MS-TCD-4662

[0569] And all alone, well hidden, I have
played the fool, all alone, for hours on
end, motionless, often standing, spell-
bound, groaning. [0570] That's right, groan.
[0571] I was not able to play. [0572] I turned
till I was dizzy, clapped my hands, ran,
shouted, saw myself losing, saw myself
winning, rejoicing, lamenting.

[0573] Then
suddenly I threw myself on the
playthings, if there were any, to destroy
them, or on a child, to change his joy
to howling, or I fled, I ran away and
hid.

[0574] The grown-ups
pursued me, the just, caught me, beat me,
made me go back into the round, the game,
the jollity. [0575] I was already in the toils
of earnestness. [0576] That has been my disease.
[0577] I was born ^grave as others syphylitic.

[0578] And ^gravely I live to be ^grave no more,
to live, to invent, I know what I mean.
[0579] But at each fresh attempt I lost my
head, fled to my shadows as to sanctuary,
to his lap who can neither
life nor suffer the
sight of others living. [0580] Life. [0581] I speak of
living without knowing what it means.

[0582] I tried to without knowing what I
was trying. [0583] Perhaps I have lived after all,
without knowing it. [0584] I wonder why I speak
of all this. [0585] Ah yes, to relieve the tedium.
[0586] Live and cause to live. [0587] There is no use now indicting words.

[0588] They are no more hollow than what
they peddle. [0589] And the failure, the solace, the
repose, I began again, to
try and live, cause to live, be another
in myself, in others. [0590] How false all
this is.

[0591] I never met a fellow being.
[0592] I have no time to explain. [0593] I began
again. [0594] But little by little with a different
end in view. [0595] I no longer wish to succeed,
I wished fail. [0596] Nuance. [0597] ^{What I sought}, when I
struggled out of my hole, then in the stinging