1 . A Game of Light and Shade

It was a sunny winter day. I had gone up and down the tower when, outside the door at the foot, a blind man came over.  I looked at the ________ that said “To the Tower”, and decided to follow him.

I caught up with him in the ticket office. There I was ________ to see the attendant 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 thought. “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 ________   as I could, “but I am curious to know how 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.