[p. 45r]
[0876] little the right gained what the left lost. [0877] For the moon was moving from left to right, or the room was moving from right to left, or both together perhaps, or both were moving from left to right, but the room not so fast as the moon, or from right to left, but the moon not so fast as the room. [0878] But can one speak of right and left in such circumstances? [0879] That movements of an extreme complexity were taking place seemed certain, and yet what a simple thing it seemed, [⁁]that vast yellow light sailing slowly behind my bars and which little by little the dense wall devoured, and finally eclipsed. [0880] And now its tranquil course was written on the walls, a radiance scored with shadow, then a brief quivering of leaves, if they were leaves, then [⁁]that too went out, leaving me in the dark. [0881] How difficult it is to speak of the moon and not lose one's head, [0882] the witless moon. [0883] It must be her arse she shows us always. [0884] Yes, I once took an interest in astronomy, I don't deny it. [0886] Then it was geology that killed a few years for me. [0887] The next pain in the [⁁]balls was anthropology and the other disciplines, such as psychiatry, that are connected with it, disconnected, then connected again, according to the latest discoveries. [0888] What I liked in anthropology was its inexhaustible faculty of negation, its relentless definition of man, as though he were no better than God, in terms of what he is not. [0889] But my ideas on this subject were always horribly confused, for my knowledge of men was scant, and the meaning of being beyond me. [0890] Oh I've tried everything. [0891] In the end it was magic that had the honour of my ruins, and still today, when I walk there, I find its vestiges. [0892] But mostly they are a place with neither plan nor bounds and of which I understand nothing, not even of what it is made, still less into what. [0893] And the thing in ruins, I don't know what it is, what it was, nor whether it is not less a question of ruins than the indestructible chaos of timeless things, if that is the right expression. [0894] It is in any case a place devoid of
[p. 46r]
[0894] mystery, deserted by magic, because devoid of mystery.
[0895] And if I do not go there gladly, I go perhaps more gladly there than anywhere else, astonished and at peace, I nearly said as in a dream, but no, no.
[0896] But it is not the kind of place where you go, but where you find yourself, sometimes, not knowing how, and which you cannot leave at will, and where you find yourself without any pleasure, but with more perhaps than in those places you can escape from, by making an effort, places full of mystery, full of the familiar mysteries.
[0897] I listen and the voice is of a world collapsing endlessly, a frozen world, under a faint untroubled sky, enough to see by, yes, and frozen too.
[0898] And I hear it murmur that all wilts and yields, as if loaded down, but here there are no loads, and the ground too, unfit for loads, and the light too, down towards an end it seems can never come.
[0899] For what possible end to these wastes where true light never was, nor any upright thing, nor any true foundation, but only these leaning things, forever lapsing and crumbling away, beneath a sky without memory of morning or hope of night.
[0900] These things, what things, come from where, made of what?
[0901] And it says that here nothing stirs, has never stirred, will never stir, except [⁁]myself, who do not stir either, when I am there, but see and am seen.
[0902] Yes, 
a world at an end, in spite of appearances, its end brought it forth, ending it began, is it clear enough?
[0903] And I too am at an end, when I am there, my eyes close, my sufferings cease and I end, I wither as the living can not.
[0904] And if I went on listening to that far whisper, silent long since and which I still hear, I would learn still more, about this.
[0905] But I will listen no longer, for the time being, to that far whisper, for I do not like it, I fear it.
[0906] But it is not a sound like the other sounds, that you listen to, when you choose, and can sometimes silence, by going away or stopping your ears, no, but it is a sound which begins to rustle in your head, without your
[p. 47r]
[0906] knowing how, or why. [0907] It's with your head you hear it, not your ears, you can't stop it, but it stops itself, when it chooses. [0908] It makes no difference therefore whether I listen to it or not, I shall hear it always, no thunder can deliver me, until it stops. [0909] But nothing compels me to speak of it, when it doesn't suit me. [0910] And it doesn't suit me, at the moment. [0911] No, what suits me, at the moment, is to be done with this business of the moon which was left unfinished, by me, for me. [0912] And if I get done with it less successfully than if I had all my wits about me, I shall none the less get done with it, as best I can, at least I think so. [0913] That moon then, all things considered, filled me suddenly with amaze, with surprise, [⁁]perhaps better. [0914] Yes, I was considering it, after my fashion, with indifference, seeing it again, in a way, in my head, when a great fright came suddenly upon me. [0915] And deeming this deserved to be looked into[₰] I looked into it and quickly made the following discovery, among others, but I confine myself to the following, that this moon which had just sailed gallant and full past my window had appeared to me the night before, or the night before that, yes, more likely, all young and slender, on her back, a shaving. [0916] And then I had said, Now I see, he has waited for the new moon before launching forth on unknown ways, leading south. [0917] And then a little later, Perhaps I should go to mother tomorrow. [0918] For all things hang together, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, as the saying is. [0919] And if I failed to mention this detail in its proper place, it is because you cannot mention everything in its proper place, you must choose, between the things not worth mentioning and those even less so. [0920] For if you set out to mention everything you would never be done, and that's what counts, to be done, to have done. [0921] Oh I know, even when you mention only a few of the things there are, you do not get done either, I know, I know.
