MS-HRC-SB-5-9-1

[1033] 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 abandoned,

[1034] they pick me up
at a definitely later stage, perhaps
hoping thereby to induce in me the
delusion that I had
got through the interval all ^{on my own},

[1034] that I had lived without help of any
kind, for quite some time, without any
recollection of by what means or in what
circumstances, or that I had 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 directions they had given me.

[1035] To saddle me with a lifetime is probably
not enough of them, I have to be given a
taste of two or three generations.[1036] But it's
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 for them (to assume
them).

[1038] When I succeed in dying under my
own steam, then they will be a better position
to decide if I am worthy to adorn another
age, or to try the same one over again, in the
light 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 at a standstill are simply
two aspects of the same fleshly 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] Similarly for the arms.[1042] A natural
transition, in sum.

[1043] But
what then of that other old age they bestowed
on me, if I remember right, and that other
middle age, when neither legs nor arms were
lacking, but only the power to
profit by them?[1044] And of that kind
of youth in which they had to give me up for dead?

[1045] I am not in their good books.[1046] No doubt they have
done what they could to be agreeable to me,
to get me out of here on no matter what
pretext, in no matter what character.[1047] My only
complaint is with their insistence.
[1048] For beyond them there is that other who will not
give me quittance (release) until they have