MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[0832] to arrive.[0833] I did not particularly want ^{had no particular wish} to arrive, but I had to
do my utmost, in order to arrive.[0834] A desirable goal, no, I never
had time to dwell on that.[0835] To go on, I call that on, to go on
and get on has been my only care, if not always in a straight
line, at least in obedience to the figure assigned to me.[0836] There
was never any room in my life for anything else.[0837] Still Mahood
speaking.[0838] Never once have I stopped.[0839] My halts do not count.

[0840] Their
purpose was to enable me to go on.[0841] I did not use them to brood
on my lot, but to rub myself as best I might with Elliman's
Embrocation, for example, or to give mself an injection of laud-
anum, no easy matters for a man with only one leg.[0842] Often the cry
went up, He's down! But in reality I had sunk to the ground of
my own free will, in order to be free rid of my crutches and have
both hands free ^available to minister to myself in peace and comfort.

[0843] Ad-
mittedly it is difficult, for a man with but one leg, to sink
to earth in the full force of the expression, partcⁱcularly when
he is weak in the head and when the remaining ^{sole surviving} leg is flabby ^flaccid for
want of exercise, or from excess i^of it.[0844] The simplest then is to
fling aside the crutches and collapse.[0845] That is what I did.[0846] They
were therefore right in saying I had fallen, they were not far
wrong.

[0847] I have also been known to fall involuntarily, but not
often, an old warrior like me, you can ^well imagine, he isn't often
known to fall involuntarily, he lets himself fall in time.[0847|001] But
have it any way you like. But have it any way you like.[0848] Up or
down, taking my remedies ^anodynes, waiting for the pain to get better ^abate,
panting to be on my way again, I stopped, if you insist, but not
in the sense they meant when they said, He's stopped again, he'll
never arrive.

[0849] When I penetrate into that house, if I ever do,
it will be to go on turning, ^{faster and faster, more and more convulsive,} like a constipated dog, or one
sufferoⁱng from worms, overturning the furnitru^ure, in the midst
of my familt^y all trying to embrace me at once, i^until by virtue
of a su^^preme spasm I am catapulted in the opposite direction and
h^gradually leave backwards, without having said good-evening.I must
really lend myself to this story a little longer, there may just