay. It happens. Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“Hey, listen
to me. Will you do me a favor? I got an idea. Why don’t you
find us some
heavy paper? And a pen. We’ll do something. We’ll draw one
together. Get
us a pen and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff,” he
said.
So I went upstairs. My legs felt like they didn’t have any
strength in
them. They felt like they did after I’d done some running. In my

wife’s
room, I looked around. I found some ballpoints in a little basket
on her table.
And then I tried to think where to look for the kind of paper he
was talking
about.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, I found a shopping bag with onion
skins in
the bottom of the bag. I emptied the bag and shook it. I brought
it into the
living room and sat down with it near his legs. I moved some
things,
smoothed the wrinkles from the bag, spread it out on the coffee
table.
The blind man got down from the sofa and sat next to me on the
carpet.
He ran his fingers over the paper. He went up and down the
sides of
the paper. The edges, even the edges. He fingered the corners.
“All right,” he said. “All right, let’s do her.”
He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand
over my
hand. “Go ahead, bub, draw,” he said. “Draw. You’ll see. I’ll
follow along
with you. It’ll be okay. Just begin now like I’m telling you.
You’ll see.
Draw,” the blind man said.
So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a hose. It could
have
been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end

of the roof, I
drew spires. Crazy.
“Swell,” he said. “Terrific. You’re doing fine,” he said. “Never
thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did
you, bub? Well,
it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.”
13
I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung
great
doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV station went off the air. I put
down the pen
and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around
over the paper.
He moved the tips of the fingers over the paper, all over what I
had drawn,
and he nodded.
“Doing fine,” the blind man said.
I took up the pen again, and he found my hand. I kept at it. I’m
no
artist. But I kept drawing just the same.
My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the
sofa,
her robe hanging open. She said, “What are you doing? Tell me,
I want to
know.”
I didn’t answer her.
The blind man said, “We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him

are
working on it. Press hard,” he said to me. “That’s right. That’s
good,” he
said. “Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you
could. But you
can, can’t you? You’re cooking with gas now. You know what
I’m saying?
We’re going to really have us something here in a minute.
How’s the old
arm?” he said. “Put some people in there now. What’s a
cathedral without
people?”
My wife said, “What’s going on? Robert, what are you doing?
What’s
going on?”
“It’s all right,” he said to her. “Close your eyes now,” the blind
man
said to me.
I did it. I closed them just like he said.
“Are they closed?” he said. “Don’t fudge.”
“They’re closed,” I said.
“Keep them that way,” he said. He said, “Don’t stop now.
Draw.”
So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand
went
over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.
Then he said, “I think that’s it. I think you got it,” he said.
“Take a
look. What do you think?”
But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a

little
longer. I thought it was something I ought to do.
“Well?” he said. “Are you looking?”
My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I
didn’t
feel like I was inside anything.
“It’s really something,” I said.
This is strictly for classroom supplementary use only. The
author, author's representatives, and the
14
publishers of this literary piece hold the individual copyright.

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