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[p. 10r]
485 
[0193] best not to talk about myself. [0194] In a moment I shall talk about the
cows, about the sky, if I can. [0195] There I am then, he leaves me, he's
in a hurry. [0196] He didn't seem to be in a hurry, he was loitering, I've
already said so, but after three minutes talking with me he is in
a hurry, he has to hurry. [0197] I believe him. [0198] And once again I am I
will not say alone, no, that's not like me, but, how shall I say,
I don't know, resotored to myself, no, I never left myself, free,
yes, I don't know what that means but it's the word I tintend to
use, free to do what, to do nothing, to know, but what, the laws
of the mind perhaps, of my mind, that for exapmple water raiises in proportion as it drowns you and that you would do better, at least
no worse, to obliterarte texts than to blacken margins, to fill in
the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole gahastly
business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless
misery. [0199] So I xdoubtless did better, at least no worse, not to
disturb myself from my observation post. [0200] But, instead of observing
I had the weakness to return in spirit to the other, the man with
the stick. [0201] Then the murmurs began again. [0202] To restore silence is
the role of objects. [0203] I said, who knows if he hasn't simply come
out to take the air, relax, strech his legs, disinflame his brain
by stamping the blood down to his feet, so as to ensure himself a
good night, a joyous awakening, an enchanted morrow. [0204] Was he
rcccarrying as much as a scrip? [0205] But this gait, the anxious looks, the
club, could these be reconciled with one's conception of what is
called a little turn. [0206] But the hat, a town hat, an old-fashioned
town hat, which the least wind would carry far waaway. [0207] Unless it
was attached under the chin, by means of a string or an elastic,
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[p. 10v]
New World
Writing
88-89-90
[p. 11r]
486
Start Galley 91 - New World Writing B2795 9/9½ 21 (N.A.L.)
[0208] I took off my hat and looked at it. [0209] It is fastened, it has always
been fastened, to my buttonhole, always the same buttonhole, at
all seasons, by a long lace. [0210] I am still alive then. [0211] That may come
in useful. [0212] The hand that thad seized the hat and that held it still
I trust as far as possible from me and caused it to come and go in an
arc. [0213] So doing, I watched the lapel of my greatcoat, and saw it
open and close. [0214] I understand now why I never wore a flower in my
buttonhole, though it was large enough to hold a whole bunch. [0215] My
buttonhole was set aside for my hat. [0216] It was my hat that I
beflowered. [0217] But it is neither of my hat nor of my greatcoat that
I hope to speak at present, it would be premature. [0218] Doubtelxess I
shall speak of them later, when the time comes to draw up the
inventory of my goods and possessions. [0219] Unless I lose them between now and then. [90/91 Here]
[0220] [[]But even lost they will have their place, in the
inventory of my possessions. [0221] But i am easy in my mind, I shall
not lose thexm. [0222] Nor my crutches, I shall not lose my crutches either.
[0223] But I shall perhaps one day throw them away. [0224] I must have been on
the top, or on the slopes, of some considerable eminence, for
otherwise how could I have seen, so far away, so near at hand, so
far beeneiath, so many things, fixed and moving. [0225] But what was an
eminence doing in this land with hardly a ripple? [0226] And I, what was
I doing there, and why come? [0227] These are things that we shall try
and discover. [0228] But these are things we must not take seriously.
[0229] There is a little of everything, apparently, in nature and freaks
are common. [0230] And I am perhaps confusing several different occasions,
and different times, deep down, and deep down is my dwelling, oh not
deepest down, somewhere between the mud and the scum. [0231] And perhaps it
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[p. 12r]
487
[0231] was A one day at one place, then B another at another, then a
third the rock and I, and so on for the other components,
the cows, the sky, the sea, the mountains. [0232] I can't believe it.
[0233] No, I will not lie, I can easily conceive it. [0234] No matter, no matter,
let us go on, as if all arose from one and the same weariness,
on and on hoarding, until there is no room, no light, for anymore.
[0235] What is certain is that the man with the stick did not pass by
again that night, because I would have heard him, if he had.
[0236] I don't say I would have seen him, I say i would have heard him.
[0237] I sleep little and that little in the daytime. [0238] Oh not systematically,
in my life without end i have dabbled with every kind of sleep, but
at the time now coming back to me i took my doze in the daytime and,
what is more, in the morning. [0239] Let me hear nothing of the moon, in
my night there is no moon, and if it happens that I speak of the
stars it's inadvertently. [0240] Now of all the noises that night not one
was of those heavy uncertain steps, or of that club with which he
sometimes smote the earth until it quaked. [0241] How agreeable it is to be
confirmed, after a more or less long period of vacillation, in one's
first impressions. [0242] Perhaps that is what tempers the pangs of death.
[0243] Not that i was so conclusively, I mean confirmed, in my first im
pressions with regard to —[
] wait —[] C. [0244] For the wagons and carts
which a little before dawn went thundering by, on their way to market
with fruit, eggs, butter, and perhaps cheese, in one of these perhaps
he would have been found, overcome by fatigue or by discouragement,
perhaps even dead. [0245] Or he might have gone back to the town by another
way too far away for me to hear its sounds, or by little paths through
the fields, crushing the silent grass, pounding the silent ground. [0246] And
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488
[0246] so at last I came out of that distant night, divided between the murmurs
of my little world, its dutiful confusions, and those so different
(so different?) of all that between two sumns abides and passes away.
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