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[1594] not begun to reproach himself with what he had done, namely with having lain down on the ground instead of continuing on his course, in as straight a line as possible, in the hope of chancing sooner or later on a tree, or a ruin.
[1595] And instead of being astonished at such long and violent rain, he was astonished at not having understood, from the moment the first timid drops began to fall, that it was going to rain violently and long and that he must not stop and lie down, but on the contrary press forward, as fast as his legs could carry him, for he was no more than human, than the son and grandson and greatgrandson of humans.
[1596] But between [⁁] him and those grave and sober men, first bearded, then moustached, there was this difference, that his semen had never done any harm to anyone.
[1597] So his liks link[link] with his species was through his ax[⁁]s[s]cendants only, who were all dead, in the fond hope they had perpetuated themselves.
[1598] But the better late than never thanks to which true men, true links, can acknowledge the error odf[f] their ways and hasten on to the next, was beyond the power of Macmann, to whom it sometimes seemed that he could grovel and wallow in his mortality until the end of time, and not have done.
[1599] And without going as far as that, hew he who has waited long enough will wait for ever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more[more] can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain. [1600] Perhaps he had come to that.
[1601] And when (for example) you die, it is you[⁁] too [too] late, you have been waiting too long, you are no longer sufficiently alive to be able to stop.
[1602] Perhaps he had come to that.
[1603] But apparently not, though acts don't matter, I know, I know, nor thoughts.
[1605] For having reproached himself with wa
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[1605] with what he had done, and with his monstrous error of appreciation, instead of sprining springing up and hurrying on he turned over on his back, thus offering all his front to the deluge.
[1606] And it was then his hair appeared clearly for the first time since his walks bare-headed in the smiling haunts of his youth, his hat having remained in the place which his head had just left.
[1607] For when, lying on your stomach in a wild and practically illimitable part of the country, you turn over on your back, then then[⁁]re[re] is a side-ways movement of the whole body, including the head, unless you make a point of avoiding it, and the head comes to rest at x inches approximately from where it was before, x being the width of the shoulders in inches, for the head is right in the middle of the shoulders.
[1608] But when you are in a narrow bed, a pallet say a[⁁] I[I] mean one just wide enough to contain you, a pallet shall we say, then it is in vain you turn over on your back, then back over [over] on your stomach, the head remains always in the same place, unless you make a point of inclining it to the right or to the left, and some there doubtless are who go to this trouble, in the hope of finding a little freshness.
[1609] He tried to look at the dark streaming mass which was all that remained of sky and air, but the rain hurt his eyes and shut them.
[1610] He opened his mouth and lay for a long time thus, his mouth [⁁] open and his hands also and as far apart as possible from each other.
[1611] For it is a curious thing, one tends less to lc[⁁]clutch the ground when on one's back than when on one's stomach, there is a curious remark which might be worth following up.
[1612] And just as an hour before he had pulled up his sleeve[⁁][e]s the better
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[1612] to clutch the grass, so now he pulled them up again the better to feel the rain pelting down on his palms, also called the hollows of the hands, or the flats, it all depends.
[1613] And in the midst -[
] 
but I was nearly forgetting the hair, which from the point of view of colour was to white very much as the hour's gloom to black and from the point of view of length very long what is more, very long behind and very long on either side.
[1614] And on a dry and windy day it would have gone romping in the grass almost like grass itself.
[1615] But the rain glued it to the ground and churned it up with the earth and grass into a kind of muddy pulp, not a muddy pulp, a kind of muddy pulp.
[1616] And in the midsts[₰ ₰] of his suffering, for one does not remain so long in such a position without being incommoded, he began to wish that the rain would never cease nor consequently his sufferings or pain, for the cause of his pain was almost certainly the rain, recumbency in itself not being particularly unpleasant, as if that[⁁][ere] there existed a relation between that which suffers and that which causes to suffer.
[1617] For the rain could cease without his ceasing to suffer, just as he could cease to suffer without the rain's ceasing on that account.
[1618] And on him already this important quarter-truth was perhaps beginning to dawn.
[1619] For while re deploring he could ntot spend the rest of his life (which would thereby have been agreeably abridged) under this heavy, cold (without being icy) and perpendicular rain, now supine, now prone, he was half[⁁]quarter[quarter]-inclined to wonder if he was not mistaken in making it re holding it responsible for his sufferings and if in reality his discomfort was not the effect of quite diffe a
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[1619] different cause or set of causes.
[1620] For people are never content to suffer, but they must have heed[⁁][at] heat and cold, rain and its contrary which is fine weather, and with that love, friendship, black skin and sexual and peptic deficiency for example, in short the furies and frenzies happily too numerous to be numvbered of the body including the skull and its annexes, whatever that means, such as the club-foot, in order that they may know very precisely what exactly it is that dares prevent their happiness from being unalloyed.
[1622] And sticklers have been met with who had no peace until they knew for certain whether their carcinoma was of the pylorus or whether on the contrary it was not rather of the duodenum.
[1623] But these are flights for which Macmann was not yet fledges[⁁]d[d], and indeed he was rather of the earth earth[⁁]y[y] and ill[-]-fitted for pure reason, especially in the circumstances in which we have been fortunate enough to circumscribe him.
[1624] And to tell the truth he was by temperament more reptile and[⁁] than [than] bird and could suffer extensive mutilation and survive, happier sitting than sta standing and lying down than sitting, so that he sat and lay down at the least pretext and only rose again when the élan vital or struggle for life began to prod him in the arse again.
[1625] And a good part[⁁] half of his existence must have been spent in a motionlessness akin to that of stone, not to say the three quarters, or even the four fifths, a motionless moitionlessness[₰] at first skin-deep, but which little by little invaded, I will not say the vital parts, but at least the sensibility and understanding.
[1626] And it must be
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[1626] supposed presumed that he received from his numerous forbears, through the agency of his papa and his mama, a cast-iron vegetative system, to have reached the ahge he has just reached and which is nothing or very little compared to the age he will reach, as I know to my cost, without any serious mishap, I mean one of a nature to carry him off on the spot.
[1627] For no one ever came to his help, to help him avoid the thorns and snares that attend the steps of innocence, and he could never count on any other craft than his own, any other strength, to go from morning to evening and then from evening to morning without mortal hurt.
[1628] And notably he never received any gifts of cash, or very seldom, and very paltry, which would not have mattered if he had been able to earn, in the sweat of his brow or by making use of his intelligence.
[1629] But when given for example the job of weeding a plot of young carrots for example, at the rate of threepence or even sixpence an hour, it often happened that he tore them all up, through absent-mindedness,
or carried away by I know not what furious irresistible urge that came over him at the sight of vegetable[⁁]s[s], and even of flowers, and literally blinded him to his true interests, the urge to make a clean sweep and have nothing before his eyes but a patch of brown earth rid of its parasites, it was often more than he could resist.
[1630] Or without going so far as that, suddenly all swam before his eyes, he could not no longer distinguish the plants destined for the embellishment of the home or the nutrition of man and beast from the weeds which are said to serve no useful purpose, but which must have their usefulness too, for the earth to favour them so,