MS-HRC-SB-5-10

[2124] What can ^you expect, they don't know who they are either,
nor where they are, nor what they're doing, nor why everything
is going so badly, so abominably badly, that must be it.[2125]
So they build up hypotheses that collapse on top of one another,
it's h^uman, a lobster couldn't do it.[2126] ^{[↑] Ah a nice mess we're in,} the
whole lot of us, is it possible we're all in the same boat, no,
we're in a nice mess each one in his particular ^{own peculiar} way.

[2127] I myself
have been scandalously bungled, they must be beginning to realize
it, I on whom all ^dangles, better still, about w^hom, much
better, all turns, ^dizzily, yes yes, don't protest, all ^spins,
it's a head, I'm in a head, what an illumination, ssst, pissed
on out of hand.

[2128] Ah this blind voice, and these moments of held
breath when ^all listen wildly, and the voice that begins
to fumble again, without knowing what it's looking for, and
again the tiny silence, and the listening again, for what, no-
body knows, a sign of life perhaps, that must be it, a sign of
life escaping somebody, and bound to be denied if it came, that's
it surely, if all that could only stop, there'd be peace, no, ^{[⁁] too good to be true,
it wouldn't be believed,} the listening would go on, for

[2128] the voice to begin again, for a sign of life, for somebody
to betray himself, or for something else, anything, what else
can there be but signs of life, the fall of a pin, the stirring
of a leaf, or the little cry that frogs give when the scythe ^slices
them in ^half, or when they are spiked, in ^{their pools}, with a spear,
one could multiply the examples,
it would eveⁿ be an excellent idea, but there it is, one can't.

[2129] Perhaps it would be better to be blind, the blind hear better,

full of ^{general knowledge} we are this evening, we have piano tuners
up our sleeve, they strike A and hear G, two minutes later,
there's nothing to be seen in any case, this eye is an oversight.
[2130] But this isn't Worm speaking.[2131] True, so far, who denies it, it
would be premature.[2132] Nor I, for that matter,[2133] and Mah^ood is notor-
iously aphonic.But the question is not there, for the moment,

[2134] But the question is not there, for the moment,