MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[0153] of course.[0154] But the mere fact of asking myself such a question ^{gives me to reflect}.[0155] It is in vain I tell myslef that its only purpose
is to stimulate the lagging discourse, this excellent explanation
does not satisfy me.[0156] Can it be I am the prey of a genuine preoccupat-
ion, of a need to know ^{as one might say}?[0157] I don't know.[0158] I'll try something
else.[0159] If one day a change were to ^{take place}, ^resulting from a principle
of disorder already present, or on its way, what then?

[0160] ^That would ^{seem
to [⁁]} depend on the nature of the change.[0161] No, here all change
would be fatal and land me back, there and then
.[0162] I'll try something else.[0163] Has nothing really changed since I
have been here?[0164] ^{No,[⁁] f}rankly, hand on heart, wait a second, no, nothing,
to my knowledge.[0165] But, as I have said, the place may well be vast,
as it may ^really measure twelve feet in diameter.

[0166] As far as discern-
ing its limits is concerend, it comes to the same thing.[0167] ^{I like}
to think I occupy the centre, but nothing is less certain.[0168] In
a sense I would be better off ^at the ^{circumference}, since my eyes are always
fixed in the same direction.[0169] But I am certainly ⁿot ^at the ^{circumference}.[0170] For
if I were then Malone, wheeling about me as he does, would ^issue
from the ^enceinte at every revolution, which is manifestly
impossible.

[0171] But does he ^{in fact} wheel, does he not perhaps simply
pass before me in a straight line?[0172] No, he wheels, I feel it, and
about me, like a planet about its sun.[0173] And if he made a noise,[⁁] ^{as he goes,} I
would hear him all the time, on my right hand, at my back, on my
left hand, before seeing him again.[0174] But he makes none, for I am
not deaf, of that I am convinced, that is to say half convinced.

[0175] In any case from centre to ^{circumference} it is a far cry and I may w^ell be
situated somewhere between the two.[0176] It is equally possible,
I do not deny it, that I too am in ^perpetual motion, accompanied by
Malone as the earth by its moon.[0177] In which case there would be no
further grounds for my complaining about the disorder of the lights,
due simply to my insistence on regarding them as always the same
lights and viewed always from the same point.

[0178] All is possible, or
^almost.[0179] But the best is to think of myself as fixed and at
the centre of this place, whatever its shape and ^extent.This is

[0180] This is