[p. 85r]
[4414] to face or dark[⁁]ly, perhaps there is no such person, that would not greatly surprise me. [4415] And at the thought of the punishments Youdi might inflict upon me I was seized by such a mighty fit of laughter that I shook, with mighty silent laughter and my features composed in their wonted sadness and calm. [4416] But my whole body shook, and even my legs, so that I had to lean against a tree, or against a bush, when the fit came on me standing, my umbrella being no longer sufficient to keep me from falling. [4417] Strange laughter truly, and no doubt misnamed, through indolence perhaps, or ignorance. [4418] And as for myself, that unfailing pastime, I must say it was far now from my thoughts. [4419] But there were moments when it did not seem so far from me, when I seemed to be drawing towards it as the sands towards the wave, when it crests and whitens, though I must say this image hardly [⁁]fitted my situation, which was rather that of the turd waiting for the flush. [4420] And I note here the little beat my heart once missed, in my home, when a fly, flying low above my ash-tray, raised a little ash, with the breath of its wings. [4421] And I grew gradually weaker and weaker and more and more content. [4422] For several days I had eaten nothing. [4423] I could probably have found blackberries and mushrooms, but I had no wish for them. [4424] I remained all day stretched out in the shelter, vaguely regretting my son's raincoat, and I crawled out in the evening to have a good laugh at the lights of Bally. [4425] And though suffering a little from wind and cramps in the stomach I felt extraordinarily content, content with myself, almost elated, enchanted with my performance. [4426] And I said, I shall soon lose consciousness altogether, it is merely a question of time. [4427] But Gaber's arrival put a stop to these frolics.
[4428] It was evening. [4429] I had just crawled out of the shelter for my evening guffaw and the better to savour my exhaustion. [4430] He had already been there for some time. [4431] He was sitting on a tree-stump, half asleep. [4432] Well Moran, he said. [4433] You recognize me? I said. [4434] He took out and opened his notebook,
[p. 86r]
[4434] licked his finger, turned over the pages till he came to the right page, raised it towards his eyes which at the same time he lowered towards it. [4435] I can see nothing, he said. [4436] He was dressed as when I had last seen him. [4437] My strictures on his Sunday clothes had therefore been unjustified. [4438] Unless it was Sunday again. [4439] But had I not always seen him dressed in this way? [4440] Would you have a match? he said. [4441] I did not recognize this far-off voice. [4442] Or a torch, he said. [4443] He must have seen from my face that I possessed nothing of a luminous nature. [4444] He took a small electric torch from his pocket and shone it on his page. [4445] He read, Moran, Jacques, home, instanter. [4446] He put out his torch, closed his notebook on his finger and looked at me. [4447] I can't walk, I said. [4448] What? he said. [4449] I'm sick, I can't move, I said. [4450] I can't hear a word you say, he said. [4451] I cried to him that I could not move, that I was sick, that I should have to be carried, that my son had abandoned me, that I could [⁁]bear no more. [4452] He examined me laboriously from head to foot. [4453] I executed a few steps leaning on my umbrella to prove to him I could not walk. [4454] He opened his notebook again, shone the torch on his page, studied it at length and said, Moran, home, instanter. [4455] He closed his notebook, put it back in his pocket, put his lamp back in his pocket, stood up, drew his hands over his chest and announced he was dying of thirst. [4456] Not a word on how I was looking. [4457] And yet I had not shaved since the day my son brought back the bicycle from Hole, nor combed my hair, nor washed, not to mention all the privations I had suffered and the great inward metamorphoses. [4458] Do you recognize me? I cried. [4459] Do I recognize you? he said. [4460] He reflected. [4461] I knew what he was doing, he was searching for the phrase most apt to wound me. [4462] Ah Moran, he said, what a man! [4463] I was staggering with weakness. [4464] If I had dropped dead at his feet he would have said, Ah poor old Moran, that's him all over. [4465] It was getting darker and darker. [4466] I wondered if
[p. 87r]
[4466] it was really Gaber.
[4467] Is he angry? I said.
[4468] You wouldn't have a sup of beer by any chance, he said.
[4469] I'm asking you if he is angry, I cried.
[4470] Angry, said Gaber, don't make me laugh, he keeps rubbing his hands from morning to night, I can hear them in the outer room.
[4471] That means nothing, I said.
[4472] And chuckling to himself, said Gaber.
[4473] He must be angry with me, I said.
[4474] Do you know what he told me the other day? said Gaber. [4475] Has he changed? I cried.
[4478] Changed, said Gaber, no he hasn't changed, why would he have changed, he's getting old, that's all, like the world.
[4479] You have a queer voice this evening, I said.
[4480] I do not think he heard me.
[4481] Well, he said, drawing his hands once more over his chest, downwards, I'll be going, if that's all you have to offer me.
[4482] He went, without saying goodbye.
[4483] But I overtook him, in spite of my loathing for him, in spite of my weakness and my sick leg, and held him back by the sleeve.
[4484] What did he tell you? I said.
[4485] He stopped.
