MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[0768] to sticking a pig ^pigs seemed of no help to him in the matter of
rearing them, and it was seldom his own exceeded nine stone.
[0769] Clapped into a tiny sty on the day of its arrival, in the
month of April, it remained there until the day of its death, on
Christmas Eve. [0770] For Lambert persisted in dreading for his pigs,
though every passing year proved him wrong, the thinning effects
of ec^xercise. [0771] Daylight and fresh air he dreaded for them too.

[0772] And it was finally a weak pig, blind and lean, that he lay on its
back in the box, having tied its legs, and killed, indignantly
but without haste, upraiding it the while for its uⁱngratitude, at
the top of his voice. [0773] For he could not or would not understand
that the pig was not to blame, but he himself, who had coddled
it unduly. [0774] And he persisted in his error.

[0775] Dead world, airless, waterless. [0776] That's it, reminisce. [0777] Here
and there, in the bed of a crater, the shadow of a withered
lichen. [0778] And nights of three hundred hours. [0779] Dearest of lights, wan,
pitted, least fatuous of lights. [0780] That's it, babble. [0781] How long can
it have lasted? Five minutes? Ten minutes? [0782] Yes, no more, not much
more. [0783] But my sliver of sky is gleaming ^silvery with it yet.

[0784] In the old
days I used to count, up to three hundred, four hundred, and with
oh^ther things too, the showers, the bells, the chatter of the
sparrows at dawn, or with nothing, for no reason, for the sake
of counting, and then I divided, by sixty. [0785] That passed the time,
I was time, I devoured the world. [0786] Not now, any more. [0787] A man changes.