MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[2703] somewhere man is too, vast conglomerate of all of nature's kingdoms, as
lonely and as bound. [2704] And in that block the prey is lodged and thinks
himself a being apart. [2705] Anyone would serve. [2706] But I am paid to seek. [2707] I
arrive, he comes away. His life has been nothing but a waiting for this,
to see himself preferred, to fancy himself damned, blessed, to fancy
himself everyman, above all a^others.

[2708] Warmth, gloom, smells of my bed, such
is the effect they sometimes have on me. [2709] I get up, go out, and everything
is changed. [2710] The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting,
merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my ea^yes search in
vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different
message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.

[2711] It is at the mercy of these
sensations, which happily I know to be illusory, that I have to live and
work. [2712] It is thanks to them I find myself a meaning. [2713] So he whom a sudden
pain awakes. [2714] He stiffens, ceases to breathe, waits, says, It's a bad
dream, or, It's a touch of neuralgia, breathes again, sleeps again, still
trembling.

[2715] And yet it is not unpleasant, before g^setting to work, to steep
oneself again in this slow and massive world, where all things move with
the ponderous sullenness of oxen, patiently through the immemorial ways,
th^and where of course no investigations^[₰]would be p9^ossible. [2716] But on this
occasion, I repeat, on this occasion, my reasons for doing so were I trust
more serious and imputable less to pleasure than to business.

[2717] For it was
only by transferring it to this atmosphere, how shall I say, of finality
without end, why not, that I could venture to consider the work I had on
hand. [2718] For where Molloy could not be, nor Moran either for that matter,
there Moran could bend over Molloy. [2719] And though this examination should
have be prove unprofitable and of no utility for the execution of my
orders, I should nevertheless have established a kind of connexion, and one
not necessarily false. [2720] For the falsity of the terms does not invariably ^neccessarily