[0977] They know I am speec^h[⁁]less and consequently incapable of taking unfair advantage of my situation to stir up the population against its governors, by means of burning orator during the rush hour or subversive slogans whispered, after[p. EXTRACT1-02r] nightfall, to belated pedestrians the worse for drink. [0978] And since I have lost all my members, with the exception of the onetime virile, they know also that I shall not be guilty of aⁿy gestures liable to be interpreted as inciting to alms, a prisonable offence. [0979] The fact is I trouble nobody, except possibly that category of hypersensitive persons for whom the least thing is an occasion for scandal and indignation. [0980] But even here the risk is negligible, [0981] such people avoiding the neighbourhood for fear of being overcome at the sight of the cattle, fat and fresh from their pastures, trooping towards the humane killer. [0982] From this point of view the spot is well chosen, from my point of view. [0983] But even those sufficiently unhinged to be affected by the spectacle I offer, I mean upset and temporarily diminished in their capacity for work and aptitude for happiness, have only to look at me a second time, those than can bring themselves to do it, to have immediately their minds made easy. [0984] For my face reflects nothing but the satisfaction of one savouring a well-earned rest. [0985] It is true my mouth was hidden, most of the time, and my eyes closed. [0986] Ah yes, sometimes it's in the past, sometimes in the present. [0987] And alone perhaps the state of my skull, covered with pustules and bluebottles, these naturally abounding in such a neighbourhood, preserved me from being an object of envy for many, and a source of discomfort. [0988] I hope this gives a fair picture of my situation. [0989] Once a week I was taken out of my receptacle, in order that it might be emptied. [0990] This duty fell to the proprietress of the ^chop-house across the street and she performed it punctually and without complaint, beyond an occasional good-humoured reflection to the effect that I was a nasty old pig, for she had a kitchen garden. [0991] Without perhaps having exactly won her heart it was clear I did not leave her indifferent, and before puttiⁿg me back she took advantage of the fact that my mouth was accessible to stick into it a chunk of lights or a marrow-^bone. [0992] [p. EXTRACT1-03r] And when snow fell she covered me with a tarpaulin still watertight in places. [0993] It was under its shelter, snug and dry, that I became acquainted with the boon of tears, while wondering to what I was indebted for it, not feeling moved. [0994] And this not merely once, but every time she covered me, that is to say twice or three times a year. [0995] Yes, it was fatal, no sooner had the tarpaulin been thrown over me, and the precipitate steps of my benefactress died away, than the tears began to flow. [0996] Is this, was this to be interpreted as an effect of gratitude? [0997] But in that case should not I have felt grateful? [0998] Besides I realized darkly that if she took care of me thus, it was not solely out of goodness, or else I had not rightly understood the meaning of goodness, when it was explained to me. [0999] It must not be forgotten that I represented for this woman an undeniable asset. [1000] For quite apart from the services I rendered to her lettuce, I constituted for her establishment a kind of landmark, not to say an advertisement, far more effective than for example a chef in cardboard, potbellied in profile and full face wafer thin. [1001] That she was fully aware of this is shown by the trouble she had taken to festoon my jar with Chinese lanterns, of a very pretty effect in the twilight, and a fortiori at night. [1002] And the jar itself, so that the passer-by might consult with greater ease the menu attached to it, had been raised on a pedestal at her own expense. [1003] It is thus I learnt that her turnips in sauce are not so good as they used to me, but that on the other hand her carrots, equally in sauce, are even better than formerly. [1004] The sauce has not varied. [1005] This is the kind of language I can almost understand, these the kind of clear and simple notions on which it is possible for me to build, I ask for no other spiritual nourishment. [1006] A turnip, I know roughly what a turnip is like, a carrot too, especially the Flakkee, or Colmar Red. [1007] I seem to grasp at certain moments t^he nuance between bad and worse. [1008] And if I do not always feel the full force of yesterday and today, this does not detract very much from ^the pleasure ^{I feel} at having ^{[⁁] penetrated} the gist of the matter. [1009] Of her salad, for example, I never heard anything but ^praise. [1010] [p. EXTRACT1-04r] Yes, I represent for her a tidy little capital and, if I should ever happen to die, I am convinced she would be genuinely annoyed. [1011] This should ^{help me to live}. [1012] I like to fancy that when the fatal hour of reckoning comes, and my debt to nature is cleared off at last, she will do her best to prevent the removal, from where it now stands, of the old vase in which I shall have accomplished by vicissitudes. [1013] And perhaps in the place now occupied by my head she will set a melon, or a vegetable-marrow, or a big pine-apple with its little tuft, or better still, I don't know why, a swede, in memory of me. [1014] Then I shall not vanish quite, as is so often the way with people when buried. [1015] But it is not to speak of her that I have started lying again. [1016] De nobis ipsis silemus, decide^dly that should have been my motto. [1017] Yes, they gave me some lessons in pigsty latin too, it looks well, sprinkled through the perjury. [1018] It is perhaps worth noting that snow alone, provided of course it is heavy, entitles me to the tarpaulin. [1019] No other form of filthy weather lets loose in her the maternal instinct, in my favour. [1020] I have tried to make her understand, dashing my head angrily against the neck of the jar, that I should like to be veiled more often. [1021] At the same time I let my spittle flow over, to show my displeasure. [1022] In vain. [1023] I wonder what explanation she can have found to account for this behaviour. [1024] She must have talked it over with her husband and probably been told t^hat I was merely stifling, that is to say just the reverse of the truth. [1025] But credit where cr^edit is due, we made a balls of it between us, I with my signs and she with her reading of them. [1026] This story is to no purpose, I'm beginning almost to believe it. [1027] But let us see how it is supposed to end, that will sober me. [1028] The trouble is I forget how it goes on. [1029] But did I ever know? [1030] Perhaps it stops there, perhaps they stopped it there, [1031] saying, who knows, There you are, you don't need us any more. [1032] This in fact is one of their[p. EXTRACT1-05r] favourite devices, to stop suddenly at the least sign of adhesion from me, leaving me high and dry, with nothing for my renewal ^but the life they have imputed to me. [1033] And it is only when they see I am stranded that they take up again the thread of my misfortunes, judging me insufficiently vitalized to bring them to a successful conclusion alone and unaided. [1034] But instead of making the junction, I have often noticed this, I mean instead of resuming me at the point where I was left off, they pick me up at a much later stage, perhaps thereby hoping to induce in me the delusion that I had got through the interval all on my own, lived without help of any kind for quite some time, and with no recollection of by what means or in what circumstances, or even died, all on my own, and come back to earth again, by way of the vagina like a real live baby, and reached a ripe age, and even senility, without the least assistance from them and thanks solely to the indications they had given me. [1035] To saddle me with a lifetime is probably not enough for them, I have to be given a taste of two of three generations. [1036] But it is not certain. [1037] Perhaps all they have told me has reference to a single existence, the confusion of identities being merely apparent and due to my inaptitude to assume any. [1038] If I ever succeed in dying under my own steam, then they will be in a better position to decide whether I am worthy to adorn another age, or to try the same one again, with the benefit of my experience. [1039] I may therefore legitimately suppose that the one-armed, one-legged wayfarer of a moment ago and the wedge-headed trunk in which I am now marooned are simply two phases of the same carnal envelope, the soul being notoriously immune from deterioration and ^dismemberment. [1040] Having lost one leg, what indeed more likely than that I should mislay the other. [1041] And similarly for the arms. [1042] A natural transition in sum. [1043] But what then of that other old age they bestowed upon me, if I remember right, and that other[p. EXTRACT1-06r] middle age, when neither legs nor arms were lacking, but simply the power to benefit by them? [1044] And of that kind of youth in which they had to give me up for dead? [1045] If I have a warm place, it is not in their hearts.