From: VAX::LLO 22-MAY-1989 15:25:44.28 To: ARCHIVE CC: Subj: The back of his head touches the ceiling, say a life- time of standing bowed. Call floor angles deasil a, b, c and d and ceiling likewise e,f,g and h, say Jolly at b and Draeger at d, lean him for rest with feet at a and head at g, in dark and light, eyes glaring, murmuring, He's not here, no sound, Fancy is his only hope. Physique, flesh and fell, nail him to that while still tender, nothing clear, place again. Light as before, all white still when at full, flaking plaster or the like, floor like bleached dirt, aha. Faces now naked bodies, eye level, two per wall, eight in all, all right, details later. All six planes hot when shin- ing, aha. So dark and cold any length, shivering more or less, feeble slaps want of room at all flesh within reach, little stamps of hampered feet, so on. Same system light and heat with sweat more or less, cringing away from walls, burning soles, now one, now the other. Murmur unaffected, He's not here, no sound, Fancy dead, gaping eyes unaffected. See how light stops at five soft and mild for bodies, eight no more, one per wall, four in all, say all of Emma. First face alone, lovely beyond words, leave it at that, then deasil breasts alone, then thighs and cunt alone, then arse and hole alone, all lovely beyond words. See how he crouches down and back to see, back of head against face when eyes on cunt, against breasts when on hole, and vice versa, all most clear. So in this soft and mild, crouched down and back with hands on knees to hold himself together, say deasil first from face through hole then back through face, murmuring, imagine him kissing, caressing, licking, sucking, fucking and buggering all this stuff, no sound. Then halt and up to position of rest, back of head touching the ceiling, gaze on ground, lifetime of unbloody bowed unseeing glaring. Imagine lifetime, gems, evenings with Emma and the flights by night, no not that again. Physique, too soon, perhaps never, vague bowed body bonewhite when light at full, nothing clear but ashen glare as imagined, no, atti- tudes too with play of joints most clear more various now. For nine and nine eighteen that is four feet and more across in which to kneel, arse on heels, hands on thighs, trunk best bowed and crown on ground. And even sit, knees drawn up, trunk best bowed, head be- tween knees, arms round knees to hold all together. And even lie, arse to knees diagonal ac, feet say at d, head on left cheek at b. Price to pay and highest lying more flesh touching glowing ground. But say not glowing enough to burn and turning over, see how that works. Arse to knees, say bd, feet say at c, head on right cheek at a. Then arse to knees say again ac, but feet at b and head on left cheek at d. Then arse to knees say again bd, but feet at a and head on right cheek at c. So on other four possibilities when begin again. All that most clear. Imaginable too flat on back, knees drawn up, hands holding shins to hold all together, glare on ceiling, whereas flat on face by no stretch. Place then most clear so far but of him nothing and perhaps never save jointed segments variously disposed white when light at full. And always there among them somewhere the glaring eyes now clearer still in that flashes of vision few and far now rive their unsee- ingness. So for example as chance may have it on the ceiling a fly- speck or the insect itself or a strand of Emma's motte. Then lost and all the remaining field for hours of time on earth. Imagina- tion dead imagine to lodge a second in that glare a dying common house or dying window fly, then fall the five feet to the dust and die or die and fall. No, no image, no fly here, no life or dying here but his, a speck of dirt. Or hers since sex not seen so far, say Emma stand- ing, turning, sitting, kneeling, lying, in dark and light, saying to herself, She's not here, no sound, Fancy is her only hope, and Emmo on the walls, first the face, hand- some beyond words, then deasil details later. And how crouching down and back she turns murmur- ing, Fancy her being all kissed, licked, sucked, fucked and so on by all that, no sound, hands on knees to hold herself together. Till halt and up, no, no image, down, for her down, to sit or kneel, kneel, arse on heels, hands on thighs, trunk bowed, breasts hanging, crown on ground, eyes glaring, no, no image, eyes closed, long lashes black when light, no more glare, never was, long black hair strewn when light, murmuring, no sound, Fancy dead. Any length, in dark and light, then topple left, arse to knees say db, feet say at c, head on left cheek at a, left breast puckered in the dust, hands, imagine hands. Imagine hands. Let her lie so from now on, have always lain so, head on left cheek in black hair at a and the rest the only way, never sat, never knelt, never stood, no Emmo, no need, never was. Imagine hands. Left on ball of right shoulder hold- ing enough not to slip, right lightly clenched on ground, something in this hand, imagine later, something soft, clench tight, then lax and still any length, then tight again, so on, imagine later. Highest point from ground top of swell of right haunch, say twenty inches, slim woman. Ceiling wrong now, down two foot, perfect cube now, three foot every way, always was, light as before, all bonewhite when at full as before, floor like bleached dirt, something there, leave it for the moment. The barest gist. Stilled when finally as always hitherto they do. You lie in the dark with closed eyes and see the scene. As you could not at the time. The dark cope of sky. The dazzling land. You at a standstill in the midst. The quarter boots sunk to the tops. The skirts of the greatcoat resting on the snow. In the old bowed head in the old block hat speechless misgiving. Halfway across the pasture on your beeline to the gap. The unerring feet fast. You look behind you as you could not then and see their trail. A great swerve. Wither- shins. Almost as if all at once the heart too heavy. In the end too heavy. Bloom of adulthood. Imagine a whiff of that. On your back in the dark you remember. Ah you you remember. Cloudless May day. She joins you in the little summerhouse. A rustic hexahedron. Entirely of logs. Both larch and fir. Six feet across. Eight from floor to vertex. Area twenty-four square feet to furthest decimal. Two small multicoloured lights vis-`a-vis. Small stained diamond panes. Under each a ledge. There on summer Sundays after his midday meal your father loved to retreat with Punch and a cushion. The waist of his trousers unbuttoned he sat on the one ledge turning the pages. You on the other with your feet dangling. When he chuckled you tried to chuckle too. When his chuckle died yours too. That you should try to imitate his chuckle pleased and tickled him greatly and sometimes he would chuckle for no other reason than to hear you try to chuckle too. Some- times you turn your head and look out through a rose-red pane. You press your little nose against the pane and all without is rosy. The years have flown and there at the same place as then you sit in the bloom of adult- hood bathed in rainbow light gazing before you. She is late. You close your eyes and try to calculate the volume. Simple sums you find a help in times of trouble. A haven. You arrive in the end at seven cubic yards approximately. Even still in the time- less dark you find figures a comfort. You assume a certain heart rate and reckon how many thumps a day. A week. A month. A year. And assuming a certain lifetime a lifetime. Till the last thump. But for the moment with hardly more than seventy American billion behind you you sit in the little summerhouse working out the volume. Seven cubic yards approxi- mately. This strikes you for some reason as improbable and you set about your sum anew. But you have not made much headway when her light step is heard. Light for a woman of her size. You open with quickening pulse your eyes and a moment later that seems an eternity her face appears at the window. Mainly blue in this position the natural pallor you so admire as indeed from it no doubt wholly blue your own. For natural pallor is a property you have in common. The violet lips do not return your smile. Now this window being flush with your eyes from where you sit and the floor as near as no matter with the outer ground you cannot but wonder if she has not sunk to her knees. Knowing from experi- ence that the height or length you have in common is the sum of equal segments. For when bolt upright or lying at full stretch you cleave face to face then your knees meet and your pubes and the hairs of your heads mingle. Does it follow from this that the loss of height for the body that sits is the same as for it that kneels? At this point assuming height of seat adjustable as in the case of certain piano stools you close your eyes the better with mental measure to measure and compare the first and second segments namely from sole to kneepad and thence to pelvic girdle. How given you were both moving and at rest to the closed eye in your waking hours! By day and by night. To that perfect dark. That shadowless light. Simply to be gone. Or for affair as now. A single leg appears. Seen from above. You separate the segments and lay them side by side. It is as you half surmised. The upper is the longer and the sitter's loss the greater when seat at knee level. You leave the pieces lying there and open your eyes to find her sitting before you. All dead still. The ruby lips do not return your smile. Your gaze descends to the breasts. You do not remember them so big. To the abdomen. Same impression. Dissolve to your father's straining against the unbuttoned waistband. Can it be she is with child without your having asked for as much as her hand? You go back into your mind. She too did you but know has closed her eyes. So you sit face to face in the little summerhouse. With eyes closed and your hands on your pubes. In that rainbow light. That dead still. Wearied by such stretch of imagin- ing he ceases and all ceases. Till feeling the need for company again he tells himself to call the hearer M at least. For readier reference. Himself some other character. W. Devising it all himself included for company. In the same dark as M when last heard of. In what posture and whether fixed or mobile left open. He says further to himself referring to himself, When last he referred to himself it was to say he was in the same dark as his creature. Not in another as once seemed possible. The same. As more companionable. And that his posture there remained to be devised. And to be decided whether fast or mobile. Which of all imaginable postures least liable to pall? Which of motion or of rest the more entertaining in the long run? Stylistic change in progress in narrative style I will present a diachronic, quantitative analysis of some aspects of narrative style in the prose works (1938-1980) of Samuel Beckett. The aim of the analysis is to demonstrate that there has been a change in 'narrative style' in the modern novel. I discuss some of the methodological problems involved in selecting the relevant units for stylistic analysis. I adopt in the first instance Leech and Short's model for speech and thought representation, which distinguishes various degrees of directness and indirectness. In claiming that free indirect thought has become a very common mode of narration in the twentieth-century novel, they suggest a diachronic trend in this direction. Banfield argues that this mode of representation, previously unavailable in written language, emerges specifically in the genre of the modern novel. The results indicate that there is a progression from a narrative style with more author/narrator intervention to one with less. There is a movement away from the use of free indirect thought and towards a more speech-oriented style. This points to change in the narrative style of modern fiction. I relate these findings to Tannen's suggestion that both ordinary conversation and literary discourse depend on interpersonal involvement for their effect, and Biber and Finegan's claim that there has been a drift in English genres towards a less abstract and more involved style. Perhaps only to halt again after a few steps. So that he might say at last what was in his heart or decide not to say it again. Other main examples suggest themselves to the mind. Immediate continuous communication with immediate re- departure. Same thing with delayed redeparture. Delayed continuous communication with immediate redeparture. Same thing with delayed redeparture. Immediate discon- tinuous communication with immediate redeparture. Same thing with delayed redeparture. Delayed discontinuous com- munication with immediate redeparture. Same thing with delayed redeparture. It is then I shall have lived then or never. Ten years at the very least. From the day he drew the back of his left hand lingeringly over his sacral ruins and launched his prognostic. To the day of my supposed disgrace. I can see the place a step short of the crest. Two steps forward and I was descending the other slope. If I had looked back I would not have seen him. He loved to climb and therefore I too. He clamoured for the steepest slopes. His human frame broke down into two equal segments. This thanks to the shortening of the lower by the sagging knees. On a gradient of one in one his head swept the ground. To what this taste was due I cannot say. To love of the earth and the flowers' thousand scents and hues. Or to cruder imperatives of an anatomical order. He never raised the question. The crest once reached alas the going down again. In order from time to time to enjoy the sky he resorted to a little round mirror. Having misted it with his breath and polished it on his calf he looked in it for the constellations. I have it! he exclaimed referring to the Lyre or the Swan. And often he added that the sky seemed much the same. We were not in the mountains however. There were times I discerned on the horizon a sea whose level seemed higher than ours. Could it be the bed of some vast evap- orated lake or drained of its waters from below? I never asked myself the question. The fact remains we often came upon this sort of mound some three hundred feet in height. Reluctantly I raised my eyes and discerned the nearest often on the hori- zon. Or instead of moving on from the one we had just descended we ascended it again. I am speaking of our last decade comprised between the two events described. It veils those that went before and must have resembled it like blades of grass. To those en- gulfed years it is reasonable to impute my education. For I don't remember having learnt anything in those I remember. It is with this reasoning I calm myself when brought up short by all I know. I set the scene of my disgrace just short of a crest. On the contrary it was on the flat in a great calm. If I had looked back I would have seen him in the place where I had left him. Some trifle would have shown me my mistake if mistake there had been. In the years that followed I did not exclude the possibility of finding him again. In the place where I had left him if not elsewhere. Or of hearing him call me. At the same time telling myself he was on his last legs. But I did not count on it unduly. For I hardly raised my eyes from the flowers. And his voice was spent. And as if that were not enough I kept telling myself he was on his last legs. So it did not take me long to stop counting on it altogether. I don't know what the weather is now. But in my life it was eternally mild. As if the earth had come to rest in spring. I am thinking of our hemisphere. Sudden pelting downpours overtook us. Without noticeable darkening of the sky. I would not have noticed the windlessness if he had not spoken of it. Of the wind that was no more. Of the storms he had ridden out. It is only fair to say there was nothing to sweep away. The very flowers were stemless and flush with the ground like water-lilies. No brightening our buttonholes with these. We did not keep tally of the days. If I arrive at ten years it is thanks to our podometer. Total mileage divided by average daily mileage. So many days. Divide. Such a fig- ure the night before the sacrum. Such another the eve of my disgrace. Daily average always up to date. Subtract. Divide. Night. As long as day in this endless equinox. It falls and we go on. Before dawn we are gone. Attitude at rest. Wedged together bent in three. Second right angle at the knees. I on the inside. We turn over as one man when he manifests the desire. I can feel him at night pressed against me with all his twisted length. It was less a matter of sleeping than of lying down. For we walked in a half sleep. With his upper hand he held and touched me where he wished. Up to a certain point. The other was twined in my hair. He murmured of things that for him were no more and for me could not have been. The wind in the overground stems. The shade and shelter of the forests. He was not given to talk. An average of a hundred words per day and night. Spaced out. A bare million in all. Numerous repeats. Ejaculations. Too few for even a cursory survey. What do I know of man's destiny? I could tell you more about radishes. For them he had a fondness. If I saw one I would name it without hesitation. We lived on flowers. So much for sustenance. He halted and without having to stoop caught up a handful of petals. Then moved munching on. They had on the whole a calming action. We were on the whole calm. More and more. All was. This notion of calm comes from him. With- out him I would not have had it. Now I'll wipe out every- thing but the flowers. No more rain. No more mounds. Nothing but the two of us dragging through the flowers. Enough my old breasts feel his old hand. Lisa Lena Opas 101 Woodstock Rd. Oxford OX2 6HL Oxford, June 13, 1988 Dear Ed, I trust you have returned safely to California and hear that you enjoyed your stay in Oxford. I'm sorry not to have gotten in touch earlier, but I've been awfully busy the last week. The computing service here told me to tell you that my files are straightforward text files, I have only used edt on them and no word processing package. They also suggested that I send you a sample file on electronic mail so that you could see for yourself whether there is any need to do anything to them. As I said earlier, they have all been typed exactly as they appeared in the printed version. All information regard- ing title, year of publication, French title (if originally in French) and the edition that I have used (including ISBN number) is recorded within < > at the beginning of the file. If my arithmetic is correct, I have 38 text files and a total of approximately 37 000 words. Please tell me what you would like me to do next; I don't quite understand how this mail message network works, but my username is LLO, and I'm logged in at OUCS (if that information is of any use to you). Thank you very much for promising to help me in this way. I hope my results will prove interesting to you also. Yours, Lisa Lena He is barehead, barefoot, clothed in a singlet and tight trousers too short for him, his hands have told him so, again and again, and his feet, feeling each other and rubbing against the legs, up and down calves and shins. To this vaguely prison garb none of his memories answer, so far, but all are of heaviness, in this connection, of fullness and of thickness. The great head where he toils is all mockery, he is forth again, he'll be back again. Some day he'll see himself, his whole front, from the chest down, and the arms, and finally the hands, first rigid at arm's length, then close up, trembling, to his eyes. He halts, for the first time since he knows he's under way, one foot before the other, the higher flat, the lower on its toes, and waits for a decision. Then he moves on. Spite of the dark he does not grope his way, arms outstretched, hands agape and the feet held back just before the ground. With the result he must often, namely at every turn, strike against the walls that hem his path, against the right-hand when he turns left, the left-hand when he turns right, now with his foot, now with the crown of his head, for he holds himself bowed, because of the rise, and because he always holds himself bowed, his back humped, his head thrust forward, his eyes cast down. He loses his blood, but in no great quantity, the little wounds have time to close before being opened again, his pace is so slow. There are places where the walls almost meet, then it is the shoulders take the shock. But instead of stopping short, and even turn- ing back, saying to himself, This is the end of the road, nothing now but to return to the other terminus and start again, instead he attacks the narrow sideways and so finally squeezes through, to the great hurt of his chest and back. Do his eyes, after such long ex- posure to the gloom, begin to pierce it? No, and this is one of the reasons why he shuts them more and more, more and more often and for ever longer spells. For his concern is increasingly to spare himself needless fatigue, such as that come of staring before him, and even all about him, hour after hour, day after day, and never seeing a thing. This is not the time to go into his wrongs, but perhaps he was wrong not to persist, in his efforts to pierce the gloom. For he might well have succeeded, in the end, up to a point, which would have brightened things up for him, nothing like a ray of light, from time to time, to brighten things up for one. And all may yet grow light, at any moment, first dimly and then - how can one say? - then more and more, till all is flooded with light, the way, the ground, the walls, the vault, without his being one whit the wiser. The moon may appear, framed at the end of the vista, and he in no state to rejoice and quicken his step, or on the contrary wheel and run, while there is yet time. For the moment however no complaints, which is the main. The legs notably seem in good shape, that is a blessing, Murphy had first-rate legs. The head is still a little weak, it needs time to get going again, that part does. No sign of insanity in any case, that is a blessing. Meagre equipment but well balanced. The heart? No complaints. It's going again, enough to see him through. But see how now, having turned right for example, instead of turning left a little further on he turns right again. And see how now again, yet a little further on, instead of turning left at last he turns right yet again. And so on until, instead of turning right yet again, as he expected, he turns left at last. Then for a time his zigzags resume their tenor, deflecting him alternately to right and left, that is to say bearing him onward in a straight line more or less, but no longer the same straight line as when he set forth, or rather as when he suddenly realized he was forth, or perhaps after all the same. For if there are long periods when the right predominates, there are others when the left prevails. It matters little in any case, so long as he keeps on climbing. But see how now a little further on the ground falls away so sheer that he has to rear violently backward in order not to fall. Where is it then that life awaits him, in relation to his starting- point, to the point rather at which he suddenly realized he was started, above or below? Or will they cancel out in the end, the long gentle climbs and headlong steeps? It matters little in any case, so long as he is on the right road, and that he is, for there are no others, unless he has let them slip by unnoticed, one after another. Walls and ground, if not of stone, are no less hard, to the touch, and wet. The former, certain days, he stops to lick. The fauna, if any, is silent. The only sounds, apart from those of the body on its way, are of fall, a great drop dropping at last from a great height and bursting, a solid mass that leaves its place and crashes down, lighter particles collapsing slowly. Then the echo is heard, as loud at first as the sound that woke it and repeated some- times a good score of times, each time a little weaker, no, sometimes louder than the time before, till finally it dies away. Then silence again, broken only by the sound, intricate and faint, of the body on its way. But such sounds of falls are not common and mostly silence reigns, broken only by the sounds of the body on its way, of the bare feet on the wet ground, of the laboured breathing, of the body striking against the walls or squeezing through the narrows, of the clothes, singlet and trousers, espousing and resisting the movements of the body, coming unstuck from the damp flesh and sticking to it again, tattering and fluttered where in tatters already by sudden flurries as suddenly stilled, and finally of the hands as now and then they pass, back and forth, over all those parts of the body they can reach without fatigue. He himself has yet to drop. The air is foul. Sometimes he halts and leans against a wall, his feet wedged against the other. He has already a number of memories, from the memory of the day he suddenly knew he was there, on this same path still bearing him along, to that now of having halted to lean against the wall, he has a little past already, even a smatter of settled ways. But it is all still fragile. And often he surprises himself, both moving and at rest, but more often moving, for he seldom comes to rest, as destitute of history as on that first day, on this same path, which is his beginning, on days of great recall. But usually now, the surprise once past, memory returns and takes him back, if he will, far back to that first instant beyond which nothing, when he was already old, that is to say near to death, and knew, though unable to recall having lived, what age and death are, with other momentous matters. But it is all still fragile. And often he suddenly begins, in these black windings, and makes his first steps for quite a while before realizing they are merely the last, or latest. The air is so foul that only he seems fitted to survive it who never breathed the other, the true life-giving, or so long ago as to amount to never. And such true air, coming hard on that of here, would very likely prove fatal, after a few lungfuls. But the change from one to the other will no doubt be gentle, whent the time comes, and gradual, as the man draws closer and closer to the open. And perhaps even now the air is less foul than when he started, then when he suddenly realized he was started. In any case little by little his history takes shape, with if not yet exactly its good days and bad, at least studded with occasions passing rightly or wrongly for outstanding, such as the strait- est narrow, the