[p. 48r]
[0922] But it's a change of muck. [0923] And if all muck is the same muck that doesn't matter, it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another a little further on, from time to time, fluttering you might say, like a butterfly, as if you were ephemeral. [0924] And if you are wrong, and you are wrong, I mean when you record circumstances better left unspoken, and leave unspoken others, rightly, if you like, but how shall I say, for no good reason, yes, rightly, but for no good reason, as for example that new moon, it is often in good faith, excellent faith. [0925] Had there then elapsed, between that night on the mountain, that night when I saw A and C and then made up my mind to go and see my mother, and this other night, more time than I had thought, namely fourteen full days, or nearly? [0926] And if so, what had happened to those fourteen days, or nearly, and where had they flown? [0927] And what possible chance was there of finding a place for them, no matter what their burden, in the so rigorous chain of events I had just undergone? [0928] Was it not wiser to suppose either that the moon seen two nights before, far from being new as I had thought, was on the eve of being full, or else that the moon seen from Lousse's house, far from being full, as it had appeared to me, was in fact merely entering on its first quarter, or else finally that here I had to do with two moons, as far from the new as from the full and so alike in outline that the naked eye could hardly tell between them, and that whatever was at variance with these hypotheses was so much smoke and delusion. [0929] It was at all events with the aid of these considerations that I grew calm again and was restored, in the face of nature's pranks, to my old ataraxy, for what it was worth. [0930] And it came back also to my mind, as sleep stole over it again, that my nights were moonless and the moon foreign, to my nights, so that I had never seen, drifting past the window, carrying me back to other nights, other
[p. 49r]
[0930] moons, this moon I had just seen, I had forgotten who I was (excusably) and spoken of myself as I would have of another, if I had been compelled to speak of another. [0931] Yes it sometimes happens and will sometimes happen again that I forget who I am and strut before my eyes, like a stranger. [0932] Then I see the sky different from what it is and the earth too takes on false colours. [0933] It looks like rest, it is not, I vanish happy in that alien light, which must have once been mine, I am willing to believe it, then the anguish of return, I won't say where, I can't, to absence perhaps, you must return, that's all I know, it's misery to stay, misery to go. [0934] The next day I demanded my clothes. [0935] The valet went to find out. [0936] He came back with the news they had been burnt. [0937] I continued my inspection of the room. [0938] It was at first sight a perfect cube. [0939] Through the lofty window I saw boughs. [0940] They rocked gently, but not all the time, shaken now and then by sudden spasms. [0941] I noticed the chandelier was burning. [0942] My clothes, I said, my crutches, [0943] forgetting my crutches were there, against the chair. [0944] He left me alone again, leaving the door open. [0945] Through the door I saw a big window, bigger than the door which it overlapped entirely, and opaque. [0946] The valet came back with the news my clothes had been sent to the dyers, to have the shine taken off. [0947] He held my crutches, which should have seemed strange to me, but seemed natural to me, on the contrary. [0948] I took hold of one and began to strike the pieces of furniture with it, not very hard, just hard enough to overturn them, without breaking them. [0949] They were fewer than in the night. [0950] To tell the truth I pushed them rather than struck them, I thrust at them, I lunged, and that is not pushing either, but it's more like pushing than striking. [0951] But recalling who I was[₰] I soon threw away my crutch and came to a standstill in the middle of the room, determined to stop asking for things, to stop pretending to be angry. [0952] For [⁁]to want my