[p. 31r]
[0737] pigs and greatly sought after, I exaggerate, in that capacity.For his fee was inferior to [place = margin left] lower than the buthcer's [place = margin left] [ ] 
, and he had even been know [place = margin left] n to demand no more, in return for his services, than a lump of gammon or a pig's cheek.
[0738] How plausible all that is.
[0740] He often spoke f [place = overwritten] of his father with respect and tenderness.
[0741] His like will not be seen again, he used to say, once I am gone.
[0742] He must have said this in other words.
[0743] His great days then fell in December and January, and from February onwards he waited impatiently for the return of that season, the principal event of which is unquestionably the Saviour's birth, in a stable, while wondering if he would be spared till then.
[0744] Then he would set forth, hugging under his arm, in their case, the great knives so lovingly whetted before the fire the night before, and in his pocket, wrapped in paper, the apron destined to protect his Sunday suit, while he worked.
[0745] And at the thought that he, Big Lambert, was on his way towards that distant homestead where all was in readiness for his coming, and that in spite of his great age he was still needed, and his methods preferred to those of younger men, then his old heart exulted.
[0746] From these expeditions he reached home late in the night, drunk and exhausted by the long road and the emotions of the day.
[0747] And for days afterwards hec he could speak of nothing but the pig he had just de [place = margin left] ispatched, I would say into the other world if I was not aware that pigs have none but this, to the great affliction of his family.
[0748] But they did not dare protest, for they feared him.
[0749] Yes, at an age when most people cringe and cower, as if to apologize for still being present, Lambert was feared and in a position to do as he pleased.
[0750] And even his young wife had abandoned all
[p. 32r]
[0750] hope of bringing him to heel, by means of her cunt, that trump card of young wifes [place = supralinear] wives.
[0751] For she knew what he would do to her if she did not open it to him.
[0752] And he even insisted on her making things easy for him, in ways that often appeared to her exorbitant.
[0753] And at the least show of rebellion on her part he would run to the wash-house and come back with the battle and beat her until she came round to a better way of thinking.
[0754] All this by the way.
[0755] And to return to our pigs, Lambert continued to expatiate, to his near and dear ones, of an evening, while y [place = overwritten] the lamp burned low, on the specimen he had k [place = overwritten] just slaughtered, until the day he was summoned to slaughter another.
[0756] Then all his conversation was of this new pig, so unlike the other in every respect, so quite unlike, and yet at bottom the same.
[0757] For al; [place = overwritten] l pigs are alike, when you get to know their little ways, stuggle [place = supralinear] struggle, squeal, bleed, sueal [place = supralinear] squeal, struggle, bleed, suq [place = overwritten] queal and faint away, in more or less the same way exactly, a way that is all their own and could never be imitated by a lamb, for example, or a kid.
[0758] But once March was out Big Lambert recovered his calm and became his silent self again.
[0760] The son, or heir, was a great strapping lad with terrible teeth.
[0762] The farm.
[0763] The farm was in a hollow, flooded in winter and in summer burnt to a cinder.
[0764] The way to it lay through a fine meadow.
[0765] But this g [place = overwritten] fine meadow did not belong to the Lamberts, but to other peasants living at a distance.
[0766] There jonquils and narcissi bloomed in extraordinary profusion, at the appropriate season.
[0767] And there at nightfall, stealthily, Big Lambert turned los [place = margin left] ose his goats.
[0768] Strange to say this gift that Lambert possessed when it came
[p. 33r]
[0768] to sticking a pig [place = supralinear] pigs seemed of no help to him in the matter of rearing them, and it was seldom his own exceeded nine stone.
[0769] Clapped into a tiny sty on the day of its arrival, in the month of April, it remained there until the day of its death, on Christmas Eve.
[0770] For Lambert persisted in dreading for his pigs, though every passing year proved him wrong, the thinning effects of ec [place = overwritten] xercise.
[0771] Daylight and fresh air he dreaded for them too.
[0772] And it was finally a weak pig, blind and lean, that he lay on its back in the box, having tied its legs, and killed, indignantly but without haste, upraiding it the while for its u [place = margin left] ingratitude, at the top of his voice.
[0773] For he could not or would not understand that the pig was not to blame, but he himself, who had coddled it unduly.