loudest fall, the most lingering collapse, the steepest descent, the greatest number of successive turns the same way, the greatest fatigue, the longest rest, the longest - aside from the sound of the body on its way - silence. Ah yes, and the most rewarding passage of the hands, on the one hand, the feet, on the other, over all those parts of the body within their reach. And the sweetest wall lick. In a word all the summits. Then other summits, hardly less elevated, such as a shock so rude that it rivalled the rudest of all. Then others still, scarcely less eminent, a wall lick so sweet as to vie with the second sweetest. Then little or nothing of note till the minima, these two unforgettable, on days of great recall, a sound of fall so muted by the distance, or for want of weight, or for lack of space between departure and arrival, that it was perhaps his fancy. Or again, second example, no, not a good example. Other landmarks still are provided by first times, and even second. Thus the first narrow, for example, no doubt be- cause he was not expecting it, impressed him quite as strongly as the straitest, just as the second collapse, no doubt because he was expecting it, was no less than the briefest never to be forgotten. So with one thing and another little by little his history takes shape, and even changes shape, as new maxima and minima tend to cast into the shade, and toward oblivion, those momentarily glorified, and as fresh elements and motifs, such as these bones of which more very shortly, and at length, in view of their importance, contribute to en- rich it. Horn came always at night. I received him in the dark. I had come to bear everything bar being seen. In the beginning I would send him away after five or six minutes. Till he learnt to go of his own accord, once his time was up. He consulted his notes by the light of an electric torch. Then he switched it off and spoke in the dark. Light silence, dark speech. It was five or six years since anyone had seen me, to begin with myself. I mean the face I had pored over so, all down the years. Now I would resume that inspection, that it may be a lesson to me, in my mirrors and looking- glasses so long put away. I'll let myself be seen before I'm done. I'll call out, if there is a knock, Come in! But I speak now of five or six years ago. These allusions to now, to before and after, and all such yet to come, that we may feel ourselves in time. I had more trouble with the body proper. I masked it as best I could, but when I got out of bed it was sure to show. For I was now beginning, then if you prefer, to get out of bed again. Then there is the matter of its injuries. But the body was of less consequence. Whereas the face, no, not at any price. Hence Horn at night. When he forgot his torch he made shift with matches. Were I to ask, for example, And her gown that day?, then he switched on, thumbed through his notes, found the particular, switched off and answered, for example, The yellow. He did not like one to interrupt him and I must confess I seldom had call to. Interrupting him one night I asked him to light his face. He did so, briefly, switched off and resumed the thread. Interrupting again I asked him to be silent for a moment. That night things went no further. But the next, or more likely the next but one, I desired him at the outset to light his face and keep it lit till further notice. The light, bright at first, gradually died down to no more than a yellow glimmer which then, to my surprise, persisted undiminished some little while. Then suddenly it was dark again and Horn went away, the five or six minutes having presumably expired. But here one of two things, either the final extinction had coincided, by some prank of chance, with the close of the session, or else Horn, knowing his time to be up, had cut off the last dribs of current. I still see, sometimes, that waning face disclosing, more and more clearly the more it entered shadow, the one I remembered. In the end I said to myself, as unaccountably it lingered on, No doubt about it, it is he. It is in outer space, not to be confused with the other, that such images develop. I need only inter- pose my hand, or close my eyes, to banish them, or take off my eyeglasses for them to fade. This is a help, but not a real protection, as we shall see. I try therefore to keep before me, as far as possible, when I get up, some such unbroken plane as that which I command from my bed, I mean the ceiling. For I have taken to getting up again. I thought I had made my last journey, the one I must now try once more to elucidate, that it may be a lesson to me, the one from which it were better I had never returned. But the feeling gains on me that I must undertake another. So I have taken to getting up again and making a few steps in the room, holding on to the bars of the bed. What ruined me at bottom was athletics. With all that jumping and running when I was young, and even long after in the case of certain events, I wore out the machine before its time. My fortieth year had come and gone and I still throwing the javelin. Ruinstrewn land, he has trodden it all night long, I gave up, hugging the hedges, between road and ditch, on the scant grass, little slow steps, no sound, stopping ever and again, every ten steps say, little wary steps, to catch his breath, then listen, ruinstrewn land, I gave up before birth, it is not possible other- wise, but birth there had to be, it was he, I was inside, now he stops again, for the hundredth time that night say, that gives the distance gone it's the last, hunched over his stick, I'm inside, it was he who wailed, he who saw the light, I didn't wail, I didn't see the light, one on top of the other the hands weigh on the stick, the head weighs on the hands, he has caught his breath, he can listen now, the trunk horizontal, the legs asprawl, sagging at the knees, same old coat, the stiffened tails stick up behind, day dawns, he has only to raise his eyes, open his eyes, raise his eyes, he merges in the hedge, afar a bird, a moment past he grasps and is fled, it was he had a life, I didn't have a life, a life not worth having, because of me, it's impossible I should have a mind and I have one, someone divines me, divines us, that's what he's come to, come to in the end, I see him in my mind, there divining us, hands and head a little heap, the hours pass, he is still, he seeks a voice for me, it's impossible I should have a voice and I have none, he'll find one for me, ill beseeming me, it will meet the need, his need, but no more of him, that image, the little heap of hands and head, the trunk horizontal, the jutting elbows, the eyes closed and the face rigid listening, the eyes hidden and the whole face hidden, that image and no more, never changing, ruinstrewn land, night recedes, he is fled, I'm inside, he'll do himself to death, because of me, I'll live it with him, I'll live his death, the end of his life and then his death, step by step, in the present, how he'll go about it, it's impossible I should know, I'll know, step by step, it's he will die, I won't die, there will be nothing of him left but bones, I'll be inside, nothing but a little grit, I'll be inside, it is not possible otherwise, ruinstrewn land, he is fled through the hedge, no more stopping now, he will never say I, because of me, he won't speak to anyone, no one will speak to him, he won't speak to himself, there is nothing left in his head, I'll feed it all it needs, all it needs to end, to say I no more, to open its mouth no more, confu- sion of memory and lament, of loved ones and impossible youth, clutching the stick in the middle he stumbles bowed over the fields, a life of my own I tried, in vain, never any but his, worth nothing, because of me, he said it wasn't one, it was, still is, the same, I'm still inside, the same, I'll put faces in his head, names, places, churn them all up together, all he needs to end, phantoms to flee, last phan- toms to flee and to pursue, he'll confuse his mother with whores, his father with a road- man named Balfe, I'll feed him an old curdog, a mangy old curdog, that he may love again, lose again, ruinstrewn land, little panic steps I gave up before birth, it is not possible otherwise, but birth there had to be, it was he, I was inside, that's how I see it, it was he who wailed, he who saw the light, I didn't wail, I didn't see the light, it's impossible I should have a voice, impossible I should have thoughts, and I speak and think, I do the impossible, it is not possible otherwise, it was he who had a life, I didn't have a life, a life not worth having, because of me, he'll do himself to death, because of me, I'll tell the tale, the tale of his death, the end of his life and his death, his death alone would not be enough, not enough for me, if he rattles it's he who will rattle, I won't rattle, he who will die, perhaps they will bury him, if they find him, I'll be inside, he'll rot, I won't rot, there will be nothing of him left but bones, I'll be inside, nothing left but dust, I'll be inside, it is not possible otherwise, that's how I see it, the end of his life and his death, how he will go about it, go about coming to an end, it's impossible I should know, I'll know, step by step, impossi- ble I should tell, I'll tell, in the present, there will be no more talk of me, only of him, of the end of his life and his death, of his burial if they find him, that will be the end, I won't go on about worms, about bones and dust, no one cares about them, unless I'm bored in his dust, that would surprise me, as stiff as I was in his flesh, here long silence, perhaps he'll drown, he always wanted to drown, he didn't want them to find him, he can't want now any more, but he used to want to drown, he usen't to want them to find him, deep water and a millstone, urge spent like all the others, but why one day to the left, to the left and not elsewhither, here long silence, there will be no more I, he'll never say I any more, he'll never say anything any more, he won't talk to anyone, no one will talk to him, he won't talk to himself, he won't think any more, he'll go on, I'll be inside, he'll come to a place and drop, why there and not elsewhere, drop and sleep, badly because of me, he'll get up and go on, badly because of me, he can't stay still any more, because of me, he can't go on any more, because of me, there's nothing left in his head, I'll feed it all it needs. Closed place. All needed to be known for say is known. There is nothing but what is said. Beyond what is said there is nothing. What goes on in the arena is not said. Did it need to be known it would be. No interest. Not for imagining. Place consisting of an arena and a ditch. Between the two skirting the latter a track. Closed place. Beyond the ditch there is nothing. This is known because it needs to be said. Arena black vast. Room for millions. Wandering and still. Never seeing never hear- ing one another. Never touching. No more is known. Depth of ditch. See from the edge all the bodies on its bed. The millions still there. They appear six times smaller than life. Bed divided into lots. Dark and bright. They take up all its width. The lots still bright are square. Appear square. Just room for the average sized body. Stretched out diagonally. Bigger it has to curl up. Thus the width of the ditch is known. It would have been in any case. Sum the bright lots. The dark. Outnumbered the former by far. The place is already old. The ditch is old. In the beginning it was all bright. All bright lots. Almost touching. Faintly edged with shadow. The ditch seems straight. Then reap- pears a body seen before. A closed curve therefore. Brilliance of the bright lots. It does not encroach on the dark. Adamantine black- ness of these. As dense at the edge as at the centre. But vertically it diffuses unimpended. High above the level of the arena. As high above as the ditch is deep. In the black air towers of pale light. So many bright lots so many towers. So many bodies visible on the bed. The track follows the ditch all the way along. All the way round. It is on a higher level than the arena. A step higher. It is made of dead leaves. A reminder of beldam nature. They are dry. The heat and the dry air. Dead but not rotting. Crumbling into dust rather. Just wide enough for one. On it no two ever meet. Old earth, no more lies, I've seen you, it was me, with my other's ravening eyes, too late. You'll be on me, it will be you, it will be me, it will be us, it was never us. It won't be long now, perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day after, but too late. Not long now, how I gaze on you, and what refusal, how you refuse me, you so refused. It's a cockchafer year, next year there won't be any, nor the year after, gaze your fill. I come home at nightfall, they take to wing, rise from my little oaktree and whirr away, glutted, into the shadows. I reach up, grasp the bough, pull myself up and go in. Three years in the earth, those moles don't get, then guzzle guzzle, ten days long, a fortnight, and always the flight at nightfall. To the river perhaps, they head for the river. I turn on the light, then off, ashamed, stand at gaze before the window, the windows, going from one to another, leaning on the furniture. For an instant I see the sky, the different skies, then they turn to faces, agonies, loves, the different loves, happiness too, yes, there was that too, unhappily. Moments of life, of mine too, among others, no denying, all said and done. Happiness, what happiness, but what deaths, what loves, I knew at the time, it was too late then. Ah to love at your last and see them at theirs, the last minute loved ones, and be happy, why ah, uncalled for. No but now, now, simply stay still, standing before a win- dow, one hand on the wall, the other clutching your shirt, and see the sky, a long gaze, but no, gasps and spasms, a childhood sea, other skies, another body. Bright at last close of a dark day the sun shines out at last and goes down. Sitting quite still at valley window normally turn head now and see it the sun low in the southwest sinking. Even get up certain moods and go stand by western window quite still watching it sink and then the afterglow. Always quite still some reason some time past this hour at open window facing south in small upright wicker chair with armrests. Eyes stare out unseeing till first movement some time past close though unseeing still while still light. Quite still again then all quite quiet apparently till eyes open again while still light though less. Normally turn head now ninety degrees to watch sun which if already gone then fading afterglow. Even get up certain moods and go stand by western window till quite dark and even some evenings some reason long after. Eyes then open again while still light and close again in what if not quite a single movement almost. Quite still again then at open window facing south over the valley in this wicker chair though actually close inspection not still at all but trembling all over. Close inspection namely detail by detail all over to add up finally to this whole not still at all but trem- bling all over. But casually in this failing light impression still dead still even the hands clearly trembling and the breast faint rise and fall. Legs side by side broken right angles at the knees as in that old statue some old god twanged at sunrise and again at sunset. Trunk likewise dead plumb right up to top of skull seen from behind including nape clear of chairback. Arms likewise broken right angles at the elbows forearms along armrests just right length forearms and rests for hands cleched lightly to rest on ends. So quite still again then all quite quiet apparently eyes closed which to anticipate when they open again if they do in time then dark or some degree of starlight or moonlight or both. Normally watch night fall however long from this narrow chair or standing by western window quite still either case. Quite still namely staring at some one thing alone such as tree or bush a detail alone if near if far the whole if far enough till it goes. Or by eastern window certain moods staring at some point on the hillside such as that beech in whose shade once quite still till it goes. Chair some reason always same place same position facing south as though clamped down whereas in reality no lighter no more movable imagina- ble. Or anywhere any ope staring out at nothing just failing light quite still till quite dark though of course no such thing just less light still when less did not seem possible. Quite still then all this time eyes open when discovered then closed then opened and closed again no other movement any kind though of course not still at all when suddenly or so it looks this movement impossible to follow let alone describe. The right hand slowly opening leaves the armrest taking with it the whole forearm complete with elbow and slowly rises opening further as it goes and turning a little deasil till midway to the head it hesitates and hangs half open trembling in mid air. Hangs there as if half inclined to return that is sink back slowly closing as it goes and turning the other way till as and where it began clenched lightly on end of rest. Here because of what comes now not midway to the head but almost there before it hesitates and hangs there trembling as if half inclined etc. Half no but on the verge when in its turn the head moves from its place forward and down among the ready fingers where no sooner received and held it weighs on down till elbow meeting armrest brings this last movement to an end and all still once more. Here back a little way to that suspense before head to rescue as if hand's need the greater and on down in what if not quite a single movement almost till elbow against rest. All quite still again then head in hand namely thumb on outer edge of right socket index ditto left and middle on left cheekbone plus as the hours pass lesser contacts each more or less now more now less with the faint stirrings of the various parts as night wears on. As if even in the dark eyes closed not enough and perhaps even more than ever necessary against that no such thing the further shelter of the hand. Leave it so all quite still or try listening to the sounds all quite still head in hand listening for a sound. For to end yet again skull alone in a dark place pent bowed on a board to begin. Long thus to begin till the place fades followed by the board long after. For to end yet again skull alone in the dark the void no neck no face just the box last place of all in the dark the void. Place of remains where once used to gleam in the dark on and off used to glimmer a remain. Remains of the days of the light of day never light so faint as theirs so pale. Thus then the skull makes to glimmer again in lieu of going out. There in the end all at once or by degrees there dawns and magic lingers a leaden dawn. By degrees less dark till final grey or all at once as if switched on grey sand as far as eye can see beneath grey cloudless sky same grey. Skull last place of all black void within without till all at once or by degrees at last this leaden dawn checked no sooner dawned. Grey cloudless sky grey sand as far as eye can see long desert to begin. Sand pale as dust ah but dust indeed deep to engulf the haughtiest monuments which too it once was here and there. There in the end same grey invisible to any other eye stark erect amidst his ruins the expelled. Same grey all that little body from head to feet sunk ankle deep were it not for the eyes last bright of all. The arms still cleave to the trunk and to each other the legs made for flight. Grey cloudless sky ocean of dust not a ripple mock confines verge upon verge hell air not a breath. Min- gling with the dust slowly sinking some almost quite sunk the ruins of the refuge. First change of all in the end a fragment comes away and falls. With slow fall for so dense a body it lights like cork on water and scarce breaks the surface. Thus then the skull last place of all makes to glimmer again in lieu of going out. Grey cloudless sky verge upon verge grey timeless air of those nor for God nor for his enemies. There again in the end way amidst the verges a light in the grey two white dwarfs. Long at first mere whiteness from afar they toil step by step through the grey dust linked by a litter same white seen from above in the grey air. Slowly it sweeps the dust so bowed the backs and long the arms compared with the legs and deep sunk the feet. Bleached as one same wilderness they are so alike the eye cannot tell them apart. They carry face to face and relay each other often so that turn about they backward lead the way. His who follows who knows to shape the course much as the coxswain with light touch the skiff. Let him veer to the north or other cardinal point and promptly the other by as much to the anti- pode. Let one stop short andf the other about this pivot slew the litter through a semi-circle and thereon the roles are reversed. Bone white of the sheet seen from above and the shafts fore and aft and the dwarfs to the crowns of their massy skulls. From time to time impelled as one they let fall the litter then again as one take it up again without having to stoop. It is the dung litter of laughable memory with shafts twice as long as the couch. Swelling the sheet now fore now aft as permutations list a pillow marks the place of the head. At the end of the arms the four hands open as one and the litter so close to the dust already set- tles without a sound. Monstrous extremities including skulls stunted legs and trunks mon- strous arms stunted faces. In the end the feet as one lift clear the left forward backward the right and the amble resumes. Grey dust as far as eye can see beneath grey cloudless sky and there all at once or by degrees this whiteness to decipher. Yet to imagine if he can see it the last expelled amidst his ruins if he can ever see it and seeing believe his eyes. Between him and it bird's-eye view the space grows no less but has only even now appeared last desert to be crossed. Little body last stage of all stark erect still amidst his ruins all silent and marble still. First change of all a fragment comes away from mother ruin and with slow fall scarce stirs the dust. Dust having engulfed so much it can engulf no more and woe the little on the surface still. Or mere digestive torpor as once the boas which past with one last gulp clean sweep at last. Dwarfs distant whiteness sprung from nowhere motionless afar in the grey air where dust alone possible. Wilderness and carriage immemorial as one they advance as one retreat hither thither halt move on again. He facing forward will sometimes halt and hoist as best he can his head as if to scan the void and who knows alter course. Then on so soft the eye does not see them go driftless with heads sunk and lidded eyes. Long lifted to the horizontal faces closer and closer strain as it will the eye achieves no more than two tiny oval blanks. Atop the cyclopean dome rising sheer from jut of brow yearns white to the grey sky the bump of habitativity or love of home. Last change of all in the end the expelled falls headlong down and lies back to sky full little stretch amidst his ruins. Feet centre body radius falls unbending as a statue falls faster and faster the space of a quadrant. Eagle the eye that shall discern him now mingled with the ruins mingling with the dust beneath a sky forsaken of its scavengers. Breath has not left him though soundless still and exhaling scarce ruffles the dust. Eyes in their orbits blue still unlike the doll's the fall has not shut nor yet the dust stopped up. No fear henceforth of his ever having not to believe them before that whiteness afar where sky and dust merge. Whiteness neither on earth nor above of the dwarfs as if at the end of their trials the litter left lying between them the white bodies marble still. Ruins all silent marble still little body prostrate at attention wash blue deep in gaping sockets. As in the days erect the arms still cleave to the trunk and to each other the legs made for flight. Fallen unbending all his little length as though pushed from behind by some helping hand or by the wind but not a breath. Or murmur from some dreg of life after the lifelong stand fall fall never fear no fear of your rising again. Sepulchral skull is this then its last state all set for always litter and dwarfs ruins and little body grey cloudless sky glutted dust verge upon verge hell air not a breath. And dream of a way in a space with neither here nor there where all the footsteps ever fell can never fare nearer to anyhwere nor from anywhere further away. No for in the end for to end yet again by degrees or as though switched on dark falls there again that certain dark that alone certain ashes can. Through it who knows yet another end beneath a cloudless sky same dark it earth and sky of a last end if ever there had to be another absolutely had to be. Unless it travelled by the corridor. This did not greatly incommode me, this occasional sound of singing. One day I asked her to bring me a hyacinth, live, in a pot. She brought it and put it on the mantelpiece, now the only place in my room to put things, unless you put them on the floor. Not a day passed without my looking at it. At first all went well, it even put forth a bloom or two, then it gave up and was soon no more than a limp stem hung with limp leaves. The bulb, half clear of the clay as though in search of oxygen, smelt foul. She wanted to remove it, but I told her to leave it. She wanted to get me another, but I told her I didn't want another. I was more seriously disturbed by other sounds, stifled giggles and groans, which filled the dwelling at certain hours of the night, and even of the day. I had given up thinking of her, quite given up, but still I needed silence, to live my life. In vain I tried to listen to such reasonings as that air is made to carry the clamours of the world, including inevitably much groan and giggle. I obtained no relief. I couldn't make out if it was always the same gent or more than one. Lovers' groans are so alike, and lovers' giggles. I had such horror then of these paltry per- plexities that I always fell into the same error, that of seek- ing to clear them up. It took me a long time, my lifetime so to speak, to realize that the colour of an eye half seen, or the source of some distant sound, are closer to Giudecca in the hell of unknowing than the existence of God, or the origins of protoplasm, or the existence of self, and even less worthy than these to occupy the wise. It's a bit much, a lifetime, to achieve this consoling conclusion, it doesn't leave you much