MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[1578] That's to lull me, till I imagine I hear myself saying, myself at
last, to myself at last, that it can't be they, speaking thus, that
it can only be I, speaking thus.[1579] A^h if I could find a voice of
my own, in ^all this ^clamour, it would be the end of their troubles, and
of mine.[1581] That's why there are all these little silences, to make
me break them.[1582] They think I can't bear silence, ^that ^{[⁁] some day, somehow,} my horror of
silence will force to break.

[1583] That's
wh^y they are always breaking off, to try and drive me to ^that extremit^y.
[1584] But they don't dare be silent for long, the whole fabric might
collapse.[1585] It's true I hate these chasms they all bend over, on
the alert for the murmur of a man.[1586] It isn't silence, it's pitfalls,
into which nothing would please me better than to fall, with the
little cry that might be taken for human, like a wounded ouistiti,
the first and last, and vanish for good and all, having sqeaked .

[1587] Well, if they ever succeed in getting me to give a voice to
Worm, in a moment of euphoria, who knows, p^erhaps I'll make it
mine, in a moment of confusion.[1588] Th^ere we have the stake.[1589] But they
won't.[1590] Were they able to get Mahood to speak^?[1591] It seems to
me ^not.[1592] I think M^urphy spoke ^{now and then}, the others
too perhaps, I don't remember, but it was clumsily done, I could
see the ventriloquist.[1593] I feel it^'s about to begin.

[1594] They must con-
sider me sufficiently stupefied, with all their balls about being
and existing.[1595] Yes, now that I've forg^otten who Worm is, where
he is, what he's like, I'll begin to be he.[1596] Anything rather than these
college quips.[1597] Quick, a place.[1598] With no way in, no way out,
a safe place.[1599] Not like Eden.[1600] And Worm inside.[1601] Feeling nothing,
kn^owing nothing, capable of nothing, wanting nothing.[1602] Until the
instant he hears the sound that will never stop.Then it's the

[1603] Then it's the