MS-WU-MSS008-2-47

[0878] merging in blurs scarcely brighter than the sky, less bright
than the stars, and which the palest moon extinguished. [0879] They
were things that scarcely were, on the confines of silence and
dark, and soon ceased. [0880] So I reason now, at my ease. [0881] Standing before
my high^[₰] window I gave myself to them, waiting for them to end,
for my joy to end, straining towards the joy of ended joy.

[0882] But our
business at the moment is less with these futilities than with
my ears from which there spring two impetuous tufts of no doubt
yellow hair, yellowed by wax and lack of care, and so long that
the lobes are hidden. [0883] I note then, without emotion, that of late
their hearing seems to have improved. [0884] Oh not that I was ever even
incompletely deaf.

[0885] But for a long time now I have been hearing
things confusedly. [0886] There I go again. [0887] What ^{[⁁] I} [^I] mean is possibly this,
that the noises of the world, so various in themselves and which
I used to be so ^{[⁁] clever} at distinguishing from one another, had
been dinning at me f^or so long, always the same old noises, as
gradually to have merged into a single noise, so that all I heard
was one vast continuous buzzing.

[0888] The volume of sound perceived
remained no doubt the same, I had simply lost the faculty of de-
composing it. [0889] The noises of nature, of mankind and even my own^,
were all jumbled together in one and the same unbridled gibberish.
[0890] ^[⁁]E[^E]nough. [0891] I would willingly attribute part of my shall I say my
misfortunes to this disordered sense were I not unfortunately
rather inclined to look upon it as a blessing. [0892] Misfortunes,
blessings, I have no time to pick my words, I am in a hurry to be ^{[⁁] done.}[^done.]