time to profit by it. So a fat lot of help it was when, having put the question to her, I was told they were clients she received in rotation. I could obviously have got up and gone to look through the keyhole. But what can you see, I ask you, through holes the likes of those? So you live by prostitution, I said. We live by prostitution, she said. You couldn't ask them to make less noise? I said, as if I believed her. I added, Or a different kind of noise. They can't help but yap and yelp, she said. I'll have to leave, I said. She found some old hangings in the family junk and hung them before our doors, hers and mine. I asked her if it would not be possible, now and then, to have a parsnip. A parsnip! she cried, as if I had asked for a dish of sucking Jew. I reminded her that the parsnip season was fast drawing to a close and that if, before it finally got there, she could feed me nothing but parsnips I'd be grateful. I like parsnips because they taste like violets and violets because they smell like parsnips. Were there no parsnips on earth violets would leave me cold and if violets did not exist I would care as little for parsnips as I do for turnips, or radishes. And even in the present state of their flora, I mean on this planet where parsnips and violets contrive to coexist. I could do without both with the utmost ease, the uttermost ease. One day she had the impu- dence to announce she was with child, and four or five months gone into the bargain, by me of all people! She offered me a view of her belly. She even undressed, no doubt to prove she wasn't hiding a cushion under her skirt, and then of course for the pure pleasure of undressing. Perhaps it's just wind, I said, by way of consolation. She gazed at me with her big eyes whose colour I forget, with one big eye rather, for the other seemed riveted on the remains of the hyacinth. The more naked she was the more cross-eyed. Look she said stooping over her breasts, the haloes are darkening already. I summoned up my remaining strength and said, Abort, abort, and they'll blush like new. She had drawn back the curtain for a clear view of all her rotundities. I saw the mountain, impassible, cavernous, secret, where from morning to night I'd hear nothing but the wind, the curlews, the clink like distant silver of the stone-cutter's hammers. I'd come out in the daytime to the heather and gorse, all warmth and scent, and watch at night the distant city light, if I chose, and the other lights, the lighthouses and lightships my father had named for me, when I was small, and whose names I could find again, in my memory, if I chose, that I knew. From that day forth things went from bad to worse, to worse and worse. Not that she neglected me, she could never have neglected me enough, but the way she kept plaguing me with %our child, exhibiting her belly and breasts and saying it was due any moment, she could feel it lepping already. If it's lepping, I said, it's not mine. I might have been worse off than I was, in that house, that was certain, it fell short of my ideal naturally, but I wasn't blind to its advantages. I hesitated to leave, the leaves were falling already, I dreaded the winter. One should not dread the winter, it too has its bounties, the snow gives warmth and deadens the tumult and its pale days are soon over. But I did not yet know, at that time, how tender the earth can be for those who have only her and how many graves in her giving, for the living. No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagina- tion dead imagine. Islands, waters, azure, verdure, one glimpse and vanished, endlessly, omit. Till all white in the whiteness the rotunda. No way in, go in, measure. Diameter three feet, three feet from ground to summit of the vault. Two diameters at right angles AB CD divide the white ground into two semicircles ACB BDA. Lying on the ground two white bodies, each in its semicircle. White too the vault and the round wall eighteen inches high from which it springs. Go back out, a plain rotunda, all white in the whiteness, go back in, rap, solid throughout, a ring as in the imagination the ring of bone. The light that makes all so white no visible source, all shines with the same white shine, ground, wall, vault, bodies, no shadow. Strong heat, surfaces hot but not burning to the touch, bodies sweating. Go back out, move back, the little fabric vanishes, ascend, it vanishes, all white in the whiteness, descend, go back in. Emptiness, silence, heat, whiteness, wait, the light goes down, all grows dark together, ground, wall, vault, bodies, say twenty seconds, all the greys, the light goes out, all vanishes. At the same time the temperature goes down, to reach its minimum, say freezing-point, at the same instant that the black is reached, which may seem strange. Wait, more or less long, light and heat come back, all grows white and hot together, ground, wall, vault, bodies, say twenty seconds, all the greys, till the initial level is reached whence the fall began. More or less long, for there may intervene, experience shows, between end of fall and beginning of rise, pauses of varying length, from the fraction of the second to what would have seemed, in other times, other places, an eternity. Same remark for the other pause, between end of rise and beginning of fall. The extremes, as long as they last are perfectly stable, which in the case of the tempera- ture may seem strange, in the beginning. It is possible too, experience shows, for rise and fall to stop short at any point and mark a pause, more or less long, before resuming, or reversing, the rise now fall, the fall rise, these in their turn to be completed, or to stop short and mark a pause, more or less long, before resuming, or again reversing, and so on, till finally one or the other extreme is reached. Such variations of rise and fall, combining in countless rhythms, commonly attend the passage from white and heat to black and cold, and vice versa. The extremes alone are stable as is stressed by the vibration to be observed when a pause occurs at some intermediate stage, no matter what its level and dura- tion. Then all vibrates, ground, wall, vault, bodies, ashen or leaden or between the two, as may be. But on the whole, experience shows, such uncertain passage is not common. And most often, when the light begins to fail, and along with it the heat, the movement continues unbroken until, in the space of some twenty seconds, pitch black is reached and at the same instant say freezing-point. Same remark for the reverse movement, towards heat and whiteness. Next most frequent is the fall or rise with pauses of varying length in these feverish greys, without at any moment reversal of the movement. But whatever its uncertainties the return sooner or later to a temporary calm seems assured, for the moment, in the black dark or the great whiteness, with at- tendant temperature, world still proof against enduring tumult. Rediscovered miraculously after what absence in perfect voids it is no longer quite the same, from this point of view, but there is no other. Externally all is as before and the sighting of the little fabric quite as much a matter of chance, its whiteness merging in the surrounding white- ness. But go in and now briefer lulls and never twice the same storm. Light and heat remain linked as though sup- plied by the same source of which still no trace. Still on the ground, bent in three, the head against the wall at B, the arse against the wall at A, the knees against the wall be- tween B and C, the feet against the wall between C and A, that is to say inscribed in the semicircle ACB, merging in the white ground were it not for the long hair of strangely imperfect whiteness, the white body of a woman finally. Similarly inscribed in the other semicircle, against the wall his head at A, his arse at B, his knees between A and D, his feet between D and B, the partner. On their right sides there- fore both and back to back head to arse. Hold a mirror to their lips, it mists. With their left hands they hold their left legs a little below the knee, with their right hands their left arms a little above the elbow. In this agitated light, its great white calm now so rare and brief, inspection is not easy. Sweat and mirror notwithstanding they might well pass for inanimate but for the left eyes which at incalculable intervals suddenly open wide and gaze in unblinking exposure long beyond what is humanly possible. Piercing pale blue the effect is striking, in the beginning. Never the two gazes to- gether except once, when the beginning of one overlapped the end of the other, for about ten seconds. Neither fat nor thin, big nor small, the bodies seem whole and in fairly good condition, to judge by the surfaces exposed to view. The faces too, assuming the two sides of a piece, seem to want nothing essential. Between their absolute stillness and the convulsive light the contrast is striking, in the beginning, for one who still remembers having been struck by the con- trary. It is clear however, from a thousand little signs too long to imagine, that they are not sleeping. Only murmur ah, no more, in this silence, and at the same instant for the eye of prey the infinitesimal shudder instantaneously sup- pressed. Leave them there, sweating and icy, there is better elsewhere. No, life ends and no, there is nothing elsewhere, and no question now of ever finding again that white speck lost in whiteness, to see if they still lie still in the stress of that storm, or of a worse storm, or in the black dark for good, or the great whiteness unchanging, and if not what they are doing. The cabin. Its situation. Careful. At the inexistent centre of a formless place. Rather more circular than otherwise finally. Flat to be sure. To cross it in a straight line takes her from five to ten minutes. Depending on her speed and radius taken. Here she who loves to - here she who now can only stray never strays. Stones increasingly abound. Ever scanter even the rankest weed. Meagre pastures hem it round on which it slowly gains. With none to gainsay. To have gainsaid. As if doomed to spread. How come a cabin in such a place? How came? Careful. Be- fore replying that in the far past at the time of its building there was clover growing to its very walls. Implying furthermore that it the culprit. And from it as from an evil core that the what is the wrong word the evil spread. And none to urge - none to have urged its demolition. As if doomed to endure. Question answered. Chalkstones of striking effect in the light of the moon. Let it be in opposition when the skies are clear. Quick then still under the spell of Venus quick to the other window to see the other marvel rise. How whiter and whiter as it climbs it whitens more and more the stones. Rigid with face and hands against the pane she stands and marvels long. The two zones form a roughly circular whole. As though out- lined by a trembling hand. Diameter. Care- ful. Say one furlong. On an average. Beyond the unknown. Mercifully. The feeling at times of being below sea level. Especially at night when the skies are clear. Invisible nearby sea. Inaudible. The entire surface under grass. Once clear of the zone of stones. Save where it has receded from the chalky soil. Innumerable white scabs all shapes and sizes. Of striking effect in the light of the moon. In the way of ani- mals ovines only. After long hesitation. They are white and make do with little. Whence suddenly come no knowing nor whither as suddenly gone. Unshepherded they stray as they list. Flowers? Careful. Alone the odd crocus still at lambing time. And man? Shut of at last? Alas no. For will she not be surprised one day to find him gone? Surprised no she is beyond surprise. How many? A figure come what may. Twelve. Wherewith to furnish the hori- zon's narrow round. She raises her eyes and sees one. Turns away and sees another. So on. Always afar. Still or receding. She never once saw one come toward her. Or she forgets. She forgets. Are they always the same? Do they see her? Enough. A moor would have bet- ter met the case. Were there a case better to meet. There had to be lambs. Rightly or wrongly. A moor would have allowed of them. Lambs for their whiteness. And for other reasons as yet obscure. Another rea- son. And so that there may be none. At lambing time. That from one moment to the next she may raise her eyes to find them gone. A moor would have allowed of them. In any case too late. And what lambs. No trace of frolic. White splotches in the grass. Aloof from the unheeding ewes. Still. Then a moment straying. Then still again. To think there is still life in this age. Gently gently. She is drawn to a certain spot. At times. There stands a stone. It it is draws her. Rounded rectagular block three times as high as wide. Four. Her stat- ure now. Her lowly stature. When it draws she must to it. She cannot see it from her door. Blindfold she could find her way. With herself she has no more converse. Never had much. Now none. As had she the misfortune to be still of this world. But when the stone draws then to her feet the prayer, Take her. Especially at night when the skies are clear. With moon or without. They take her and halt her before it. There she too as if of stone. But black. Sometimes in the light of the moon. Mostly of the stars alone. Does she envy it? To the imaginary stranger the dwelling appears deserted. Under con- stant watch it betrays no sign of life. The eye glued to one or the other window has nothing but black drapes for its pains. Mo- tionless against the door he listens long. No sound. Knocks. No answer. Watches all night in vain for the least glimmer. Re- turns at last to his own and avows, No one. She shows herself only to her own. But she has no own. Yes she has one. And who has her. There was a time when she did not appear in the zone of stones. A long time. Was not therefore to be seen going out or coming in. When she ap- peared only in the pastures. Was not there- fore to be seen leaving them. Save as though by enchantment. But little by little she began to appear. In the zone of stones. First darkly. Then more and more plain. Till in detail she could be seen crossing the threshold both ways and closing the door behind her. Then a time when within her walls she did not appear. A long time. But little by little she began to appear. Within her walls. Darkly. Time truth to tell still current. Though she within them no more. This long time. Yes within her walls so far at the window only. At one or the other window. Rapt before the sky. And only half seen so far a pallet and a ghostly chair. Ill half seen. And how in her faint comings and goings she suddenly stops dead. And how hard set to rise up from off her knees. But there too little by little she begins to appear more plain. Within her walls. As well as other objects. Such as under her pillow - such as deep in some recess this still shadowy album. Perhaps in time be by her when she takes it on her knees. See the old fingers fumble through the pages. And what scenes they can possibly be that draw the head down lower still and hold it in thrall. In the meantime who knows no more than withered flowers. No more! Directory FS10:[LLO] $OCPPRT.DAT;1 File ID: (2130,88,0) Size: 25/28 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 14-SEP-1988 10:55 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (6) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 28, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 133 bytes Record attributes: Fortran carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None ASA.TXT;19 File ID: (3952,18,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 14-JUN-1988 11:58 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 40 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None ASA.TXT;12 File ID: (5625,71,0) 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Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 43 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RWED, Owner:RWED, Group:RE, World: Access Cntrl List: None CONC.DAT;2 File ID: (7696,189,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-JAN-1987 18:03 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (12) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 46 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None DIALECT.;1 File ID: (1300,32,0) Size: 3/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 9-SEP-1988 10:49 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (9) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record 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FILE.4;1 File ID: (781,140,0) Size: 432/432 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 15:07 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 15:07 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 432, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None FILE.5;1 File ID: (818,370,0) Size: 435/436 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 15:07 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 15:07 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 436, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None FILE.6;1 File ID: (819,180,0) Size: 437/440 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 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16:21 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 255 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None LSA.;1 File ID: (1360,77,0) Size: 4/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 1-SEP-1988 11:19 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (12) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 63 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$0004009192A8E469.MAI;1 File ID: (4542,368,0) Size: 23/24 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-SEP-1988 21:56 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 21:56 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 24, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 80 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$0004009192D0B475.MAI;1 File ID: (6859,93,0) Size: 10/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 02:41 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 02:41 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 80 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$00040091931DD925.MAI;1 File ID: (3644,233,0) Size: 336/336 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 11:53 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 11:53 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 336, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$00040091931E8A13.MAI;1 File ID: (3785,134,0) Size: 394/396 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 11:58 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 11:58 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 396, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$00040091931F2FBE.MAI;1 File ID: (4102,137,0) Size: 431/432 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 12:02 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 12:03 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 432, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$00040091931FE888.MAI;1 File ID: (7559,204,0) Size: 435/436 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 12:08 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 12:08 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 436, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$00040091932019E4.MAI;1 File ID: (27,95,0) Size: 437/440 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 12:09 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 12:09 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 440, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$000400919320AE9F.MAI;1 File ID: (93,460,0) Size: 444/444 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 12:13 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 12:13 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 444, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL$0004009193216C2A.MAI;1 File ID: (143,216,0) Size: 464/464 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 21-SEP-1988 12:18 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 12:19 (1) Expires: Backup: File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 464, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:RW, Owner:RW, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL.MAI;1 File ID: (908,97,0) Size: 52/52 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 7-SEP-1988 11:29 Revised: 21-SEP-1988 15:09 (64) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Indexed, Prolog: 3, Using 2 keys In 3 areas File attributes: Allocation: 52, Extend: 15, Maximum bucket size: 5, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 2048 bytes Record attributes: None Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MAIL.OLD;1 File ID: (573,58,0) Size: 84/84 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 15-JAN-1987 11:57 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (223) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Indexed, Prolog: 3, Using 2 keys In 3 areas File attributes: Allocation: 84, Extend: 15, Maximum bucket size: 5, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 2048 bytes Record attributes: None Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MALONEDIES1.TXT;5 File ID: (10249,7,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 1-JUL-1988 11:32 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 74 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MALONEDIES2.TXT;5 File ID: (1823,33,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 4-JUL-1988 11:29 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 78 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MALONEDIES3.TXT;6 File ID: (2997,92,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 4-JUL-1988 11:28 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 75 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MALONEDIES4.TXT;6 File ID: (2116,162,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 4-JUL-1988 11:50 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 74 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MALONEDIES5.TXT;5 File ID: (3981,269,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 4-JUL-1988 12:11 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 71 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None METCALF.1;1 File ID: (6506,62,0) Size: 3/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 9-SEP-1988 11:39 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (8) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 79 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY1.TXT;4 File ID: (8302,151,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 23-JUN-1988 09:41 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 74 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY2.TXT;4 File ID: (1510,173,0) Size: 11/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 23-JUN-1988 10:02 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 73 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY3.TXT;4 File ID: (4086,66,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 23-JUN-1988 10:15 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 76 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY3.VB;1 File ID: (1126,39,0) Size: 4/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 11-NOV-1987 20:13 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (12) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 28 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY4.TXT;7 File ID: (2093,165,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 27-JUN-1988 10:32 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 75 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY5.TXT;5 File ID: (2210,181,0) Size: 11/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 27-JUN-1988 10:45 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 73 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY6.TXT;4 File ID: (2083,264,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 27-JUN-1988 10:57 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 76 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY7.TXT;5 File ID: (2990,204,0) Size: 11/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-JUN-1988 11:20 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 75 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MOLLOY8.TXT;6 File ID: (2785,167,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-JUN-1988 11:33 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 73 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY1.TXT;5 File ID: (1517,43,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:00 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 53 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY2.TXT;5 File ID: (1518,226,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:00 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 53 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY3.TXT;5 File ID: (1522,45,0) Size: 13/16 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:01 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 16, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 50 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY4.TXT;5 File ID: (1533,9,0) Size: 13/16 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:02 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 16, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 51 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY5.TXT;5 File ID: (1534,118,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:02 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 53 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None MURPHY6.TXT;6 File ID: (1545,97,0) Size: 13/16 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 28-OCT-1987 10:03 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (10) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 16, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 50 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None NEWOCP.COM;4 File ID: (1672,3,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 13-JAN-1987 14:44 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (12) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 46 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None NWAVE.;4 File ID: (3798,81,0) Size: 4/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 12-SEP-1988 12:42 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (8) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 61 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None