[0616] and drawing them over to me, to look at them. [0617] I was not far wrong in thinking that I knew them off, by heart, and could speak of them at any moment, without looking at them. [0618] But I wanted to make sure. [0619] It was well I did. [0620] For now I know that the image of these objects, with which I have lulled myself till now, though accurate in the main, was not completely so. [0621] And I should be sorry to let slip this unique occasion which seems to offer me the possibility of something suspiciously like a true statement at last. [0621|001] I might feel I had failed in my duty! [0622] I want this matter to be free from all trace of approximativeness. [0623] I want, when the great day comes, to be in a position to enounce clearly, without addition or omission, that all its interminable prelude had brought me and left me in the way of chattels personal. [0624] I presume it is an obsession.
[0625] I see then I had attributed to myself certain objects no longer in my possession, as far as I can see. [0626] But might they not have rolled behind a piece of furniture? [0627] That would surprise me. [0628] A boot, for example, can a boot roll behind a piece of furniture? [0629] And yet I see only one boot. [0630] And behind what piece of furniture? [0631] In this room, to the best of my knowledge, there is only one piece of furniture capable of intervening between me and my possessions, I refer to the cupboard. [0632] But it so cleaves to the wall, to the two walls, for it stands in the corner, that it seems part of them. [0633] It may be objected that my button-boot, for it was a kind of button-boot, is in the cupboard. [0634] I thought of that. [0635] But I have gone through it, my stick has gone through the cupboard, opening the doors, the drawers, for the first time perhaps,

[p. 27r]

[0635] and rooting everywhere. [0637] And the cupboard, far from containing my boot, is empty. [0638] No, I am now without this boot, just as I am now without certain other objects of less value, which I thought I had preserved, among them a zinc ring that shone like silver. [0639] I note on the other hand, in the heap, the presence of two or three objects I had quite forgotten and one of which at least, the bowl of a pipe, strikes no chord in my memory. [0640] I do not remember ever having smoked a tobacco-pipe. [0641] I remember the soap-pipe with which, as a child, I used to blow bubbles, an odd bubble. [0642] Never mind, this bowl is now mine, wherever it comes from. [0643] A number of my treasures are derived from the same source. [0644] I also discovered a lil^ttle packet tied up in age-yellowed hⁿewspaper. [0645] It reminds me of something, but of what? [0646] I drew it over beside the bed and felt it with the knob of my stick. [0647] And my hand understood, it une^derstood softness and lightness, better I think than if it ~~ha d~~ had touched the thing directly, fingering it and weighing it in its palm. [0648] I resolved, I don't know why, not to undo it. [0649] I sent it back into the corner, with the rest. [0650] I shall speak of it again perhaps, when the time comes. [0651] I shall say, I can hear myself already, Item, a little packet, soft, and light as a fr^eather, tied up in newspaper. [0652] It will be my little mystery, all my own. [0653] Perhaps it is a lack of rupees. [0654] Or a lock of hair.
[0655] I told myself too taht ^[ ] I must make better speed. [0656] True lives do not tolerate this excess of circumstance. [0657] It is there the demon lurks, like the gonococcus in the folds of the prostate. [0658] My time is limited. [0659] It is thence that one fine day, when all nature smiles and shines, the rack lets loose its black unfor

[p. 28r]

[0659] gettable cohorts and sweeps away the blue for ever. [0660] My situation is truly delicate. [0661] What fine things, what momentous things, I am going to miss through fear, fear of falling back into the old error, fear of not finishing in time, fear of revelling, for the last time, in a last outpouring of misery, impotence and hate. [0662] The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness. [0663] Ah yes, I was always subject to the deep thought, especially in the spring of the year. [0664] That one had been nagging at me for the past five minutes. [0665] I venture to hope there will be no more, of that depth. [0666] After all it is not important not to finish, [0667] there are worse things than velleities. [0668] But is that the point? [0669] Quite likely. [0670] All I ask is that the last of mine, as long as it lasts, should have living for its theme, [0671] that is all, [0672] I know what I mean. [0673] If it begins to run short of life I shall feel it. [0674] All I ask is to know, before I abandon him whose life has so well begun, that my death and mine alone prevents him from living on, from winning, losing, joying, suffering, rotting and dying, and that even had I lived he would have waited, before he died, for his body to be dead. [0675] That is what you might call taking a reef in your sails.

