A man dreads the visit of his wife's old friend, a blind man named Robert. His discomfort with blindness, with intimacy, with anything outside his narrow life is palpable from the first sentence. Then, late at night, they draw a cathedral together. Raymond Carver's minimalist prose has never been more powerful than here, where what is left unsaid carries all the weight. The story enacts its own theme: connection across difference, the unexpected grace of being seen. It is the title story of the collection that secured Carver's reputation.