NWAVE.TXT;1 File ID: (6520,65,0) Size: 4/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 9-SEP-1988 12:07 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (9) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 61 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None OCP.EXE;4 File ID: (7003,40,0) Size: 287/288 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 16-JAN-1987 12:12 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 288, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Fixed length 512 byte records Record attributes: None Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None OCP.LIS;1 File ID: (6225,71,0) Size: 33/36 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-JAN-1987 18:04 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 36, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 133 bytes Record attributes: Fortran carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PHASE1.DAT;8 File ID: (6590,36,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 14-SEP-1988 10:54 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (7) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 50 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PHASE2.DAT;6 File ID: (2263,100,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 10-NOV-1987 09:25 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 38 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PHASE3.DAT;7 File ID: (2689,48,0) Size: 3/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 9-NOV-1987 14:49 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 87 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PHASE3.JOU;1 File ID: (5114,131,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 13-JAN-1987 15:28 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 46 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PHASE3_IDI.DAT;3 File ID: (1692,9,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 13-JAN-1987 15:32 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 80 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None PICK.DAT;6 File ID: (8030,61,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-JAN-1987 17:40 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (12) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 72 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None POST.BOX;1 File ID: (2201,23,0) Size: 2/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 24-APR-1987 15:24 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (15) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 4, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit, Contiguous best try Record format: Variable length, maximum 72 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None SANKOFF.1;2 File ID: (3698,214,0) Size: 3/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 12-SEP-1988 12:32 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (8) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 80 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None SANKOFF.2;1 File ID: (10821,23,0) Size: 2/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-SEP-1988 14:50 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 14:50 (2) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 76 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None TEMP9999.DAT;7 File ID: (7384,241,0) Size: 53/60 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 16-JAN-1987 14:59 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 60, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 80 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None TIDY.DAT;2 File ID: (6408,38,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 16-JAN-1987 14:51 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 7 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None TIDYPRINT.COM;3 File ID: (7486,21331,0) Size: 1/4 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 16-JAN-1987 15:08 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 4, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 40 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None UNNAMABLE1.TXT;5 File ID: (4345,89,0) Size: 11/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-JUN-1988 11:52 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 73 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None UNNAMABLE2.TXT;5 File ID: (271,80,0) Size: 14/16 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 16-JUN-1988 11:25 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 16, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 78 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None UNNAMABLE3.TXT;4 File ID: (4358,141,0) Size: 12/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] Created: 20-JUN-1988 12:00 Revised: 20-SEP-1988 13:57 (11) Expires: Backup: 20-SEP-1988 20:06 File organization: Sequential File attributes: Allocation: 12, Extend: 0, Global buffer count: 0, No version limit Record format: Variable length, maximum 73 bytes Record attributes: Carriage return carriage control Journaling enabled: None File protection: System:R, Owner:RWED, Group:, World: Access Cntrl List: None UNNAMABLE4.TXT;3 File ID: (4305,97,0) Size: 11/12 Owner: [HQLL,LLO] 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But on the long road to this what flutterings, alarms and bashful fumblings, of which only this, that they gave Macmann some insight into the meaning of the expression, Two is company. He then made unquestionable progress in the use of the spoken word and learnt in a short time to let fall, at the right time, the yesses, noes, mores and enoughs that keep love alive. It was also the occasion of his penetrating into the enchanted world of reading, thanks to the inflammatory letters which Moll brought and put into his hands. And the memories of school are so tenacious, for those who have been there, that he was soon able to dispense with the explanations of his correspondent and understand all unaided, hold- ing the sheet of paper as far from his eyes as his arms permitted. While he read Moll held a little aloof, with downcast eyes, saying to herself, Now he's at the part where, and a little later, Now he's at the part where, and so remained until the rustle of the sheet going back into the envelope announced that he had finished. Then she turned eagerly towards him, in time to see him raise the letter to his lips or press it against his heart, another reminiscence of the fourth form. Then he gave it back to her and she put it under his pillow with the others there already, arranged in chronological order and tied together with a favour. These letters did not much vary in form and tenor, which greatly facilitated matters for Macmann. Example. Sweetheart, Not one day goes by that I do not give thanks to God, on my bended knees, for having found you, before I die. For we shall soon die, you and I, that is obvious. That it may be at the same moment exactly is all I ask. In any case I have the key of the medicine cupboard. But let us profit first by this superb sundown, after the long day of storm. Are you not of this opinion? Sweet- heart! Ah would we had met but seventy years ago! No, all is for the best, we shall not have time to grow to loathe each other, to see our youth slip by, to recall with nausea the ancient rapture, to seek in the company of third parties, you on the one hand, I on the other, that which together we can no longer compass, in a word to get to know each other. One must look things in the face, must one not, sweet pet? When you hold me in your arms, and I you in mine, it naturally does not amount to much, compared to the transports of youth, and even middle age. But all is relative, let us bear that in mind, stags and hinds have their needs and we have ours. It is even astonishing that you manage so well, I can hardly get over it, what a chaste and sober life you must have led. I too, you must have noticed it. Consider moreover that the flesh is not the end-all and the be-all, especially at our age, and name me the lovers who can do with their eyes what we can do with ours, which will soon have seen all there is for them to see and have often great difficulty in remaining open, and with their tenderness, without the help of passion, what by this means alone we realize daily, when separated by our respective obligations. Consider furthermore, since there is nothing more for us to hide, that I was never beautiful or well- proportioned, but ugly and even misshapen, to judge by the testi- monies I have received. Papa notably used to say that people would run a mile from me. I have not forgotten the expression. And you, sweet, even when you were of an age to quicken the pulse of beauty, did you exhibit the other requisites? I doubt it. But with the pass- ing of the years we have become scarcely less hideous than even our best favoured contemporaries and you, in particular, have kept your hair. And thanks to our having never served, never understood, we are not without freshness and innocence, it seems to me. Moral, for us at last it is the season of love, let us make the most of it, there are pears that only ripen in December. Do not fret about our methods, leave all that to me, and I warrant you we'll surprise each other yet. With regard to tetty-beshy I must beg to differ, it is well worth persevering with, in my opinion. Follow my instructions, you'll come back for more. For shame, you dirty old man! It's all these bones that makes it awkward, that I grant you. Well, we must just accept ourselves as we are. And above all %not %fret, these are trifles. Let us think of the hours when, spent, we lie twined together in the dark, our hearts labouring as one, and listen to the wind say- ing what it is to be abroad, at night, in winter, and what it is to have been what we have been, and sink together, in an unhappiness that has no name. That is how we must look at things. So courage, my sweet old hairy Mac, and oyster kisses just where you think from your own Sucky Moll. P.S. I enquired about the oysters, I have hopes. Such was the rather rambling style of the declarations which Moll, despairing no doubt of giving vent to her feelings by the normal channels, addressed three or four times a week to Macmann, who never answered, I mean in writing, but manifested by every other means in his power how pleased he was to receive them. But towards the close of this idyll, that is to say when it was too late, he began to compose brief rimes of curious structure, to offer to his mistress, for he felt she was drifting away from him. They said in sub- stance, You are now in the House of Saint John of God, with the number one hundred and sixty-six. Fear nothing, you are among friends. Friends! Well well. Take no thought for anything, it is we shall think and act for you, from now forward. We like it. Do not thank us therefore. In addition to the nourishment carefully calcu- lated to keep you alive, and even well, you will receive, every Saturday, in honour of our patron, an imperial half-pint of porter and a plug of tobacco. Then followed instructions regarding his duties and prerogatives, for he was credited with a certain number of prerogatives, notwithstanding the bounties showered upon him. Stunned by this torrent of civility, for he had eluded charity all his days, Macmann did not immediately grasp that he was being spoken to. The room, or cell, in which he lay, was thronged with men and women dressed in white. They swarmed about his bed, those in the rear rising on tiptoe and craning their necks to get a better view of him. The speaker was a man, naturally, in the flower and the prime of life, his features stamped with mildness and severity in equal proportions, and he wore a scraggy beard no doubt intended to heighten his resemblance to the Messiah. To tell the truth, yet again, he did not so much read as improvise, or recite, to judge by the paper he held in his hand and on which from time to time he cast an anxious eye. He finally handed this paper to Macmann, together with the stump of an indelible pencil, the point of which he first wetted with his lips, and requested him to sign, adding that it was a mere formality. And when Macmann had obeyed, either because he was afraid of being punished if he refused or because he did not realize the seriousness of what he was doing, the other took back the paper, examined it and said, Mac what? It was then a woman's voice, extraordinarily shrill and unpleasant, was heard to say, Mann, his name is Macmann. This woman was standing behind him, so that he could not see her, and in each hand she clutched a bar of the bed. Who are you? said the speaker. Someone replied, But it is Moll, can't you see, her name is Moll. The speaker turned towards this informant, glared at him for a moment, then dropped his eyes. To be sure, he said, to be sure, I am out of sorts. He added, after a pause, Nice name, without its being quite clear whether this tribute was aimed at the nice name of Moll or at the nice name of Macmann. Don't push, for Jesus' sake! he said, irritably. Then, suddenly turning, he cried, What in God's name are you all pushing for Christ sake? And indeed the room was filling more and more, under the influx of fresh spectators. Personally I'm going, said the speaker. Then all retreated, in great jostle and dis- order, each one striving to be first out through the door, with the sole exception of Moll, who did not stir. But when all were gone she went to the door and shut it, then came back and sat down on a chair by the bed. She was a little old woman, immoderately ill- favoured of both face and body. She seems called on to play a certain part in the remarkable events which, I hope, will enable me to make an end. The thin yellow arms contorted by some kind of bone deformation, the lips so broad and thick that they seemed to devour half the face, were at first sight her most revolting features. She wore by way of ear-rings two long ivory crucifixes which swayed wildly at the least movement of her head. I pause to record that I feel in extraordinary form. Delirium perhaps. It seemed probable to Macmann that he was committed to the care and charge of this person. Correct. For it had been decreed, by those in authority, that one hundred and sixty-six was Moll's, she having applied for him, formally. She brought him food (one large dish daily, to first hot, then cold), emptied his chamber-pot every morning first thing and showed him how to wash himself, his face and hands every day, and the other parts of the body successively in the course of the week, Monday the feet, Tuesday the legs up to the knees, Wednesday the thighs, and so on, culminating on Sunday with the neck and ears, no, Sunday he rested from washing. She swept the floor, shook up the bed from time to time and seemed to take an extreme pleasure in polishing until they shone the frosted lights of the unique window, which was never opened. She informed Macmann, when he did something, if that thing was permitted or not, and similarly, when he remained inert, whether or not he was entitled to. Does this mean that she stayed with him all the time? Why no, and no doubt she had other attentions to bestow elsewhere, and other instructions to give. But in the early stages, before he had grown used to this new tide in his fortune, she assuredly left him alone as little as possible and even watched over him part of the night. How understanding she was, and how good-natured, appears from the following anecdote. One day, not long after his admission, Macmann realized he was wearing, instead of his usual accoutre- ment, a long loose smock of coarse linen, or possibly drugget. He at once began to clamour loudly for his clothes, including probably the contents of his pockets, for he cried, My things! My things!, over and over again, tossing about in the bed and beating the blanket with his palms. Then Moll sat down on the edge of the bed and distributed her hands as follows, one on top of one of Macmann's the other on his brow. But when you are in a narrow bed, I mean one just wide enough to contain you, a pallet shall we say, then it is vain you turn over on your back, then back over on your stomach, the head remains always in the same place, unless you make a point of inclining it to the right or to the left, and some there doubtless are who go to this trouble, in the hope of finding a little freshness. He tried to look at the dark streaming mass which was all that remained of sky and air, but the rain hurt his eyes and shut them. He opened his mouth and lay for a long time thus, his mouth open and his hands also and as far apart as possible from each other. For it is a curious thing, one tends less to clutch the ground when on one's back than when on one's stomach, there is a curious remark which might be worth following up. And just as an hour before he had pulled up his sleeves the better to clutch the grass, so now he pulled them up again the better to feel the rain pelting down on his palms, also called the hollows of the hands, or the flats, it all depends. And in the midst - but I was nearly forgetting the hair, which from the point of view of colour was to white very much as the hour's gloom to black and from the point of view of length very long what is more, very long behind and very long on either side. And on a dry and windy day it would have gone romping in the grass almost like grass itself. But the rain glued it to the ground and churned it up with the earth and grass into a kind of muddy pulp, not a muddy pulp, a kind of muddy pulp. And in the midst of his suffer- ing, for one does not remain so long in such a position without being incommoded, he began to wish that the rain would never cease nor consequently his sufferings or pain, for the cause of his pain was almost certainly the rain, recumbency in itself not being particularly unpleasant, as if there existed a relation between that which suffers and that which causes to suffer. For the rain could cease without his ceasing to suffer, just as he could cease to suffer without the rain's ceasing on that account. And on him already this important quarter-truth was perhaps beginning to dawn. For while deploring he could not spend the rest of his life (which would thereby have been agreeably abridged) under this heavy, cold (without being icy) and perpendicular rain, now supine, now prone, he was quarter- inclined to wonder if he was not mistaken in holding it responsible for his sufferings and if in reality his discomfort was not the effect of quite a different cause or set of causes. For people are never content to suffer, but they must have heat and cold, rain and its contrary which is fine weather, and with that love, friendship, black skin and sexual and peptic defiency for example, in short the furies and frenzies happily too numerous to be numbered of the body in- cluding the skull and its annexes, whatever that means, such as the club-foot, in order that they may know very precisely what exactly it is that dares prevent their happiness from being unalloyed. And sticklers have been met with who had no peace until they knew for certain whether their carcinoma was of the pylorus or whether on the contrary it was not rather of the duodenum. But these are flights for which Macmann was not yet fledged, and indeed he was rather of the earth earthy and ill-fated for pure reason, especially in the circumstances in which we have been fortunate enough to circum- scribe him. And to tell the truth he was by temperament more reptile than bird and could suffer extensive mutilation and survive, happier sitting than standing and lying down than sitting, so that he sat and lay down at the last pretext and only rose again when the elan vital or struggle for life began to prod him in the arse again. And a good half of his existence must have been spent in a motion- lessness akin to that of stone, not to say the three quarters, or even the four fifths, a motionlessness at first skin-deep, but which little by little invaded, I will not say the vital parts, but at least the sensibility and understanding. And it must be presumed that he received from his numerous forbears, through the agency of his papa and his mama, a cast-iron vegetative system, to have reached the age he has just reached and which is nothing or very little com- pared to the age he will reach, as I know to my cost, without any serious mishap, I mean one of a nature to carry him off on the spot. For no one ever came to his help, to help him avoid the thorns and snares that attend the steps of innocence, and he could never count on any other craft than his own, any other strength, to go from morning to evening and then from evening to morning without mortal hurt. And notably he never received any gifts of cash, or very seldom, and very paltry, which would not have mattered if he had been able to earn, in the sweat of his brow or by making use of his intelligence. But when given the job of weeding a plot of young carrots for example, at the rate of threepence or even sixpence an hour, it often happened that he tore them all up, through absent- mindedness, or carried away by I know not what irresistible urge that came over him at the sight of vegetables, and even of flowers, and literally blinded him to his true interests, the urge to make a clean sweep and have nothing before his eyes but a patch of brown earth rid of its parasites, it was often more than he could resist. And indeed he had devoted to these little tasks a great part of his existence, that is to say of the half or quarter of his existence associated with more or less coordinated movements of the body. For he had to, he had to, if he wished to go on coming and going on the earth, which to tell the truth he did not, particu- larly, but he had to, for obscure reasons known who knows to God alone, though to tell the truth God does not seem to need reasons for doing what he does, and for omitting to do what he omits to do, to the same degree as his creatures, does he? Such then seemed to be Macmann, seen from a certain angle, incapable of weeding a bed of pansies or marigolds and leaving one standing and at the same time well able to consolidate his boots with willow bark and thongs of wicker, so that he might come and go on the earth from time to time and not wound himself too sorely on the stones, thorns and broken glass provided by the carelessness or wickedness of man, with hardly a complaint, for he had to. For he was incapable of picking his steps and choosing where to put down his feet (which would have permitted him to go barefoot). And even had he been so he would have been so to no great purpose, so little was he master of his movements. And what is the good of aiming at the smooth and mossy places when the foot, missing its mark, comes down on the flints and shards or sinks up to the knee in the cow- pads? But to pass on now to considerations of another order, it is perhaps not inappropriate to wish Macmann, since wishing costs nothing, sooner or later a general paralysis at a pinch the arms if that is conceivable, in a place impermeable as far as possible to wind, rain, sound, cold, great heat (as in the seventh century) and daylight, with one or two eiderdowns just in case and a charitable soul say once a week bearing eating-apples and sardines in oil for the purpose of postponing as long as possible the fatal hour, it would be wonder- ful. But in the meantime in the end, the rain still falling with un- abated violence in spite of his having turned over on his back, Macmann grew restless, flinging himself from side to side as though in a fit of the fever, buttoning himself and unbuttoning and finally rolling over and over in the same direction, it little matters which, with a brief pause after each roll to begin with, and then without break. And in theory his hat should have followed him, seeing it was tied to his coat, and the string twisted itself about his neck, but not at all, for theory is one thing and reality another, and the hat

remained where it was, I mean in its place, like a thing forsaken. But perhaps one day a high wind would come and send it, dry and light again, bowling and bounding over the plain until it came to the town, or the ocean, but not necessarily. Now it was not the first time that Macmann rolled upon the ground, but he had always done so without ulterior locomotive motive. Whereas then, as he moved further and further from the place where the rain had caught him far from shelter and which thanks to the hat continued to contrast with the surrounding space, he realized he was advancing with regularity and even a certain rapidity, along the arc of a gigantic circle probably, for he assumed that one of his extremities was heavier than the other, without knowing quite which, but not by much. And as he rolled he conceived and polished the plan of continuing to roll on all night if necessary, or at least until his strength should fail him, and thus approach the confines of this plain which to tell the truth he was in no hurry to leave, but never- theless was leaving, he knew it. And without reducing his speed he began to dream of a flat land where he would never have to rise again and hold himself erect in equilibrium, first on the right foot for example, then on the left, and where he might come and go and so survive after the fashion of a great cylinder endowed with the faculties of cognition and volition. And without exactly building castles in Spain, for that Quick quick my possessions. Quiet, quiet, twice, I have time, lots of time, as usual. My pencil, my two pencils, the one of which nothing remains between my huge fingers but the lead fallen from the wood and the other, long and round, in the bed somewhere, I was holding it in reserve, I won't look for it, I know it's there some- where, if I have time when I've finished I'll look for it, if I don't find it I won't have it, I'll make the correction, with the other, if any- thing remains of it. Quiet, quiet, My exercise-book, I don't see it, but I feel it in my left hand, I don't know where it comes from, I didn't have it when I came here, but I feel it is mine. That's the style, as if I were sweet and seventy. In that case the bed would be mine too, and the little table, the dish, the pots, the cupboard, the blankets. No, nothing of all that is mine. But the exercise-book is mine, I can't explain. The two pencils then, the exercise-book and then the stick, which I did not have either when I came here, but which I consider mine, I must have described it long ago. I am quiet, I have time, but I shall describe as little as possible. It is with me in

the bed, under the blankets, there was a time I used to rub myself against it, saying, It's a little woman.

