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in the depths it’s the end you have ceased you slip you
     continue
    another age yet another familiar in spite of its strangenesses this sack this slime
     the mild air the black dark the coloured images the power to crawl all these strangenesses
    but progress properly so called ruins in prospect as in the dear tenth century the
     dear twentieth that you might say to yourself to a dream greenhorn ah if you had seen
     it four hundred years ago what upheavals
    ah my young friend this sack if you had seen it I could hardly drag it and now look
     my vertex touches the bottom
    and I not a wrinkle not one
    at the end of the myriads of hours an hour mine a quarter of an hour there are moments
     it’s because I have suffered must have suffered morally hoped more than once despaired
     to match your heart bleeds you lose your heart drop by drop weep even an odd tear
     inward no sound no more images no more journeys no more hunger or thirst the heart
     is going you’ll soon be there I hear it there are moments they are good moments
    paradise before the hoping from sleep I come to sleep return between the two there
     is all all the doing suffering failing bungling achieving until the mud yawns again
     that’s how they’re trying to tell me this time part one before Pim from one sleep
     to the next
    then Pim the lost tins the groping hand the arse the two cries mine mute the birth
     of hope on with it get it over have it behind me feel the heart going hear it said
     you’re nearly there
    be with Pim have been with Pim have him behind me hear it said he’ll come back another
     will come better than Pim he’s coming right leg right arm push pull ten yards fifteen
     yards you stay quiet where you are in the dark the mud and on you suddenly a hand
     like yours on Pim two cries his mute
    you will have a little voice it will be barely audible you will whisper in his ear
     you will have a little life you will whisper it in his ear it will be different quite
     different quite a different music you’ll see a little like Pim a little life music
     but in your mouth it will be new to you
    then go for good and no goodbyes that age will be over all the ages or merely you
     no more journeys no more couples no more abandons ever again anywhere hear that
    how it was before Pim first say that natural order the same things the same things
     say them as I hear them murmur them to the mud divide into three a single eternity
     for the sake of clarity I wake and off I go all life part one before Pim how it was
     leaving only with Pim how it was leaving only after Pim how it was how it is when
     the panting stops bits and scraps I wake off I go my day my life part one bits and
     scraps
    asleep I see me asleep on my side or on my face it’s one or the other on my side it’s
     preferable which side the right it’s preferable the sack under my head or clasped to my belly clasped to my belly the knees drawn
     up the back bent in a hoop the tiny head near the knees curled round the sack Belacqua
     fallen over on his side tired of waiting forgotten of the hearts where grace abides
     asleep
    I know not what insect wound round its treasure I come back with empty hands to me
     to my place what to begin with ask myself that last a moment with that
    what to begin my long day my life present formulation last a moment with that coiled
     round my treasure listening my God to have to murmur that
    twenty years a hundred years not a sound and I listen not a gleam and I strain my
     eyes four hundred times my only season I clasp the sack closer to me a tin clinks
     first respite very first from the silence of this black sap
    something wrong there
    the mud never cold never dry it doesn’t dry on me the air laden with warm vapour of
     water or some other liquid I sniff the air smell nothing a hundred years not a smell
     I sniff the air
    nothing dries I clutch the sack first real sign of life it drips a tin clinks my hair
     never dry no electricity impossible fluff it up I