MS-HRC-SB-5-9-3

[p. 24v]
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DOODLE 60

[2232] [p. 25r] all we need now and to complete the elements, xxx no, I'm forgetting fire, unusual hell when you come to think of it, perhaps it's paradise, perhaps it's the earth, perhaps it's the shore of an shores of an underground lake, you scarcely breathe, under the earth, you scarcely breathe, just enough but you breathe, it's not certain, you see nothing, hear nothing, you hear the long kiss of dead water and mud, up above at less than a score of fathoms men come and go, you dream on them, in your long dream there's a place for the waking, you wonder fr how you know all you know, you even see grass, the grass of dawn, a little grey with dew, not as xxx so ruined as all that, my eyes, they are they are not mine, mine are done, they don't even weep any more, they open and close by the force of habit, fifteen minutes x exposure, fifteen minutes shutter, like the owl in the cooped in the ^a grotto in Battersea Park, Battersea Park, that strikes a chord, ah ? (funérailles) ^{God's death}, will I never stop wanting a life for myself? DOODLE 61 [2233] No, no, no head either, anything you like, but not a head, in his head he doesn't go anywhere either, I've tried, [2234] lashed to the stake, his eyes blindfolded, gagged to the gullet, you take the air, under the elms in se, quoting Shelley to yourself, insensitive not feeling the arrows. [2235] Yes, a head, but solid, solid bone, and you buried in it, like a fossil in the rock. [2236] But I Perhaps there go I after all. [2237] I can't go on in any case. [2238] But I must go on. [2239] I'll go on. [2240] Air, air, I'll seek air, air in time, the air of time, and in space, in my head, that's how I'll be able to go on. [2241] That's All very well, but the voice is failing, it's the first time, no, that's as old as the hills, ^{I've been through that,} it has even stopped, many a time, that's how it will end again, I'll go silent, for want of air, then the air will come back and I'll start again. [2242] My voice. [2243] The voice. [2244] Yes, I don't hear it so well. [2248] I'm going silent. [2249] Not being able to hear ^{No longer hearing} this voice, that's what I call going silent. [2250] That's to say I'll hear it still, if I listen hard. [2251] I'll listen hard. [2252] Listening hard, that's what I call going silent. [2253] I'll hear it still, broken, faint, unintelligible, if I listen hard. [2254] Hearing it still, without hearing what it says, that's what I call going silent. [2255] Then it will blaze up, like a kindling fire, a dying fire, Mahood explained that to me, and I'll emerge, from silence. [2256] Hearing too little to be able to speak, that's my silence. [2257] That's That is

[p. 25v]
DOODLE 62 DOODLE 63 DOODLE 64

[2257] [p. 26r] to say, I go on speaking, but somet never stop speaking, but sometimes so ^too low, so far from me, so far inside me too far away, too far away inside me, to hear, no, I hear, to understand. [2258] Not that I ever understand. [2259] It fades, it goes in, behind the door, I'm going silent, there's going to be silence, I'll listen, it's worse than speaking, a worse torture, no, not worse, no better. [2260] Unless this time it's the the true silence, which the one I'll never have to break again, the one where any more, the one where I won't have to listen any more, where I can dribble in my corner, my head gone, my tongue dead, the one I have tried to xxx win, that I thought I could win. [2262] I'm going to stop, that is to say I'm going to look as if I had, it will be like the rest. [2263] As if anyone was ^{were were} looking at me! [2264] As if it were I! [2265] It will be the same silence, the same as ever, murmurous with muted lamentation, panting, panting, unaccountable exhaling of impossible sorrow, like distant laughter, little brief spells of silence ^hush, as of one buried too soon. [2266] Long drawn out or soon over. [2267] Then I resurrect and begin again. [2268] That's all what I'll have got for my pains. [2269] Unless this time it's the real silence at last. [2270] Perhaps I have said the thing that had to be said, and that gives me the right to be done with speech, done with listening, done with hearing, without my knowing it. [2271] I'm listening already, I'm going silent. [2272] The next time I won't go to such pains, I'll tell an old story about Mahood, one of Mahood's old tales, no matter which, they are all the same, they won't tire me, I won't bother any more about me, I'll know that whatever I say the result will be the same, that I'll never be silent, never at peace. [2273] Unless I try just once more, for the last time, to try and say what has to be said, about me, I feel it's about me, perhaps that's the mistake I make, perhaps that's my sin, so as to have nothing more to say, nothing more to hear, till I die. [2274] It's coming up again. [2275] I'm glad. [2276] I'll try again, quick before it goes. [2277] Try what? [2278] I don't know. [2279] To go on. [2280] Now there is nobody left. [2281] That's a good continuation. [2282] Nobody left, it's embarrassing, if I had a memory it might tell me that ^this is the sign of the end, of the pause that may be final, this having nobody left, nobody to talk to,

[p. 26v]

