MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[1412] on the within, after having of course previously exposed
it to the without, in order to benefit by the contrast.[1413] I should
be sorry, though exhausted personally, to abandon prematurely this
rich vein.[1414] For I shall not come back to it in a hurry, ah no.[1415] But
enough of this cursed first person, it is really too red a herring, I'll get ^{into trouble if} I'm not careful.

[1416] But what then is the subject? Mahood? No, not yet.[1417] Worm? Even less.
[1418] Bah, any old pronoun will do, provide one sees through it.[1419] Matter
of habit.[1420] To be ajusted later.[1421] Where was I?[1422] Ah yes, the bliss of
what is clear and simple.[1423] The next thing is somehow to connect this
with the unhappy Madeleine, and her great goodness.[1424] Attentions such
as hers, the pertinacity with which she continues to acknowledge me,
do not these sufficiently attest my real presence here, in the Rue
Brancion, never heard of in my island home.

[1425] Would she rid me of
my ^paltry excrements every Sunday, make me a nest at
the approach of winter, protect me from the snow, ^{change my sawdust,} rub salt into my ailing scalp, I hope I'm not forgetting any-
thing, if I was not there?[1426] W^ould she have put me in my collar,
raised me on a pedestal, hung me with ^lanterns, if she was not con-
vinced of my substantiality?

[1427] How happy I should be to submit to
this evidence and to the execution upon me of the sentence it
^entails.[1428] Unfortunately I regard it as highly subject to
caution, not to say irreceivable (inacceptable, out of ^court).
[1429] For what is one to think of the redoubled attentions she has
been showering on me, for some time past?

[1430] What a difference com-
pared to the ^serenity of our early relations, when I saw her only once
a week.[1431] No, there is no getting away from it, this woman is losing
faith in me.[1432] ^And she is trying to put off the moment when she must
finally confess her mistake by coming every few minutes to see if
I am still more or less imaginable in situ.

[1433] Similarly the belief in
God, in all modesty let it be said, is sometimes lost following a
period of intensified zeal and obesrvance, it appears.[1434] Here I must
pause to make a distin^ction (I am still thinking).That my sanctuary
^is really standing where they say, all right, I wouldn't dream of
denying it, after all it's none of my business, though the presence

[1435] That my sanctuary
^is really standing where they say, all right, I wouldn't dream of
denying it, after all it's none of my business, though the presence