MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[2230] no ^more.[2231] In any case it's not a question of speaking of me, but
^of speaking, of speaking no ^more, this slight confusion augurs
well, now I'll have to find a name for this latest surrogate,
with his head splitting with vile certainties and his
doll's eyes, later on, later on, first I must descri^be him in
more detail, see what he is capable of, whence he comes and whithe
he returns, in his head of course, we don't intend to relapse
into picaresque, with the stink of Mahood and Worm still in our
nostrils.

[2232] Now it's I the orator, the besiegers ^beleaguerers have departed,
I am master on board, after the rats, I no longer crawl between
the thwarts, under the moon, in the shadow of the lash, strange
this mixture of solid and liquid, a little air is all we need now
to complete the elements, no, I'm forgetting fire, unusual hell
when you come to think of it, perhaps it's paradise, perhaps it's

[2232] the earth, perhaps it's the shores of a lake beneath the earth,
you sca^rcely breathe, but you breathe, it's not certain, you see
nothing, hear nothing, you hear the long kiss of dead water and
mud, aloft at less than a sco^re of fathoms men come and go, you
dream of them, in your long dream there's a place for the waking,
you wonder how you know all you know, you even see grass,

[2232] grass at dawn, ^glaucous with dew, not so ^blind as all that
my eyes, they^{'re not} mine, mine are done, they don't even weep
any more, they open and shut by the force of habit, fifteen
minutes exposure, fifteen minutes shutter, like the owl cooped
in the grotto in Battersea Park, ah misery, will I never stop
wanting a life for myself?

[2233] No, no, no head either, anything you
like, but not a head, in his head he doesn't go anywhere either,
I've tried,[2234] lashed to the stake, blindfold, gagged to the
gullet, you take the air, under the elms in se,
murmuring Shelley, impervious to the ^shafts.[2235] Yes, a head, but
solid, solid bone, and you buried in it, like a fossil in the
rock.[2236] Perhaps there go I after all.[2237] I can't go ^on in any case.

[2238] But I must go on.[2239] I'll go on.[2240] Air, air, I'll seek air, air in
time, the air of time, and in space, in my head, that's how I'll
be able to go ^on. ^{[⁁] That's all} very ^fine, but the voice is failing, it's
the first time, no, I've been through that, it has even stopped,

[2241] ^{[⁁] That's all} very ^fine, but the voice is failing, it's
the first time, no, I've been through that, it has even stopped,