> It was, rather, the behavior of one mentally blind, or agnosic—able to see but not to decipher what he was seeing.

And while he does get better, it does end up with:

> But then, paradoxically, a release was given, in the form of a second and now final blindness—a blindness he received as a gift.

Cf: https://web.archive.org/web/20240111185639/https://www.newyo... (older version does not trigger the paywall or at least can disable it while it's loading).