MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[1339] cupids perhaps, gone too, without leaving a trace. [1340] And while I
was busy pursuing my pencil a moment came when my exercise-book,
almost a child's, fell also to the ground. But it I very soon re-
covered, slipping the hook of my stick into one of the rents in
the cover and hoisting it gently towards me. [1341] And during all this time,
so fertile in incidents and mishaps, in my head I suppose all was
streaming and emptying away as through a sluice, to my great joy,
until finally nothing remained, either of Malone or of the other.

[1342] And what is more I was able to follow without duⁱfficulty the various
phases of this deliverance and felt no surprise at its irregular
course, now rapid, now slow, so crystal clear was my understanding
of the reasons why this could not be otherwise. [1343] And I rejoiced further
furthermore, quite apart from the spectacle, at the thought that I
now knew what I had to do, I whose every move has always been a
groping, and whose motionlessness to^o was a kind of groping, yes, I
have greatly groped stockstill.

[1344] And here again naturally I was utter-
ly deceived, I mean in imagining I had grasped at last the true
nature of my absured^[₰] tribulations, but not so utterly as to feel
the need to reproach myself with it now. [1345] For even as I said, How
easy and beautiful it all is!, in the same breath I said, All will
grow dark again.

[1346] And it is without excessive sorrow that I see us
again as we are, namely to be removed grain by grain until the hand,
wearied, begins to play, scooping us up and letting us trickle back
into the same place, dreamily as the saying is. [1347] For I knew it would
be so, even as I said, At last! [1348] And I must say that to me at least
and for as long as I can remember the sensation is familiar of a
blind and tired hand delving feebly in my particles and letting