Part II, Chapter 2: "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

"So I've been told, anyway. Do I look distinguished, my dear?" the blind man said to my wife.

He let his fingers touch his suitcase, which was sitting alongside the sofa. He was taking his bearings. I didn't blame him for that.

I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn't smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn't see the smoke they exhaled.

My wife looked at me, her mouth agape.

The blind man said, "My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black-and-white thing, an old relic. It's funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I'm always turning it on, I turn on the color set. It's funny, don't you think?"

We haven't had a chance to talk. Know what I mean? I feel like me and her monopolized the evening.

He was leaning forward with his head turned at me, his right ear aimed in the direction of the set. Very disconcerting.

On the screen, a group of men wearing cowls was being set upon and tormented by men dressed in skeleton costumes and men dressed as devils.

Finally, the picture switched to the famous one in Paris, with its flying buttresses and its spires reaching up to the clouds.

"Are those fresco paintings, bub?" he asked, and he sipped from his drink.

Then something occurred to me, and I said, "Something has occurred to me. Do you have any idea what a cathedral is? What they look like, that is? Do you follow me? If somebody says cathedral to you, do you have any notion what they're talking about? Do you know the difference between that and a Baptist church, say?"

The Englishman's voice droned on.

These supports are called buttresses. They remind me of viaducts, for some reason. But maybe you don't know viaducts, either?

First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires.