"They are ardently fond of music," replied the master. "It is their delight: music is their life. Little blind children, when they first enter the Institute, are capable of standing three hours perfectly motionless, to listen to playing. They learn easily; they play with fire. When the teacher tells one of them that he has not a talent for music, he feels very sorrowful, but he sets to studying desperately. Ah! if you could hear the music there, if you could see them when they are playing, with their heads thrown back a smile on their lips, their faces aflame, trembling with emotion, in ecstasies at listening to that harmony which replies to them in the obscurity which envelops them, you would feel what a divine consolation is music! And they shout for joy, they beam with happiness when a teacher says to them, "You will become an artist." The one who is first in music, who succeeds the best on the violin or piano, is like a king to them; they love, they venerate him. If a quarrel arises between two of them, they go to him; if two friends fall out, it is he who reconciles them. The smallest pupils, whom he teaches to play, regard him as a father. Then all go to bid him good night before retiring to bed. And they talk constantly of music. They are already in bed, late at night, wearied by study and work, and half asleep, and still they are discussing, in a low tone, operas, masters, instruments, and orchestras. It is so great a punishment for them to be deprived of the reading, or lesson in music, it causes them such sorrow that one hardly ever has the courage to punish them in that way. That which the light is to our eyes, music is to their hearts."
Derossi asked whether we could not go to see them.
"Yes," replied the teacher; "but you boys must not go there now. You shall go there later on, when you are in a condition to appreciate the whole extent of this misfortune, and to feel all the compassion which it merits. It is a sad sight, my boys. You will sometimes see there boys seated in front of an open window, enjoying the fresh air, with immovable countenances, which seem to be gazing at the wide green expanse and the beautiful blue mountains which you can see; and when you remember that they see nothing--that they will never see anything--of that vast loveliness, your soul is oppressed, as though you had yourselves become blind at that moment. And then there are those who were born blind, who, as they have never seen the world, do not complain because they do not possess the image of anything, and who, therefore, arouse less compassion. But there are lads who have been blind but a few months, who still recall everything, who thoroughly understand all that they have lost; and these have, in addition, the grief of feeling their minds obscured, the dearest images grow a little more dim in their minds day by day, of feeling the persons whom they have loved the most die out of their memories. One of these boys said to me one day, with inexpressible sadness, 'I should like to have my sight again, only for a moment, in order to see mamma's face once more, for I no longer remember it!' And when their mothers come to see them, the boys place their hands on her face; they feel her over thoroughly from brow to chin, and her ears, to see how they are made, and they can hardly persuade themselves that they cannot see her, and they call her by name many times, to beseech her that she will allow them, that she will make them see her just once. How many, even hard-hearted men, go away in tears! And when you do go out, your case seems to you to be the exception, and the power to see people, houses, and the sky a hardly deserved privilege. Oh! there is not one of you, I am sure, who, on emerging thence, would not feel disposed to deprive himself of a portion of his own sight, in order to bestow a gleam at least upon all those poor children, for whom the sun has no light, for whom a mother has no face!"