MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

[1542] above all inelegant in this, to my mind, that the uneven distribution
was painful to me, bodily. [1543] It is true that a kiⁿd of equilibrium was
reached, at a given moment, in the early stages of each cycle, namely
after the third suck and before the fourth, but it did not last long,
and the rest of the time I felt the weight of the stones dragging me
now to one side, now to the other.

[1544] So it was something more than a
principle I abandoned, when I abandoned the equal distribution, it was
a bodily need. [1545] But to suck the stones in the way I have described, not
haphazard, but with method, was also I think a bodily need. [1546] Here then
were two incompatible bodily needs, at loggerheads. [1547] Such things happen.
[1548] But deep down I didn't give a tinker's curse about being off my balance,
dragged to the right hand and the left, backwards and forwards.

[1549] And
deep down it was all the same to me whether I sucked a different stone
each time or always the same stone, until the end of time. [1550] For they
all tasted exactly the same. [1551] And if I had collected sixteen, it was
not in order to ballast myself in such and such a way, or to suck them
turn about, but simply to have a little store so as never to be without.

[1552] But deep down I didn't give a fiddler's curse about being without, when
they were all gone they would be all gone, I wouldn't be any the worse ^[⁁]off,
or hardly any. [1553] And the solution to which I rallied in the end was to
throw away ^{all the stones} but one, which I kept now in one pocket, now in
another, and which of course I soon lost, or threw away, or gave away,
or swallowed.

[1554] It was a wild part of the coast. [1555] I don't remember having
been seriously molested. [1556] The black speck I was, in the great pale stretch
of sand, who could wish it harm? [1557] Some came near, to see what it was,
whether it wasn't something of value from a wreck, washed up by the storm.
[1558] But when they saw the jetsam was alive, decently if wretchedly clothed,
they turned away. [1559] Old women and young ones, yes, too, come to gather
wood, came and stared, in the early days. [1560] But they were always the