MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

[1874] said the sergeant, I quote from memory. [1875] Or which I express without
sinking to the level of oratio recta, but by means of other figures
quite as deceitful, as for example, It seemed to me that, etc., or,
I had the impression that, etc., for it seemed to me sweet damn ^{[⁁]nothing at} all,
and I had no impression of any kind, but simply somewhere something had
changed, so that I too had to change, or the world too had to change,
in order for nothing to be changed.

[1876] And it was these little adjustments,
as between Galileo's jars ^[⁁]vessels, that I can only express by saying, I feared
that, or, I hoped that, or, Is that your mother's name? said the sergeant,
for example, and that I might doubtless have expressed otherwise and
better, if I had gone to the trouble. [1877] And so I shall perhaps some day
when I have less horror of trouble than today.

[1878] But I think not. [1879] So I
said, Yet a little while, at the rate things are going, and I won't be
able to move, but will have to stay, where I happen to be, unless some
kind person comes and carries me. [1880] For my marches got shorter and shorter
and my halts in consequence more and more frequent and I may add prolonged.

[1880] For the notion of the long halt does not necessarily follow from that
of the short march, nor that of the frequent halt either, when you come
to think of it, unless you give frequent a meaning it does not possess,
and I could never bring myself to do a thing like that. [1881] And I was all
the more anxious it seemed ^{it seemed to me all the more important} to get out of this forest as fast as I could, ^{[⁁]with all possible speed}
in view of the fact that ^[⁁]as I would very soon be powerless to get out of
anything whatsoeg^ver, were it but a bower.

[1882] It was winter, it must have
been winter, and not only many trees had lost their leaves, but these
lost leaves had gone all black and spongy and my crutches sank into them,
in places right up to the fork. [1883] Strange to say I felt no colder than
usual. [1884] Perhaps it was only autumn. [1885] But I wq^as never very sensitive to
changes of temperature. [1886] And the gloom, if it seemed less blue than
before, was as thick as ever. [1887] Which made me say in the end, It is less