I1

4th Aug.

In the organic continuity of family life one is under the earth caught among bare roots of imperceptible plants whose flowers lean out smiling toward the solar stimulation of a heterogeneous society.

II2

4th August

Women particularly — lose their lovely faces in private — so much so that it is only in the occasional hazard of a party one may gauge the effect of creatures, one has actually in some remote biological process, given birth to.

III3

August IV

Alda who, in a crowd, caused me to blink as at the too near approach of a brilliant star—

IV4

August IV

totally extinguished on her filial visits. Her face almost blotched with a fundamental erosion my essence produced in her—developed a kind of set jowl. As she sat down before me she would clutch that soft white fist. I watched it grow rosy as it squeezed out the inadvertible tide of my futility.

“Aaron” she announced “doesn’t see why he should give you that hundred dollars”— and with that hienous crow I seemed to call up from the depths of so many of my intimates—

“Your book!” she sneered its an excuse__to get money out of us!”

V5

August IVth

You’re no good—never have been any good—” This blank truth struck me with the finality of unconsciousness. It was from very far away in time & space I heard her aggravation hollow out a course for my second childhood.

“You wanted the business— we gave you the business— You wanted an apartment—we gave you the apartment and you sell it for nothing & come over here!”

“But Aaron told me to sell it at that price— — - ”

VI6

Aug. IV

I expostulated.

“Pooh — he was drunk” Alda retorted in a streak of decision.

It is the reverse of enlightenment to see oneself ‘in reality’. Of the image & likeness that forms our inexpressible Being—in the metamorphosis of passing through other brains—all that appears to our companions is a chimney sweep.

VII7

Aug. 4th

As she drew to a close, taunting me with my “painting _ _ _ that idleness where other artists prepared a whole exhibition in two months"; Fact dilated for me. Alda’s recriminations were identical with mine of myself. Incipient in my mother’s womb their transcription effacing time in me they now reverberated from the lipsticked mouth of child I loved.

VII A.8

Aug. 4th

My year of psychic discipline of those recriminations had gone for naught. Returned, they dragged my frightened ears even in the direction of the grave.

VIII9

Aug. 4th

“I can proove it” _ _ _ _ Alda was babbling her way to the door “with your awful belly-aching letters _ _ _ proove it to anybody. I’ve kept them all.”

IX10

4th Aug.

Soon my breath grew regular again. “Now tell me” I asked Sofia who had been present—“am I a disgruntled old nitwit who imagines monstrous things being said to her _ _ or did you hear what I heard?”

“I heard” Sofia answered “You imagined nothing — then with a flat neutrality— she intended to be cruel __ _ _ _ _ So what?

Do you think its exceptional that a daughter should hate her mother—”

X11

4th Aug.

Sofia after that prolonged séance with her make-up which condenses woman’s life returned in her hat & coat.

—- - “Shant be back this evening”

“Then would you buy me a sandwich there’s nothing to eat”

“No time — she objected —

Bewildered, I reminded her she had asked to housekeep for me—

XI12

4th Aug.

I have no intention of doing so—you’re beastly nuisance

But Sofia – I don’t understand

You begged me to come—

I had to have you here—to be able to get off on you all I dared not 'get off' on Alda __ _ Im scared of her” she smiled engagingly.

XII13

4th Aug.

I also smiled as she left me alone. Intellectually it was refreshing, this ability of hers to express unabashed exactly what she felt with an honesty unveiling the ego. Ignoring distinctions between thee & me—she was with

XIII14

Aug. 4th.

precise calculation equally unbiased about the (rare) unpleasant or unfair reports of her made by other people.

XIV15

Aug 4th

Nevertheless my pain, itself behaving like an insupportable hunger became grotesque when coupled with normal appetite, whereas, should I venture outside the cold would cleave it with a super-phenomenal blade.

XV16

Aug. 4th

I ate a pat of butter & some dry corn-flakes left in the kitchen, then sickeningly relapsed to the depths of the divan. The pain stood out sharply as if in spite of the dim amber lamps it cast the impenetrable shadow of the gloomy sitting room.

XVI17

August 4th

I had lain there for a long while alternating that half hearted squirm one opposes to agony & that unwilling patience imposed by agony, when, all at once the compact silence became curiously

volatile. Drawn from my couch I rose erect walking, so far did my head turn sideways, rather like a crab. As if again I must ‘take stock’ of someone as I went my way.

