MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3614] back into position for the day, take their stand, sham dead. [3615] I sat down
cautiously, and I must say with a certain curiosity, on the ground. [3616] Anyone
else would have tried to sit down as usual, off-handedly. [3617] Not I. [3618] New as
this new cross was I at once found the most comfortable way of being crushed.
[3619] But when you sit down on the ground you must sit down tailor-wise, or like
a foetus, these are so to speak the only possible positions, for a beginner.

[3620] So that I was not long in letting myself fall back flat on my back. [3621] And I
was not long either in making the following addition to the sum of my
knowledge, that when of the innumerable attitudes adopted unthinkingly by
the normal man all are precluded but two or three, then these are enhanced.
[3622] I would have sworn just the opposite, but for this experience. [3623] Yes, when
you can neither stand nor sit with comfort, you take refuge in the horizontal,
like a child in its mother's lap.

[3624] You explore it as never before and find
it possessed of uns^uspected delights. [3625] In short it becomes infinⁱte. [3626] And
if in spite of all you come to tire of it in the end, you have only to
stand up, or indeed sit up, for a few seconds. [3627] Such are the advantages of
a local and painless paralysis. [3628] And it would not surprise me if the great
classical paralyses were to offer analogous and perhaps even still more
unspeakable satisfactions.

[3629] To be literally incapable of motion at last,
that must be something! [3630] My mind swoons when I think of it. [3631] And mute into
the bargain! [3632] And perhaps as deaf as a post! [3633] And who knows as blind as a
bat! [3634] And as likely as not your memory a blank! [3635] And just enough brain
intact to allow you to exult! [3636] And to dread death like a regeneration.

[3637] I considered the problem of what I should do if my leg did not get
better or got worse. [3638] I w^[⁁]atched, through the branches, the sky sinking.
[3639] The sky sinks in the morning, this fact has been insufficiently observed.
[3640] It stoops, as if to get a better look. [3641] Unless it is the earth that lifts
itself up, to be approved, before it sets out.