MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[2241] many a time, that's how it will end again, I'll go silent, for
want of air, then the air will come back and I'll begin again.
[2242] My voice.[2243] The voice.[2244] Yes, I don't hear it so well.[2248] I'm going
silent.[2249] No longer hearing this voice, that's what I call going
silent.[2250] That is to say I'll hear it still, if I listen hard.
[2251] I'll listen hard.[2252] Listening hard, that's what I call going silent.

[2253] I'll hear it still, broken, faint, unintelligible, if I listen
hard.[2254] Hearing it still, without hearing what it says, that's what
I call going silent.[2255] Then it will flare up, like a kindling fire,
a dying fire, Mahood explained that to me, and I'll emerge from
silence.[2256] Hearing too little to be able to speak, that's my silence.
[2257] That is to say I never stop speaking, but sometimes too low, too
far away, too far within, to hear, no, I hear, to understand.

[2258] Not
that I eve^r understand.[2259] It fades, it goes in, behind the door,
I'm going silent, there's going to be silence, I'll listen, it's
worse than speaking, no, no worse, no better.[2260] Unless this time
it's the true silence, the one I'll neve^r have to break any more,
the one where I won't have to listen any more, where I can
dribble in my corner, my head gone, my tongue dead, the one I have
tried to earn, that I thought I could earn.

[2262] I'm going to stop,
that is to say I'm going to look as if I had, it will be like
the rest.[2263] As if anyone were looking at me![2264] As if it were I!
[2265] It will be the same silence, the same as ever, murmurous with
muted lamentation, panting, exhaling of impossible sorrow, like
distant laughter, brief spells of hush, as of one buried
before his time.[2266] Long or short, the same silence.

[2267] Then I resurrect
and begin again.[2268] That's what I'll have got for all my pains.[2269] Un-
less this time it's the real silence at last.[2270] Perhaps I've said
the thing that had to be said, that gives me the right to be done
with speec^h, done with listening, ^done with hearing, without my
knowing it.[2271] I'm listening already, I'm going silent.

[2272] The next
time I won't go to such pains, I'll tell one of Mahood's old
tales, no matter which, they a^re all the same, they won't tire
me, I won't bother any more about me, I'll know that whatever I
say the result is the same, that ^I'll never be silent,