By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Rudyard Kipling is a well-known English poet, novelist and short story writer. Kipling’s literary heritage is marred by crude imperialist tendencies – the glorification of the British empire, the assertion of the superiority of the white colonizer over the native of Asia and Africa, the cult of strength and courage. But Kipling is by no means all of a piece. Although reactionary in many of his political opinions, he was nevertheless a piercing critic of the society in which he lived. Everyone knows and loves The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories written for children with a deep understanding and subtle humour. He often feels for the failures, the underdogs, the men whom life has beaten. It is when he speaks of any true sorrow or misfortune that he becomes a really penetrative writer. The present selection is illustrative of all this.

The Light That Failed is Kipling’s first novel. It belongs to the early period in his literary career. The novel centres round the tragic fate of the painter Dick Heldar. A gifted artist, he goes blind in the prime of life. When Kipling portrays Dick at the crucial moment of his life, when he speaks of the terrible loneliness Dick faces, he does it with profound intuition and understanding.

Dick sought an oculist, - the best in London. He was certain that the local practitioner* did not know anything about his trade, and more certain that Maisie** would laugh at him if he were forced to wear spectacles.

“I’ve neglected the warnings of my lord the stomach too long. Hence these spots before the eyes, Binkie.*** I can see as well as I ever could.”

As he entered the dark hall that led to the consulting-room a man cannoned against him. Dick saw the face as it hurried out into the street.

“That’s the writer-type. He has the same modeling of the forehead as Torp.**** He looks very sick. Probably herd something he didn’t like.”

Even as he thought, a great fear came upon Dick, a fear that made him hold his breath as he walked into the oculist’s waiting room, with the heavy carved furniture, the dark-green paper, and the sober-hued prints on the wall. He recognized a reproduction of one of his own sketches.

Many people were waiting their turn before him. His eye was caught by a flaming red-and-gold Christmas-carol book.***** Little children came to that eye-doctor, and they needed large-type amusement.

“That’s idolatrous bad Art,” he said, drawing the book towards himself. “From the anatomy of the angels, it has been made in Germany.” He opened it mechanically, and there leaped to his eyes a verse printed in red pink –

The next good joy that Mary had,

It was the joy of three,

To see her good Son Jesus Christ

Making the blind to see:

Making the blind to see, good Lord,

And happy may we be.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

To all eternity!

* the local practitioner – the local doctor Dick had applied to

** Maisie – the girl Dick loved

*** Binkie – Dick’s dog

**** Torp (Torpenhow) – a journalist, the friend Dick shared rooms with

***** Cristmas-carol book – a book of Christmas rhymes (carols)

Dick read and re-read the verse till his turn came, and the doctor was bending above him seated in an arm-chair. The blaze of a gas-microscope in his eyes made him wince. The doctor’s hand touched the scar of the sword-cut on Dick’s head, and Dick explained briefly how he had come by it. When the flame was removed, Dick saw the doctor’s face, and the fear came upon him once again. The doctor wrapped himself in a mist of words. Dick caught allusions to “scar”, “frontal bone”, “optic nerve”, and the “avoidance of mental anxiety.”

“Verdict?” he said faintly. “My business is painting, and I daren’t waste time. What do you make of it?”

Again the whirl of words, but this time they conveyed a meaning.

“Can you give me anything to drink?”

Many sentences were pronounced in that darkened room and the prisoners often needed cheering. Dick found a glass of liqueur brandy in his hand.

“As far as I can gather,” he said, coughing above the spirit, “you call it decay of the optic nerve, or something, and therefore hopeless. What is my time-limit, avoiding all strain and worry?”

“Perhaps one year.”

“My God! And if I don’t take care of myself?”

“I really could not say. One cannot ascertain the exact amount of injury inflicted by the sword-cut. The scar is an old one, and – exposure to the strong light of the desert, did you say? – with excessive application to fine work? I really could not say. “

“I beg your pardon, but it has come without any warning. If you will let me, I’ll sit here for a minute, and then I’ll go. You have been very good in telling me the truth. Without any warning; without any warning. Thanks.”

Dick went into the street, and was rapturously received by Binkie.

“We’ve got it very badly, little dog! Just as badly as we can get it. We’ll go to the Park to think it out.”

They headed for a certain tree that Dick knew well, and they sat down to think, because his legs were trembling under him and there was cold fear at the pit of his stomach.

“How could it have come without any warning? It’s as sudden as being shot. It’s the living death, Binkie. We’re to be shut up in the dark in one year if we’re careful, and we shan’t see anybody, and we shall never have anything we want, not though we live to be a hundred. “Binkie wagged his tail joyously. “Binkie, we must think. Let’s see how it feels to be blind.” Dick shut his eyes, and flaming commas and Catherine-wheels* floated inside the lids. Yet when he looked across the Park the scope of his vision was not contracted. He could see perfectly, until a procession of slow-wheeling fireworks defiled across his eyeballs.

“Little dorglums,** we aren’t at all well. Let’s go home. If only Torp were back, now!”

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