MS-TCD-4662

[p. 19v]
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[0569] And all alone, well hidden, I have played the fool, all alone, for hours on end, motionless, often standing, spellbound, groaning. [0570] That's right, groan. [0571] I was not able to play. [0572] I cir ci 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 paraphernalia 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] They pursued me The grown-ups pursued me, the just, caught me, beat me, made me go back into the round, the game, the jollity. [0575] It's I was already in the toils of earnestness. [0576] That has been my disease. [0577] I was born earnest ^grave as others syphylitic. [0578] And earnestly ^gravely I live to be earnest ^grave no more, to live, to invent, I know what I mean. [0579] But at each fresh attempt I lose lost my head, fled to my shadows as to sanctuary, to the lap of him his lap who can neither life nor suffer to see others living the sight of others living. [0580] Life. [0581] I speak of living without knowing what it means. [0582] I tried to live 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 make live. cause to live. [0587] The days of the indictment of words are over. No more The days of the indictment of words are over. There is no use now indicting words. [0588] They are no hollower more hollow than what they peddle. [0589] And the failure, the solace, the repose, I tried again, to began again, to try and live, cause to live, be another with in myself, in others. [0590] How false all this is. [0591] I never met a fellow man being. [0592] I have no time to explain. [0593] I began again. [0594] But little by little with an different end in view. [0595] I no longer wish to succeed, but I wished fail. [0596] Nuance. [0597] My object ^{What I sought}, when I struggled out of my hole, then in the stinging

[p. 20r]
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[0597] light towards ^an inaccessible boons ^boon, was the extasy rapture of vertigo, the letting-go, the fall, the gulf, the return ^[↑]relapse to darkness, to nothingness, to earnestness, to home, to him who was waiting for me always, who needed me and whom I needed, who took me in his arms and told me to stay with him always, who gave me his place and watched over me, who suffered each time I left him, whom I have often made suffer and seldom contented, whom I have never seen. [0598] There I am getting out of control. [0599] Our ^My concern is not with me, but with another, who is un far beneath me and whom I try to envy, whose dry ^crass adventures I can ^tell at last relate, I don't know how. [0600] Of myself I could never tell, any more than I could live or tell of others. [0601] How could I have, since I never tried. [0602] To show myself now, before I vanish, at on the point of vanishing, at the same time as the stranger, thanks ^and by the same grace, that would be no ordinary last straw. [0603] And then beg begi ^live, long enough to feel, behind my closed eyes, other eyes close. [0604] What an end.

[0605] The market. [0606] The xxx defects of inadequacy of the exchange between rural and urban areas had not escaped the excellent youth. [0607] He had mustered, on this subject, the following considerations, some perhaps close to, others no doubt far from, the truth. [0608] in the matter the problem of food - in this country, food - No, I can't do it.

[0609] The peasants. [0610] His visits to the peasants. [0611] I can't. [0612] Assembled in the courtyard farmyard, they watched him depart, His step was wavering, sloppy ^{with with his stumbling [↑] on stumbling, wavering feet, as etc}, as though his feet ^they did not hardly felt the ground. [0613] Often he stopped, then set off again, after stood tottering for a time, then moved on in the most unexpected directions suddenly was off again, in another direction. [0614] So he moved,

[p. 20v] [0614] limp, drifting, th as though tossing on the earth tossed by the earth. [0615] And when, after a halt, he started off again, x he was it was like a big thistle-down snatched by the windsw from the place where it had settled.

[0616] I have rum rummaged a little in my belongings things, sorting them out and pulling them over to me, to have a good look at them. [0617] I was not far wrong in thinking that I knew them well well, in my head ^{by heart}, and could speak of them, at any moment, without looking at. [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 until now, though though correct accurate on the whole, was not completely so. [0621] Now I should should be sorry to let slip this unique occasion on which and the possibilities which which seems to offer me the possibility of something suspiciously like a st true statement of trut at last, it would not be I would feel I had failed in my duty. [0622] I want this matter this matter to free from all suspicions of approximation. DOODLE 6 [0623] I want, when the great day comes, to be in a position to announce clearly, without addition or omission, all and x that its long weary prelude prelude has brought me, and left with me, in the way of material goods. [0624] It must be an obsession.

[0625] I see now then that I had attributed to myself certain objects which are no longer in my possession, as far as I can tell. [0626] 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?

[p. 21r] [0629] And yet I see only one boot. [0630] And behind which piece of furniture? [0631] In this room, to the best of my knowledge, there is only one piece of furniture capable of getting between me and my possessions, I refer to the cupboard. [0632] But it so cleaves to the wall wall, to the two walls, for it is the corner, that it seems one with them 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, and rooting everywhere. [0636] Nothing. [0637] And the cupboard, far from containing my boot, is empty. [0638] No, I have this boot no longer, just as I am now without this boot, just as I am now without certain other objects of less value including 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 that 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 from ^with which when as a child, before I hurled it from me, I used to blow iridescent bubbles, an occasional bubble. [0642] Never mind, this bowl is now mine, wherever it comes from. [0643] A number of my treasures have the same origin. [0644] I also discovered discovered a little packet wrapped in tied up in yellow newspaper. [0645] It reminds me of something, w but of what? [0646] I brought it over beside the bed, and felt it with the head of my knob of my stick. [0647] And my hand understood, it understood softness and lightness, better I think than if it had touched the thing directly, fingering it and weighing it in its palm. [0648] I decided not to undo it, I don't know why. [0649] I sent it back into the corner, with the rest. [0650] I shall speak of it again perhaps, when the time comes.

