[p. 11r]
[0282] whole days have flown.
[0283] Does anything remain to be said?
[0284] A few words about myself perhaps.
[0285] My body is what is called, unadvisedly perhaps, impotent.
[0286] There is virtually nothing it can do.
[0287] Sometimes I miss not being able to crawl around any more.
[0288] But I am not much given to nostalgia.
[0289] My arms, once they are in position, can exert a certain force. But I find it hard to guide them.
[0290] Perhaps the red nucleus has faded.
[0291] I tremble a little, but only a a little.
[0292] R [place = margin left] The groaning of the bedstead is part of my life, I would not like it to cease, I mean I would not like it to decrease.
[0293] It is on my back, that is to say prostrate, no, supine, that I feel bet best, least bony.
[0294] I lie on my back, but my cheek is on the pillow.
[0295] I have only to open my eyes to have them begin again, the sky and smoke of mankind.
[0296] My sight and hearing are very bad, [0297] on the vast main no light but reflected gleams.
[0297] All my senses are trained full on me, me.
[0298] Dark and silent and stale, I am no prey for them.
[0299] I am far from the sounds of blood and breath, immured.
[0300] I shall not speak of my sufferings.
[0301] Cowering deep down among them I feel nothing.
[0302] It is there I die, unbeknown to my stupid flesh.
[0303] That which is seen, that which cries and writhes, my witless remains.
[0305] Somewhere in this turmoil thought struggles on, it too wide of the mark.
[0306] It too seeks me, as it always has, where I am not to be found.
[0307] It too cannot be eas quiet.
[0309] On others let it wreak its dying rage, [0310] and leave me in peace.
[0311] Such would seem to be my [place = margin left] present state.
[0312] The man's name is Saposcat. [0313] Like his father's. [0314] Christian name? [0315] I don't know. [0316] He will not need one. [0317] His friends call him Sapo. [0318] What
[p. 12r]
[0318] friends. [place = margin left] ?
[0319] I don't know.
[0320] A few words about the boy.
[0321] This cannot be avoided.
[0322] He was a precocious boy.
[0323] He was not good at his lessons, neither could he see the use of them.
[0324] He attended his classes with his mind elsewhere, or blank.
[0325] He attended his classes with his mind elsewhere. [0326] He liked sums, [0327] but not the way they were taught. [0328] What he liked was the manipulation of concrete numbers. [0329] All calculation seemed to him idle in which the nature of the unit was not specified. [0330] He made a practice, alone and in company, of mental arithmetic. [0331] And the figures then marshalling in his mind thronged it with colours and with forms.
[0332] What tedium.
[0333] He was the eldest child [0334] of poor and sickly parenys parents.
[0335] He often heard them talk of what they ought to do in order to have better health and more money.
[0336] He was struck each time by the vagueness of these palavers and not surprised that they never led to anything.
[0337] His father was a salesman, in a shop.
[0338] He used to say to his wife, I really must find work for the evenings and the Saturday afternoon.
[0339] He added, faintly, And the Sunday.
[0340] His wife would answer, But if you do any more work you'll fall ill.
[0341] And Mr Saposcat had to allow that he would indeed be ill-advised to forego his Sunday rest.
[0342] These people at least are grown up.
[0343] But his health was not so poor that he could not work in the evenings and the Sat of the week and the Saturday afternoon.
[0344] At what, said his wife, work at what?
[0345] Perhaps
[p. 13r]
[0345] secretarial work of some kind, he said.
[0346] And who will look after the garden? said his wife.
[0347] The life of the Saposcats was full of axioms, of which one at least established the criminal absurdity of a garden without roses and with his [place = margin left] its paths and lawns uncared for.
[0348] I might perhaps grow vegetables, he said.
[0349] They cost less to buy, said his wife.
[0350] Sapo marvelled at these conversations.
[0351] Think of the price of manure, said his mother.
[0352] And in the silence which followed Mr Saposcat applied his mind, with the earnestness he brought to everything he did, to the high price of manure which prevented him from suu [place = overwritten] pporting his family in greater ci [place = overwritten] omfort, while his wife made ready to accuse herself, in her turn, of not doing all she might.
[0353] But she was easily persuaded that she could [place = margin left] not do more without exposing herself to the risk of dying prematurely [place = margin left] before her time.
