173 292
173
captivity
hanging around and gazing
out; in fact he was mocked
on that account, and even his
father had told him to lay off:
“Spying is despicable,” was
what he said, so Uri would
spend long periods of time
loafing deep in his alcove, as
far as he could get from the
window, and he hoped no
one outside could make him
out in the gloom. There was
a story told about a weak-
eyed but rich Latini who was
able to see everything clearly
by skillfully holding a ground
diamond before his eyes and
looking through it. But Uri had
never encountered anything
of the kind; indeed, he had
never seen a gemstone at all.
He feared going totally blind.
Blindness was not common
in the labyrinthine yard, and
anyone who went blind did
not roam around outside, but
people could sometimes be
heard saying that this person
or that had been struck down
in that manner by the wrath of
the Lord. Blind people, unless
they were trachomatous, were
not segregated; they were not
regarded as unclean, merely
unfortunate. Uri brooded for
days andweeks andmonths on
end about whether the Lord
had marked him to be blind,
or of it was simply a case of his
having so much else to do that
he was not paying attention,
or maybe even Satan, or more
likely Fate, intervening to
cause this affliction. Uri held
an assortment of Judeo-Latin-
Greek notions about it because
he had read a lot. What he
really did not understand
was why he had not been
born blind from the outset,
if that was his fate. Had the
Lord changed his mind after
he was already underway?
What sort of considerations
could be driving Him, he