MS-HRC-SB-5-9-2

[1450] public place, why go to all this trouble to
show off my head, artistically illuminated
from dusk to midnight?[1451] You may say that
that nothing matters but the result is all that
matters.[1452] Another thing.[1453] This woman has never
spoken to me, as far as I know.[1454] If [I say]
[I have said a] [to say xxx I] ^{I should} have said
[xxx] anything to the contrary, I was mistaken.

[1455] [If] If I should do so again, I shall be
mistaken again.[1456] Unless I am mistaken
now.[1457] Into the dossier with it in any case,
in support of whatever thesis you like.[1458] Never
an affectionate word, never a reprimand.
[1459] For fear of drawing people's attention to me?
[1460] Or [lest] the mirage should be illusion should be
dispelled?

[1461] To sum up,[1462] the time is at hand when
my only believer must deny me.[1463] Nothing has
happened.[1464] The lanterns have not been lit.
[1465] Is it the same evening?[1466] Perhaps dinner [time]
is over.[1467] [M] Perhaps Marguerite has come and
gone, come again and gone again, in her
usual way, without my having noticed it.

[1468] Perhaps I have blazed with all my usual
brilliance, for hours on end, all unsuspecting.
[1469] And yet something has changed.[1470] The night is
not an ordinary night.[1471] Not because I see no
stars, it is not often I see a star, far off
in the depths of the [narrow] sliver of sky I
command.[1472] Not because I do not see anything,
not even the railings, that has often happened.

[1473] Not because of the silence either, it is a silent
place, at night.[1474] And I am half deaf.
[1475] It is not the first time that I prick up my ears
in vain, for the muffled noise of the stables.
stables' muffled sounds.[1476] All of a sudden a horse
will neigh.[1477] Then I'll know that nothing has
changed.[1478] Or I'll see the lantern of the watch-
man, swinging a[t] knee level, in the yard.

[1479] I must be patient.[1480] It is cold, this morning it
snowed. And yet I don't feel the cold air on my
head.[1481] Perhaps I am still under the tarpaulin,
perhaps she [put] put it over me again, for fear
of more snow during the night, while I was
meditating.[1482] But that sensation I so love,
of the tarpaulin weighing on my head, is
lacking too. [⁁] ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 15vHas my head lost all feeling? Did
I have a fit of apoplexy, while I was
meditating? I don't know. [⁁]}

[1486] I shall possess my soul in patience,
without any [xxx] more questions, on the qui vive.
[1487] Hours have passed, it [must] must be day[br]
again, nothing has changed, I hear nothing.
[1488] I put them before their responsibilities, perhaps
they have let me go.

[1489] For this feeling [xx] of
being entirely enclosed, and yet nothing
touching me, is new.[1490] The sawdust no longer
presses against my stumps, I don't know where
I end.[1491] I left it yesterday, Mahood's world,
the street, the eating-house, the butchery, the
statue and, through the railings, the sky
like a slate pencil.[1492] I shall never hear again