[0676] My body does not yet make up its mind. [0677] But I fancy it weighs heavier on the bed, flattens and spreads. [0678] My breath, when it comes back, fills the room with its din, though my chest moves no more than a sleeping child's. [0679] I open my eyes and gaze unblinkingly and long at the night sky. So a tiny tot I gaped, first at the novelties, then at the antiquities. [0680] Between it and me the pane, ~~fogged~~ ^misted and smeared with the filth of years. [0681] I should like to breathe

[p. 29r]

[0681] on it, but it is too far away. [0684] It is such a night as Kaspar David Friedrich loved, tempestuous and bright. [0685] That name that comes back to me, those names. [0686] The clouds scud, tattered by the w wind, across a limpid ground. [0687] If I had the patience to wait I would see the moon. [0688] But I have not. [0689] Now that I have looked I hear the wind. [0690] I close my eyes and it mingles with my breath. [0691] Words and images run riot in my head, pursuing, flying, clashing, merging, endlessly. [0692] But beyond this tumult there is a great calm, and a great indifference, [0693] never really to be troubled by ~~abything~~ anything ~~ever~~^[₰] again. [0696] I turn a little on my side, press my mouth against the pillow, and my nose, crush against the pillow my old hairs now no doubt as white as snow, pull the blanket over my head. [0697] I feel, deep down in my trunk, I cannot be more explicit, pains that seem new to me. [0698] I think they are chiefly in my back. [0699] They have a kind of rhythm, they even have a kind of little tune. [0700] They are bluish. [0701] How bearable all that is, my God. [0702] My head is almost facing the wrong way, like a bird's. [0703] I part my lips, now I have the pillow in my mouth. [0704] I have, I have. [0705] I suck. [0706] The search for myself is ended. [0707] I am buried in the world, I knew I would find my place there one day, the old world cloisters me, victorious. [0708] I am happy, I knew I would be happy one day. [0709] But I am not wisz^e. [0710] For the wise thing now would be to let go, at this instant of happiness. [0711] And what do I do? [0712] I go back again to the light, to the fields I so longed to love, to the sky all astir with little white clouds as white and light as snowflakes, to the life I could never manage, through my own fault perhaps, through pride, or pettiness, but I don't think so. [0713] The beasts are at pasture, the

[p. 30r]

[0713] sun warms the rocks and makes them glitter. [0714] Yes, I leave my happiness and go back to the race of men too, they come and go, often with burdens. [0715] Perhaps I have judged them ill, but I don't ~~think~~ ^{think so}, [0716] I have not judged them at all. [0717] All I want now is to make a last effort to understand, to begin to understand, how such creatures are possible. [0718] No, it is not a question of understanding. [0719] Of what then? [0720] I don't know. [0721] Here I go none the less, [0722] mistakenly. [0723] Night, storm and sorrow, and the catalepsies of the soul, this time I shall see that they are good. [0724] The last word is not yet said between me and - yes, the last word is said. [0725] Perhaps I simply want to hear it said again. [0726] Just once again. [0727] No, I want nothing.

[0728] The Lamberts. [0729] The Lamberts found it difficult to live, I mean to make ends meet. [0730] There was the man, the woman and two children, a boy and a girl. [0731] There at least of ^is something that admits of no controversy. [0732] The father was knowⁿ as Big Lambert, and big he was indeed. [0733] He had married his young cousin and was still with her. This was his third or fourth marriage. [0734] He had other children here and there, grown men and women imbedded deep in life, hoping for nothing more, from themselves or from others. [0735] They helped him, each one according to his means, or the humour of the moment,out of gratitude towards him but for whom they had never seen the light of day, or saying, with indulgence, If it had not been he it would have been someone else. [0736] Big Lambert had not a tooth in his head and smoked his cigarettes in a cigarette-holder, while regretting his pipe. [0737] He was highly thought of as a bleeder and disjointer of