When it rained, when it snowed. On. One morning Lemuel, putting in the prescribed appearance in the great hall before setting out on his rounds, found pinned on the board a notice concerning him. Group Lemuel, excursion to the islands, weather permitting, with Lady Pedal, leaving one p.m. His colleagues observed him, sniggering and poking one another in the ribs. But they did not dare say anything. One woman however did pass a witty remark, to good effect. Lemuel was not liked, that was clear. But would he have wished to be, that is less clear. He initialled the notice and went away. The sun was dragging itself up, dispatching on its way what perhaps would be, thanks to it, a glorious May or April day, April more likely, it is doubtless the Easter week-end, spent by Jesus in hell. And it may well have been in honour of this latter that Lady Pedal had organized, for the bene- fit of Lemuel's group, this outing to the islands which was going to cost her dear, but she was well off and lived for doing good and bringing a little happiness into the lives of those less fortunate than herself, who was all right in her head and to whom life had always smiled or, as she had it herself, returned her smile, enlarged as in a convex mirror, or a concave, I forget. Taking advantage of the terrestrial atmosphere that dimmed its brightness Lemuel glared with loathing at the sun. He had reached his room, on the fourth or fifth floor, whence on countless occasions he could have thrown himself in perfect safety out of the window if he had been less weak-minded. The long silver carpet was in position, ending in a point, trembling across the calm repousse sea. The room was small and absolutely empty, for Lemuel slept on the bare boards and even off them ate his lesser meals, now at one place, now at another. But what matter about Lemuel and his room? On. Lady Pedal was not the only one to take an interest in the inmates of Saint John of God's, known plesantly locally as the Johnny Goddams, or the Goddam Johnnies, not the only one to treat them on an average once every two years to excursions by land and sea through scenery renowned for its beauty or grandeur and even to entertainments on the premises such as whole evenings of prestidigitation and ventrilo- quism in the moonlight on the terrace, no, but she was seconded by other ladies sharing her way of thinking and similarly blessed in means and leisure. But what matter about Lady Pedal? On. Carry-

ing in one hand two buckets wedged the one within the other Lemuel proceeded to the vast kitchen, full of stir and bustle at that hour. Six excursion soups, he growled. What? said the cook. Six excursion soups! roared Lemuel, dashing his buckets against the oven, without however relinquishing the handles, for he retained enough presence of mind to dread the thought of having to stoop and pick them up again. The difference between an excursion soup and a common or house soup was simply this, that the latter was uniformly liquid whereas the former contained a piece of fat bacon intended to keep up the strength of the excursionist until his return. When his bucket had been filled Lemuel withdrew to a secluded place, rolled up his sleeve to the elbow, fished up from the bottom of the bucket one after another the six pieces of bacon, his own and the five others, ate all the fat off them, sucked the rinds and threw them back in the soup. Strange when you come to think of it, but after all not so strange really, that they should have issued six extra or excursion soups at his mere demand, without requiring a written order. The cells of the five were far apart and so astutely disposed that Lemuel had never been able to determine how best, that is to say with the minimum of fatigue and annoyance, to visit them in turn. In the first a young man, dead young, seated in an old rocking-chair, his shirt rolled up and his hands on his thighs, would have seemed asleep had not his eyes been wide open. He never went out, unless commanded to do so, and then someone had to accompany him, in order to mahke him move forward. His cham- ber-pot was empty, whereas in his bowl the soup of the previous day had congealed. The reverse would have been less surprising. But Lemuel was used to this, so used that he had long since ceased to wonder on what this creature fed. He emptied the bowl into his empty bucket and from his full bucket filled it with fresh soup. Then he went, a bucket in each hand, whereas up to now a single hand had been enough to carry the two buckets. Because of the excursion he locked the door behind him, an unnecessary precaution. The second cell, four or five hundred paces distant from the first, contained one whose only really striking features were his stature, his stiffness and his air of perpetually looking for something while at the same time wondering what that something could possibly be. Nothing in his person gave any indication of his age, whether he was marvellously well-preserved or on the contrary prematurely decayed. He was called the Saxon, though he was far from being any such thing. Without

troubling to take off his shirt he had swathed himself in his two blankets as in swaddlings and over and above this rough and ready cocoon he wore his cloak. He gathered it shiveringly about him, with one hand, for he needed the other to help him in his investigation of all that aroused his suspicions. Good-morning, good-morning, good- morning, he said, with a strong foreign accent and darting fearful glances all about him, fucking awful business this, no, yes? But in the country there is another justice, other judges, at first. And having cleared the ramparts I had to confess the sky was clearing, prior to its winding in the other shroud, night. Yes, the great cloud was ravelling, discovering here and there a pale and dying sky, and the sun, already down, was manifest in the livid tongues of fire dart- ing towards the zenith, falling and darting again, ever more pale and languid, and doomed no sooner lit to be extinguished. This phenomenon, if I remember rightly, was characteristic of my region. Things are perhaps different today. Though I fail to see, never having left my region, what right I have to speak of its characteristics. No, I never escaped, and even the limits of my region were unknown to me. But I felt they were far away. But this feeling was based on nothing serious, it was a simple feeling. For if my region had ended no further than my feet could carry me, surely I would have felt it changing slowly. For regions do not suddenly end, as far as I know, but gra- dually merge into one another. And I never noticed anything of the kind, but however far I went, and in no matter what direction, it was always the same sky, always the same earth, precisely, day after day and night after night. On the other hand, if it is true that regions gradually merge into one another, and this remains to be proved, then I will have left mine many times, thinking I was still within it. But I preferred to abide by my simple feeling and its voice that said, Molloy, your region is vast, you have never left it and you never shall. And wheresoever you wander, within its distant limits, things will always be the same, precisely. It would thus appear, if this is so, that my movements owed nothing to the places they caused to vanish, but were due to something else, to the buckled wheel that carried me, in unforeseeable jerks, from fatigue to rest, and inversely, for example. But now I do not wander any more, anywhere any more, and indeed I scarcely stir at all, and yet nothing is changed. And the confines of my room, of my bed, of my body, are as remote from me as were those of my region, in the days of my splendour. And the cycle continues, joltingly, of flight and bivouac, in an Egypt without bounds, without infant, without mother. And when I see my hands, on the sheet, which they love to floccillate already, they are not mine, less than ever mine, I have no arms, they are a couple, they play with the sheet, love-play perhaps, trying to get up perhaps, one on top of the other. But it doesn't last, I bring them back, little by little, to- wards me, it's resting time. And with my feet it's the same, some- times, when I see them at the foot of the bed, one with toes, the other without. And that is more deserving of mention. For my legs, corresponding here to my arms of a moment ago, are both stiff now and very sore, and I shouldn't be able to forget them as I can my arms, which are more or less sound and well. And yet I do forget them and I watch the couple as they watch each other, a great way off. But my feet are not like my hands, I do not bring them back to me, when they become my feet again, for I cannot, but they stay there, far from me, but not so far as before. End of the recall. But you'd think that once well clear of the town, and having turned round to look at it, what there was to see of it, you'd think that then I should have realized whether it was really my town or not. But no, I looked at it in vain, and perhaps unquestioningly, and simply to give the gods a chance, by turning round. Perhaps I only made a show of looking at it. I didn't feel I missed my bicycle, no, not really, I didn't mind going on my way the way I said, swinging low in the dark over the earth, along the little empty country roads. And I said there was little likelihood of my being molested and that it was more likely I should molest them, if they saw me. Morning is the time to hide. They wake up, hale and hearty, their tongues hanging out for order, beauty and justice, baying for their due. Yes, from eight or nine till noon is the dangerous time. But towards noon things quiet down, the most implacable are sated, they go home, it might have been better but they've done a good job, there have been a few survivors, but they'll give no more trouble, each man counts his rats. It may begin again in the early afternoon, after the banquet, the celebrations, the congratulations, the orations, but it's nothing com- pared to the morning, mere fun. Coming up to four or five of course there is the night-shift, the watchmen, beginning to bestir themselves. But already the day is over, the shadows lengthen, the walls multiply, you hug the walls, bowed down like a good boy, oozing with obse- quiousness, having nothing to hide, hiding from mere terror, look- ing neither right nor left, hiding but not provocatively, ready to come out, to smile, to listen, to crawl, nauseating but not pestilent, less rat than toad. Then the true night, perilous too, but sweet to him who knows it, who can open to it like the flower to the sun, who himself is night, day and night. No there is not much to be said for the night either, but compared to the day there is much to be said for it, and notably compared to the morning there is everything to be said for it. And I remained for several days, I do not know how many, in the place where my son had abandoned me, eating my last pro- visions (which he might have easily taken too), seeing no living soul, powerless to act, or perhaps strong enough at last to act no more. For I had no illusions, I knew that all was about to end, or to begin again, it little mattered which, and it little mattered how, I only had to wait. And on and off, for fun, and the better to scatter them to the winds, I dallied with the hopes that spring eternal, childish hopes, as for example that my son, his anger spent, would have pity on me and come back to me! Or that Molloy, whose country this was, would come to me, who had not been able to go to him, and grow to be a friend, and like a father to me, and help me do what I had to do, so that Youdi would not be angry with me and would not punish me! Yes, I let them spring within me and grow in strength, brighten and charm me with a thousand fancies, and then I swept them away, with a great disgusted sweep of all my being, I swept myself clean of them and surveyed with satisfaction the void they had polluted. And in the evening I turn- ed to the lights of Bally, I watched them shine brighter and brighter, then all go out together, or nearly all, foul little flickering light of terrified men. And I said, To think I might be there now, but for my misfortune! And with regard to the Obidil, of whom I have refrained from speaking, until now, and whom I so longed to see face to face, all I can say with regard to him is this, that I never saw him, either face to face or darkly, perhaps there is no such person, that would not greatly surprise me. 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. 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. Strange laughter truly, and no doubt misnamed, through indolence perhaps, or ignorance. And as for myself, that unfailing pastime, I must say it was far now from my thoughts. 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 wait- ing for the flush. 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. And I grew gradual- ly weaker and weaker and more and more content. For several days I had eaten nothing. I could probably have found blackberries and mushrooms, but I had no wish for them. 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. 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. And I said, I shall soon lose consciousness altogether, it is merely a question of time. But Gaber's arrival put a stop to these frolics. It was evening. I had just crawled out of the shelter for my even- ing guffaw and the better to savour my exhaustion. He had already been there for some time. He was sitting on a tree-stump, half asleep. Well Moran, he said. You recognize me? I said. He took out and opened his notebook, 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. I can see nothing, he said. He was dressed as when I had last seen him. My strictures on his Sunday clothes had therefore been unjustified. Unless it was Sunday again. But had I not always seen him dressed in this way? Would you have a match? he said. I did not recognize this far- off voice. Or a torch, he said. He must have seen from my face that I possessed nothing of a luminous nature. He took a small electric torch from his pocket and shone it on his page. He read, Moran, Jacques, home, instanter. He put out his torch, closed his notebook on his finger and looked at me. I can't walk, I said. What? he said. I'm sick, I can't move, I said. I can't hear a word you say, he said. 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. He examined me laboriously from head to foot. I executed a few steps leaning on my umbrella to prove to him I could not walk. He opened his notebook again, shone the torch on his page, studied it at length and said, Moran, home, instanter. 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 annouced he was dying of thirst. Not a word on how I was looking. 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. I sleep a little and that little by day. Oh not systematically, in my life without end I have dabbled with every kind of sleep, but at the time now coming back to me I took my doze in the daytime and, what is more, in the morning. Let me hear nothing of the moon, in my night there is no moon, and if it happens that I speak of the stars it is by mistake. Now of all the noises that night not one was of those heavy uncertain steps, or of that club with which he sometimes smote the earth until it quaked. How agreeable it is to be confirmed, after a more or less long period of vacillation, in one's first impressions. Perhaps that is what tempers the pangs of death. Not that I was so conclusively, I mean confirmed, in my first impressions with regard to - wait - C. For the wagons and carts which a little before dawn went thundering by, on their way to market with fruit, eggs, butter and perhaps cheese, in one of these perhaps he would have been found, overcome by fatigue or discouragement, perhaps even dead. Or he might have gone back to the town by another way too far away for me to hear its sounds, or by little paths through the fields, crush- ing the silent grass, pounding the silent ground. And so at last I came out of the distant night, divided between the murmurs of my little world, its dutiful confusions, and those so different (so different?) of all that between two suns abides and passes away. Never once a human voice. But the cows, when the peasants passed, crying in vain to be milked. A and C I never saw again. But perhaps I shall see them again. But shall I be able to recognize them? And am I sure I never saw them again? And what do I mean by seeing and seeing again? An instant of silence, as when the conductor taps on his stand, raises his arms, before the unanswerable clamour. Smoke, sticks, flesh, hair, at evening, afar, flung about the craving for a fellow. I know how to summon these rags to cover my shame. I wonder what that means. But I shall not always be in need. But talking of the craving for a fellow let me observe that having waked between eleven o'clock and midday (I heard the angelus, recalling the incarnation, shortly after) I resolved to go and see my mother. I needed, before I could resolve to go and see that woman, reasons of an urgent nature, and with such reasons, since I did not know what to do, or where to go, it was child's play for me, the play of an only child, to fill my mind until it was rid of all other preoccupations and I seized with a trembling at the mere idea of being hindered from going there, I mean to my mother, there and then. So I got up, adjusted my crutches and went down to the road, where I found my bicycle (I didn't know I had one) in the same place I must have left it. Which enables me to remark that, crippled though I was, I was no mean cyclist, at that period. This is how I went about it. I fastened my crutches to the cross-bar, one on either side, I propped the foot of my stiff leg (I forget which, now they're both stiff) on the projecting front axle, and I pedalled with the other. It was a chainless bicycle, with a free-wheel, if such a bicycle exists. Dear bicycle, I shall not call you bike, you were green, like so many of your generation. I don't know why. It is a pleasure to meet it again. To describe it at length would be a pleasure. It had a little red horn instead of the bell fashionable in your days. To blow this horn was for me a real plea- sure, almost a vice. I will go further and declare that if I were obliged to record, in a roll of honour, those activities which in the course of my interminable existence have given me only a mild pain in the balls, the blowing of a rubber horn - toot! - would figure among the first. And when I had to part from my bicycle I took off the horn and kept it about me. I believe I have it still, somewhere, and if I blow it no more it is because it has gone dumb. Even motor-cars have no horns nowadays, as I understand the thing, or rarely. When I see one, through the lowered window of a stationary car, I often stop and blow it. This should all be re-written in the pluperfect. What a rest to speak of bicycles and horns. Unfortunately it is not of them I have to speak, but of her who brought me into the world, through the hole in her arse if my memory is correct. First taste of the shit. So I shall only add that every hundred yards or so I stopped to rest my legs, the good one as well as the bad, and not only my legs, not only my legs. I didn't properly speaking get down off the machine, I remained astride it, my feet on the ground, my arms on the handle-bars, my head on my arms, and I waited until I felt better. But before I leave this earthly paradise, suspended between the mountains and the sea, sheltered from certain winds and exposed to all that Auster vents, in the way of scents and langours, on this accursed country, it would ill become me not to mention the awful cries of the corncrakes that run in the corn, in the meadows, all the short summer night long, din- ning their rattles. And this enables me, what is more, to know when that unreal journey began, the second last but one of a form fading among fading forms, and which I here declare without further ado to have begun in the second or third week of June, at the moment that is to say most painful of all when over what is called our hemisphere the sun is at its pitilessmost and the arctic radiance comes pissing on our midnights. But he can't have known it. I wouldn't know it myself, if I thought about it. Yes, he saw himself threatened, his body threatened, his reason threatened, and per- haps he was, perhaps they were, in spite of his innocence. What busi- ness has innocence here? What relation to the innumerable spirits of darkness? It's not clear. It seemed to me he wore a cocked hat. I re- member being struck by it, as I wouldn't have been for example by a cap or by a bowler. 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. Who knows if it wasn't my own anxiety overtaking him. He hadn't seen me. 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. The rock he probably saw. 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. But a man, a fortiori myself, isn't exactly a landmark, because. 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. 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 that a child would scorn it, let alone an old man. How- ever 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. But in spite of my soul's leap out to him, at then 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. 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 remem- ber, going resignedly home. Yes, towards my hand also, which my knee felt tremble and of which my eyes saw the wrist only, the heavily veined back, the pallid rows of knuckles. But this 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. But after all what was there particularly urban in his aspect? He was bare-headed, wore sand-shoes, smoked a cigar. He moved with a kind of loitering indolence which rightly or wrongly seemed to me expressive. But all that proved nothing, refuted nothing. Perhaps he had come from afar, from the other end of the island even, and was approaching the town for the first time or returning to it after a long abscence. A little dog followed him, a pomeranian I think, but I don't think so. I wasn't sure at the time and I'm still not sure, though I've hardly thought about it. 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. Constipation is a sign of good health in pomeranians. 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, for it was a gentleman, that was obvious. Yes, it was an orange pomeranian, the less I think of it the more certain I am. And yet. But would he have come from afar, bare-headed, in sand-shoes, smoking a cigar, followed by a pomeranian? Did he not seem rather to have issued from the ram- parts, after a good dinner, to take his dog and himself for a walk, like so many citizens, dreaming and farting, when the weather is fine? 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? Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms, 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. Perhaps he had come to that, in spite of appearances. He disappeared, his head on my chest, the smoking object in his hand. Let me try and explain. From things about to disappear I turn away in time. To watch them out of sight, no, I can't do it. It was in this sense he disappeared. But then it had only attacked me once and never recurred, till now. And I went to sleep again wondering, by way of lullaby, whether it had been the same knee then as the one which had just excruciated me, or the other. And that is a thing I have never been able to determine. And my son too, when asked, was in- capable of telling me which of my two knees I had rubbed in front of him, with iodex, the night we left. And I went to sleep again a little reassured, saying, It's a touch of neuralgia brought on by all the tramping and trudging and the chill damp nights, and promis- ing myself to procure a packet of thermogene wool, with the pretty demon on the outside, at the first opportunity. Such is the rapidity of thought. But there was more to come. For waking again towards dawn, this time in consequence of a natural need, and with a mild erection, to make things more lifelike, I was unable to get up. That is to say I did get up finally to be sure, I simply had to, but by dint of what exertions! Unable, unable, it's easy to talk about be- ing unable, whereas in reality nothing is more difficult. Because of the will I suppose, which the least opposition seems to lash into a fury. And this explains no doubt how it was I despaired at first of ever bending my leg again and then, a little later, through sheer determination, did succeed in bending it, slightly. The anchylosis was not total! I am still talking about my knee. But was it the same one that had waked me early in the night? I could not have sworn it was. It was not painful. It simply refused to bend. The pain, having warned me several times in vain, had no more to say. That is how I saw it. It would have been impossible for me to kneel, for example, for no matter how you kneel you must always bend both knees, unless you adopt an attitude frankly grotesque and impossible to maintain for more than a few seconds, I mean with the bad leg stretched out before you, like a Caucasian dancer. I examined the bad knee in the light of my torch. It was neither red nor swollen. I fiddled with the knee-cap. It felt like a clitoris. All this time my son was puffing like a grampus. He had no suspicion of what life could do to you. I too was innocent. But I knew it. The sky was that horrible colour which heralds dawn. Things steal back into position for the day, take their stand, sham dead. I sat down cautiously, and I must say with a certain curiosity, on the ground. Anyone else would have tried to sit down as usual, off- handedly. Not I. New as this new cross was I at once found the most comfortable way of being crushed. 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. So that I was not long in letting myself fall back flat on my back. 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. I would have sworn just the opposite, but for this experience. Yes, when you can neither stand nor sit with comfort, you take refuge in the horizontal, like a child in its mother's lap. You explore it as never before and find it possessed of unsuspected delights. In short it becomes infinite. 