Daily puzzle

Put Cathedral back in order

Seven beats from our edition of Cathedral by Raymond Carver, shuffled. Drag them, or use the arrows, until the story runs straight. No account, no streak to lose.

  1. The dreaded guest The narrator resents the coming visit of Robert, his wife's blind friend, projecting his prejudices onto blindness.
  2. The wife's history We learn the wife met Robert years earlier and stayed in touch through recorded tapes, and that Robert's wife has just died.
  3. Robert appears Robert arrives warm and at ease, unsettling the narrator's expectations of how a blind man should be.
  4. Dinner and drinks The three share a meal, smoke, and conversation, with the narrator gradually a little less defensive.
  5. The wife sleeps The wife dozes off, leaving the two men alone before a television program about cathedrals.
  6. Describing the cathedral The narrator tries and fails to convey what a cathedral looks like, exposing his own limited inner life.
  7. Drawing with closed eyes Guided by Robert's hand, the narrator draws a cathedral with his eyes shut and feels an unfamiliar openness and release.