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The narrator's wife falls asleep and the narrator is left with Robert and the television. The narrator attempts to describe what he sees on the television; however, when a cathedral appears in a documentary, the narrator is unable to find the words to describe it. .
Robert asks the narrator to get some paper and a pen so that they can draw a cathedral together. The narrator does as he is asked. When he returns, he gives the paper to Robert who feels the size of the paper. Then Robert places his hand on the hand of the narrator that holds the pen. "'Go ahead, bub, draw,' he said. 'Draw. You'll see. I'll follow along with you. It'll be okay. Just begin now like I'm telling you."' .
The drawing goes on and on. Finally, Robert tells the narrator to close his eyes, and continue to draw. At this moment, something strange happens to the narrator. "It was like nothing else in my life up to now," he tells the reader. Even when Robert tells him to open his eyes, he keeps them closed. Something has happened to him that has changed his understanding of life. "My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything." No longer hostile to Robert, no longer aware of Robert's blindness, the narrator experiences the possibility of change in his life. .
The unnamed male narrator, called "Bub" by Robert, the blind man, is the protagonist of the story. The story unfolds through the narrator's point of view. "This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night," announces the narrator conversationally in the first line of the story. The narrator is jealous of his wife's friendship with the blind man. He is unhappy in his work and isolated from others. According to his wife, he has no friends. .
The narrator is unhappy about the blind man's visit. He seems to be uncomfortable with the notion of blindness, with his wife's connection to the man, and with his own inability to relate to other human beings.