XVII18

Aug 4th

There was no mistaking this ecclesiastic ‘current’. Here was my drug addict; divested of those shreds of flesh, easily as an aria relayed across the Atlantic a recognisable ‘invisibility’ come to visit me.

XVIII19

Aug 4th

As an automaton I returned his salute, with the same ecstatic, friendly yet clerical benediction whose significance I realised, as I inclined in that direction, to be our mutual forgiveness. For his dope-ring duplicity? My written account of him?

XIX20

Aug 6th

His ‘presence’, conveying a solemn hilarity declared in my brain “Ess ist doch nicht schlimm genüg __ _ _ Nothing they can do to you is bad enough _ _ _ _ your a revenge on your unfair advantage __ _ _ they cannot see what we see”

And the pain lay dead among the shadows.

XX21

Aug. 6th

This reminder of the strange attributes of the drug fiend renewed my curiosity as to the major factor in the human make up.

Mans dynamism.

According to my experience in Geneva the force that drives us is of incalculable voltage conducted by the spinal column in the manner of a lightening rod.

XXI22

Aug 6th

If, as I suspect, we have our existence in an intelligential ether this force [flux] of life conveys to us not only our animation but also our intellectual concepts.

[…]

[MISSING: XXIA]23

XXII24

Aug. 6th

There are two modes in meditation one in which the intellect functions with supernormal rapidity; one in which eased of even the normal staccato it slows down to the tempo of a prevalent wisdom at peace.

[…]

[MISSING XXIII]25

XXIV26

Now I was engaged with a kind of surrealist man. Constructing, demolishing him kaleidoscopically, hoping to demonstrate how he ‘worked’.

Made of that Shadow, beside me in Geneva, whose universe re emerged as the omniprevalent ray struck him. What I seemed to be so intent on discovering was the nature of the

XXV27

fusion of that Ray with himself.

An Island in the air sustained by unseen attributes, this man derived his form from the symmetric? evidence of the one half of the man being a replica of the other half. Attached to his blind back his antedeluvian tail anchored him in the past.

XXVI28

Nuzzling the future the features of more sharp-scented animals have dwindled to incomparable beauty in his face of pinkish pulp.

Behind this fragile front lies a delicate radio-raceiver of cosmic urges which canalised, intricated, misconstrued by his brain, compose the rhythm of his individuality.

XXVII29

Aug ?

Become clair-voyable, whereas his body displays a crimson circulation another half-extraneous phosphorescent circulation, some vortex in the intelligential ether spins through his head; as though he hung from the cosmic consciousness by a ring of light.

12 Aug

XXVIII30

Taking on another aspect, emitting electric waves, he broadcast his thoughts which were returned to him conditioned by their effectiveness; ideas, operative as hands, shaping events.

XXVIII A31

While as directed by remote control above him in an ‘atmosphere’ enveloping his brain shone the magnetic beam that guided him — the soul.

XXIX32

Aug 12.

I saw him submitted to opposite gravities terrestial & celestial, pulling him downward & upward. When these were equal he was in equilibrium. When he responded only to the terrestial his body became heavy like lead; when more rarely, to the celestial, his spirit lightening, he diminished in weight.

[...]

[XXX- MISSING]33

XXXI34

Aug 12th.

So Manifold are the workings of the life-force_ _ so vast its resource_ _ _ Again [__] man appeared to me in the phenomenal world with his head at the same time in the eternally revealing cosmic consciousness.

In this consciousness lay strata of various inspirations__ _ _ somewhere among them a strata of absolute felicity to which the majority of minds vaguely aspire. The clerical locate this Felicity in a region, the lay-man in a reaction, in this surrealist man the reaction derives from that region.

XXXII35

Aug 12.

Out of his head arose an ethereal dumb-waiter, stopped at the desired strata & having taken on the provision required descended to the intellectual laboratory __ __ __ __ __

Aug 15th

The elevator falls apart leaving antennal strands feeling their way into the stratal (?) continuum. Up there where he is aware of the penetration of his mind by an extra-luminous radience.

XXXIII36

Aug 15.

A cosmic obviousness everywhere defined escapes him completely, intangible as God.

The destructible robot, soft machine, senses a mystery, & as if attempting to locate the ‘genius’ revealed in a work of art through the analysis of the chemical properties of paint digs ever more deeply into his island Base in search of the origin of his impeti _ _ _

For a moment he imprisons the omniprevalent ‘leaning’ towards intercommunication in a gland_ _the last _ least co-operater becomes the initiator (?)

