[p. 106r]
[1801] and dainty on the sand.
[1802] The outline is blurred, that's the operator's giggle shaking the camera.
[1803] The ocean looks so i [place = overwritten] unnatural that you'd think you were in a studio, [1804] but is it not t [place = overwritten] rather the reverse I should say?
[1805] No trace left of any clothes for example, apart from the p [place = margin left] boot, the hat and three socks, I counted them.
[1806] Where have my clothes disappeared, my greatcoat, t [place = overwritten] my trousers and the flannel that Mr Quin gave me, with the remarl [place = overwritten] k that he did not need it any more?
[1807] Perhaps they were burnt.
[1808] But our business is not with what I have no longer, such things do not count at such a moment, whatever people may say.
[1809] In any case I think I'll stop.
[1810] I was keeping the best for the end, but I don't feel very well, perhaps I'm going, that would surprise me.
[1811] It is a passing weakness; ness, everyone has experienced that.
[1812] One weakens, then it passes, one's strength comes back and one resumes.
[1813] That is probably what is happening to me.
[1814] I yawn, would I yawn if it was serious?
[1815] Why not?
[1816] I would gladly eat a little soup, if there was any left.
[1817] No, even if there was some left I would not eat it.
[1818] So there.
[1819] It is some days now since my soup was renewed, did I mention that?
[1820] I suppose so.
[1821] It is in vain I de [place = margin left] ispatch my table to the door, bring it back beside me, move it to and fro in the hope that the noise will be heard and correctly interpreted, in the right quarters, the dish remains empty.
[1822] One of the pots on the other hand hand remains full, and the other is filling slowly.
[1823] If I ever succeed in filling it I shall empty them both out on the floor, but it is unlikely.
[1824] Now that I have stopped eating I produce less waste and so eliminate less.
[1825] The pots do not seem to be mine, I
[p. 107r]
[1825] simply have the use of them.
[1826] They answer to the definition of what is mine, but they are not mine.
[1827] Perhaps it is the definition that is at fault.
[1828] They have each two handles or ears, projecting abob [place = overwritten] ve the rim and facing each other, into which I insert my stick. In this way I move my pots about, lift them up and set them down.
[1829] Nothing has been left to chance.
[1830] Or is it a happy chance?
[1831] I can therefore easily turn them upside down, if I am driven to it, and wait for them to empty, as long as nev [place = overwritten] cessary.
[1832] After this passing reference to my pots I feel a little mi [place = overwritten] ore lively.
[1833] They are not mine, but I say my pots, as I say my bed, my window, as I say me.
[1834] Nevertheless I shall stop.
[1835] It is my belon possessions have weakened me, if I start talking about them again I shall weaken again, for the same causes give rise to the same effects.
[1836] I should have liked to speak of the cap of the bell of my bicycle [place = margin left] my bicycle-bell, of my half-crutch, the top half, you'd think it was a baby's crutch.
[1837] But I can still do so, whatv [place = overwritten] is there to prevent me? I don't know. I can't.
[1838] To think I shall perhaps die of starvatio hunger, after all, of starvation rather, after having struggled successfully all my life against that menace.
[1839] I can't believe it.
[1840] There is a providence for impotent old men, to the end.
[1841] And when they cannot swallow any more someone rams a tube down their gullet, or up their rectum, and fills them full of viatminized [place = margin left] [ ] 
pap, so as not to be accused of murder.
[1842] I shall therefore die of old age pure and simple, glutted with days as in the days before the flood, on a full stomach.
[1843] Perhaps they think I am dead.
[1844] Or perhaps they are dead themselves.
[1845] I say they, though perhaps I should not.
[1846] In the beginning, but was it the beginning, I used to see an old woman, then for a time an old yellow arm, then
[p. 108r]
[1846] for a time an old yellow hand. But these were probably no more than the agents of a consortium.
[1847] And indee [place = margin left] d the silence at times is cuh such that the earth seems uninhabited.
[1848] That is what comes of the taste for generalisation.
[1849] You have only to hear nothing for a few days, in your hole, nothing but the sounds of things, and you begin to fancy yourself the last of human kind.
[1850] What if I started to scream?
[1851] Not that I wish to dra w draw attention to myself, simply to try and find out if there is someone about.
[1852] But I don't like screal [place = overwritten] ming.
[1853] I have spoken softly, gone my ways softly, all my days, as behoves one who has nothing to say, nowhere to go, [1854] and so nothing to gain by being seen or heard.
[1855] Not to mention the possibility of their [place = margin left] re being not a living soul within a radius of one hundred yards, and then such a [place = margin left] [₰] multitude [place = margin left] s of people that they are walking on top of one another.
[1856] They do not dare come near me.