[p. 21v]
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[0651] I shall say, I can hear myself saying it, Item, a little packet, soft, and light as a feather, tied up in newspaper. [0652] It will be my little mystery, my very own. [0653] Perhaps it is a lack of rupees. [0654] Or a lock of hair.

[0655] I also urged myself told myself too that 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] I am in a hurry. DOODLE 12 [0659] It is thence that one fine day, when all nature smiles and shines, that the rack looses its black cohorts unforgettable cohorts and sweeps away the blue for ever. [0660] My situation isx is truly delicate. [0661] What fine things, what What fine things, what momentous things, I am going to miss through fear, fear of relapsing into the old error, fear of not finishing in time, fear of revelling, for the last time, in a last flood of outpouring of misery, impotence and hate. DOODLE 13 [0662] The forms are many in which the changeless seeks relief for its formlessness. [0663] Ah yes, I was always subject to the deep thought, especially early in the year. [0664] That one had been been nagging for quite two m at me for the past five minutes. DOODLE 14 [0665] I venture I venture to hope there will be no more, of that depth. [0666] After all to finish is an it it is not important to finish. [0667] There are worse things than velleities. [0668] But is that the point? [0669] Probably. DOODLE 15 [0670] All I ask is that the last of mine, as long as it lasts, should have living for its theme, I must have changed my mind. [0671] That is all That is all I mean, [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, after I abandon him whose life has just begun so x

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[p. 22r] [0674] well, that my death and my death alone, prevents him from going on, from winning, losing, exulting enjoying, 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 is called coming down a peg (taking in sail)

[0676] My body does not yet make up its mind. [0677] But I think. But I think it weighs heavier in the bed, flatter and more diffuse ^{flattens and spreads}. [0678] My breath, when it comes back, fills the room with its noise, though my chest moves no more than a sleeping child's. [0679] I open my eyes and gaze unblinkingly and long, as when a tin small a tiny child I marvelled at gritted the novelties, and then the antiquities, at the night sky. [0680] Between it and me the pane, misted, smeared with the filth of years. [0681] I should like to breathe upon 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, these Christian names. [0686] The clouds scud, rapped, tattered by the windxx, over a limpid ground. [0687] If I had the patience to wait, I wd. see the moon. [0688] But I have not. DOODLE 19 [0689] Now that I have seen ^looked I hear the wind. [0690] I close my eyes and it mingles with my breath. [0691] Words and images ^{run riot} are a whirlwind ^{stampede in} in my head, pushing unending ^unending, jarring, merging, unending xxx?, unending. [0692] But beyond this tumult there is a great calm, and a great indifference, [0693] never really to be broken by anything any more. [0694] The mattress is hollow like a trough. [0695] I hid in the bottom, hemmed in snug between the two slopes clasped by the two sides. DOODLE 20 [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 xx snow white no doubt, pull the blanket over my head. [0697] I feel, deep down in my trunk, I cannot be more explicit, pains that seem new

[p. 22v]
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[0697] new to me. [0698] I think they are probably in my back. [0699] They have a kind of rhythm, they have even a kind of little tune. [0700] They are bluish. [0701] How all that is bearable, 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, I feel it against my tongue, my gums. [0704] I have Have, have. [0705] I suck. [0706] The search for myself is ended. [0707] I am buried in the universe, I knew I would find my place there one day, the old universe protects me, victorious. [0708] I am happy, I knew I would be happy one day. [0709] But I am not wise. [0710] For the wise thing now would be to do let ^go, at this instant of happiness, it seems to me. [0711] And what do I do? [0712] I return to the ligh go back again to the light, to the fields I so longed to love, to the sky all abustle with little clouds as white and light as snowflakes, to the life I could never take the right way through my own fault perhaps, through pride or pettiness, but I don't think so. [0713] The beasts of the field are at pasture, the sun warms the rocks and makes them shine glitter. [0714] Yes, I leave my happiness and go back to mankind too, to to the race of men too, they come and go often with ^carrying burdens. [0715] Perhaps I have judged them ill, but I don't think so. [0716] I have not judged them at all. [0717] All I My ^want is to make a last effort to understand, to begin to understand, how such beings are possible. [0718] No, it is not a question of understanding. [0719] Of what then? [0720] I don't know. [0721] Here I go nonetheless. Here I go none the less. [0722] I should ought not. [0723] Night, storm, unhappiness, 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 merely want to hear it said again. [0726] Just once again. [0727] No, there is nothing I want. I want nothing.