XXXIV37

Aug 15.

But when I watch this Sur-realist Being for long, I see him turn from his unfolding of concentrated distance; dropping his microscope in favour of an opposite lens which, contracting diffused distance, brings the unprecedented patterns of that cosmic obviousness he faces, within his view.____________

The surrealist man is very short, awakened by desire—eclipsed by ennuie.

XXXV38

Aug 16th

The surrealist man is very long stretching like a live wire from 1938 as far into the future & through equally numerous stages of evolution as he reaches into the past. His beginning is a speck of transparency, impinged upon by the sun. His ultimate presence would have been virtually invisible to a twentieth-century eye.

His way is strewn with stone implements, embedded bones; & machinery he discarded as superannuated models of functions he slowly develops within himself. Transport telepathy radio & television together with surprising future facilities are effected by ‘centres’ in his cerebellum controlling the various potentials of the life-ray. The religious symbols of the precocious visionary in his early days, translated, become the ‘scientific’

___________________________________________________________________________

XXXVI39

Aug 16th

commonplace of his further condition.

Even as of old angels grew wings & emitted haloes, he is buoyant in defiance of atmospheric pressure, his brain gives off a radium glow become apparent. He has Xray eyes.

XXXVII40

Aug 16.

Arduous is his transformation. While experimenting upon the regulation of his electo-atomic vellocities & resistances he must pass the danger point at which he takes the risk of the power that holds him together dynamiting him with his own force.

XXXVIII41

Aug 16.

Of this danger, as of every phase he passes through, he stages repeated rehearsals with his heavy mechanical toys.

Playing the role of a bombastic cell in an agregate organism blasting surrounding cells to make room for his own inflation; his mind still bound by numeric (al?) restriction & geometric space waivers an infinite accommodation he imposes upon

XXXIX42

Aug 16.

himself a human menace — from without.

In an amazing 'dédoublement' he confronts himself with an ‘Enemy’. Avid aggressor whose terrifying eyes are the eyes of an incontactable alien.

During the ensuing horror any observer at large may witness a conjurous displacement: viewed from the opposite side the assailed becomes the assailant.

He is blowing up his simulacrum.

4043

Aug. 17th

“Mamma! I cant set the curls at the back of my neck.”

In lightening metamorphoses the clock work of the surrealist man runs down.

At once an atom indistinguishable among a frontierless agglomeration and a tower of Babel built of all mankind _ _ _ he fades _ _ _ in ephemeral undulations to the etheric contour like a frame for training a fancy box-tree his substance clings to

Now only the search light shafts of his future eyes __ __ __ __

Aug 17th44

For years I had been submitted to the tedium of the imaginative living among races conceiving no final outlet for their dynamism but destruction; Forced to inertia by the rush of intellect in the wrong direction, until the casual accident of chance threw me a dope-fiend — guinea-pig for experiment — in research on the spirit.

Aug 2345

In the make up of normal man his good & evil are proportionately mixed. The outstanding characteristic of the drug addict is their separation; their awful alternation.

We hear that a drug in impairing nerve tissue produces a vicious exaltation & our curiosity is no further intrigued.

Nevertheless I had come upon a creature of my own species intermittently enveloped in an aura identical with the atmosphere of some cathedrals in which one catches an actual detonation of a sanctity amassed through the ages.

23 Aug46

Sophia, rising [___] from the incredible chaos she produced in the tiny bath room, her arms white snakes 'before the fall', was weaving in the air the rhythm of her toilet.

Under my fingers the clammy tendrils clinging to her neck sizzled in the curling tongs. Her curses of procrastination crackled about my head while through the slab-like snow of her luminous back that faint electric ‘comfort of life’ conveyed her intrinsic aloofness of honnied marble.

The silk as if pleased to find no intervening fabric slipped on the bare severity of her body.

I ‘do her up’.

Five strass discs confined to the acute concavity of her waist, crests of soft rocks, the pyramidal folds of a taffeta the colour of dim coal.

“Why the hell must you go and marry a great cow of a man?

I’m huge!” She exploded

The glitter of a girl prepared for a

23. Aug.47

party drew the depths of her eyes to the surface. A tinge of azure underlying the shadows & roses of her skin unfolded in the beauty of her face an ineffable magnolia.