[2282] [p. 27r] nobody to talk to you, so that you have to say, It's I am doing this to me, I who am talking to me about me. [2283] Then your breath fails, the end begins, you go silent, it's the end, short-lived, you begin again, you had forgotten, there is someone, someone talking to you, about you, about him, then a second, then a third, then the second again, these figures just to give you an idea then all three together, these figures just to give you an idea, talking to you, about you, about them, all I have to do is listen, then they depart, one by one, and the voice goes on, it's not theirs, they were never there, there was never anybody, but you, never anybody but you, talking to you about you, your breath fails, it's nearly the end, your breath stops, it's the end, short-lived, I hear someone calling me, it begins again, that must be how it goes, if I had a memory. [2284] Even if there were things, a thing somewhere, to talk about, a bit a morsel of nature, to talk ^speak about, one ^you might reconcile oneself ^yourself to having nobody left, to being the speaker oneself, ^yourself the speaker, if there were only a thing somewhere, to speak about, even though you couldn't see, or know what it was, simply to feel it there, with you, somewhere, you might the courage not to go silent, no, it's to go silent that you need courage, for you'll be punished, punished for having gone silent, and yet you can't do otherwise than go silent, than be punished for going silent, than be punished for having been punished, since you begin again, your breath fails, if only there were a thing, but there it is, there is not, they took away things when they departed, they took away nature, there was never anybody, anybody but me, anything but me, talking to me of me, impossible to stop, impossible to go on, but I must go on, I'll go on, with anybody, without anything, but me, but my voice, that is to say I'll stop, I'll end, it's the end already, short-lived, what is it, a little hole, you go down into it, into the silence, it's worse than the noise, you listen, it's worse than speaking, no, not worse, no worse, you wait, anxious, have they forgotten

[p. 27v]
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[2284] [p. 28r] me, yes, no, someone calls, someone calls me, I clx climb out again, what is it, a little hole, in the wilderness. [2285] It's the end that's the worst, no, it's the beginning that's the worst, then the middle, then the end, in the end it's the end that's the worst, this voice which, it's every second that's the worst, that's in the time dimension, the seconds pass, one after another, jerkily, no flow, they don't pass, they arrive, bang, bang, bang, bang, they bang into you, bounce off, and never move again fall and never move again, when you have nothing left to say you talk of time, seconds of time, there are some people add them together to make a life, I can't, each one is the first, no, the second, or the third, I'm three seconds old, oh not every day of the week. [2286] I've been away, done something, been in a hole, I've just come out, perhaps I went silent, no, I say that in order to say something, in order to go on a little more, you must you must go on a little more, you must go on a long time more, you must go on for ever more, if I could remember what I have said I could repeat, if I could learn something by heart I'd be saved, I have to keep on saying the same thing and each time it's an effort, the seconds must be all alike and each one is infernal, what am I saying now, I'm saying I wish I knew. [2287] And yet I have memories, I remember Worm, that is to say I have retained the name, and the other one, what was he called, [⁁] ^{what is his name, what was his name,} in his jar, I can see him well still, better than I can see me, I know how he lived, now I remember, I saw him alone saw him, but no one sees me, nor him, I don't see him any more, I don't know how he lived any more, he isn't there any more, he was never there, in his jar, I never saw him, and yet I remember, I remember having Mahood about, I must have talked about him, the same words recur and they are my memories. [2288] It's I invented him, him and so many others, and the places where they passed, the places where they stayed, in order to be able to speak, since I had to speak, without speaking of me, I couldn't speak of me, I was never told I had to speak of me, I invented my memories, not one is of me without knowing what I

[p. 28v]
DOODLE 66

[2288] [p. 29r] was doing, not one is of me. [2289] It's they asked me to speak of them, they wanted to know what they were, how they lived, that suited me, I thought that would suit me, since I had nothing to say, and had to say something. [2290] I thought I was free to say any old thing, provided I didn't go silent. [2291] Then I said to myself that after all it wasn't necessarily any old thing, the thing I was saying, x that it might well be the thing demanded of me, assuming something was being being demanded of me.[2292] No, I didn't think anything and I didn't say anything to myself, I did what I could, a thing beyond my strength, and often I for sheer exhaustion I gave up doing it, and yet it went on being done, the voice being heard, the voice which couldn't be mine, since I had none left, and yet which could only be mine, since I couldn't go silent, and since I was alone, out of reach in a place where no voice could reach me. [2293] Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, physical I mean of course, that's the bad job I've made the best of. [2294] Yes, I can now speak now I can speak of my life, I'm too tired for niceties, but I don't if I have lived, I have really no opinion on the subject. [2295] However that may be, I think I'll soon xxx I'll soon go silent for good, in spite of it's xxx being prohibited. [2296] Then, yes, just like that, just like one of the living, I'll be dead, I'll soon be dead, I hope the change will be for the better I'll find that a change. [2297] I should have like to go silent first, there were moments I thought that would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly, to enter living into silence, so as to be able to enjoy it, no, I don't know why, so as to feel myself silent, one with all this air quiet air that I have move xxx shattered unceasingly by my voice alone, no, it's not real air, I can't say it, I can't say why I should have liked to go silent before being