MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[0124] try and see where these considerations lead.[0125] I have been ^here, ^ever[⁁] since
I began to be, my appearances elsewhere being due to other
parties.[0126] All has proceeded, ^all this time, in the utmost
calm, the most perfect order, apart from a few manifestations the
meaning of which escapes me.[0127] No, it is not that their meaning es-
capes me, my own escapes me just as much.

[0128] Here all things ^— no, I
shall not say it, being unable to.[0129] I owe my existence to nobody,
these faint fires are not of ^those that illuminate or burn.
[0130] Going nowhere, coming from nowhere, Malone passes.[0131] These notions
of ^forbears, of houses where lamps are lit at night, and other
^such, where do they come to me from?[0133] And all these quest-
ions I ask myself.[0134] It is not in a spirit of curiosity.

[0135] I
cannot be silent.[0136] ^{About myself I need to know nothing}.
[0137] Here all is clear.[0138] No, all is not clear.[0139] But the discourse must
^{go on}.[0140] So one invents obscurities.[0141] ^Rhetoric.[0142] ^{These lights
for example, which I do not ask to mean anything, what is there so strange
about them, so wrong?}[0143] Is it their irregularity, their
instability, ^{is it} their shining strong one minute and weak the next,
but never ^beyond the power of one or two can^dles?

[0144] Malone appears
and disappears with the punctuality of clockwork, always at the
same distance, the same ^velocity, in the same direction,
the same attitude.[0145] But the play of the lights is truly unpre-
dictable.[0146] It is only fair to say that to eyes less knowing than
mine they would probably pass ^unseen.

[0147] But even to mine
do they not sometimes do so?[0148] They are perhaps unwavering and
fⁱxed and my fitful perceiving the cause of their inconstancy.
[0149] I hope I ^may have occasion to come back to this question.

[0150] But
I shall remark without further delay, in order to be sure of doing
so, that I am ^relying on these lights, as indeed on all other
similar sources of credible perplexity, to help me continue and
perhaps even conclude.[0151] ^{I resume}, ^{I have to.}
[0152] Yes, where was I, from the unexceptionable ^{order that has prevailed
here} up to ^date may I infer that such will always ^be the case?I may

[0153] I may