MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[0525] I needed, a lively tenuous air, far from the nourishing murk
that is killing me. [0526] I shall never go back into this carcass
except to find out its time. [0527] I want to be there a little before
the plunge, close for the last time the old hatch on top of me,
say goodbye to the holds where I have lived, go down with my
refuge. [0528] I was always sentimental.

[0529] But between now and then
I have time to frolic, ashore, in the brave company I have
always longed for, always searched for, and which would never
have me. [0530] Yes, now my mind is easy, I know the game is won, I
lost them all till now, but it's the last that counts. [0531] A very
fine achievement I must say, or rather would, if I did not fear
to contradict myself. [0532] Fear to contradict myself!

[0533] If this con-
tinues it is myself I shall lose and the thousand ways that
lead there. [0534] And I shall resemble the wretches famed in fable,
crushed beneath the weight of their wish come true. [0535] And I even
feel a strange desire come over me, the desire to know what I
am doing, and why. [0536] So I near the b^goal I set myself in my young
days and which prevented me from living. [0537] And on the threshold
of being no more I succeed in being another. [0538] Very pretty.

[0539] The summer holidays. [0540] In the morning he took private lessons.
[0541] You'll have us in the poorhouse, said Mrs Saposcat. [0542] It's a good
investment, said Mr Saposcat. [0543] In the afternoon he left the house,
with his books under his arm, on the pretext that he worked better
in the open air, no, without a word. [0544] Once clear of the town he
hid his books under a stone and ranged the countryside. [0545] It was
the season when the labours of the peasants reach their paroxysm