Читать книгу Adventures in Silence онлайн

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Someone has said that the deaf man is half dead, because he is unable to separate in his life the living memory or sound from the deadness of the silence.

“I must walk softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul.”

That was the old prophet’s dismal view of life, and how often have I heard hopeless sufferers, half insane with the jangle of head noises, quote that passage.

“Cut out the bitterness, and I’ll walk softly with you,” was the comment of one brave soul who would not subscribe to the whole doctrine. I have had two deaf men quote that and tell me that their condition reminded them of what they had read of prison life in the Russian mines. Formerly, in some of these mines, men were chained together at their work below ground. Sometimes, when one member of the hideous partnership died, the survivor did not have his chains removed for days! One of my friends told me that he felt as though his life was passed dragging about wherever he went the dead body of sound, and what it had meant to his former life. Unless he could keep his mind fully occupied there would rise up before him the dim picture of the prisoner dragging his dead partner through the horrors of their underground prison. The other man who made the comparison had a happier view of life. He told me that he had read all he could find on the subject, and that when these men were released from their hateful prison and brought up into the sunlight, they seemed to know much about the great mystery into which we all must enter. So he felt that he was not carrying the dead around with him, but rather the living, for the spirit of the old life, the best of it in memory and inspiration, remained with him. So we deaf are like you of the sound-world in that some of us sink under our afflictions, while to others of us they are stepping-stones.