but unlike his sisters blaise had a partner in the angel of unknowing - that thing that uses opalescent wings like horse 's blinders to shield the few it blesses with an unconsciousness about the things they lack , to shield them from an awareness of mockery and from self-pity , and so while to some it may seem as though he persisted and pushed through time in an almost unknowing machine-like way , that could not be said to describe his insides , in which he lived with a sense of spectating and patience , an unconscious abiding , a calmness and a ready to wonder - all this because of the angel , all with a trust if not an outright conscious knowing that something was moving him , like a chess piece , by a design he did not need to understand .