Not all blind deserve to be blind and not all sighted have the right to see. Perfect sight does not make a man better or worse than those less lucky. And it depends only on the man whether he remains himself in unexpected circumstances or turns into a compromise version of himself – not a human or animal but a substance with rights but without duties, with words but without thoughts, which exists but does not live.

Let us imagine a world stricken with epidemic of blindness instead of flue. What kind of panic would be here? Saramago does not tell what happens after the epidemic – he does not give any visions or hints in either descriptions or dialogs. We only know that the old man with an eye patch found his destiny, that the boy stopped remembering his mother, and that the whole world saw the light except for one person who continued to bear cross