[0774] And he persisted in his error.
[0775] Dead world, airless, waterless.
[0776] That's it, reminisce.
[0777] Here and there, in the bed of a crater, the shadow of a withered lichen.
[0778] And nights of three hundred hours.
[0779] Dearest of lights, wan, pitted, least fatuous of lights.
[0780] That's it, babble.
[0781] How long can it have lasted? Five minutes? Ten minutes?
[0782] Yes, no more, not much more.
[0783] But my sliver of sky is gleaming [place = margin left] silvery with it yet.
[0784] In the old days I used to count, up to three hundred, four hundred, and with oh [place = overwritten] ther things too, the showers, the bells, the chatter of the sparrows at dawn, or with nothing, for no reason, for the sake of counting, and then I divided, by sixty.
[0785] That passed the time, I was time, I devoured the world.
[0786] Not now, any more.
[0787] A man changes.
[p. 34r][0788] As he gets on.
[0789] In the filthy kitchen, with its earth floor, Sapo had his place, by the window.
[0790] Big Lambert and his son left their work, came and shook his hand, then went away, leaving him with the mother and the daughter.
[0791] But they too had [place = margin left] their work to do [place = margin left] [₰], they too
went away and left him, alone.
[0792] There was so much work, so little time, so few hands.
[0793] The woman, pausing an instand [place = overwritten] t between two tasks, or in the midst of one, flung up her arms and, in the same breath, unable to sustain their great weight, let them fall again.
[0794] Then she began to toss them about in a way difficult to describe, and not easy to understand.
[0796] The movements resembled those, ay [place = overwritten] t once frantic and slack, of an arm shaking a duster, or a rag, to rid it of its dust.
[0797] And so rapid was the trepidation of the limp, empty hands that there seemed to be four or five at the end of each arm, instead of the usual one.
[0798] At the same time angry unanswerable questions, such as, What's the use? fell from her lips.
[0799] Her hair came m [place = margin left] loose and fell about her face.
[0800] It was thic thick, grey and dirty, for she had no time to care [place = margin left] tend it, and her face was pale and thin and as though gouged with worry and its attendant rancours.
[0801] The bosom - no, what matter [place = margin left] s is the head and then the hands it calls to its help before all else, that clasp, wring, then sadly resume their labour, lifting the old inert objects and changing their position, bringing thel [place = overwritten] m closer together and moving them further apart.
[0802] But this pantomime and these ejaculations were not intent [place = overwritten] ded for any living person.
[0803] For every day and several times a day she gave way to them, within
[p. 35r]
[0803] doors and without.
[0804] Then she little cared whether she was observed or not, whether what she was doing was urgent or could wait, no, [0805] but she dropped everything and ba [place = overwritten] egan to cry out and gesticulate, the last of all the living as likely as not and dead to what was going on about her.
[0806] Then she fell silent and stood stockstill a moment, before resuming whatever it was she had abandoned or setting about some new task.
[0807] Sapo remained alone, by the window, the bowl of goat's milk on the table before him, forgotten.
[0808] It was summer.
[0809] The room was dark in spite of the door and window open on the great outer light.
[0810] Through these narrow openings, far apart, the light poured, lit up a little space, then died, undiffused.
[0811] It had no steadfastness, no assurance of lasting as long as day lasted.
[0812] But it entered at every moment, renewed from without, entered and died and [place = margin left] t every moment, devoured by the dark.
[0814] And at the e [place = overwritten] least abatement of the inflow the room grew darker and darker until nothing in it was visible any more.
[0815] For the dark had triumphed.
[0816] And Sapo, his face turned towards an earth so resplendent that it hurt his eyes, felt at his back and all about him the unconquerable dark, and it licked the light on his face.
[0817] Sometimes abruptly he turned to face it, letting it envelop and pervade him, with a kind of relief.
[0818] Then he heard more clearly the sounds of those at work, the daughter calling to her goats, the father cursing his mule.
[0819] But silence was in the heart of the dark, the silence of dust and the things that would never stir, if left alone.
[0820] And the ticking of the invisible alarm-clock was as the voice of that silence which, like the dark, would one day triumph too.
[0821] And then all would be still and dark and all