MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1296] In a word there seems to be the light of the outer world,
of those who know the sun and moon emerge at such an hour and
at such another plunge again below the surface, and who rely on
this, and who know that clouds are always to be expected but
sooner or later always pass away, and mine. [1297] But mine too has its
alternations, I will not deny it, its twilights and its dawns,
but that is what I say, for I too must have lived, once, out
there, and there is no recovering from that.

[1298] And when I examine the
ceiling and walls I see there is no possibility of my making light,
a^rtificial light, like the couple across the way for example. [1299] But
someone would have to give me a lamp, or a torch, you know, and I
don't know if the air here is of the kind that lends itself to
the comedy of combustion. [1300] Mem, look for a match in your possessions,
and see if it burns. [1301] The noises too, cries, steps, doors, murmurs,
cease for whole days, their days.

[1302] Then that silence of which,
knowing what I know, I shall merely say that there is nothing, how
shall I say, nothing negative about it. [1303] And softly my little space
begins to throb again. [1304] You may say it is all in my head, and in-
deed sometimes it seems to me I am in a head and that these eight,
no, six, these six planes that enclose me are of solid bone. But
thence to conclude the head is mine, no, never.

[1305] A kind of air cir-
culates, I must have said so, and when all goes still I hear it
beating against the walls and being beaten back by them. [1306] And then
somewhere in midspace other waves, other onslaughts, gather and
break, whence I suppose the faint sound of aerial surf that is
my silence. [1307] Or else it is the sudden storm, analagous to those
outside, rising and drowning the cries of the children, the dying,