172 292
172
györgy spiró
sedulously and in accordance
with the rules.
If ever he was not reading
or copying, by screwing up
his unaided eyes Uri could
see roughly as far as three
doors along in the zigzagged,
crisscross yard, and between
his fingers up to six or seven
doors along. He wanted to
have keen eyesight, as his
father’s remark had cut him
to the quick and still rankled;
there were times when, trying
his eyes out in the morning, he
may have seen more clearly,
perhaps, but by evening he
had to conclude that he was
still not seeing well enough.
Not long before, he had
fabricated a contraption for
himself out of a wooden
board that could rest on the
ridge of the nose, so that he
did not have to look through
his fingers all the time: he
bored two small holes to
look through, and when he
was wearing it on his nose
and looking through the
holes he did get a nice, if very
restricted, view. The view
was nice because everything
was sharper and more stable,
relatively speaking, than when
he had simply peeked through
his forefinger and thumb; in
fact, it just as good as when
he looked through the splayed
fingers of both hands held in
front of his eyes.
The plank had the extra
advantage that it could be
held in place with just one
hand, but he dared not show
himself outside his own hovel
with the nose-board, because
people would have laughed.
Indeed, he did not even dare
to stand close to the window,
with the device on his nose
or not, because it was known
throughout the yard, just
like everything was known,
that he was in the habit of