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Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill
now, and they took that as a favourable sign.
They asked him if he still thought he could "see."
"No," he said. "That was folly. The word means nothing.
Less than nothing!"
They asked him what was overhead.
"About ten times ten the height of a man there is a roof above
the world--of rock--and very, very smooth. So smooth--so
beautifully smooth . ." He burst again into hysterical tears.
"
Before you ask me any more, give me some food or I shall die!"
He expected dire punishments, but these blind people were
capable of toleration. They regarded his rebellion as but one more
proof of his general idiocy and inferiority, and after they had
whipped him they appointed him to do the simplest and heaviest work
they had for anyone to do, and he, seeing no other way of living,
did submissively what he was told.
He was ill for some days and they nursed him kindly. That
refined his submission. But they insisted on his lying in the
dark, and that was a great misery. And blind philosophers came and
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