With the deep velvet of her cloak she doused the unbroken harmonies of a figure she could not ‘see’. Her radiance flared in the slam of a door leaving a scattered ash of toilet articles & undercloths.

I picked them up with the successive effort of manual acts performed while the brain is tracing a dissimilar diagram __ _ _ _

23rd48

until as in the confusion of uneasy dreams I must identify that Beam controlling a surrealist man with the high-light on a fallen curler _ _ the scintilla assuming an intermediary significance__the phosphorescent drug-addict, like a guinea-pig for experiment, flickers within range of my speculations. It is, in as far as I am aware, no particularly cleanly matter from which radium is extracted.

*

End of Book

Visitation of Insel

*

1 [organic continuity] was [privacy] (ST).[flowers] was [plant] (ST).[toward] was [towards] (s diagonally crossed out).[the solar] was [a solar] (OW).The [a] preceding [heterogenoeus] appears to be a later addition.(V): The verso of this fragment contains various reworkings of this passage and a separate, unnumbered and undated fragment from Folder 39 evidences a variant of this botanical metaphor. 2 [lose] was [shed] (ST).[private] was [their privacy] ([their] ST; [privacy] OW). [gauge] may read [guage]; the spelling here is indistinct.[effect] was [quality].3 We can presume that Alda represents the elder of Loy’s daughters, Joella Bayer (then Levy).The last letter of [star] extends into a long m-dash.4 [essence] was [exstance], presumably denoting [existence] which Loy, in XXI of this passage, spells as [existance].The Francophonic neologism [inadvertible] is the most probable designation of an indistinct adjective inserted within a bubble extending from between [the] and [tide].[futility] appears to have been [mysterious iniquity] (ST), with [futility] inserted in a bubble, and [mysterious] a later addition. Aaron, as in the main text, denotes the gallerist Julien Levy; Loy’s son-in-law and the husband of Alda [Joella].[so many of] is a later addition, inserted overhead.[sneered] was [cried sarcastically] (ST).[its] has been struck through and then rewritten; it has no apostrophe in either case.5 A single stray [“] before [It was from very far away] has been omitted—ed. Presumably this punctuation was intended to pertain to another sentence initiated by the scribbled out letter which originally followed.Loy's arguably Francophonic archaic rendering [agravation] (sic) has been emended to [aggravation]—ed.[hollow out] was [hollowing]; [ing] has been (ST) and [out] is a later addition.[a course] was [the course] (ST).[for my] was [of my] (ST).A series of three dashes of diminishing length, and contained within the quotation marks, concludes this sentence.6 [decision] was [dicision] (sic) (OW)A stray [“] between [the] and [image] has been omitted—ed.A stray [.] between [brains] and the em dash that follows has been omitted—ed. This fragment lacks any closing punctuation. However, as the last line runs at a slope almost to the edge of the page, it may have been cut off. A full stop has been introduced after [chimney sweep]—ed.(V): The verso of [XIV] is identically numbered and dated and bears another version of this passage.7 It appears that Loy started dating this page [Aug. 5th] but broke off before completing the ordinal abbreviation and corrected the date to [Aug. 4th]. The upper right margin of this page bears the note [See VIIA.], added in a darker ink.This fragment originally bore a number of further quotation marks which were later struck through. An extraneous full stop directly preceding the semicolon has been omitted—ed.[for me] was [in me].[time in] was [time for].Although the [d] of [loved] appears to extend and end in a period, the illegible upper portion of a subsequent word which has been cut off by the bottom edge of the fragment suggests that a further word or phrase may originally have followed the last line. 8 No notes9 The upper right margin bears the direction [after VII A].Two instances of the misspelling [proove] have been preserved for the onomatopoeic sneering quality they impart.

