A Game of Light and Shade

It was a sunny day. I had gone up and down the tower when, outside the door at the foot, a blind man came toward me. In a moment, he disappeared up the stairs. I looked at the sign that said “To the Tower”, and decided to _______ him.

I caught up with him in the ticket office. There I was _______ to see the attendant (工作人员) selling him a ticket as if he were any other visitor. Then, with the ticket in one hand and _______ the wall with the fingers of the other, the blind man reached the stairs _________ to the hallway.

“That man is blind. What would a blind man climb up the tower for?” I said to the attendant, expecting him to show some _______, but he didn’t answer.

“Not the _______ certainly,” I said. “Perhaps he wants to _______.”

I bought a ticket and _______ up the stairs. The man hadn’t gone as far as I _______. A third of the way up the tower, I heard his ________. I slowed down and followed him at a little ________. He stopped from time to time. When he got to the balcony, I was a dozen steps ________. As I reached it, I saw him at the corner of the tower.

At last, after ten minutes, I ________ him. “Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, “but I am curious to know ________ you came up.”

He smiled. “Coming up the stairs, you will notice how not just light but sun ________ into the tower through the narrow windows here and there, so that you can feel the ________ —the cool stairs suddenly become quite warm—and how up here behind the wall there is ________, but as soon as going opposite a window you can find the sun. There is no ________ so good as this for feeling the difference between light and shade. It is not the first time I’ve come up.”

The blind man seemed quite ________ just like a child who was enjoying his favorite games. He told me the truth that blind men can also find the beauty in life ________ they cannot enjoy the sights of the world.

When I come across a good article in reading newspapers, I often want to ________ and keep it. But just as I am about to do so I find the article on the ________ side is as much interesting. It may be a discussion of the ________ to keep in good health, or advice about how to behave and conduct oneself in ________. If I cut the front article, the opposite one is likely to suffer ________, leaving out half of it or keeping the ________ without the title. Therefore, the scissors would ________ before they start, or halfway done when I find out the regretful ________.

Sometimes two things are to be done at the same time, both ________ your attention. You can only take up one of them, ________ has to wait or be given up. But you know the ________ is unpredictable—the changed situation may not allow you to do what is ________ behind. Thus you are caught in a difficult ________ and feel sad. How ________ that nice changes and brilliant ideas should gather around all at once? It may happen that your life changes greatly on your ________ of one choice to the other.

In fact that is what ________ is like: we are often faced with the two opposite ________ of a thing which are both desirable like a newspaper cutting. It often occurs that our attention is ________ to one thing only after we get into another. The former may be more important than the ________ and give rise to a divided mind. I still remember a philosopher’s remarks: “When one door shuts, another opens in life.” So a casual ________ may not be a bad one.

During the war, my husband was stationed at an army camp in a desert in California. I went to live there order to be ________ him. I hated the place. I had never________ been so unhappy. My husband was ordered out on a long-term duty, and I was left in a tiny shack (棚屋) alone. The heat was________ almost 125°F even in the shade of a cactus. ________ a soul to talk to. The wind blew non-stop, and all the food I ate and the very air I breathed were________ with sand, sand, sand!

I was so sorry for myself that I wrote to my parents. I told then I was________ and coming back home. I said I couldn’t stand it one minute longer. I________ be in prison! My father answered my_________with just two lines—two lines that will always sing in my_________—two lines that completely changed my life:

Two men looked out from prison bars,

One saw the mud, the other saw the stars.

I read those two lines________. I was ashamed of myself. I made up my mind I would find out what was good in my present________ ; I would look for the stars.

I made friends with the natives, and their_________ amazed me. They gave me presents of their favorite artworks which they had________ to sell to tourists. I studied the delightful forms of the cactus. I watched for the desert sunsets, and________ for seashells that had been left there millions of years ago when the sands of the desert had been an ocean________.

What brought about this astonishing change in me?The desert hadn’t changed, but I had. I had changed my attitude. And by doing so, I changed an unhappy experience into the most amazing adventure of my life. I was excited by this new world that I had discovered. I had looked out of my self-created prison and found the stars.