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. Such are the advantages of a local and painless paralysis. And it would not surprise me if the great classical paralyses were to offer analogous and perhaps even still more unspeakable satisfactions. To be literally incapable of motion at last, that must be something! My mind swoons when I think of it. And mute into the bargain! And perhaps as deaf as a post! And who knows as blind as a bat! And as likely as not your memory a blank! And just enough brain intact to allow you to exult! And to dread death like a regeneration. I considered the problem of what I should do if my leg did not get better or got worse. I watched, through the branches, the sky sinking. The sky sinks in the morning, this fact has been insufficient- ly observed. It stoops, as if to get a better look. Unless it is the earth that lifts itself up, to be approved, before it sets out. I shall not expound my reasoning. I could do so easily, so easily. Its conclusion made possible the composition of the following passage. Did you have a good night? I said, as soon as my son opened his eyes. I could have waked him, but no, I let him wake naturally. Finally he told me he did not feel well. My son's replies were often beside the point. Where are we, I said, and what is the nearest village? He named it. I knew it, I had been there, it was a small town, luck was on our side. I even had a few acquaintances, among its inhabitants. What day is it? I said. He specified the day with- out a moment's hesitation. And he had only just regained conscious- ness! I told you he had a genius for history and geography. It was from him I learned that Condom is on the Baise. Good, I said, off you go now to Hole, it'll take you - I worked it out - at the most three hours. I looked at my son. He began to protest. I soon put a stop to that. Five minutes later I felt the tyre. It was as hard as ever. I cursed him. He took a bar of chocolate from his pocket and offered it to me. I took it. But instead of eating it, as I longed to, and although I have a horror of waste, I cast it from me, after a moment's hesi- tation, which I trust my son did not notice. Enough. We went down the road. It was more like a path. I tried to sit down on the carrier. The foot of my stiff leg tried to sink into the ground, into the grave. I propped myself up on one of the bags. Keep her steady, I said. I was still too low. I added the other. Its bulges dug into my buttocks. The more things resist me the more rabid I get. With time, and nothing but my teeth and nails, I would rage up from the bowels of the earth to its crust, knowing full well I had nothing to gain. And when I had no more teeth, no more nails, I would dig through the rock with my bones. Here then in a few words is the solution I arrived at. First the bags, then my son's raincoat folded in four, all lashed to the carrier and the saddle with my son's bits of string. As for the umbrella, I hooked it round my neck, so as to have both hands free to hold on to my son by the waist, under the armpits rather, for by this time my seat was higher than his. Pedal, I said. He made a despairing effort, I can well be- lieve it. We fell. I felt a sharp pain in my shin. I was all tangled up in the back wheel. Help! I cried. My son helped me up. My stocking was torn and my leg bleeding. Happily it was the sick leg. What would I have done, with both legs out of action? I would have found a way. It was even perhaps a blessing in disguise. I was thinking of phlebotomy of course. Are you all right? I said. Yes, he said. He would be. With my umbrella I caught him a smart blow on the hamstrings, gleaming between the leg of his shorts and his stockings. He cried out. Do you want to kill us? I said. I'm not strong enough, he said, I'm not strong enough. The bicycle was all right apparently, the back wheel slightly buckled perhaps. I at once saw the error I had made. It was to have settled down in my seat, with my feet clear of the ground, before we moved off. I reflected. We'll try again, I said. I can't, he said. Don't try me too far, I said. He straddled the frame. Start off gently when I tell you, I said. I got up again behind and settled down in my seat, with my feet clear of the ground. Good. Wait till I tell you, I said. I let myself slide to one side till the foot of my good leg touched the ground. The only weight now on the back wheel was that of my sick leg, cocked up rigid at an excruciating angle. I dug my fingers into my son's jacket. Go easy, I said. The wheels began to turn. I followed, half dragged, half hopping. I trembled for my testicles which swung a little low. Faster! I cried. He bore down on the pedals. I bounded up to my place. The bicycle swayed, righted itself, gained speed. Bravo! I cried, beside myself with joy. Hurrah! cried my son. How I loathe that exclamation! I can hardly set it down. He was as pleased as I, I do believe. His heart was beating under my hand and yet my hand was far from his heart. Happily it was downhill. Happily I had mended my hat, or the wind would have blown it away. Happily the weather was fine and I no longer alone. Happily, happily. In this way we came to Ballyba. I shall not tell of the obstacles we had to surmount, the fiends we had to circumvent, the mis- demeanours of the son, the disintegration of the father. It was my intention, almost my desire, to tell of all these things, I rejoiced at the thought that the moment would come when I might do so. Now the intention is dead, the moment is come and the desire is gone. My leg was no better. It was no worse either. The skin had healed. I would never have got there alone. It was thanks to my son. What? That I got there. He often complained of his health, his stomach, his teeth. I gave him some morphine. He looked worse and worse. When I asked him what was wrong he could not tell me. We had trouble with the bicycle. But I patched it up. I would not have got there without my son. We were a long time getting there. Weeks. We kept losing our way, taking our time. I still did not know what I was to do with Molloy, when I found him. I thought no more about it. I thought about myself, much, as we went along, sitting behind my son, looking over his head, and in the evening, when we camped, while he made himself useful, and when he went away, leaving me alone. For he often went away, to spy out the lie of the land and to buy provisions. I did practi- cally nothing any more. He took good care of me, I must say. He was clumsy, stupid, slow, dirty, untruthful, deceitful, prodigal, unfilial, but he did not abandon me. I thought much about myself. That is to say I often took a quick look at myself, closed my eyes, forgot, began again. We took a long time getting to Ballyba, we even got there without knowing it. Stop, I said to my son one day. I had just caught sight of a shepherd I liked the look of. He was sitting on the ground stroking his dog. A flock of black shorn sheep strayed about them, unafraid. Two remarks. Between the Molloy I stalked within me thus and the true Mol- loy, after whom I was so soon to be in full cry, over hill and dale, the resemblance cannot have been great. I was annexing perhaps already, without my knowing it, to my private Molloy, elements of the Molloy described by Gaber. The fact was that there were three, no, four Molloys. He that inhabit- ed me, my caricature of same, Gaber's and the man of flesh and blood somewhere awaiting me. To these I would add Youdi's were it not for Gaber's corpse fidelity to the letter of his messages. Bad reasoning. For could it seriously be supposed that Youdi had con- fided to Gaber all he knew, or thought he knew (all one to Youdi) about his protege? Assuredly not. He had only revealed what he deemed of relevance for the prompt and proper execution of his orders. I will therefore add a fifth Molloy, that of Youdi. But would not this fifth Molloy necessarily coincide with the fourth, the real one as the saying is, him dogged by his shadow? I would have given a lot to know. There were others too, of course. But let us leave it at that, if you don't mind, the party is big enough. And let us not meddle either with the question as to how far these five Molloys were constant and how far subject to variation. For there was this about Youdi, that he changed his mind with great facility. That makes three remarks. I had only anticipated two. The ice thus broken, I felt equal to facing Gaber's report and getting down to the official facts. It seemed as if the enquiry were about to start at last. It was then that the sound of a gong, struck with violence, filled the house. True enough, it was nine o'clock. I got up, adjusted my clothes and hurried down. To give notice that the soup was in, nay, that it had begun to coagulate, was always for Martha a little triumph and a great satisfaction. For as a rule I was at table, my napkin tucked into my collar, crumbling the bread, fiddling with the cover, playing with the knife-rest, waiting to be served, a few minutes before the appointed hour. I attacked the soup. Where is Jacques? I said. She shrugged her shoulders. Detestable slavish gesture. Tell him to come down at once, I said. The soup before me had stopped steaming. Had it ever steamed? She came back. He won't come down, she said. I laid down my spoon. Tell me, Martha, I said, what is this preparation? She named it. Have I had it be- fore? I said. She assured me I had. I then made a joke which pleased me enourmously, I laughed so much I began to hiccup. It was lost on Martha who stared at me dazedly. Tell him to come down, I said at last. What? said Martha. I repeated my phrase. She still looked genuinely perplexed. There are three of us in this charming home, I said, you, my son and finally myself. What I said was, Tell him to come down. But he's sick, said Martha. Were he dying, I said, down he must come. Anger led me sometimes to slight excess of language. I could not regret them. It seemed to me that all language was an excess of language. Naturally I con- fessed them. I was short of sins. Jacques was scarlet in the face. Eat your soup, I said, and tell me what you think of it. I'm not hungry, he said. Eat your soup, I said. I saw he would not eat it. What ails you? I said. I don't feel well, he said. What an abominable thing is youth. Try and be more explicit, I said. I was at pains to use this term, a little difficult for juveniles, having explained its meaning and application to him a few days before. So I had high hopes of his telling me he didn't understand. But he was a cunning little fellow, in his way. Martha! I bellowed. She appeared. The sequel, I said. I looked more atten- tively out of the window. Not only had the rain stopped, that I knew already, but in the west scarves of fine red sheen were mount- ing in the sky. I felt them rather than saw them, through my little wood. A great joy, it is hardly too much to say, surged over me at the sight of so much beauty, so much promise. I turned away with a sigh, for the joy inspired by beauty is often not unmixed, and saw in front of me what with good reason I had called the sequel. Now what have we here? I said. Usually on Sunday evening we had the cold remains of a fowl, chicken, duck, goose, turkey, I can think of no other fowl, from Saturday evening. I have always had great success with my turkeys, they are a better proposition than ducks, in my opinion, for rearing purposes. More delicate, possibly, but more remunerative, for one who knows and caters for their little ways, who likes them in a word and is liked by them in re- turn. Shepherd's pie, said Martha. I tasted it, from the dish. And what have you done with yesterday's bird? I said. Martha's face took on an expression of triumph. She was waiting for this question, that was obvious, she was counting on it. I thought, she said, you ought to eat something hot, before you left. And who told you I was leaving? I said. She went to the door, a sure sign she was about to launch a shaft. She could only be insulting when in flight. I'm not blind, she said. She opened the door. More's the pity, she said. She closed the door behind her. No, not willingly, wisely, so that I might believe I was still there. And yet it meant nothing to me to be still there. I called that thinking. I thought almost without stopping, I did not dare stop. Perhaps that was the cause of my innocence. It was a little the worse for wear, a little threadbare perhaps, but I was glad to have it, yes, I suppose. Thanks I suppose, as the urchin said when I picked up his marble, I don't know why, I didn't have to, and I suppose he would have preferred to pick it up himself. Or perhaps it wasn't to be pick- ed up. And the effort it cost me, with my stiff leg. The words engraved themselves for ever on my memory, perhaps because I understood them at once, a thing I didn't often do. Not that I was hard of hearing, for I had quite a sensitive ear, and sounds unencum- bered with precise meaning were registered perhaps better by me than by most. What was it then? A defect of the understanding perhaps, which only began to vibrate on repeated solicitations, or which did vibrate, if you like, but at a lower frequency, or a higher, than that of ratiocination, if such a thing is conceivable, and such a thing is conceivable, since I conceive it. Yes, the words I heard, and heard distinctly, having quite a sensitive ear, were heard a first time, then a second, and often even a third, as pure sounds, free of all meaning, and this is probably one of the reasons why conversation was un- speakably painful to me. And the words I uttered myself, and which must nearly always have gone with an effort of the intelligence, were often to me as the buzzing of an insect. And this is perhaps one of the reasons I was so untalkative, I mean this trouble I had in under- standing not only what others said to me, but also what I said to them. It is true that in the end, by dint of patience, we made our- selves understood, but understood with regard to what, I ask of you, and to what purpose? And to the noises of nature too, and of the works of men, I reacted I think in my own way and without desire of enlightenment. And my eye too, the seeing one, must have been ill-connected with the spider, for I found it hard to name what was mirrored there, often quite distinctly. And without going so far as to say that I saw the world upside down (that would have been too easy) it is certain I saw it in a way inordinately formal, though I was far from being an aesthete, or an artist. And of my two eyes only one functioning more or less correctly, I misjudged the distance separat- ing me from the other world, and often I stretched out my hand for what was far beyond my reach, and often I knocked against obstacles scarcely visible on the horizon. But I was like that even when I had my two eyes, it seemed to me, but perhaps not, for it is long since that era of my life, and my recollection of it is more than imperfect. And now I come to think of it, my attempts at taste and smell were scarce- ly more fortunate, I smelt and tasted without knowing exactly what, nor whether it was good, nor whether it was bad, and seldom twice running the same thing. I would have been I think an excellent hus- band, incapable of wearying of my wife and committing adultery only from absent-mindedness. Now as to telling you why I stayed a good while with Lousse, no, I cannot. That is to say I could I sup- pose, if I took the trouble. But why should I? In order to establish beyond all question that I could not do otherwise? For that is the conclusion I would come to, fatally. I who had loved the image of old Geulincx, dead young, who left me free, on the black boat of Ulysses, to crawl towards the East, along the deck. That is a great measure of freedom, for him who has not the pioneering spirit. And from the poop, poring upon the wave, a sadly rejoicing slave, I follow with my eyes the proud and futile wake. Which, as it bears me from no fatherland away, bears me onward to no shipwreck. A good while then with Lousse. It's vague, a good while, a few months perhaps, a year perhaps. I know it was warm again the day I left, but that meant nothing, in my part of the world, where it seemed to be warm or cold or merely mild at any moment of the year and where the days did not run gently up and down, no, not gently. Perhaps things have changed since. So all I know is that it was much the same weather when I left as when I came, so far as I was capable of knowing what the weather was. And I had been under the weather for so long, under all weathers, that I could tell quite well between them, my body could tell between them and seemed to have its likes, its dislikes. I think I stayed in several rooms one after the other, or alternately, I don't know. In my head there are several windows, that I do know, but perhaps it is always the same one, open variously on the parading universe. The house was fixed, that is perhaps what I mean by these different rooms. House and garden were fixed, thanks to some un- known mechanism of compensation, and I, when I stayed still, as I did most of the time, was fixed too, and when I moved, from place to place, it was very slowly, as in a cage out of time, as the saying is, in the jargon of the schools, and out of space too to be sure. For to be out of one and not out of the other was for cleverer than me, who was not clever, but foolish. But I may be quite wrong. And these different windows that open in my head, when I grope again among those days, really existed perhaps and perhaps do still, in spite of my being no longer there, I mean there looking at them, opening them and shutting them, or crouched in a corner of the room marvelling at the things they framed. "I can never forget your loyalty. One person at least I can trust. Keep Judas Wylie on your hands. Tell Cooper he serves me in serving you. Come when you have news of Murphy, not before. It is too painful. Then you shall not find me ungrateful." And to Wylie: "I can never forget your loyalty. You at least will not betray me. Tell Cooper your favour is mine. Keep Jezabel Counihan on your hands. Come again when Murphy is found, not before. It is too trying. Then you shall find me not ungrateful." Neary was indeed cured of Miss Counihan, as completely and finally as though she had bowed, in the manner of Miss Dwyer, to his wishes; but by means very different from those to which Wylie had responded so splendidly. In Wylie's case, properly speaking, it was less a matter of cure than of convalescence. For Miss Counihan had already been bowing, or rather nodding, to his wishes, or rather whims, for long enough to make further homeopathy unnecessary. It is curious how Wylie's words remained fixed in the minds of those to whom they had once been addressed. It must have been the tone of voice. Cooper, whose memory for such things was really poor, had recovered, word for word, the merest of mere phrases. And now Neary lay on his bed, repeating: "The syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary." He thought of his latest %voltefesses, at once so pleasant and so painful. Pleasant, in that Miss Counihan had been eased; painful, in that Murphy had been made worse; %fesses, as being the part best qualified by nature not only to be kicked but also to mock the kicker, a paradox strikingly illustrated by Socrates, when he turned up the tail of his abolla at the trees. Was his need any less for the sudden trans- formation of Murphy from the key that would open Miss Counihan to the one and only earthly hope of friendship and all that friendship carried with it? (Neary's conception of friendshop was very curious. He expected it to last. He never said, when speaking of an enemy: "He used to be a friend of mine", but always, with affected precision: "I used to think he was a friend of mine.") Was his need any less? It felt greater, but might well be the same. "The advantage of this view is, that while one may not look forward to things getting any better, at least one need not fear their getting any worse. They will always be the same as they always were." He writhed on his back in the bed, yearning for Murphy as though he had never yearned for anything or anyone before. He turned over and buried his face in the pillow, folding up its wings till they met at the back of his neck, and could not but remark how pleasant it was to feel for a change the weight of his bottom on his belly after so many hours of the converse distribution. But keeping his head resolutely buried and enveloped he groaned: "%Le %pou %est %mort. %Vive %le %pou!" And a little later, being by then almost stifled: "Is there no flea that found at last dies without issue? No keyflea?" It was from just this consideration that Murphy, while still less than a child, had set out to capture himself, not with anger but with love. This was a stroke of genius that Neary, a Newtonian, could never have dealt himself nor suffered another to deal him. There seems really very little hope for Neary, he seems doomed to hope unending. He has something of Hugo. The fire will not depart from his eye, nor the water from his mouth, as he scratches himself out of one itch into the next, until he shed his mortal mange, supposing that to be permitted. Murphy then is actually being needed by five people outside himself. By Celia, because she loves him. By Neary, because he thinks of him as the Friend at last. By Miss Counihan, because she wants a surgeon. By Cooper, because he is being employed to that end. By Wylie, because he is reconciled to doing Miss Counihan the honour, in the not too distant future, of becoming her husband. Not only did she stand out in Dublin and in Cork as quite exceptionally anthropoid, but she had private means. Note that of all these reasons love alone did not splutter towards its end. Not because it was Love, but because there were no means at its disposal. When its end had been Murphy transfigured and transformed, happily caught up in some salaried routine, means had not been lacking. Now that its end was Murphy at any price, in whatsoever shape or form, so long as he was lovable, i.e. present in person, means were lacking, as Murphy had warned her they would be. Women are really extra- ordinary, the way they want to give their cake to the cat and have it. They never quite kill the thing they think they love, lest their instinct for artificial respiration should go abegging. As Gower Street was more convenient to Brewery Road than was Earl's Court, where Wylie had found a sitting-bedroom, it was to Miss Counihan that Cooper first hastened with the news that Murphy's woman had been run to earth at last, and the astute comment that where a man's woman was, there it was only a question of time before that man would be also. "Who says she is his woman?" hissed Miss Counihan. "Describe the bitch." Cooper with sure instinct took refuge in the dusk, the suspense, the distance he had had to keep, the posterior aspect (surely a very thin excuse), and so on. For of the infinite criticisms of Murphy's woman that could have been devised, from loathing to enthusiasm, there was not one but must have caused Miss Counihan pain. He explained it, when she asked him, as the product of love, which forbade him to stay away from her a moment longer than was compatible with duty, and anxiety to cultivate the sense of time as money which he had heard was highly prized in business circles. The truth was that Murphy began to return in such good time that he arrived in Brewery Road with hours to spare. From the practical point of view he could see no difference between hanging about in Brewery Road and hanging about say in Lombard Street. His prospects of employment were the same in both places, in all places. But from the sentimental point of view the difference was most marked. Brewery Road was her forecourt, in certain moods almost her ruelle. Murphy on the jobpath was a striking figure. Word went round among the members of the Blake League that the Master's conception of Bildad the Shuhite had come to life and was stalking about London in a green suit, seeking whom he might comfort. But what is Bildad but a fragment of Job, as Zophar and the others are fragments of Job. The only thing Murphy was seeking was what he had not ceased to seek from the moment of his being strangled into a state of respiration -- the best of himself. The Blake League was utterly mistaken in supposing him on the %qui %vive for someone wretched enough to be consoled by such maieutic saws as "How can he be clean that is born." Utterly mistaken. Murphy re- quired for his pity no other butt than himself. His troubles had begun early. To go back no further than the vagitus, it had not been the proper A of international concert pitch, with 435 double vibrations per second, but the double flat of this. How he winced, the honest obstetrician, a devout member of the old Dublin Orchestral Society and an amateur flautist of some merit. With what sorrow he recorded that of all the millions of little larynges cursing in unison at that particular moment, the infant Murphy's alone was off the note. To go back no further than the vagitus. His rattle will make amends. His suit was not green, but aeruginous. This also cannot be emphasised too strongly against the Blake League. In some places it was actually as black as the day it was bought, in others a strong light was needed to bring out the livid gloss, the rest was admittedly aeruginous. One beheld in fact a relic of those sanguine days when as a theological student he had used to lie awake night after night with Bishop Bouvier's %Supplementum %ad %Tractatum %de %Matrimonio under his pillow. What a work that was to be sure! A Cine' Bleu scenario in goatish Latin. Or pondering Christ's parthian shaft: %It %is %finished. No less than the colour the cut was striking. The jacket, a tube in its own right, descended clear of the body as far as mid-thigh, where the skirts were slightly reflexed like the mouth of a bell in a mute appeal to be lifted that some found hard to resist. The trousers in their heyday had exhibited the same proud and inflexible autonomy of hang. But now, broken by miles of bitter stair till they were obliged to cling here and there for support to the legs within, a corkscrew effect betrayed their fatigue. Murphy never wore a waistcoat. It made him feel like a woman. With regard to the material of this suit, the bold claim was advanced by the makers that it was holeproof. This