MS-WU-MSS008-2-47

[1540] full of pebbles to stand for men and their seasons, my last,
if I'm lucky. [1541] Then back here, to me, whatever that means, and no
more leaving me, no more asking me for what I haven't got. [1542] Or
perhaps we'll all come back, reunited, done with parting, done with
prying on one another, back to this foul little den all dirty
white and vaulted, as though hollowed out of ivory, and^[₰] old rotten
tooth.

[1543] Or alone, back alone, as alone as when I went, but I doubt
it, I can hear them from here, clamouring after me down the corrid-
ors, stumbling through the rubble, beseeching me to take them with
me. [1544] That settles that.

[1545] I have just time, if I have calculated right,
and if I have calculated wrong so much the better, ^{I ask nothing better,} besides I
haven't calculated anything, don't ask anything either, [1546] just time
to go and take a little turn, come back here and do all that I
have to do, I forget what, ah yes, put my possessions in order,
and then something else, I forget what, but it will come back to
me, when the time comes.

[1547] But before I go I should like to find
a hole in the wall behind which so much goes on, such extraordinary
things, and often coloured. [1548] One last glimpse and I feel I could sli
slip away as happy as if I were el^mbarking for -^[] I nearly said for
Cythera, decidedly it is time for this to stop. [1549] After all this
window is ^[⁁] what ^whatever I want it to be, up to a point, that's right, don't
compromise yourself.

[1550] What strikes me to begin with is how much
rounder it is than it was, so that it looks like a bull's-eye, or
a porthole. [1551] No matter, provided there is something on the other
side. [1552] First I see the night, which surprises me, to my surprise,
I suppose because I want to be surprised, just once more. [1553] For in
the room it is not night, I know, here it is never really night,