In the darkest region of his cave, in absolute blindness, Bruno had pictured a blind person apprehending beauty by smell and by touch. To Bruno, the meaning of this paradox was self-evident: to not be physically blind, as he was not, was to be blind to what it means not to see. He put this another way for them, in an attempt to clarify: He could not abandon his own capacity for sight, he wrote. Even if he wanted to. I see in the light, he said. I see in the half-light. I see in the dark. And it is imperative that I embrace this capacity. That I give in to it. That I insistently see.