[0354] Think of the doctor's fees we save, said Mr Saposcat.
[0355] And the chemist's bills, said his wife.
[0356] Nothing remained but to envisage a smaller house.
[0357] But we are cramped as we are [place = supralinear] it is, said Mrs Saposcat.
[0358] And it was an understood thing that they would be more so with every passing year until the day came when, the departure of the first-born compensating the arrival of the new-born, a kind of equilibrium would be attained.
[0359] Then little by little the house would empty.
[0360] And at last they would be all alone, with their memories.
[0361] It would be time enough then to move.
[0362] He would be pensioned off, she at her last gasp.
[0363] They would take a cottage in the country where, having no further need of manure, they could afford to buy it in cartloads.
[0364] And their children, grateful for the sacrifices made on their behalf, would come to their assistance.
[0365] It was in this atmosphere of unbridled dream that these
[p. 14r]
[0365] conferences usually ended.
[0366] It was as though the Saposcats drew the stren [place = margin left] gth to live from the prospect of their impotence.
[0367] But sometimes, before reaching that stage, they paused to consider the case of their first-born.
[0368] What age is he now? asked Mr Saposcat.
[0369] His wife provided the information, it being understood that this was of her province.
[0370] She was always wrong.
[0371] Mr Saposcat took over the erroneous figure, murmuring it over and over to himself as though it were a question of the rise in price of some indispensable commodity, such as butcher's meat.
[0372] And at the same time he sought in the appearance of his son some alleviation of what he had just heard.
[0373] Was it at least a nid [place = overwritten] ce joint [place = margin left] sirloin?
[0374] Sapo looked at his father's face, sad, astonished, loving, disappointed, confident in spite of all.
[0375] Was o [place = overwritten] it on the cruel flight of the years he brooded, or on the time it was taking his son to command a salary?
[0376] Sometimes he stated wearily his regret that his son should not be more eager to make himself useful, about the place.
[0377] It is better for him to prepare his examinations, said his wife.
[0378] Starting from a given theme their minds laboured in unison.
[0379] They had no conversation properly speaking.
[0380] They made use of the spoken word in much the same way as the guard of a train makes use of his flags, or of his lantern.
[0381] Or else they said, This is where we get down.
[0382] And their son once signalled their [place = margin left] y wondered sadly if it was not the mark of superior minds to fail miserably at the written paper and cover themselves with ridicule at the viva voce.
[0383] They were not always content to contemplate in silence the same landscape.
[0384] At least his health is good, said Mr Saposcat.
[0385] Not all that, said his wife.
[0386] But no definite disease, said Mr Saposcat.
[0387] A nice thing that would be, at his age, said his wife.
[0388] They did not know why
[p. 15r][0388] he was committed to a liberal profession. [0389] That was [place = margin left] yet another thing that went without saying. [0390] It was therefore impossible he should be unfitted for it. [0391] They thought of him as a doctor for preference. [0392] He will look after us when we are old, said Mrs Saposcat. [0393] And her husband replied, I see him rather as a surgeon, as though after a certain age people were inoperable.
[0394] What tedium.
[0395] And I call that playing.
[0396] I wonder if I am not talking yet again about myself.
[0397] Shall I be incapable, until the to the end, of lying on any other subject?
[0398] I feel the old dark gathering, the solitude preparing, by which I know myself, and the call of that ignorance which might be noble and is mere poltroonery.
[0399] Already I forget what I have said.
[0400] That is not how to play.
[0401] Soon I shall not know where Sapo comes from, nor what he hopes.
[0402] Perhaps I had better abandon this story and go on to the second, or even the third, the one about the stone.
[0403] No, it would be the same thing.
[0404] I must just [place = supralinear] simply be on my guard, [0405] reflecting on what I have said before I go on [0406] and stopping, each time ruin threatens, to look at myself as I am.
[0407] That is just what I wanted to avoid.
[0408] But there seems to be no other solution.
[0409] After that mud-bath I shall be better able to endure a world unsullied by my presence.
[0410] What a way to reason.
[0411] My eyes, I shall open my eyes, look at the little heap of my possessions, give my body the old orders I know it cannot obey, turn to my spirit gone to rack and ruin, spoil my agony the better to live it out, far already from the world that parts at last its labia and lets me go.
[place = margin bottom] [SPACE]