Loy’s unnecessary capitalization of [babbling] has been emended—ed. 10 [Soon] was [When].Another, now illegible, word was multiply stuck through and replaced with [Now].We can presume that the figure of Sofia (Sophia) represents Loy's younger daughter, with Arthur Cravan, Fabienne (Fabi) Lloyd. Loy elsewhere uses both variants of this name as a pseudonym for her autobiographical selves. [intended] is doubly underlined for emphasis.Loy's misspelling of [cruel] as [crul] has been emended—ed.[Do You think its exceptional that a daughter] appears to have been written originally as [You dont (sic) think its anything exceptional do you]. The capitalization of [You] which remains from this original formulation has accordingly been emended to lower-case—ed. 11 The misspelling of séance as [sceance] has been emended—ed. [Shant] (sic) is reproduced as it appears, without apostrophe.Sofia's glib ["No time] is bereft of closing quotation marks.12 The application of punctuation is especially haphazard throughout this fragment.The fact that the ['re] of [You're] appears to be a later addition to the word explains the absence of the indefinite article in [you're beastly nuisance].Double quotation marks around [get off] occurring here within direct speech have been emended to single—ed.[Im] is reproduced as it appears, without apostrophe.[she smiled engagingly.] was [she smiled engagingly, and left me alone.] (ST)(V): The verso of Fragment XXI bears a variant of this passage.13 Loy's mid-sentence capitalization of [This] has been emended to lower-case—ed. Although the page has been cut beneath this sentence, remnants of the uppermost stems of the letters that were there suggest that the subsequent sentence matches the first line of fragment XIII. 14 An extraneous comma preceding [(rare)] has been omitted—ed. 15 [Nevertheless my pain, itself] was [The pain itself].(V): The verso of Fragment XIV bears another version of the passage from Fragment VI.16 (V): An undated and unnumbered earlier draft of this fragment takes up the verso of [XV]. It demonstrates Loy's attempts, in vain, to clarify this syntactically problematic passage. 17 No notes.18 [this ecclesiastic] was [that ecclesiastic].[addict] was [fiend].19 No notes.20 “Ess (sic) ist doch nicht schlimm genüg: It's just not bad enough. The clause [your in revenge on your unfair advantage] originally read only [your unfair advantage]; this presumably explains the substitution of [your](sic) for [you're].[a revenge] is unclear and may alternatively read [in revenge].A pencilled line transverses the fragment to connect the end of [see] with the beginning of the next line commencing [And the pain].This last sentence and the direction [See XIX a] are written in the same pencil in which the authorial emendations to this fragment were made. It is not clear whether this addendum to XIX itself constitutes XIX a. I surmise that this single sentence piece was transcribed from a separate Fragment XIXa and incorporated into XIX and that nothing is now missing from this sequence. 21 Midway down this page, to the right of [Mans dynamism], Loy has drawn a large [X] and written (again in pencil) what looks like [Insert— Onus—].(V): The verso of this fragment bears the single phrase: [Imagine a man like a radio-receiver—].22 The upper right margin of this page bears the direction [see XXI A]; unfortunately, I have not been able to locate this fragment.[flux] is written over [force].

[but also our intellectual concepts] was [but also the nuclei of our intellectual concepts] (ST).(V): The verso of Fragment XXI, bears another draft of Fragment XI.23 Fragment XXIA, alluded to in a note on XXI, is missing.24 [prevalent] was [prevelant] (sic) (OW)(V): The verso of Fragment XXII bears the date 'Aug 6th' below a short passage referring to Life as 'the tapping of universal force' and alluding to a fire which 'supplies together with our animation the inspiration of our intellectual concepts'.25 Fragment XXIII is missing.26 [engaged] was [busy] — emended in pencil. [Made of that] was [Once he was] (ST)[Shadow] was [shadow] (OW)An apparently stray vertical line between [re] and [emerged] has been omitted—ed. [so intent on discovering] was [anxious to discover] (ST and emended in pencil)[nature] was [mechanism].(V): Fragment XXIV is undated. Its verso (also numbered XXIV) is, however, dated Aug 5th. Similarly to the verso of Fragment 43, it alludes to the pursuit of 'supreme happiness' and includes the claim that 'Man has within him the capacity to become his own telephone his own television set, his own flying apparatus'.27 Fragment XXV is undated.It is unclear as to whether or not Loy intended to leave a period after [himself], as she later deleted the rest of the sentence. I have presumed to reproduce/insert one here. The remainder of the original sentence has been enclosed in a roughly drawn form and multiply struck through and crossed out. It appears to have read: [discover also the reason why a cosmic obviousness being everywhere defined should escape him completely, intangible as God]. [this man] was [this surrealist man] (ST).[his] where it precedes [form] appears to be a later addition.The second [m] in [symmetric] and the question mark which follows it (marked with an x) appear to be later additions. This second iteration of [half] appears to be a later addition, and has been added in another, darker, ink. 28 [seemed to] (ST) originally preceded [have dwindled]. [lies] was [is] (ST).Much of this sentence has been struck through and rephrased. It appears originally to have read: [Behind this fragile front a delicate radio-receiver transmitted cosmic urges which when amplified, intricated, misconstrued by his brain, designed(ed) the pattern of his individuality].(V): Fragment XXVI is undated. Its verso again alludes to 'this surrealist man' as an 'Island in the air' and refers to the 'fusion of that Ray with himself'.29 Given that [Aug ?] does not appear to be a later addition, this ambiguity is curious.[as though he were hanging from his cosmic consciousness by a ring of light] (ST) originally preceded [some vortex](V): The verso of Fragment XXVII displays a variant of its recto, most of which has been struck through.30 A note added at the end of this fragment reads: [see XXVIII A].[effectiveness] looks to have been spelled [effictiveness].31 A number of alternative syntactic arrangements of this sentence have been attempted and struck through. Although the sequence of their composition and intended arrangement has been rendered unclear by repeated crossings-out and disordered placement, these appear to be: [While as if he were an aeroplane directed by remote control] and [As in the direction of an aeroplane from a distance]. The phrase [remote control] is also repeated. (V): The verso of Fragment XXVIIIA reads: [Having reached this stage the surrealist discovers the potentialities of Being alive].32 Most of the punctuation in this fragment appears to have been added later, in the same darker ink with which the initial letters of [downward] have been corrected and clarified. This piece also bears Loy's word-count (49).Although [terrestial] probably represents a misspelling of [terrestrial], it may have been intentionally deployed to chime with [celestial] and has therefore been retained in its original form.As [equilibrium] has been set at a squashed slant so as not overrun the right margin, it seems reasonable to presume that a period may have been intended to follow it. For that reason, I have inserted one here —ed.

