MS-HRC-SB-5-9-2

[1818] That the only noise that Worm has had is that of
mouths, words, belches, laughs, suckings, bubblings
and splutterings?[1819] Correct.[1820] Not forgetting the
groaning of the air beneath the burden.[1821] He's learning,
that's the main thing.

[1822] When on earth later
on the storms rage, drowning momentarily the
free expression of opinion, he'll know what's
happening, that the end of the world hasn't come.

[1823] No, in the place where he is he cannot learn, the head
cannot work, he knows no more than on
the first day, he merely hears, and suffers,
incomprehending, that must be possible.[1824] A head
has grown out of his ear, the better to ^enrage him,
that must be it.

[1825] The head is there, ^{stuck on} the ear,
and nothing in it but rage, that's all that
matters, for the time being.[1826] It's a
transformer in which noise is turned, without the
help of reason, to rage and terror.[1827] That's all that
is required, for the moment.

[1828] The circumvolutionisation
will be seen to later, when he's brought to the surface.
[1829] Why ^then the human voice,[1830] rather than a hyena's howls or the
clanging of a hammer?[1831] Answer, so that the shock
may not be too great, later on, when he sees the
contortions of real lips.

[1832] They have an answer to
everything, they are among themselves.[1833] And then they
like talking, they know there is no worse torment,
for one not in the know.[1834] They are numerous, all around,
holding hands perhaps, an endless chain, links, talking
turn about.

[1835] They wheel, in jerks, so that their words
come always from the same direction.[1836] But often they all
speak ^{at once}, they all say simultaneously the same
thing precisely, but so perfectly together that
one would take it for a single voice, a single voice, if one
did not know that God alone can be everywhere, at the
same time.

[1837] One, but not Worm, who says nothing,
knows nothing, yet.[1838] Similarly turn about they benefit by
the peep-hole, those who care to.

[1839] While one speaks another
looks, the one no doubt whose turn it is to speak next
and whose remarks ^possibly will not ^{of necessity} be
unrelated to what he may possibly have
seen, this depending on whether what he
has seen has aroused his interest to the extent of appearing
worthy of mention, even indirectly.

[1840] But what hope
has sustained them, all the time they have been thus
employed?[1841] For it is difficult not to suppose them
sustained by some hope or another.[1842] And
what is the nature of the change they are on the look out
for, glueing one eye to the hole and closing
the other?[1843] They have no pedagogic purpose in