little deformed creature rolling about on the littered floor of her
uncleanly hovel, he had trembled at the sound of her voice and had
obeyed it like a beaten spaniel puppy. When he had grown older he had
seen that she lived upon alms and thievery and witchlike evil doings
that made all decent folk avoid her. She had no kinsfolk or friends, and
only such visitors as came to her in the dark hours of night and seemed
to consult with her as she sat and mumbled strange incantations while
she stirred a boiling pot. Zia had heard of soothsayers and dealers with
evil spirits, and at such hours was either asleep on his pallet in a far
corner or, if he lay awake, hid his face under his wretched covering and
stopped his ears. Once when she had drawn near and found his large eyes
open and staring at her in spellbound terror, she had beaten him
horribly and cast him into the storm raging outside.

A strange passion in her seemed her hatred of his eyes. She could not
endure that he should look at her as if he were thinking. He must not
let his eyes rest on her for more than a moment when he spoke. He must
keep them fixed on the ground or look away from her. From his babyhood
this had been so. A hundred times she had struck him when he was too
young to understand her reason. The first strange lesson he had learned
was that she hated his eyes and was driven to fury when she found them
resting innocently upon her. Before he was three years old he had
learned this thing and had formed the habit of looking down upon the
earth as he limped about. For long he thought that his eyes were as
hideous as his body was distorted. In her frenzies she told him that
evil spirits looked out from them and that he was possessed of devils.
Without thought of rebellion or resentment he accepted with timorous
humility, as part of his existence, her taunts at his twisted limbs.
What use in rebellion or anger? With the fatalism of the East he
resigned himself to that which was. He had been born a deformity, and