MS-BRML-NWWR-2-38

[0526] was my life, and that I judge it, as it is said that God will
judge us, and with no less impertinence. [0527] To decompose is to live
too, I know, I know, don't torment me, but one sometimes forgets.

[0528] And of that life^, too^, I shall tell you perhaps one day, the day when
I know that when I thought I knew I was merely existing, and that
passion without form or stations will have devoured me down to
the rotting flesh itself, and that when I know that I know nothing,
I am only crying out as I have always cried out, more or less
piercingly, more or less openly.

[0529] Let me cry out then, it's
said to be good for you. [0530] Yes, let me cry out, this time, then
another time perhaps, then perhaps a last time. [0531] Cry out that
the declinⁱⁿg sun fell full on the white wall of the barracks.

[0532] It was like being in China. [0533] A confused shadow was cast. [0534] It was
I and my bicycle. [0535] I began to play, gesticulating, waving my hat,
moving my bicy^cle to and fro before me, blowing the horn, [0536] watching
the wall. [0537] They were watching me through the bars, I felt their
eyes upon me. [0538] The policeman on guard at the door told me to go
away. [0539] He needn't have, I was calm again.

[0540] The shadow in the end
is no better than the substance. [0541] I asked the man to help me, to
have pity on me. [0542] He didn't understand. [0543] I thought of the food I
had refused. [0544] I took a pebble from my pocket and sucked it. [0545] It
was smooth, from having been sucked so long by me, and beaten by
the storm.

[0546] A little pebble in your mouth, round and smooth,
appeases, soothes, makes you forget your hunger, forget your
thirst. [0547] The man came toward m^e, displeased by my slowness. [0548] Him^,
too^, they were watching, through the windows. [0549] Somewhere someone
laughed. [0550] Inside me^, too^, someone was laughing. [0551] I took my sick leg
in my hands and passed it over the frame. [0552] I went. [0553] I had forgotten
where I was going. [0554] I stopped to think. [0555] It is difficult to think