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 under my words 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] Ah 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, xx 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 hard and round ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 17vround & hard} , there must
be reasons for that, for my being hard and round
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 know ^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