was true in the sense that it was entirely non-porous. It admitted no air from the outer world, it allowed none of Murphy's own vapours to escape. To the touch it felt like felt rather than cloth, much size must have entered into its composition. These remains of a decent outfit Murphy lit up with a perfectly plain lemon made-up bow tie presented as though in derision by a collar and dicky combination carved from a single sheet of celluloid and without seam, of a period with the suit and the last of its kind. Murphy never wore a hat, the memories it awoke of the caul were too poignant, especially when he had to take it off. Regress in these togs was slow and Murphy was well advised to abandon hope for the day shortly after lunch and set off on the long climb home. By far the best part of the way was the toil from King's Cross up Caledonian Road, reminding him of the toil from St. Lazare up Rue d'Amster- dam. And while Brewery Road was by no means a Boulevard de Clichy nor even des Batignolles, still it was better at the end of the hill than either of those, as asylym (after a point) is better than exile. At the top there was the little shelter like a head on the pimple of Market Road Gardens opposite the Tripe Factory. Here Murphy loved to sit ensconced between the perfume of dis- infectants from Milton House immediately to the south and the stench of stalled cattle from the corral immediately to the west. The tripe did not smell. But now it was winter-time again, night's young thoughts had been put back an hour, the %multis %latebra %opportuna of Market Road Gardens were closed before Murphy was due back with Celia. Then he would put in the time walking round and round Pentonville Prison. Even so at even- ing he had walked round and round cathedrals that it was too late to enter. He took up his stand in good time in the mouth of Brewery Road, so that when the clock in the prison tower marked six-forty-five he could get off the mark without delay. Then slowly past the last bourns, the Perseverance and Temper- ance Yards, the Vis Vitae Bread Co., the Marx Cork Bath Mat Manufactory, till he stood with his key in the door waiting for the clock in the market tower to chime. Shortening her hold on the lead she whipped up Nelly with great dexterity into the wilds of her bosom and covered her snout with all the kisses that Nelly had taught her in the long evenings. She then handed the trembling animal to Murphy, took two heads of lettuce out of the bag and began sidling up to the sheep. The sheep were a miserable-looking lot, dingy, close-cropped, undersized and misshapen. They were not cropping, they were not ruminating, they did not even seem to be taking their ease. They simply stood, in an attitude of profound dejection, their heads bowed, swaying slightly as though dazed. Murphy had never seen stranger sheep, they seemed one and all on the point of collapse. They made the exposition of Wordsworth's lovely "fields of sleep" as a compositor's error for "fields of sheep" seem no longer a jibe at that most excellent man. They had not the strength to back away from Miss Dew approaching with the lettuce. She moved freely among them, tendering the lettuce to one after another, pressing it up into their sunk snouts with the gesture of one feeding sugar to a horse. They turned their broody heads aside from the emetic, bringing them back into alignment as soon as it passed from them. Miss Dew strayed further and further afield in her quest for a sheep to eat her lettuce. Murphy had been too absorbed in this touching little argonautic, and above all in the ecstatic demeanour of the sheep, to pay any attention to Nelly. He now discovered that she had eaten all the biscuits with the exception of the Ginger, which cannot have remained in her mouth for more than a couple of seconds. She was seated after her meal, to judge by the infini- tesimal angle that her back was now making with the horizon. There is this to be said for Dachshunds of such length and lowness as Nelly, that it makes very little difference to their appearance whether they stand, sit or lie. If Parmigiano had gone in for painting dogs, he would have painted them like Nelly. Miss Dew was now experimenting with quite a new technique. This consisted in placing her offering on the ground and withdrawing to a discreet remove, so that the sheep might separate in their minds, if that was what they wanted, the ideas of the giver and the gift. Miss Dew was not Love, that she could feel one with what she gave, and perhaps there was some dark ovine awareness of this, that Miss Dew was not lettuce, holding up the entire works. But a sheep's psychology is far less simple than Miss Dew had any idea, and the lettuce mas- querading as a natural product of the park met with no more success than when presented frankly as an exotic variety. Miss Dew at last was obliged to admit defeat, a bitter pill to have to swallow before a perfect stranger. She picked up the two heads of lettuce and came trundling back on her powerful little legs to where Murphy was sitting on his heels, bemoaning his loss. She stood beside him too abashed to speak, whereas he was too aggrieved not to. "The sheep," he said, "may not fancy your cabbage--" "Lettuce!" cried Miss Dew. "Lovely fresh clean white crisp sparkling delicious lettuce!" "But your hot dog has eaten my lunch," said Murphy, "or as much of it as she could stomach." Miss Dew went down on her knees just like any ordinary person and took Nelly's head in her hands. Mistress and bitch exchanged a long look of intelligence. "The depravity of her appetite," said Murphy, "you may be glad to hear, does not extend to ginger, nor the extremity of mine to a rutting cur's rejectamenta." Miss Dew kneeling looked more than ever like a duck, or a stunted penguin. Her bosom rose and fell, her colour came and went, in consequence of Murphy's reference to Nelly, who with Lord Gall was almost all she had in this dreary %en-dec`a, as a rutting cur. Her pet had certainly placed her in a very false position. Wylie in Murphy's place might have consoled himself with the thought that the Park was a closed system in which there could be no loss of appetite; Neary with the unction of an %Ipse %dixit; Ticklepenny with reprisal. But Murphy was inconsolable, the snuff of the dip stinking that the biscuits had lit in his mind, for Nelly to extinguish. "Oh my America," he cried, "my Newfound- land, no sooner sighted than Atlantis." Miss Dew pictured her patron in her place. "How much are you out?" she said. These words were incomprehensible to Murphy, and remained so until he saw a purse in her hand. "Twopence," he replied, "and a critique of pure love." "Here is threepence," said Miss Dew. This brought Murphy's filth up to fivepence. Miss Dew went away without saying good- bye. She had not left home more gladly than she now returned sadly. It was often the way. She trundled along towards Victoria Gate, Nelly gliding before her, and felt the worse for her outing. Her lettuce turned down, her mortifica- tion, her pet and herself in her pet insulted, the threepence gone that she had earmarked for a glass of mild. She passed by the dahlias and the dogs' cemetery, out into the sudden grey glare of Bayswater Road. She caught up Nelly in her arms and carried her a greater part of the way to Paddington than was necessary. A boot was waiting for her from Lord Gall, a boot formerly in the wardrobe of his father. She would sit down with Nelly in her lap, one hand on the boot, the other on the board, and wrest from the ether some good reason for the protector, who was also the reversioner unfortu- nately, to cut off the cruel entail. Miss Dew's control, a panpygoptotic Manichee of the fourth century, Lena by name, severe of deportment and pallid of feature, who had entertained Jerome on his way through Rome from Calchis to Bethlehem, had not, according to her own account, been raised so wholly a spiritual body as yet to sit down with much more comfort than she had in the natural. Seven scarves held him in position. Two fastened his shins to the rockers, one his thighs to the seat, two his breast and belly to the back, one his wrists to the strut behind. Only the most local movements were possible. Sweat poured off him, tightened the thongs. The breath was not perceptible. The eyes, cold and unwavering as a gull's, stared up at an iridescence splashed over the cornice moulding, shrinking and fad- ing. Somewhere a cuckoo-clock, having struck between twenty and thirty, became the echo of a street-cry, which now entering the mew gave %Quid %pro %quo! %Quid %pro %quo! directly. These were sights and sounds that he did not like. They detained him in the world to which they belonged, but not he, as he fondly hoped. He wondered dimly what was breaking up his sunlight, what wares were being cried. Dimly, very dimly. He sat in his chair this way because it gave him pleasure! First it gave his body pleasure, it appeased his body. Then it set him free in his mind. For it was not until his body was appeased that he could come alive in his mind, as described in section six. And life in his mind gave him pleasure, such pleasure that pleasure was not the word. Murphy had lately studied under a man in Cork called Neary. This man, at that time, could stop his heart more or less whenever he liked and keep it stopped, within reasonable limits, for as long as he liked. This rare faculty, acquired after years of application somewhere north of Nerbudda, he exercised frugally, reserving it for situations irksome beyond en- durance, as when he wanted a drink and could not get one, or fell among Gaels and could not escape, or felt the pangs of hopeless sexual inclination. Murphy's purpose in going to sit at Neary's feet was not to develop the Neary heart, which he thought would quickly prove fatal to a man of his temper, but simply to invest his own with a little of what Neary, at that time a Pythagorean, called the Apmonia. For Murphy had such an irrational heart that no physician could get to the root of it. Inspected, palpated, auscultated, percussed, radiographed and cardiographed, it was all that a heart should be. Buttoned up and left to perform, it was like Petrouchka in his box. One moment in such labour that it seemed on the point of seizing, the next in such ebullition that it seemed on the point of bursting. It was the mediation between these extremes that Neary called the Apmonia. When he got tired of calling it the Apmonia he called it the Isonomy. When he got sick of the sound of Isonomy he called it the Attunement. But he might call it what he liked, into Murphy's heart it would not enter. Neary could not blend the opposites in Murphy's heart. Their farewell was memorable. Neary came out of one of his dead sleeps and said: "Murphy, all life is figure and ground." "But a wandering to find home," said Murphy. "The face," said Neary, "or system of faces, against the big blooming buzzing confusion. I think of Miss Dwyer." Murphy could have thought of a Miss Couni- han. Neary clenched his fists and raised them before his face. "To gain the affections of Miss Dwyer," he said, "even for one short hour, would benefit me no end." The knuckles stood out white under the skin in the usual way-- that was the position. The hands then opened quite correctly to the utmost limit of their compass--that was the negation. It now seemed to Murphy that there were two equally legitimate ways in which the gesture might be concluded, and the sublation effected. The hands might be clapped to the head in a smart gesture of despair, or let fall limply to the seams of the trousers, supposing that to have been their point of departure. Judge then of his annoyance when Neary clenched them again more violently than before and dashed them against his breast-bone. "Half an hour," he said, "fifteen minutes." "And then?" said Murphy. "Back to Tene- riffe and the apes?" "You may sneer," said Neary, "and you may scoff, but the fact remains that all is dross, for the moment at any rate, that is not Miss Dwyer. The one closed figure in the waste without form, and void! My tetrakyt!" Of such was Neary's love for Miss Dwyer, who loved a Flight-Lieutenant Elliman, who loved a Miss Farren of Ringsakiddy, who loved a Father Fitt of Ballinclashet, who in all sincerity was bound to acknowledge a certain vocation for a Mrs. West of Passage, who loved Neary. "Love requited," said Neary, "is a short circuit," a ball that gave rise to a sparkling rally. "The love that lifts up its eyes," said Neary, "being in torments; that craves for the tip of her little finger, dipped in lacquer, to cool its tongue -- is foreign to you, Murphy, I take it." "Greek," said Murphy. "Or put it another way," said Neary; "the single, brilliant, organised, compact blotch in the tumult of heterogenous stimulation." "Blotch is the word," said Murphy. "Just so," said Neary. "Now pay attention to this. For whatever reason you cannot love -- But there is a Miss Counihan, Murphy, is there not?" There was indeed a Miss Counihan. "Now say you were invited to define let us say your commerce with this Miss Counihan, Murphy," said Neary. "Come now, Murphy." "Precordial," said Murphy, "rather than cordial. Tired. Cork County. Depraved." "Just so," said Neary. "Now then. For whatever reason you cannot love in my way, and believe me there is no other, for that same reason, whatever it may be, your heart is as it is. And again for that same reason --" "Whatever it may be," said Murphy. "I can do nothing for you," said Neary. "God bless my soul," said Murphy. "Just so," said Neary. "I should say your conarium has shrunk to nothing." Surely between them they could contrive to earn a little. Murphy thought so, with a look of such filthy intelligence as left her, self-aghast, needing him still. Murphy's respect for the imponderables of personality was profound, he took the miscarriage of his tribute very nicely. If she felt she could not, why then she could not, and that was all. Liberal to a fault, that was Murphy. "So far I keep abreast," said Mr. Kelly. "There is just this tribute --" "I have tried so hard to understand that," said Celia. "But what makes you think a tribute was intended?" said Mr. Kelly. "I tell you he keeps nothing from me," said Celia. "Did it go something like this?" said Mr. Kelly. "'I pay you the highest tribute that a man can pay a woman, and you throw a scene.'" "Hark to the wind," said Celia. "Damn your eyes," said Mr. Kelly, "did he or didn't he?" "It's not a bad guess," said Celia. "Guess my rump," said Mr. Kelly. "It is the formula." "So long as one of us understands," said Celia. In respecting what he called the Archeus, Murphy did no more than as he would be done by. He was consequently aggrieved when Celia suggested that he might try his hand at something more remunerative than apperceiving himself into a glorious grave and checking the starry concave, and would not take the anguish on his face for an answer. "Did I press you?" he said. "No. Do you press me? Yes. Is that equitable? My sweet." "Will you conclude now as rapidly as pos- sible," said Mr. Kelly. "I weary of Murphy." He begged her to believe him when he said he could not earn. Had he not already sunk a small fortune in attempts to do so? He begged her to believe that he was a chronic emeritus. But it was not altogether a question of economy. There were metaphysical considerations, in whose gloom it appeared that the night had come in which no Murphy could work. Was Ixion under any contract to keep his wheel in nice running order? Had any provision been made for Tantalus to eat salt? Not that Murphy had ever heard of. "But we cannot go on without any money," said Celia. "Providence will provide," said Murphy. The imperturbable negligence of Providence to provide goaded them to such transports as West Brompton had not known since the Earl's Court Exhibition. They said little. Sometimes Murphy would begin to make a point, sometimes he may have even finished making one, it was hard to say. For example, early one morning he said: "The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling." Was that a point? And again: "What shall a man give in exchange for Celia?" Was that a point? "Those were points undoubtedly," said Mr. Kelly. When there was no money left and no bill to be cooked for another week, Celia said that either Murphy got work or she left him and went back to hers. Murphy said work would be the end of them both. "Points one and two," said Mr. Kelly. Celia had not been long back on the street when Murphy wrote imploring her to return. She telephoned to say that she would return if he undertook to look for work. Otherwise it was useless. He rang off while she was still speak- ing. Then he wrote again saying he was starved out and would do as she wished. But as there was no possibility of his finding in himself any reason for work taking one form rather than another, would she kindly procure a corpus of incentives based on the only system outside his own in which he felt the least confidence, that of the heavenly bodies. In Berwick Market ther was a swami who cast excellent nativities for sixpence. She knew the year and date of the unhappy event, the time did not matter. The science that had got over Jacob and Esau would not insist on the precise moment of vagitus. He would attend to the matter himself, were it not that he was down to four- pence. "And now I ring him up," concluded Celia, "to tell him I have it, and he tries to choke me off." "It?" said Mr. Kelly. "What he told me to get," said Celia. "Are you afraid to call it by its name?" said Mr. Kelly. "That is all," said Celia. "Now tell me what to do, because I have to go." Drawing himself up for the third time in the bed Mr. Kelly said: "Approach, my child." Celia sat down on the edge of the bed, their four hands mingled on the counterpane, they gazed at one another in silence. "You are crying, my child," said Mr. Kelly. Not a thing escaped him. "How can a person love you and go on like that?" said Celia. "Tell me how it is possible." "He is saying the same about you," said Mr. Kelly. "To his funny old chap," said Celia. "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Kelly. "No matter," said Celia. "Hurry up and tell me what to do." "Approach, my child," said Mr. Kelly, slip- ping away a little from his surroundings. "Damn it, I am approached," said Celia. "Do you want me to get in beside you?" The blue glitter of Mr. Kelly's eyes in the uttermost depths of their orbits became fixed, then veiled by the classical pythonic glaze. He raised his left hand, where Celia's tears had not yet dried, and seated it pronate on the crown of his skull -- that was the position. In vain. He raised his right hand and laid the forefinger along his nose. He then returned both hands to their point of departure with Celia's on the counterpane, the glitter came back into his eye and he pronounced: "Chuck him." Celia made to rise, Mr. Kelly pinioned her wrists. "Sever your connexion with this Murphy," he said, "before it is too late." "Let me go," said Celia. She sat down and Wylie moved over to the bed. He was equipped by nature to feel a situation, and adjust himself to it, more rapidly than Miss Counihan, but she had the advantage of a short start. "This lock-out," said Neary, "don't mis- understand it whatever you do." "I think more highly of you than that," said Wylie. "%I thank you," said Neary, like a London bus or tram conductor tendered the exact fare. It struck Miss Counihan with sudden force that here were two men, against whom she could never prevail, even were her cause a just one. "And no doubt your great piece of news is the same as your doxy's," said Neary, "that Cooper has picked up a woman with whom a glimpse of Murphy was once caught." "She was not exactly seen with him," said Wylie, "only entering the house where he was known to be at that time." "And you call this finding Murphy," said Neary. "Cooper feels it in his bones," said Wylie, "and so do I, that this beautiful woman will lead us to him." "Uric acid," said Neary. "But if Miss Counihan believes," said Wylie, "who are we to doubt?" Miss Counihan bit her lip that she had not thought of this argument, which opened and closed Neary's mouth a number of times. He found it forcible -- and he craved to get up. "If you, Wylie," he said, "will pass me up my pyjamas, and you, Miss Counihan, take notice that I shall emerge from under this sheet incomparably more naked than the day I was born, I shall break my bed." Wylie passed up the pyjamas and Miss Counihan covered her eyes. "Do not be alarmed, Wylie," said Neary, "the vast majority are bedsores." He sat on the edge of the bed in his pyjamas. "It is no use my trying to stand," he said, "nothing is more exhausting than a long rest in bed, so now, Miss Counihan, when you like." Miss Counihan stole a look and was so far moved from her grievances as to say: "Surely we could make you a little more comfortable?" Here the keyword was we, a little finger of reconciliation extended to Wylie. Without it the phrase was merely polite, or, at the best, kind. It did not escape Wylie, who looked most willing to be helpful all over. From the moment that Neary, breaking his bed, admitted that Murphy was found, from the moment namely that on this one point at least they were agreed not to differ, a notable change for the better had come over the atmo- sphere, now one almost of reciprocal tolerance. "Nothing can surprise me any more," said Neary. Miss Counihan and Wylie sprang forward, worked Neary on to his feet, supported him to a chair in the window, lowered him into it. "The whiskey is under the bed," said Neary. It was at this moment that they all saw simultaneously for the first time, and with common good breding refrained from remarking, the slender meanders of water on the floor. Miss Counihan however would not have any whiskey. Wylie raised his glass and said: "To the absentee", a tactful description of Murphy under the circumstances. Miss Counihan hon- oured this toast with a strong intake of breath. "Sit down, the two of you, there before me," said Neary, "and do not despair. Remember there is no triangle, however obtuse, but the circumference of some circle passes through its wretched vertices. Remember also one thief was saved." "Our medians," said Wylie, "or whatever the hell they are, meet in Murphy." "Outside us," said Neary. "Outside us." "In the outer light," said Miss Counihan. Now it was Wylie's turn, but he could find nothing. No sooner did he realise this, that he would not find anything in time to do himself credit, than he began to look as though he were not looking for anything, nay, as though he were waiting for it to be his turn. Finally Neary said without pity: "You to play, Needle." "And do the lady out of the last word!" cried Wylie. "And put the lady to the trouble of finding another! Reary, Neally!" "No trouble," said Miss Counihan. Now it was anybody's turn. "Very well," said Neary. "What I was really coming to, what I wanted to suggest, is this. Let our conversation now be without precedent in fact or literature, each one speaking to the best of his ability the truth to the best of his knowledge. That is what I meant when I said you took the tone, if not the terms, out of my mouth. It is high time we three parted." "But the tone was bitter, I believe," said Wylie. "That certainly was my impression." "I was not thinking of the tone of voice," said Neary, "so much as of the tone of mind, the spirit's approach. But continue, Wylie, by all means. Might not the truth be snarled?" "Coleridge-Taylor played with feeling?" said Wylie. "A perfume thrown on the horehound?" said Miss Counihan. "The guillotine sterilised?" said Wylie. "Floodlit the midnight sun?" said Miss Counihan. "We look on the dark side," said Neary. "It is undeniably less trying to the eyes." "What you suggest is abominable," said Wylie, "an insult to human nature." "Not at all," said Neary. "Listen to this." "I must be off," said Miss Counihan. Neary began to speak, or, as it rather sounded, be spoken through. For the voice was flat, the eyes closed and the body bowed and rigid, as though he were kneeling before a priest instead of sitting before two sinners. Altogether he had a great look of Luke's portrait of Matthew, with the angel perched like a parrot on his shoulder. "Almost madly in love with Miss Counihan some short weeks ago, now I do not even dislike her. Betrayed by Wylie in my trust and friend- ship, I do not even bother to forgive him. The missing Murphy from being a means to a trivial satisfaction, the contingent, as he himself would say, of a contingent, is become in himself an end, the end, my end, unique and indispensable." Abstract for paper for NWAVE XVII from Lisa Lena Opas, Linacre College, Oxford Quantitative methods for the analysis of narrative style in discourse I will present a diachronic, quantitative analysis of narrative style in the prose works (1938-1980) of Samuel Beckett based on Leech and Short's categories for speech and thought presentation in relation to the discourse situation of each text. I will focus on methodological and analytical problems arising from the data, in particular, the following: i. random sampling ii. what is the relevant unit of analysis? iii. normalization The aim of the analysis is to demonstrate that there has been a change in 'narrative style' in the modern novel. I adopt Leech and Short's model for speech and thought representation, which distinguishes various degrees of directness and indirectness. In claiming that free indirect thought has become a very common mode of narration in the twentieth-century novel, they suggest a diachronic trend in this direction. Banfield argues that this mode of representation, previously unavailable in written language, emerges specifically in the genre of the modern novel. The results indicate that there is a progression from a narrative style with more author/narrator intervention to one with less. There is a movement away from the use of free indirect thought and towards a more speech-oriented style. This points to change in the narrative style of modern fiction. I relate these findings to Tannen's suggestion that both ordinary conversation and literary discourse depend on interpersonal involvement for their effect, and Biber and Finegan's claim that there has been a drift in English genres towards a less abstract and more involved style.