[p. 23r] [0728] The Louis. [0729] The Louis had difficulty in living, I mean in making ends meet. [0730] There was the man, the woman and two children, a boy and a girl. [0731] There at least is something that admits of no controversy. [0732] The father was known as Big Louis, and in big indeed indeed he was big. [0733] He had been married married several times already, before this last marriage marrying his young cousin, with her where we find him still and he is still with her. [0734] He had other children in other places, men and women firmly embedded in life, expecting no hoping for nothing more, either from themselves, or from others. [0735] They gave him a helping hand helped him, each one according to the best of his as his powers permitted according to his means or as the humour cast him, out of gratitude towards him but for whom they would never have come into the world or saying with indulgence, If it had not been he ^him it would have been someone else. [0736] Big Louis was completely toothless and smoked his cigarettes in a holder, while regretting his pipe. [0737] He was highly thought of as a bleeder and disjointer of pigs and was greatly sought after, no, that I exaggerate, in this capacity, for his fee was inferior to the butcher's and he even had been even known to accept ^{ask no more, in return for his services}, by way of remuneration, no more a gammon, or a little bacon. ^xx How plausible all that is than a bit of lump of gammon or lump of gammon or of pi or a pig's head.

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[0738] How plausible all that is. [0740] He often spoke of his father with respect and tenderness. [0741] His like will never be seen again, he would say, once I am gone. [0742] He must have said that in other words. [0743] His great days fell therefore in December and January, and from February onwards, he looked forward waited with pat, he waited with impatience for the return of that season, the principal

[p. 23v]
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[0743] event of which is undoubtedly ^{unquestionably} the celebration of the Saviour's birth, in a stable, while wondering if he would survive till then. [0744] Then he would set forth, carrying ^hugging under his arm, in their case, the knives lovingly lovably ^lovingly whetted in the chimney-corner the night before, and in his pocket, in a pa wrapped up in paper, the apron destined to protect, during the operation while he worked, x his good^{[⁁] Sunday} suit, while he worked. [0745] And at the thought that he, Big Louis, was on his way to xxx that distant ^farm where all was in readiness for his coming, and that in spite of his great age the people needed him, he was still needed, and preferred to younger he was still so needed, and his methods preferred to those of younger men, then his old heart leapt in its cage. DOODLE 35 DOODLE 36 [0746] From these expeditions he went home late in the night, drunk and exhausted by the long journey on foot and the road and the emotions of the day. [0747] And for days he could speak of nothing but the pig he had despatched, I would say into the other world if I did not know that pigs have none but this, to the great affliction of his family. [0748] But they did not dare say anything to him, for they were afraid of him. [0749] Yes, at an age when most people cringe and cower, as though to apologize for being still present, Louis was still feared and in a position to do exactly as he pleased. [0750] And even his young wife had abandoned all hope of bringing him to heel, by means of her cunt, that trump card of young w women. [0751] For she she knew what he would do if she refused to open it to him. [0752] And he even insisted on her making things easy for him, by means that often appeared to her exorbitant. [0753] And at the least sign of rebellion on her part he would go into the washhouse and get the ? and come back and beat her until she saw reason. [0754] All this by the way. [0755] And to return to the pigs, Louis

[p. 24r] [0755] continued to expatiate, to his near and dear ones, on the specimen he had just of an evening till the lamp burnt ^burned low, of the specimen he had just killed, until the day he was summoned to kill another. [0756] This his conversation xxx he could talk of nothing but the this new pig, so different from the other in every way, so completely different, and yet at bottom the same. [0757] For all pigs are alike, when you get to know them, struggle, squeal, bleed, squeal, struggle, squeal and faint away in more or less the same way exactly, in a way that is all their and could never be imitated by a lamb, for example, or a kid. [0758] But from March onwards, Big Louis calmed But when March was past Big Louis recovered his calm and became his silent self again.

[0760] The son, or heir, was a great strapping lad with terrible teeth. [0761] Edmund.

[0762] The farm. [0763] The farm was in a hollow, inundated in winter and in summer x burnt to a cinder. [0764] The way led to it led through a fine meadow. [0765] But this fine meadow did not belong to the Louis, but to other farmers who lived at a distance. [0766] Jonquils and narcissi bloomed there in extraordinary abundance, at the appropriate season. [0767] Louis grazed his goats there, surreptitiously, at nightfall.

[0768] Strange to relate ^{Strange to relate}, Louis if Louis had th this gift of his that Louis had when it came to sticking pigs seem[⁁]^ed of no help to him when it came to rearing them, and it was seldom ^rare that his own for his own to exceed 9 stone. [0769] Clapped into a tiny sty the d, on the day of its arrival, in the month of April, he it remained there until the day of its death, shortly before Xmas. [0770] For Louis persisted in dreading for his pigs, though x each year showed him his mistake, the thinning effects of exercise. [0771] He dreaded for them also daylight and fresh air. [0772] And it was finally a weak pig, blind and lean, that he laid on its back in the box, with its legs tied, and killed, indignantly but without haste and without haste, upraiding him the while for his its ingratitude, at the top of his voice. [0773] And he could not or would