was very beautiful, though he had never seen her face before... How did this deep intuition come to him, that "Ella" was beautiful? He still remembers the day he was struck by the shock of an explosion that robbed him of his sight, and how he found himself on the coast, blind, wretched, with no one to help... But Ella took him in and cared for him until
his strength returned to him; then they boarded a ship together to be married...
Even "Honer," that odious hypocrite who owned the only store on the island, and who would point at them with contempt, saying, "that good-for-nothing blind man and his wife" —
even this "Honer" could not daunt them... and they went on living their happy life under the palm with the bell...
No sooner had all these things passed through his head than he turned his boat toward the house... and he could hear Ella calling him from the shore:
"Hurry, Richard, I have a wonderful surprise!"...
He heard the rustle of her steps in the shallow water as she crossed it to meet him, and before the boat had settled she had thrown her arms around him so that he nearly fell into the water... and she was saying: It is a happy surprise, Richard...
He said, laughing: "Something good to eat, Ella?!"
She took his cheek, teasing him, gave it a light pinch and said: "Ah, you are like all other men — your heart is in your stomach."
"Ella" was carried away; she paid no attention to anything, not even to the fish he had caught; she took it from his hand, and together they ran to the happy house.
Ella danced for joy, saying, "Look, Richard! The wonderful surprise!"
Dick knit his brow, for he could not look as his wife had asked; she was so excited...
He began to feel the thing she had
placed in his hand... something soft as velvet...
Ella cried out... "It is a rare pearl, Richard... black and beautiful... the loveliest thing my eyes have ever seen." And she went on telling him excitedly how she had found it inside one of the oyster shells.
...This is a pearl, Richard, such as a man sees only in a dream...
She kept chattering about the pearl's beauties while she went to and fro about the house, preparing them a meal of fish and fruit...
After the meal she brought him his pipe and lit it, and he settled down contentedly, stretched out on a mat of grasses, his head in her lap, her black hair falling over his brow...
Dick forgot everything then, and felt happiness flood his whole being; he forgot everything, even the precious pearl that was in his hand... and nothing remained in
his head but "Ella," this priceless pearl beyond all money — and he felt a violent bitterness, for the first time, that he could not see Ella's beautiful face... And while "Dick" was living in his sweet dreams, his head in his beloved wife's lap, "Ella" drew a newspaper from under the mat and said to him: Richard, I never read you this before today, because there was no use in it; but now the matter is different... we were poor, and now we are rich...
He interrupted her: What do you mean, Ella?
She said... This paper says that Dr. "Steiner," the famous eye specialist, has succeeded in restoring sight to many of the blind... those who were not born blind but were stricken, like you, by an accident
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