MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[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 had seized the hat and that held it still
I thrust as far as possible from me and caused 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
bel^flowered. [0217] But it is neither of my hat nor of my greatcoat that
I hope to speak at present, it would be premature. [0218] Doubtless 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. [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 them. [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 beneath, 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, at bottom, and the bottom is my abode, ^{deep down, and deep down is my dwelling,} oh not
xxx ^{deepest down,}, somewhere between the mud and the scum. [0231] And