[4486] Moran, he said, you are beginning to give me a serious pain in the arse.
[4487] For pity's sake, I said, tell me what he told you.
[4488] He gave me a shove.
[4489] I fell. [4490] He had not intended to make me fall, he did not realize the state I was in, he had only wanted to push me away.
[4491] I did not try to get up.
[4492] I let a roar.
[4493] He came and bent over me.
[4494] He had a walrus moustache, chestnut in colour.
[4495] I saw it lift, the lips open, and almost at the same time I heard words of sollicitude 
, at a great distance.
[4496] He was not brutal, Gaber, I knew him well.
[4497] Gaber, I said, it's not much I'm asking you. [4498] I remember this scene well.
[4499] He wanted to help me up.
[4500] I pushed him away.
[4501] I was all right where I was.
[4502] What did he tell you? I said.
[4503] I don't understand, said Gaber.
[4504] You were saying a minute ago that he had told you something, I said, then I cut you short. [4505] Short? said Gaber.
[4506] Do you know what he told me the other day, I said, those were your very words.
[4507] His face lit up.
[4508] The clod was just about as quick as my son.
[4509] He said to me, said
[p. 88r]
[4509] Gaber, Gaber, he said —. [4510] Louder! I cried. [4511] He said to me, said Gaber, Gaber, he said, life is a thing of beauty, Gaber, and a joy for ever. [4512] He brought his face nearer mine. [4513] A joy for ever, he said, a thing of beauty, Moran, and a joy for ever. [4514] He smiled. [4515] I closed my eyes. [4516] Smiles are [⁁]all very nice in their own way, very heartening, but at a reasonable distance. [4517] I said, Do you think he meant human life? [4518] I listened. [4519] Perhaps he didn't mean human life, I said. [4520] I opened my eyes. [4521] I was alone. [4522] My hands were full of grass and earth I had torn up unwittingly, was still tearing up. [4523] I was literally uprooting. [4524] I desisted, yes, the second I realized what I had done, what I was doing, such a nasty thing, I desisted from it, I opened my hands, they were soon empty.
[4525] That night I set out for home. [4526] I did not get far. [4527] But it was a start. [4528] It is the first step that counts. [4529] The second counts less. [4530] Each day saw me advance a little further. [4531] That last sentence is not clear, it does not say what I hoped it would. [4532] I counted at first by tens of steps. [4533] I stopped when I could go no further and I said, Bravo, that makes so many tens, so many more than yesterday. [4534] Then I counted by fifteens, by twenties and finally by fifties. [4535] Yes, in the end I could go fifty steps before having to stop, for rest, leaning on my faithful umbrella. [4536] In the beginning I must have strayed a little in Ballyba, if I really was in Ballyba. [4537] Then I followed more or less the same paths we had taken on the way out. [4538] But paths look different, when you go back along them. [4539] I ate, in obedience to the voice of reason, all that nature, the woods, the fields, the waters had to offer me in the way of edibles. [4540] I finished the morphine.
[4541] It was in August, in September at the latest, that I was ordered home. [4542] It was spring when I got there, I will not be more precise. [4543] I had therefore been all winter on the way.
[p. 89r]
[4544] Anyone else would have lain down in the snow, firmly resolved never to rise again. [4545] Not I. [4546] I used to think that men would never get the better of me. [4547] I still think I am cleverer than things. [4548] There are men and there are things, to hell with animals. [4549] [⁁]And with God. [4550] When a thing resists me, even if it is for my own good, it does not resist me long. [4551] This snow, for example. [4552] Though to tell the truth it lured me more than it resisted me. [4553] But in a sense it resisted me. [4554] That was enough. [4555] I vanquished it, grinding my teeth with joy, it is quite possible to grind one's incisors. [4556] I forged my way through it, towards what I would have called my ruin if I could have conceived what I had left to be ruined. [4557] Perhaps I have conceived it since, perhaps I have not done conceiving it, [⁁]it takes time, one is bound to in time, I am bound to. [4558] But on the way home, a prey to the malignancy of man and nature and my own failing flesh, I could not conceive it. [4559] My knee, allowance made for the dulling effects of habit, was neither more nor less painful than the first day. [4560] The disease, whatever it was, was dormant! [4561] How can such thing[⁁]s be? [4562] But to return to the flies, I like to think of those that hatch out at the beginning of winter, within doors, and die shortly after. [4563] You see them crawling and fluttering in the warm corners, puny, sluggish, torpid, mute. [4564] That is you see an odd one now and then. [4565] They must die very young, without having been able to lay. [4566] You sweep them away, you push them into the dust-pan with the brush, without knowing. [4567] There is a strange race of flies. [4568] But I was succumbing to other affections, that is not the word, intestinal for the most part. [4569] I would have described them once, not now, I am sorry, it would have been worth reading. [4570] I shall merely say that no one else would have surmounted them, without help. [4571] But I! [4572] Bent double, my free hand pressed to my belly, I advanced, and every now and then I let a roar, of triumph and distress. [4573] Certain mosses I consumed must have