[p. 105r]
[1772] of less consequence, or simply wait, doing nothing, or counting perhaps, one, two, three and so on, until all danger to myself from myself is past at last.
[1773] That is what comes of being scrupulous.
[1774] If I had a penny I would let it make up my mind.
[1775] Decidely Decidedly the night is long and poor in counsel.
[1776] Perhao [place = inline] [⁁] [place = overwritten] p[ [place = supralinear] p]s I should persist until dawn.
[1777] All things considered.
[1778] Good idea, excellent.
[1779] If at dawn I am still there I shall take a decision.
[1780] I am half asleep.
[1781] But I dare not [place = inline] [⁁] slaeeep [place = supralinear] sleep.
[1782] Rectifications in extremis, in extremissimis, are always possible after all.
[1783] But have I not perhaps just passed awau [place = overwritten] y. [place = overwritten] ?
[1784] Malone, Malone, no more of that.
[1785] Perhaps I should call in all my possessions such as they are and take them into bed with me.
[1786] How would that be? Would that be of any use?
[1787] I suppose not.
[1788] But I may.
[1789] I have always that [place = margin left] re[ [place = supralinear] re] [place = inline] [⁁]esource.
[1790] When it is light enough to see.
[1791] Then I shall have them all round me, on top of me, under me, in the corner there will be nothing left, all will be in the bed, with me.
[1792] I shall hold my photograph in my hand, my stone, so that they can't get away.
[1793] I shall put on my hat.
[1794] Perhaps I shall have something in my mouth, my scrap of newspaper perhaps, or my buttons, and I shall be lying on other treasures still.
[1795] My photograph.
[1796] It is not a photograph of me, but I am perhaps at hand. [1797] It is an ass, taken from in front and close up, at the edge of the ocean, its it is not the ocean, but for me it is the ocean.
[1798] They naturally tried to make it raise its head, so that its beautiful eyes might be impressed on the celluloid, but it holds it lowered.
[1799] You can tell by its ears that it is not pleased.
[1800] They put a boater on its head.
[1801] The thin hard parallel legs, the little hooves light and d
[p. 106r]
[1801] and dainty on the sand.
[1802] The outline is blurred, that's the operator's giggle shaking the camera.
[1803] The ocean looks so i [place = overwritten] unnatural that you'd think you were in a studio, [1804] but is it not t [place = overwritten] rather the reverse I should say?
[1805] No trace left of any clothes for example, apart from the [ [place = margin left] BOOT] p [place = margin left] b[ [place = supralinear] b]oot, the hat and three socks, I counted them.
[1806] Where have my clothes disappeared, my greatcoat, t [place = overwritten] my trousers and the flannel that M [place = overwritten] Mr Quin gave me, with the remarl [place = overwritten] k that he did not need it any more?
[1807] Perhaps they were burnt.
[1808] But our business is not with what I have no longer, such things do not count at such a moment, whatever people may say.
[1809] In any case I think I'll stop.
[1810] I was keeping the best for the end, but I don't feel very well, perhaps I'm going, that would surprise me.
[1811] It is a passing weakness; ness, everyone has experienced that.
[1812] One weakens, then it passes, one's strength comes back and one resumes.
[1813] That is probably what is happening to me.
[1814] I yawn, would I yawn if it was serious?
[1815] Why not?
[1816] I would gladly eat a little soup, if there was any left.
[1817] No, even if there was some left I would not eat it.
[1818] So there.
[1819] It is some days now since my soup was renewed, did I mention that?
[1820] I suppose so.
[1821] It is in vain I de [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] i[ [place = supralinear] i]spatch my table to the door, bring it back beside me, move it to and fro in the hope that the noise will be heard and correctly interpreted, [place = margin left] [₰] in the right quarters, the dish remains empty.
[1822] One of the pots on the other hand hand remains full, and the other is filling slowly.
[1823] If I ever succeed in filling it I shall empty them both out on the floor, but it is unlikely.
[1824] Now that I have stopped eating I produce less waste and so eliminate less.
[1825] The pots do not seem to be mine, I
[p. 107r]
[1825] simply have the use of them.
[1826] They answer to the definition of what is mine, but they are not mine.
[1827] Perhaps it is the definition that is at fault.
[1828] They have each two handles or ears, projecting abob [place = overwritten] ve the rim and facing each other, into which I insert my stick. In this way I move my pots about, lift them up and set them down.
[1829] Nothing has been left to chance.
[1830] Or is it a happy chance?
[1831] I can therefore easily turn them upside down, if I am driven to it, and wait for them to empty, as long as nev [place = overwritten] cessary.
[1832] After this passing reference to my pots I feel a little mi [place = overwritten] ore lively.
[1833] They are not mine, but I say my pots, as I say my bed, my window, as I say me.
[1834] Nevertheless I shall stop.
[1835] It is my belon possessions have weakened me, if I start talking about them again I shall weaken again, for the same causes give rise to the same effects.
[1836] I should have liked to speak of the cap of the bell of my bicycle, [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] my bicycle-bell [ [place = supralinear] my bicycle-bell,] of my half-crutch, the top half, you'd think it was a baby's crutch.
