It was a sunny winter day. I had gone up and down the tower when, outside the little door at the foot, a blind man came toward me. He was a pale, thin man with dark glasses. He kept close to the inner wall of the courtyard. On reaching the door, he touched it and sharply turned inside. In a moment, he disappeared up the staircase. I stood still, looking at the little sign that said "To the Tower… " I felt obliged to follow.
I didn't follow closely. I caught up with him in the ticket office. There I was surprised to see the attendant selling him a ticket as though he were any other visitor. With the ticket in one hand and touching the wall with the other, he reached the staircase leading to the hallway.
"That man is blind," I said to the attendant, but he showed no concern. "He's blind," I repeated. He didn't answer, looking at me vacantly.
"Perhans he wants to jump," I said. But his chair was too comfortable. He didn't stir. He still looked down at a crossword puzzle he had begun. I turned toward the staircase.
"The ticket," the attendant said, rising from his chair. It seemed the only thing that could move him. After purchasing my ticket, I hurried up the staircase.
The man hadn't gone as far as I imagined. After ten minutes, I approached him. "Excuse me," I said as politely as I could, "but I am very curious to know why you came up."
"You'd never guess," he said.
"Not the view, I take it, or the fresh air on this winter day," I said.
He smiled. "Coming up the stairs, one can feel the change-the coo staircase suddenly becomes quite warm, —and how up here behind the wall there is shade, but as soon as one goes opposite a narrow window one finds the sun. In all of Siena there is no place so good as here."
He moved into the sunlight. Then he stepped into the shade. "Light, shade, light, shade," he said, and seemed as pleased as a child who, in a game of hopscotch, jumps from square to square.
We went down the tower together. I left him, gladdened as one can only be by the sunlight.