MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[1080] way inordinately formal, while at the same time being in no wise an
aesthete, or an artist. [1081] And of my two eyes only one functioning more
or less satisfactorily, I ill-assessed the distance separating me from
the other world, and often I stretched out my hand to what was far
beyond my reach, and often I knocked against obstacles scarcely visible
on the horizon.

[1082] But I was like that even when I had my two eyes, it
seems to me, but perhaps not, for it is long since that era of my life,
and my recollection of it is more than imperfect. [1083] And now I think of
it, my attempts at taste and smell were scarcely more fortunate, I
smelt and tasted without knowing exactly what, nor whether it was good,
nor whether it was bad, and seldom twice running the same thing.

[1084] I
would have been I think an excellent husband, incapable of wearying my
wife and unfaithful only from absent-mindedness. [1085] Now as to telling you
why I stayed a good while with Lousse, no, I cannot. [1086] That is to say I
could I suppose, if I took the trouble. [1087] But why should I? [1088] In order to
establish beyond all question that I could not do otherwise?

[1089] That is
the conclusion I would come to, fatally. [1090] I who had loved the image of
old Geulincx, dead young, who left me free, on the black boat of Y^Ulysses,
to crawl towards the e^East, along the deck. [1091] That is a great measure of
freedom, for him who has not the pioneering spirit. [1092] And from the poop,
poring upon the wave, a sadly rejoicing slave, I follow with my eyes the
proud and futile wake.

[1093] Which, as it bears me from no fatherland away,
bears me onward to no shipwreck. [1094] A good while then with Lousse. [1095] It's
vague, a good while, a few months perhaps, a year perhaps. [1096] I know it
was warm again the day I left, but that meant nothing, in my part of the
world, where it seemed to be warm or cold or merely mild at any moment
of the year and where the days did not run gently up and down, no, not