[p. 05r]
[0119] perhaps from his bedroom window or from the summit of a monument which, one black day, having nothing in particular to do and turning to height for solace, he had paid his few coppers to climb, slower and slower, up the winding stones. [0120] From there he must have seen it all, the plain, the sea, and then these selfsame hills that some call mountains, indigo in places in the evening light, their serried ranges crowding to the sky-line, cloven with hidden valleys that the eye divines from sudden shifts of colour and then from other signs for which there are no words, nor even thoughts. [0121] But all are not divined, even from that height, and often where only one escarpment is discerned, and one crest, in reality there are two, two escarpments, two crests, riven by a valley. [0122] But now he knows these hills, that is to say he knows them better, and if ever again he sees them from afar it will be I think with other eyes, and not only that but the within, all that inner space one never sees, the brain and heart and other caverns where thought and feeling dance their sabbath, all that too quite differently disposed. [0123] He looks old and it is a sorry sight to see him solitary after so many years, so many days and nights unthinkingly given to that rumour rising at birth and even earlier, What shall I do? What shall I do? now low, a murmur, now precise as the headwaiter's And to follow? and often rising to a scream. [0124] And in the end, or almost, to be abroad alone, by unknown ways, in the gathering night, with a stick. [0125] It was a stout stick, he used it to thrust himself onward, or as a defence, when the time came, against dogs and marauders. [0126] Yes, night was gathering, but the
[p. 06r]
[0126] man was innocent, greatly innocent, he had nothing to fear, though he went in fear, he had nothing to fear, there was nothing they could do to him, or very little. [0127] But he can't have known it. [0128] I wouldn't know it myself, if I thought about it. [0129] Yes, he saw himself threatened, his body threatened, his reason threatened, and perhaps he was, perhaps they were, in spite of his innocence. [0130] What business has innocence here? [0131] What relation to the innumerable spirits of darkness? [0132] It's not clear. [0133] It seemed to me he wore a cocked hat. [0134] I remember being struck by it, as I wouldn't have been for example by a cap or by a bowler. [0135] I watched him recede, overtaken (myself) by his anxiety, at least by an anxiety which was not necessarily his, but of which as it were he partook. [0136] Who knows if it wasn't my own anxiety overtaking him. [0137] He hadn't seen me. [0138] I was perched higher than the road's highest point and flattened what is more against a rock the same colour as myself, that is grey. [0139] The rock he probably saw. [0140] He gazed around as if to engrave the landmarks on his memory and must have seen the rock in the shadow of which I crouched like Belacqua, or Sordello, I forget. [0141] But a man, a fortiori myself, isn't exactly a landmark, because. [0142] I mean if by some strange chance he were to pass that way again, after a long lapse of time, vanquished, or to look for some lost thing, or to destroy something, his eyes would search out the rock, not the haphazard in its shadow of that unstable fugitive thing, still living flesh. [0143] No, he certainly didn't see me, for the reasons I've given and then because he was in no humour for that, that evening, no humour for the living, but rather for all that doesn't stir, or stirs so slowly
[p. 07r]
[0143] that a child would scorn it, let alone an old man.
[0144] However that may be, I mean whether he saw me or whether he didn't, I repeat I watched him recede, at grips (myself) with the temptation to get up and follow him, perhaps even to catch up with him one day, so as to know him better, be myself less lonely.
[0145] But in spite of my soul's leap out to him, at the end of its elastic, I saw him only darkly, because of the dark and then because of the terrain, in the folds of which he disappeared from time to time, to re-emerge further on, but most of all I think because of other things calling me and towards which too one after the other my soul was straining, wildly.
[0146] I mean of course the fields, whitening under the dew, and the animals, ceasing from wandering and settling for the night, and the sea, of which nothing, and the sharpening line of crests, and the sky where without seeing them I felt the first stars tremble, and my hand on my knee and above all the other wayfarer, A or C, I don't remember, going resignedly home.