[1857] In that case i [place = margin left] I could scream my head off to no purpose. [1858] I shall try all the same.
[1859] I have tried.
[1860] I heard nothing out of the ordinary.
[1861] No, I exaggerate I heard a kind of burning croak deep down in the windpipe, as when one has heartburn.
[1862] With practice I might produce a groan, before I die.
[1864] I am not sleepy any more.
[1865] In any case I must not sleep any more.
[1866] What tedium.
[1867] I have missed the ebb.
[1868] Did I say I only say a small proportion of the things that come into my head?
[1869] I must have.
[1870] I choose those that seem somehow akin.
[1871] It is not always easy.
[1872] I hope they are the most important.
[1873] I wonder if I shall ever be able to stop.
[1874] Perhaps I should throw away my lead.
[1875] I could never retrieve it now.
[1876] I might be sorry.
[1877] My little lead.
[1878] It is a risk I do not feel inclined to take, just now.
[1879] What then?
[1880] I wonder if I could not contrive, wielding my stick like a punt-pole, to
[p. 109r]
[1880] move my bed.
[1881] It may well be on castors, many beds are.
[1882] Incredible I should never have thought of this, all the time I have been e [place = overwritten] here.
[1883] I might even suc [place = margin left] ceed in steering it, it is so narrow, through the f [place = overwritten] door, and even down the stairs, if there is a stairs that goes down.
[1884] To be off [place = margin left] and away.
[1885] The dark is against me, in a sense.
[1886] But I can always try and see if the bed will move.
[1887] I have only to set the stick against the wall and push.
[1888] And I can see myself already, if successful, taking a little turn in the room, until it is light enough for me to set forth.
[1889] At least while thus employed I shall stop telling myself lies.
[1890] And then, who knows, the physical effort may finish [place = supralinear] polish me off, by menas [place = supralinear] means of heart failure.
[1891] I have lost my stick.
[1892] That is the outstanding ec [place = overwritten] vent of the day, for it is day again.
[1893] The bed has not stirred.
[1894] I must have miss" [place = overwritten] ed my point of purchase, in the dark.
[1895] Sine qua non, Archimedes was right.
[1896] The stick, having slipped, would have plucked me from the bed if I had not let it go.
[1897] It would of course have been better for me to relinquish my bed than to lose my stick.
[1898] But I had not time to think.
[1899] The fear of falling is the source of many a folly.
[1900] It is a disaster.
[1901] I suppose the wisest thing now is to live it over again, meditate upon it and be edified.
[1902] It is thus that man distinguishes himself from the ape and rises, from discovery to discovery, ever higher, towards the light.
[1903] Now that I have lost my stick I realize what it is I have lost and all it meant to me.
[1904] And thence ascend, painfully, to an understanding of the Stick, shorn of all its accidents, such as I had never dreamt of.
[1905] What a boradening [place = margin left] [ ] of the mind.
[1906] So that I half discern, in the veritable
[p. 110r]
[1906] catastrophe that has befallen me, a bless ing [place = supralinear] blessing in disguise.
[1907] How comforting that is.
[1908] Catastrophe too in the ancient sense no doubt.
[1909] To be buried in lava and not turn a hair, it is then a man shows what stuff he is made of.
[1910] To know you can do better next time, unrecognizably better, and that there is no next time, and that it is a blessing there is not, there is a thought to be going on with.
[1911] I thought I was turning the my stick to the best possible account, like a monkey scratching itself [place = supralinear] its fleas with the stic key that opens its cage.
[1913] For it is obvious to me now that by making a more intelligent use of my stick I might have extracted myself from my bed and perhaps even got myself back into it, when tired of rolling and dragging myself about the floor or on the stairs.
[1914] That would have introduced a little variety into my decomposition.
[1915] How is it it [place = margin left] that never occurred to me?
[1916] It is true I had no wish to leave my bed.
[1917] But can the sage have no wish for something the very possibility of which he does not conceive?
[1918] I don't understand.
[1919] The sage perhaps.
[1920] But I?
[1921] It is day again, at least what passes for such here.
[1922] I must have fallen asleep after a brief bout of discouragement, such as I have not experienced for a long time.
[1923] For why be discouraged, one of the thieves was saved, that is a generous perceb [place = margin left] ntage.
[1924] I see the stick on the floor, not far from the bed.
[1925] That is to say I see part of it, as of all one sees.
[1926] It might just as well be at the equator, or one of the poles.
[1927] No, not quite, for perhaps I shall devise a way of retrieving it, I am so ingenious.
[1928] All is not then yet quite irrevocably lost.
[1929] In the meantime nothing is mine any more, according to my definition, if I remember rightly, except my exercise-book, my lead and the French pencil, assuming