MS-HRC-SB-5-9-1

[0469] not an instant.[0470] No more pauses either.[0471] Can I
then keep nothing of what has borne my poor
thoughts, bent beneath
my words, while I hid?[0472] I'll dry these
streaming sockets too, bung them up, there, it's
done, no more tears, I'm a big talking ball,
talking about things that do not exist, or
that exist perhaps, impossible to know, beside
the point.[0473] yes, quick let me change my tune.

[0474] And why a ball, after all, rather than something
else, and why big?[0475] Why not a cylinder, a
small cylinder?[0476] An egg, a medium egg?

[0477] No, no, that's the old nonsense, I always knew
I was round, solid and round, without daring
to say so, no asperities, no apertures, invisible
perhaps, or as vast as Sirius in the Great Dog,
these expressions mean nothing.

[0478] All that matters
is that I am ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 17vround & hard} , there must
be reasons for that, for my being
round and hard, rather than of some
irregular shape and liable to the dents and
bulges caused by shock, but I have done with
reasons.

[0479] All the rest I renounce, including this
ridiculous black which I thought for a moment
worthier than grey to enfold me.[0480] What nonsense
all this stuff about light and dark![0481] And how I have
wallowed in it![0482] But do I roll, in the manner of a
true ball? Or am I in equilibrium somewhere,
on one of my numberless poles?

[0483] I feel strongly
tempted to ^discover enquire.[0484] What reams I could
elicit from this apparently so legitimate
preoccupation.[0485] But which wd. not be
credited to me.

[0486] No, between me and the right
to silence, to rest before I end, stretches the
same old lesson, the one I knew by heart and
would not say, I don't know why, perhaps for
fear of silence, or thinking any old thing would
do, and so for preference lies, in order to remain
hidden.[0487] No importance.[0488] But now I'll say
my lesson, if I can remember it.

[0489] Under the
skies, on the roads, in the towns, in the woods,
in the hills, in the plains, by the shores, on the
sea, ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 17vbehind my mannikins,} I was not always sad, wasting my time,
abjuring my rights, suffering for nothing, forgetting
my lesson.

[0490] Then a little hell after my own heart,
not too cruel, with a few nice damned to foist my
groans on, something sighing off and on and the
distant gleams of pity's fires biding their hour
to promote us to ashes.[0491] I speak, and speak,
because I must, but I do no listen, I seek