[0147] Yes, towards my hand alos 
, which my knee felt tremble and of which my eyes saw the wrist only, the heavily veined back, the pallid rows of knuckles.
[0148] But that is not, I mean my hand, what I wish to speak of now, everything in due course, but A or C returning to the town he had just left.
[0149] But after all what was there particularly urban in his aspect?
[0150] He was bare-headed, wore sand-shoes, smoked a cigar.
[0151] He moved with a kind of loitering indolence which rightly or wrongly seemed to me expressive.
[0152] But all that proved nothing, refuted nothing.
[0153] Perhaps he had come from afar, from the other end of the island even, and
[p. 08r]
[0153] was approaching the town for the first time or returning to it after a long absence.
[0154] A little dog followed him, a pomeranien I think, but I don't think so.
[0155] I wasn't sure at the time and I'm still not sure, though I've hardly thought about it.
[0156] The little dog followed wretchedly, after the fashion of pomeranians, stopping,
turning in slow circles, giving up and then, a little further on, beginning all over again.
[0157] Constipation is a sign of good health in pomeranians.
[0158] At a given moment, pre-established if you like, I don't much mind, the gentleman turned back, took the little creature in his arms, drew the cigar from his lips and buried his face in the orange fleece,
[0159] for it iwas a gentleman, that was obvious.
[0160] Yes, it was an orange pomeranian, the less I think of it the more certain I am.
[0161] And yet.
[0162] But would he have come from afar, bare-headed, in sand-shoes, smoking a cigar, followed by a pomeranian.
[0163] Did he not seem rather to have issued from the ramparts, after a good dinner, to take his dog and himself for a walk, like so many citizens, dreaming and farting, when the tw weather is fine?
[0164] But was not perhaps in reality the cigar a cutty, and were not the sand-shoes boots, hobnailed, dust-whitened, and what prevented the dog from being one of those stray dogs that you pick up and take in your arms, from compassion or because you have long been straying with no other company than the endless roads, sands, shingle, bogs and heather, than this nature answerable to another court, than at long intervals the fellow convict you long to stop, embrace, suck, suckle and whom you pass by, with hostile eyes, for fear of his familiarities.
[0165] Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms,
[p. 09r]
[0165] you catch up in yours the first mangy cur you meet, carry it the time needed for it to love you and you it, then throw it away.
[0166] Perhaps he had come to that, in spite of appearances.
[0167] He disappeared, his head on his chest, the smoking object in his hand.
[0168] Let me try and explain.
[0169] From things about to disappear I turn away in time.
[0170] To watch them out of sight, no, I can't do it.
[0171] It was in this sense he disappeared.
[0172] Looking away I thought of him, sawying, He is dwindling, dwindling.
[0173] I knew what I meant.
[0174] I knew I could catch him, lame as I was.
[0175] I had only to want to.
[0176] And yet no, for I did want to.
[0177] To get up, to get down on the road, to set hobbling off in pursuit of him, to hail him, what could be easier.
[0178] He hears my cries, turns, waits for me.
[0179] I am up against him, up against the dog, gasping, between my crutches.
[0180] He is a little frightened of me, a little sorry for me,
[0181] I disgust him not a little.
[0182] I am not a pretty sight, I don't smell good.
[0183] What is it I want?
[0184] Ah that tone I know, compounded of pity, of fear, of disgust.
[0185] I want to see the dog, see the man, at close quarters, know what smokes, inspect the shoes, find out other things.
[0186] He is kind, tells me of this and that and other things, whence he comes, whiteher he goes.
[0187] I believe him, I know it's my only chance to — my only chance, I believe all I'm told, I've disbelieved only too much in my long life, now I swallow everything, greedily.
[0188] What I need now is stories, it took me a long time to know that,
[0189] and I'm not sure of it.
[0190] There I am then, informed as to certain things, knowing certain things about him, things I didn't know, things I had craved to know, things I had never thought of.
[0191] What rigmarole.
[0192] I am even capable of having learnt what his proffession