June 7. I counted the five together and there was one page more.
At half past nine I took out sub-number five.
The unregistered bundle of paper. A hundred and seventy-seven pages, with no cord binding it.
There is something in it unlike the four. The four were a register, a field book, a table and a register of messages, and they had boxes.
This has no boxes. Some pages carry a date and some do not.
There is no field for the person entering. The name is written once at the top of the third page.
Kim Dogyeong.
From ten to twelve I copied the remaining twenty-two pages.
With no boxes there is nothing to write twice and match. I wrote each twice all the same.
I did that for twelve days.
Half of what I copied is figures. Rates, balances, gradings. Beside each there is a date, and some of the dates run ahead.
Half is sentences. They are short and few of them go to the end.
On the last page there is a line. It says: to be copied out.
At ten past twelve I counted the pages of original and copy.
A hundred and seventy-seven, and a hundred and seventy-seven.
The same.
The four before all diverged. A row was gained, a value grew, an empty box was filled, a date moved.
The fifth did not diverge.
At half past twelve I opened the last page of all five.
Under the last page of the four, ten characters are stamped. In April I entered them in the relation field.
Under the last page of the fifth there is only an outline. No ink, no character formed.
The relation field reads: items bearing the identical stamped phrase. One of the five does not bear that phrase.
I knew it in April and entered it so. The procedure gives no definition of stamping, so I counted the impression as a stamping. That the phrase was absent I did not enter then.
The combining was processed on April the twentieth. An impression without a phrase stands as one set with four that have one.
At one o'clock I took out the application for combining again.
The total page field reads eight hundred and sixty-five. I entered it in April.
I laid the five transcripts on the desk in order of sub-number and counted from the beginning.
At twenty to two I had finished. Eight hundred and sixty-six.
I counted twice more. Eight hundred and sixty-six both times.
At two I looked for where the one page had been gained.
Sub-number one is a hundred and thirty. Sub-number two, two hundred and six. Sub-number three, a hundred and ninety-eight. Sub-number four, a hundred and fifty-four.
The four together are six hundred and eighty-eight.
Sub-number five is a hundred and seventy-eight.
In the morning I counted a hundred and seventy-seven. At ten past twelve it was a hundred and seventy-seven as well.
At half past two I found the page that had been gained.
On all of the hundred and seventy-seven I had written a number at the top right.
One page has no number.
It is the eleventh from the back.
At three I looked at that page.
It is almost empty. In the middle there are five characters.
Did not respond.
At ten past three I looked at the hand.
It is not my hand.
My hand is the hand of someone who writes a thing twice and matches it. The strokes break and are drawn again.
These five characters are drawn in one motion.
Whether it is the same as Kim Dogyeong's hand cannot be told. The right-hand material is a screen and this is paper.
At half past three I took out the transcript of sub-number four.
I looked at the substance box of the nineteenth item.
Twenty days ago it was empty.
It is empty now.
The telegraph operator wrote those five characters on page a hundred and forty-two. There is a place in his register for writing them.
I copied it out, so it is in my copy.
That place is empty and those five characters are in another bundle.
From four to twenty past four I wrote the five out against each other.
The librarian's gained a row. The surveyor's grew in value. The lighthouse keeper's had an empty box filled. The telegraph operator's had a date move.
The fifth gained a page.
A row is inside a box and a value is inside a box. An empty box is a box and a date is a box.
A page is what holds boxes.
One level up.
At half past four I opened the right-hand material.
Three hundred and seventy-six pages. The date on the page gained is the sixth of July of ninety-eight.
My log is also on its three hundred and seventy-sixth page today.
The list of persons entering has four rows. This office, unknown, Kim Dogyeong, and one set.
At ten to five I opened the box.
Seven. Six impressions. The hundred and fourth day.
The case last July took a hundred and seven days. Three days remain.
At five I looked at the sixth box.
A thousand one hundred and sixty-three.
At ten past five I ran off the query record. The set's row was opened three times yesterday. Eight Latin characters.
At twenty past five I looked at what to do with the total page field.
The procedure says the total page figure is the measured figure.
The measured figure is eight hundred and sixty-six.
The page counts by sub-number add to eight hundred and sixty-five.
Which of the two is to be entered when they differ is not in the procedure.
There was one margin entry in May, three in March and four in April.
I entered this one in the margin too. The number of times a margin stands in for a box in this room rises by the month.
At twenty-five to six I wrote the ten-line summary of sub-number five.
There is no procedure for reducing a thing without boxes to ten lines. For the four it was enough to write the names of the heads.
I wrote that it is a hundred and seventy-seven pages and that half is figures and half sentences. I wrote that the persons entering number one.
I did not put the unnumbered page in the summary. There is no head under which to put it.
At twenty to six I took out the unnumbered page again.
If I write a number on it, it becomes the hundred and seventy-eighth page. Sub-number five becomes a hundred and seventy-eight pages and the total becomes eight hundred and sixty-six. It agrees with the measure.
If I do not, it is one page counted and one page uncounted.
I picked up the pencil.
The top right is empty.
The hand that wrote those five characters did not write a number.
I put the pencil down.