[1837] But I can still do so, whatv [place = overwritten] is there to prevent me? I don't know. I can't.
[1838] To think I shall perhaps die of starvatio hunger, after all, of starvation rather, after having struggled successfully all my life against that menace.
[1839] I can't believe it.
[1840] There is a providence for impotent old men, to the end.
[1841] And when they cannot swallow any more someone rams a tube down their gullet, or up their rectum, and fills them full of [ [place = margin left] vitaminized]viatminized [place = margin left] [ ] 
[ [place = margin left] tr.] pap, so as not to be accused of murder.
[1842] I shall therefore die of old age pure and simple, glutted with days as in the days before the flood, on a full stomach.
[1843] Perhaps they think I am dead.
[1844] Or perhaps they are dead themselves.
[1845] I say they, though perhaps I should not.
[1846] In the beginning, but was it the beginning, I used to see an old woman, then for a time an old yellow arm, then
[p. 108r]
[1846] for a time an old yellow hand. But these were probably no more than the agents of a consortium.
[1847] And indee [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] d[ [place = supralinear] d] the silence at times is cuh such that the earth seems uninhabited.
[1848] That is what comes of the taste for generalisation.
[1849] You have only to hear nothing for a few days, in your hole, nothing but the sounds of things, and you begin to fancy yourself the last of human kind.
[1850] What if I started to scream?
[1851] Not that I wish to dra w draw attention to myself, simply to try and find out if there is someone about.
[1852] But I don't like screal [place = overwritten] ming.
[1853] I have spoken softly, gone my ways softly, all my days, as behoves one who has nothing to say, nowhere to go, [1854] and so nothing to gain by being seen or heard.
[1855] Not to mention the possibility of their [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] re[ [place = supralinear] re] being not a living soul within a radius of one hundred yards, and then such a[ [place = margin left] ₰] multitude [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] s[ [place = supralinear] s] of people that they are walking on top of one another.
[1856] They do not dare come near me.
[1857] In that case i [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] I[ [place = supralinear] I] could scream my head off to no purpose. [1858] I shall try all the same.
[1859] I have tried.
[1860] I heard nothing out of the ordinary.
[1861] No, I exaggerate, I heard a kind of burning croak deep down in the windpipe, as when one has heartburn.
[1862] With practice I might produce a groan, before I die.
[1864] I am not sleepy any more.
[1865] In any case I must not sleep any more.
[1866] What tedium.
[1867] I have missed the ebb.
[1868] Did I say I only say a small proportion of the things that come into my head?
[1869] I must have.
[1870] I choose those that seem somehow akin.
[1871] It is not always easy.
[1872] I hope they are the most important.
[1873] I wonder if I shall ever be able to stop.
[1874] P [place = overwritten] Perhaps I should throw away my lead.
[1875] I could never retrieve it now.
[1876] I might be sorry.
[1877] My little lead.
[1878] It is a risk I do not feel inclined to take, just now.
[1879] What then?
[1880] I wonder if I could not contrive, wielding my stick like a punt-pole, to
[p. 109r]
[1880] move my bed.
[1881] It may well be on castors, many beds are.
[1882] Incredible I should never have thought of this, all the time I have been h [place = overwritten] here.
[1883] I might even suc [place = inline] [⁁] [place = margin left] c[ [place = supralinear] c]eed in steering it, it is so narrow, through the f [place = overwritten] door, and even down the stairs, if there is a stairs that goes down.
[1884] To be off[ [place = inline] ⁁] [place = margin left] and away [ [place = supralinear] and away.].
[1885] The dark is against me, in a sense.
[1886] But I can always try and see if the bed will move.
[1887] I have only to set the stick against the wall and push.
[1888] And I can see myself already, if successful, taking a little turn in the room, until it is light enough for me to set forth.
[1889] At least while thus employed I shall stop telling myself lies.
[1890] And then, who knows, the physical effort may [place = inline] [⁁] finish [place = supralinear] polish me off, by [place = inline] [⁁] menas [place = supralinear] means of heart failure.
[
]
[place = inline] [⃞][1891] I have lost my stick.
[1892] That is the outstanding ec [place = overwritten] vent of the day, for it is day again.
[1893] The bed has not stirred.
[1894] I must have miss" [place = overwritten] ed my point of purchase, in the dark.
[1895] Sine qua non, Archimedes was right.
[1896] The stick, having slipped, would have plucked me from the bed if I had not let it go.
[1897] It would of course have been better for me to relinquish my bed than to lose my stick.
[1898] But I had not time to think.
[1899] The fear of falling is the source of many a folly.
[1900] It is a disaster.
[1901] I suppose the wisest thing now is to live it over again, meditate upon it and be edified.
[1902] It is thus that man distinguishes himself from the ape and rises, from discovery to discovery, ever higher, towards the light.
[1903] Now that I have lost my stick I realize what it is I have lost and all it meant to me.
[1904] And thence ascend, painfully, to an understanding of the Stick, shorn of all its accidents, such as I had never dreamt of.
[1905] What a boradening [place = margin left] [ ] [ [place = margin left] tr.] of the mind.
[1906] So that I half discern, in the veritable