[deminished] (sic) has been emended to [diminished] —ed.33 Fragment XXX is missing.34 This fragment also bears Loy's word-count (80).At least two potential variants of this line have been attempted and later struck through here, leaving the extant sentence incomplete. The discarded alternatives appear to be: [Again I saw this man with his body in the phenomenal world, his head in the eternally revealing cosmic consciousness]; [Again the surrealist man appeared to me in the phenomenal world with his head at the same time in the eternally revealing cosmic consciousness]. We can presume that either [this] or [the surrealist] was intended to precede [man][somewhere] is a later addition. Though the word remains indistinct, [inspirations] appears to replace [aspirations].[absolute felicity] has been twice underlined. The noun is elsewhere capitalized. [vaguely] is a later addition.[fusing] (ST) originally preceded [in this surrealist man]. [derives] was [emenates] (sic) (OW).35 The passage headed [Aug 15th] is written in darker ink and appears to be a later addition.[Even] had been inserted before [Up there] but later struck through.[Up there where he is aware of the penetration of his mind] previously read: [Up there where all he is aware of is the penetration of his mind].The unnecessary capitalization of [By] has been amended to [by] —ed.Loy has added an alternative [(al?)] ending below [extra-luminous]. In addition to this parenthetical interrogative, the margin to the left of this line also bears a small [x], presumably an editorial direction to decide which form of the word should be maintained. These [x]s recur in the margins of various passages containing such ambiguities.Loy's characteristic misspelling of [radiance] as [radience] (sic) has been retained. (V): The verso of this fragment alludes to the broadcasting of thoughts as an emission of electric waves and refers to 'Ideas operative as hands shaping his destiny'. Allusions to 'an aeroplane directed from a distance' also connect it to both recto and verso of Fragment XXVIII A.36 [difined] (sic) has been emended to read [defined] —ed.Loy's misspelling of [co-operator] as [co-operater] (sic) has been retained. In addition to this parenthetical interrogative, the left margin of the last line of this fragment also bears a small [x] — again, presumably another direction to the author-editor to verify this word. (V): The verso of Fragment XXXIII, dated Aug 12th, and numbered [XXIX] echoes Fragment XXIX's allusion to 'opposite gravities' and includes a vertically arranged list of numbers, summed to 208. 37 Loy's misspelling of [ennui] as [ennuie] has been retained.