Whence a certain confusion in the exordia, long enough to situate the con- demned and prepare him for execution. And yet I do not despair of one day sparing me, without going silent. And that day, I don't know why, I shall be able to go silent, and make an end, I know it. Yes, the hope is there, once again, of not making me, not losing me, of staying here, where I said I have always been, but I had to say something quick, of ending here, it would be wonderful. But is it to be wished? Yes, it is to be wished, to end would be wonder- ful, no matter who I am, no matter where I am. I hope this preamble will soon come to an end and the statement begin that will dispose of me. Unfortunately I am afraid, as always, of going on. For to go on means going from here, means finding me, losing me, vanishing and beginning again, a stranger first, then little by little the same as always, in another place, where I shall say I have always been, of which I shall know nothing, being incapable of seeing, moving, thinking, speaking, but of which little by little, in spite of these handicaps, I shall begin to know some- thing, just enough for it to turn out to be the same place as always, the same which seems made for me and does not want me, which I seem to want and do not want, take your choice, which spews me out or swallows me up, I'll never know, which is perhaps merely the inside of my distant skull where once I wandered, now am fixed, lost for tininess, or straining against the walls, with my head, my hands, my feet, my back, and ever murmuring my old stories, my old story, as if it were the first time. So there is nothing to be afraid of. And yet I am afraid, afraid of what my words will do to me, to my refuge, yet again. Is there really nothing new to try? I mentioned my hope, but it is not serious. If I could speak and yet say nothing, really nothing? Then I might escape being gnawed to death as by an old satiated rat, and my little tester-bed along with me, a cradle, or be gnawed to death not so fast, in my old cradle, and the torn flesh have time to knit, as in the Caucasus, before being torn again. But it seems impossible to speak and yet say nothing, you think you have succeeded, but you always over- look something, a little yes, a little no, enough to exterminate a regiment of dragoons. And yet I do not despair, this time, while

saying who I am, where I am, of not losing me, of not going from here, of ending here. What prevents the miracle is the spirit of method to which I have perhaps been a little too addicted. The fact that Prometheus was delivered twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and seventy years after having purged his offence leaves me naturally as cold has camphor. For between me and that mis- creant who mocked the gods, invented fire, denatured clay and domesticated the horse, in a word obliged humanity, I trust there is nothing in common. But the thing is worth mentioning. In a word, shall I be able to speak of me and of this place without putting an end to us, shall I ever be able to go silent, is there any connection between these two questions? Noth- ing like issues. There are a few to be going on with, perhaps one only. All these Murphys, Molloys and Malones do not fool me. They have made me waste my time, suffer for nothing, speak of them when, in order to stop speaking, I should have spoken of me and of me alone. But I just said I have spoken of me, am speaking of me. I don't care a curse what I just said. It is now I shall speak of me, for the first time. I thought I was right in enlisting these sufferers of my pains. I was wrong. They never suffered my pains, their pains are nothing, compared to mine, a mere tittle of mine, the tittle I thought I could put from me, in order to witness it. Let them be gone now, them and all the others, those I have used and those I have not used, give me back the pains I lent them and vanish, from my life, my memory, my terrors and shames. There, now there is no one here but me, no one wheels about me, no one comes towards me, no one has ever met anyone before my eyes, these creatures have never been, only I and this black void have ever been. And the sounds? No, all is silent. And the lights, on which I had set such store, must they too go out? Yes, out with them, there is no light. No grey either, black is what I should have said. Nothing then but me, of which I know nothing, except that I have never uttered, and this black, of which I know nothing either, except that it is black, and empty. That then is what, since I have to speak, I shall speak of, until I need speak no more. And Basil and his gang? Inexistent, invented to explain I forget what. Ah yes, all lies. God and man, nature and the light of day, the heart's outpourings and the means of understanding, all invented, basely, by me alone, with the help of no one, since there is no one,

to put off the hour when I must speak of me. There will be no more about them. I, of whom I know nothing, I know my eyes are open, because of the tears that pour from them unceasingly. I know I am seated, my hands on my knees, because of the pressure against my rump, against the soles of my feet, against the palms of my hands, against my knees. But when it falters and when it stops, but it falters every instant, it stops every instant, yes, but when it stops for a good few moments, a good few moments, what are a good few moments, what then, murmurs, then it must be murmurs, and listening, someone listening, no need of an ear, no need of a mouth, the voice listens, as when it speaks, listens to its silence, that makes a murmur, that makes a voice, a small voice, the same voice only small, it sticks in the throat, there's the throat again, there's the mouth again, it fills the ear, there's the ear again, then I vomit, someone vomits, someone starts vomiting again, that must be how it happens, I have no explanation to offer, none to demand, the comma will come where I'll drown for good, then the silence, I believe it this evening, still this evening, how it drags on, I've no objection, perhaps it's springtime, violets, no, that's autumn, there's a time for everything, for the things that pass, the things that end, they could never get me to understand that, the things that stir, de- part, return, a light changing, they could never get me to see that, and death into the bargain, a voice dying, that's a good one, silence at last, not a murmur, no air, no listening, not for the likes of me, amen, on we go. Enormous prison, like a hundred thousand cathedrals, never anything else any more, from this time forth, and in it, somewhere, perhaps, riveted, tiny, the prisoner, how can he be found, how false this space is, what falseness instantly, to want to draw that round you, to want to put a being there, a cell would be plenty, if I gave up, if only I could give up, before beginning, before beginning again, what breathlessness, that's right, ejacu- lations, that helps you on, that puts off the fatal hour, no, the reverse, I don't know, start again, in this immensity, this obscurity, go through the motions of starting again, you who can't stir, you who never started, you the who, go through the motions, what motions, you can't stir, you launch your voice, it dies away in the vault, it calls that a vault, perhaps it's the abyss, those are words, it speaks of a prison, I've no objection, vast enough for a whole people, for me alone, or waiting for me, I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now, I can't stir, I'm there already, I must be there already, perhaps I'm not alone, perhaps a whole people is here, and the voice its voice, coming to me fitfully, we would have lived, been free a moment, now we talk about it, each one to himself, each one out loud for himself, and we listen a whole people, talking and listening, all together, that would ex, no, I'm alone, perhaps the first, or perhaps the last, talking alone, listening alone, alone alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-coming, another will come, I won't be the last, I'll be with the others, I'll be as gone, in the silence, it won't be I, it's not I, I'm not there yet, I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it's unending, it will be unending, gone where, where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again, and so on, a whole people, or I alone, and come back, and begin again, no, go on, go on again, it's a circuit, a long circuit, I know it well, I must know it well, it's a lie, I can stir, I haven't stirred, I launch the voice, I hear a voice, there is nowhere but here, there are not two places, there are not two prisons, it's my parlour, it's a parlour, where I wait for nothing, I don't know where it is, I don't know what it's like, that's no business of mine, I don't know if it's big, or if it's small, or if it's closed, or if it's open, that's right, reiterate, that helps you on, open on what, there is nothing else, only it, open on the void, open on the nothing, I've no ob- jection, those are words, open on the silence, looking out on the silence, straight out, why not, all this time on the brink of silence, I knew it, on a rock, lashed to a rock, in the midst of silence, its great swell rears towards me, I'm streaming with it, it's an image, those are words, it's a body, it's not I, I knew it wouldn't be I, I'm not outside, I'm inside, I'm in something, I'm shut up, the silence is outside, outside, inside, there is nothing but here, and the silence outside, nothing but this voice and the silence all round, no need of walls, yes, we must have walls, I need walls, good and thick, I need a prison, I was right, for me alone, I'll go there now, I'll put me in it, I'm there already, I'll start looking for me now, I'm there somewhere, it won't be I, no matter, I'll say it's I, perhaps it will be I, perhaps that's all they're waiting for, there they are again, to give me quittance, waiting for me to say I'm someone, to say I'm somewhere, to put me out, into the silence, I see nothing, it's be- cause there is nothing, or it's because I have no eyes, or both, that makes three possibilities, to choose from, but do I really see noth- ing, it's not the moment to tell a lie, but how can you not tell a lie, what an idea, a voice like this, who can check it, it tries every- thing, it's blind, it seeks me blindly, in the dark, it seeks a mouth, to enter into, who can query it, there is no other, you'd need a head, you'd need things, I don't know, I look too often as if I knew, it's the voice does that, it goes all knowing, to make me think I know, to make me think it's mine, it has no interest in eyes, it says I have none, or that they are no use to me, then it speaks of tears, then it speaks of gleams, it is truly at a loss, gleams, yes, far, or near, distances, you know, measurements, enough said, gleams, as at dawn, then dying, as at evening, or flaring up, they do that too, blaze up more dazzling than snow, for a second, that's short, then fizzle out, that's true enough, if you like, one forgets, I forget, I say I see nothing, or I say it's all in my head, as if I felt a head on me, that's all hypotheses, lies, these gleams too, they were to save me, they were to devour me, that came to nothing, I see nothing, either because of this or else on account of that, and these images at which they watered me, like a camel, before the desert, I don't know, more lies, just for the fun of it, fun, what fun we've had, what fun of it, all lies, that's soon said, you must say soon, it's the regulations. I'll never stir, never speak, they'll never go silent, never de- part, they'll never catch me, never stop trying, that's that. I'm listen- ing. Well I prefer that, I must say I prefer that, that what, oh you know, who you, oh I suppose the audience, well well, so there's an audience, it's a public show, you buy your seat and you wait, perhaps it's free, a free show, you take your seat and you wait for it to begin, or perhaps it's compulsory, a compulsory show, you wait for the compulsory show to begin, it takes time, you hear a voice, perhaps it's a recitation, that's the show, someone reciting, selected passages, old favourites, a poetry matinee, or someone improvizing, you can barely hear him, that's the show, you can't leave, you're afraid to leave, it might be worse elsewhere, you make the best of it, you try and be reasonable, you came too early, here we'd need Latin, it's only beginning, it hasn't begun, he's only preluding, clearing his throat, alone in his dressing-room, he'll appear any moment, he'll begin any moment, or it's the stage-manager, giving his instructions, his last recommendations, before the curtain rises, that's the show, waiting for the show, to the sound of a murmur, you try and be reasonable, perhaps it's not a voice at all, perhaps it's the air, ascending, descending, flowing, eddying, seeking exit, finding none, and the spectators, where are they, you didn't notice, in the anguish of waiting, never noticed you were waiting alone, that's the show, waiting alone, in the restless air, for it to begin, for something to begin, for there to be something else but you, for the power to rise, the courage to leave, you try and be reasonable, per- haps you are blind, probably deaf, the show is over, all is over, but where then is the hand, the helping hand, or merely charitable, or the hired hand, it's a long time coming, to take yours and draw you away, that's the show, free, gratis and for nothing, waiting alone, blind, deaf, you know where, you don't know for what, for a hand to come and draw you away, somewhere else, where perhaps it's worse. And now for the it, I prefer that, I must say I prefer that, what a memory, real fly-paper, I don't know, I don't prefer it any more, that's all I know, so why bother about it, a thing you don't prefer, just think of that, bothering about that, perish the thought, one must wait, discover a preference, within one's bosom, then it will be time enough to institute an inquiry. Moreover, that's right, link, link, you never know, moreover their attitude towards me has not changed, I am deceived, they are deceived, they have tried to deceive me, saying their attitude towards me had changed, but they haven't deceived me, I didn't understand what they were try- ing to do to me, I say what I'm told to say, that's all there is to it, and yet I wonder, I don't know, I don't feel a mouth on me, I don't feel the jostle of words in my mouth, and when you say a poem you like, if you happen to like poetry, in the underground, or in bed, for yourself, the words are there, somewhere, without the least sound, I don't feel that either, words falling, you don't know where, you don't know whence, drops of silence through the silence, I don't feel it, I don't feel a mouth on me, nor a head, do I feel an ear, frankly now, do I feel an ear, well frankly now I don't, so much the worse, I don't feel an ear either, this is awful, make an effort, I must feel something, yes, I feel something, they say I feel something, I don't know what it is, I don't know what I feel, tell me what I feel and I'll tell you who I am, they'll tell me who I am, I won't understand, but the thing will be said, they'll have said who I am, and I'll have heard, without an ear I'll have heard, and I'll have said it, without a mouth I'll have said it, I'll have said it inside me, then in the same breath outside me, perhaps that's what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that's what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle, I'm the partition, I've two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that's what I feel, myself vibrating, I'm the tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don't belong to either, it's not to me they're talking, it's not of me they're talking, no, that's not it, I feel nothing of all that, try something else, herd of shites, say something else for me to hear, I don't know how, for me to say, I don't know how, what clowns they are, to keep on saying the same thing when they know it's not the right one, no, they know nothing either, they forget, they think they change and they never change, they'll be there saying the same thing till they die, then perhaps a little silence, till the next gang arrives on the site, I alone am im- mortal, what can you expect, I can't get born, perhaps that's their big idea, to keep on saying the same old thing, generation after generation, till I go mad and begin to scream, then they'll say, He's mewled, he'll rattle, it's mathematical, let's get out to hell out of here, no point in waiting for that, others need us, for him it's over, his troubles will be over, he's saved, we've saved him, they're all the same, they all let themselves be saved, they all let themselves be born, he was a tough nut, he'll have a good time, a brilliant career, in fury and remorse, he'll never forgive himself, and so depart, thus communing, in Indian file, or two by two, along the seashore, now it's the seashore, on the shingle, along the sands, in the evening air, it's evening, that's all I know, evening, shadows, somewhere, any- where, on the earth. Another impression, no doubt equally false, he brings me presents and dare not give them. He takes them away again, or lets them fall, and they vanish. He does not come often, I cannot be more precise, but regularly assuredly. His visit has never coincided, up to now, with the transit of Malone. But perhaps some day it will. That would not necessarily be a violation of the order prevail- ing here. For if I can work out to within a few inches the orbit of Malone, assuming perhaps erroneously that he passes before me at a distance of say three feet, with regard to the other's career I must remain in the dark. For I am incapable not only of measuring time, which in itself is sufficient to vitiate all calculation in this connection, but also of comparing their respective velocities. So I cannot tell if I shall ever have the good fortune to see the two of them at once. But I am inclined to think I shall. For if I were never to see the two of them at once, then it would follow, or should follow, that between their respective appearances the inter- val never varies. No, wrong. For the interval may vary consider- ably, and indeed it seems to me it does, without ever being abolish- ed. Nevertheless I am inclined to think, because of this erratic interval, that my two visitors may some day meet before my eyes, collide and perhaps even knock each other down. I have said that all things here recur sooner or later, no, I was going to say it, then thought better of it. But is it not possible that this does not apply to encounters? The only encounter I ever witnessed, a long time ago now, has never yet been re-enacted. It was perhaps the end of something. And I shall perhaps be delivered of Malone and the other, not that they disturb me, the day I see the two of them at one and the same time, that is to say in collision. Unfortunately they are not the only disturbers of my peace. Others come towards me, pass before me, wheel about me. And no doubt others still, invisible so far. I repeat they do not disturb me. But in the long run it might become wearisome. I don't see how. But the possibility must be taken into account. One starts things moving without a thought of how to stop them. In order to speak. One starts speaking as if it were possible to stop at will. It is better so. The search for the means to put an end to things, an end to speech, is what enables the discourse to continue. No, I must not try to think, simply utter. Method or no method I shall have to banish them in the end, the beings, things, shapes, sounds and lights with which my haste to speak has encumbered this place. In the frenzy of utterance the concern with truth. Hence the interest of a possible deliverance by means of encounter. But not so fast. First dirty, then make clean. Perhaps it is time I paid a little attention to myself, for a change. I shall be reduced to it sooner or later. At first sight it seems impossible. Me, utter me, in the same foul breath as my creatures? Say of me that I see this, feel that, fear, hope, know and do not know, Yes, I will say it, and of me alone. Impassive, still and mute, Malone revolves, a stranger forever to my infirmi- ties, one who is not as I can never not be. I am motionless in vain, he is the god. And the other? I have assigned him eyes that implore me, offerings for me, need of succour. He does not look at me, does not know of me, wants for nothing. I alone am man and all the rest divine. Air, the air, is there anything to be squeezed from that old chestnut? Close to me it is grey, dimly transparent, and beyond that charmed circle deepens and spreads its fine impenetrable veils. Is it I who cast the faint light that enables me to see what goes on under my nose? There is nothing to be gained, for the moment, by supposing so. There is no night so deep, so I have heard tell, that it may not be pierced in the end, with the help of no other light than that of the blackened sky, or of the earth itself. Nothing nocturnal here. This grey, first murky, then frankly opaque, is luminous none the less. But may not this screen which my eyes probe in vain, and see as denser air, in reality be the enclosure wall, as compact as lead? To elucidate this point I would need a stick or pole, and the means of plying it, the former being of little avail without the latter, and vice versa. I could also do, incidentally, with future and conditional participles. Then I would dart it, like a javelin, straight before me and know, by the sound made, whether that which hems me round, and blots out my world, is the old void, or a plenum. Or else, without letting it go, I would wield it like a sword and thrust it through empty air, or against the barrier. But the days of sticks are over, here I can count on my body alone, my body incapable of the smallest movement and whose very eyes can no longer close as they once could, accordance to Basil and his crew, to rest me from seeing, to rest me from waking, to darken me to sleep, and no longer to look away, or down, or up open to heaven, but must remain forever fixed and staring on the narrow space before them where there is nothing to be seen, ninety-nine per cent of the time. They must be as red as live coals. I sometimes wonder if the two retinae are not facing each other. All I reproach them with is their insistence. For beyond them is that other who will not give me quittance until they have aban- doned me as inutilizable and restored me to myself. Then at last I can set about saying what I was, and where, during all this long lost time. But who is he, if my guess is right, who is waiting for that, from me? And who these others whose designs are so differ- ent? And into whose hands I play when I ask myself such ques- tions? But do I, do I? In the jar did I ask myself questions? And in the arena? I have dwindled, I dwindle. Not so long ago, with a kind of shrink of my head and shoulders, as when one is scolded, I could disappear. Soon, at my present rate of decrease, I may spare myself this effort. And spare myself the trouble of closing my eyes, so as not to see the day, for they are blinded by the jar a few inches away. And I have only to let my head fall forward against the wall to be sure that the light from above, which at night is that of the moon, will not be reflected there either, in those little blue mirrors, I used to look at myself in them, to try and brighten them. Wrong again, wrong again, this effort and this trouble will not be spared me. For the woman, displeased at seeing me sink lower and lower, has raised me up by filling the bottom of my jar with sawdust which she changes every week, when she makes my toilet. It is softer than the stone, but less hygenic. And I had got used to the stone. Now I'm getting used to sawdust. It's an occupa- tion. I could never bear to be idle, it saps one's energy. And I open and close my eyes, open and close, as in the past. And I move my head in and out, in and out, as heretofore. And often at dawn, having left it out all night, I bring it in, to mock the woman and lead her astray. For in the morning, when she has rattled up her shutters, the first look of her eyes still moist with fornication is for the jar. And when she does not see my head she comes running to find out what has happened. For either I have escaped during the night or else I have shrunk again. But just before she reaches me I up with it like a jack-in-the-box, the old eyes glaring up at her. I mentioned I cannot turn my head, and this is true, my neck having stiffened prematurely. But this does not mean it is always facing in the same direction. For with a kind of tossing and writhing I succeed in imparting to my trunk the degree of rotation required, and not merely in one direction, but in the other also. My little game, which I should have thought inoffensive, has cost me dear, and yet I could have sworn I was insolvable. It is true one does not know one's riches until they are lost and I prob- ably have others still that only await the thief to be brought to my notice. And today, if I can still open and close my eyes, as in the past, I can no longer, because of my roguish character, move my head in and out, as in the good old days. For a collar, fixed to the mouth of the jar, now encircles my neck, just below the chin. And my lips which used to be hidden, and which I sometimes pressed against the freshness of the stone, can now be seen by all and sundry. Did I say I catch flies? I snap them up, clack! Does this mean I still have my teeth? To have lost one's limbs and preserved one's dentition, what a mockery! But to revert now to the gloomy side of this affair, I may say that this collar, or ring, of cement, makes it very awkward for me to turn, in the way I have said. I take advantage of this to learn to stay quiet. To have forever before my eyes, when I open them, approximately the same set of hallu- cinations exactly, is a joy I might never have known, but for my cang. There is really only one thing that worries me, and that is the prospect of being throttled if I should ever happen to shorten further. Asphyxia! I who was always the respiratory type, witness this thorax still mine, together with the abdomen. I who murmured, each time I breathed in, Here comes more oxygen, and each time I breathed out, There go the impurities, the blood is bright red again. The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue! The tumefaction of the penis! The penis, well now, that's a nice sur- prise, I'd forgotten I had one. What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No, 'tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave ho, concentrating with all my might on a horse's rump, at the moment when the tail rises, who knows, I might not go altogether empty- handed away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter! Does this mean they did not geld me? I could have sworn they had gelt me. But perhaps I am getting mixed up with other scrota. Not another stir out of it in any case. I'll concentrate again. A Clydesdale. A Suffolk stallion. Come come, a little co-operation please, finish dying, it's the least you might do, after all the trouble they've taken to bring you to life. The worst is over. You've been sufficiently assassinated, sufficiently suicided, to be able now to stand on your own feet, like a big boy. That's what I keep telling myself. Which having done they hurry away. By ten o'clock in the evening all is silent, as the grave, as they say. Such is the fruit of my observa- tions accumulated over a long period of years and constantly sub- jected to a process of induction. Here all is killing and eating. This evening there is tripe. It's a winter dish, or a late autumn one. Soon Marguerite will come and light me up. She is late. Already more than one passer-by has flashed his lighter under my nose the better to decipher what I shall now describe, by way of elegant variation, as the bill of fare. Please God nothing has happened to my protec- tress. I shall not hear her coming, I shall not hear her steps, because of the snow. I spent all morning under my cover. When the first frosts come she makes me a nest of rags, well tucked in all round me, to preserve me from chills. It's snug. I wonder will she powder my skull this evening, with her great puff. It's her latest invention. She's always thinking of something new, to relieve me. If only the earth would quake! The shambles swallow me up! Through the railings, at the end of a vista between two blocks of buildings, the sky appears to me. A bar moves over and shuts it off, whenever I please. If I could raise my head I'd see it streaming into the main of the firmament. What is there to add, to these particulars? The evening is still young, I know that, don't let us go just yet, not yet say goodbye once more forever, to this heap of rubbish. What about trying to cogitate, while waiting for something intelligible to take place? Just this once. Almost immediately a thought presents itself, I should really concentrate more often. Quick let me record it before it vanishes. How is it the people do not notice me? I seem to exist for none but Madeleine. That a passer-by pressed for time, in headlong flight or hot pursuit, should have no eyes for me, that I can conceive. But the idlers come to hear the cattle's bellows of pain and who, time obviously heavy on their hands, pace up and down waiting for the slaughter to begin? The hungry compelled by the position of the menu, and whether they like it or not, to post themselves literally face to face with me, in the full blast of my breath? The children on their way to and from their play- grounds beyond the gates, all out for a bit of fun? It seems to me that even a human head, recently washed and with a few hairs on top, should be quite a popular curiosity in the position occupied by mine. Can it be out of discretion, and a reluctance to hurt, that they affect to be unaware of my existence? But this is a refinement of feeling which can hardly be attributed to the dogs that come pissing against my abode, apparently never doubting that it contains some flesh and bones. It follows therefore that I have no smell either. And yet if anyone should have a smell, it is I. How, under these conditions, can Mahood expect me to behave normally? The flies vouch for me, if you like, but how far? Would they not settle with equal appetite on a lump of cowshit? No, as long as this point is not cleared up to my satisfaction, or as long as I am not distinguished by some sense organs other than Madeleine's, it will be impossible for me to believe, sufficiently to pursue my act, the things that are told about me. I should further remark, with regard to this testimony which I consider indispensable, that I shall soon be in no fit condition to receive it, so greatly have my faculties declined, in recent times. It is obvious we have here a principle of change pregnant with possibilities. But say I succeed in dying, to adopt the most comfortable hypothesis, without having been able to believe I ever lived, I know to my cost it is not that they wish for me. For it has happened to me many times already, without their having granted me as much as a brief sickleave among the worms, before resurrecting me. But who knows, this time, what the future holds in store. That qua sentient and thinking being I should be going downhill fast is in any case an excellent thing. Perhaps some day some gentleman, chancing to pass my way with his sweetheart on his arm, at the precise moment when my last is favouring me with a final smack of the flight of time, will exclaim, loud enough for me to hear, Oh I say, this man is ailing, we must call an ambulance! Thus with a single stone, when all hope seemed lost, the two rare birds. I shall be dead, but I shall have lived. Unless one is to suppose him victim of a hallucination. Yes, to dis- pel all doubt his betrothed would need to say, You are right, my love, he looks as if he were going to throw up. Then I'd know for certain and giving up the ghost be born at last, to the sound per- haps of one of those hiccups which mar alas too often the solem- nity of the passing. When Mahood I once knew a doctor who held that scientifically speaking the latest breath could only issue from the fundament and this therefore, rather than the mouth, the orifice to which the family should present the mirror, before opening the will. However this may be, and without dwelling further on these macabre details, it is certain I was grievously mistaken in suppos- ing that death in itself could be regarded as evidence, or even a strong presumption, in support of a preliminary life. And I for my part have no longer the least desire to leave this world, in which they keep trying to foist me, without some kind of assurance that I was really there, such as a kick in the arse, for example, or a kiss, the nature of the attention is of little importance, provided I cannot be suspected of being its author.