Squashed into the end of the page and written in a darker ink, the last line appears to be a later addition. (V): Dated Aug 15, the verso of this fragment echoes (and is also marked) Fragment XXIV.38 The apparent rendering of [beginning] as [begining] has been emended —ed.[stone] was [iron] (ST).[embedded bones] is a later addition.[slowly] was [gradually].[together with surprising future facilities] is a later addition, inserted in a darker ink and connected via a small symbol beneath the line which marks the end of the fragment proper. A prior version of this insertion [with other (word unclear) unexpected facilities] had been added above the line, and then struck through.[Brain?] is posited as a possible alternative here, written above [cerebellum] and marked with an [x] in the right margin. [(alities)?] is posited as a possible alternative here, written after [potentials] and marked with an [x] in the right margin. 39 No notes.

40 The upper right margin of this fragment [XXXVII] bears a large, exuberantly scrawled and underlined note: [OK Explosion] and the lower left margin also bears a double vertical line alongside the portion from [point] to [force].41 The adjectival ending [(al?)] is posited after [numeric]; again this variant is marked with a small [x] in the left margin.[waivers an infinite accommodation] has been inserted at the end of the fragment in what appears to be red crayon. [waivers] is itself somewhat unclear. The beginning of another phrase [he overlooks an] has been similarly inserted but later struck through. (V): The verso of this fragment reads: [Of this danger as of all his phases through].42 The double inverted commas around [dédoublement] have been replaced with single —ed.[assailant] was [assailed] (ST).43 At this point, the numbering system switches from roman to cardinal numerals, and thereafter, is suspended.The first line ends in a muddle of dots and indeterminate markings, of which I have reproduced only the full stop and inverted commas.[metamorposes] (sic) has been emended to [metamorphoses] —ed.The collocation of an insertion bubble and a struck through instance of [to which] makes the syntax of this sentence rather unclear. The simile may have been intended to follow [his contour clings to].Directly preceding the final pencilled-in sentence, a prior variant of the same line has been written in ink and struck through. It read: [Now only his future eyes — endless search-lights penetratating the dark of Infinity __ __ __ __ __].(V): The verso of this fragment bears two attempts at drafting the opening to an undated letter which is addressed to Julien Levy and crossed out with a single vertical line. 44 As this is the only unnumbered piece dated August 17th, I have presumed that it belongs here. The fragments that follow are unnumbered; the sequence proposed appears to me the most logical. Loy's capitalization of [Forced] has been retained.45 [We hear] was [We take for granted] (ST). An [x] has also been added to the right of the phrase. Although another indecipherable word appears to stand between [We] and [hear] in the corrected version, it seems most likely that the verb has simply been rewritten, in an attempt to clarify the faint correction. A wordcount (84) is noted at the end of the fragment. (V): The verso of this fragment, refers to rape and piety as two means by which man apires to 'supernal happines' but declares that adherents to either method envy the ease with which the 'drug addict....through the mere absorbtion of a vegetable substance' can achieve that 'ideal condition' of felicity.46 A wordcount (151) is noted at the end of the fragment.The word between [rising] and [from] is indecipherable, owing in part to the fact that this fragment has been written entirely in pencil.[severity] is indistinct and may alternatively read [sereinty] (sic).The sentence beginning [The silk] is a later addition, inserted in a bubble extending from the right margin.strass discs: ornaments formed of a lustrous paste commonly used in the manufacture of artificial gemstones; the term derives from the name of the inventor of the compound, Josef Strasser.Fabienne's father, Arthur Cravan, was a heavyweight boxer and stood at over six foot tall. 47 Loy's wordcount (87) is noted at the end of the fragment. Two alternate openings to this sentence— [Flinging] and [She flung] —have been struck through. [she doused] is a later addition, replacing [over], which presumably derives from the original phrasing (see previous note).[her radience flared] was [the radient (sic) presence extinguished].It is unclear as to whether Loy intended to include a full stop after [undercloths]; I have presumed to insert one here —ed. (V): The verso bears four variants of the same sentence, the third and longest of which reads: [I fastened her into her black dress where a row of strass stars confined the pyramidal folds of the taffeta like stiff taffeta soft rocks to the acute concavity of her waist].48 Loy's word-count (65) is noted at the end of this passage. [as] is a later addition, inserted above the line.

(V): Another unnumbered and undated stray fragment from Folder 39 bears a variant of this passage, referring also to 'some inner force become apprehensible in Insel through a narcotic liberation' and including the parenthetical observation that 'in as far as I know it is no cleanly matter from which radium is extracted'. Here, however, this realization is framed as having 'struck [the narrator] as humerous' (sic).