The last day of the eleventh month. I wrote the ten characters in my own hand.
At ten past nine I opened page eight hundred and eighty-seven of the eighth article.
It is blank.
It has stood blank ten days.
At half past nine I counted the pages.
The one on my desk is nine hundred and seventeen pages.
The one in the box is eight hundred and eighty-six.
The difference is thirty-one.
Ten days ago it was twenty-one.
At twenty to ten I looked at the side that does not grow.
It is the side in the box.
Only the side that has a hand writing in it grows.
At ten to ten I opened the holding library's reply.
Cumulative readings of the copy sent out stand at nineteen.
Ten days ago they stood at eleven.
This room's reading path stands at thirty-eight.
Both figures rise and there is no field that adds them.
At ten I read the procedure for transcription.
The eighth field belongs to the form for material with a serial.
The eighth article has no serial.
At twenty past ten I looked for a precedent.
On 16 December last year an eighth field was ruled on an unnumbered page.
The one before me ruled it.
At half past ten I looked for what transcription is.
It is the copying by hand of a master whose strokes are complete.
Collation after the copying is a requirement.
If they diverge, the diverging side is entered as the copy.
If they do not diverge, there is nothing to enter.
At twenty to eleven I looked for whether it may be ruled.
It is entered nowhere.
There is only the precedent.
At eleven I ruled it.
I ruled eight fields on page eight hundred and eighty-seven.
I left seven of them empty.
At twenty past eleven I chose the master.
The four bear pressed marks and have no strokes.
Page five hundred and thirty-nine of the right-hand material has every stroke.
That is the master the one before me used last December as well.
At twenty to twelve I wrote it.
Ten characters.
We are watching a little further.
At noon I wrote it twice and set the two against each other.
They are the same.
At twenty past twelve I set it against what the one before me wrote.
It is the eighth field of the sixth serial.
They agree throughout.
They do not diverge.
At twenty to one I looked at the strokes I had made.
In two places I joined the final consonants.
In January it was four to the hundred characters.
In June it was forty-one.
Counted today it is forty-six.
The predecessor's notebook is forty-three.
It has passed it.
At one I counted the transcriptions that did not diverge.
There are three.
The second is 16 December last year.
I looked for the first.
At twenty past one I opened the register of transcriptions.
There are three rows.
The first row has no date.
Nor is the hand that made it entered.
Going back through the predecessor's log, I find that on the last day of October last year page sixty-four of the notebook was copied out and did not diverge. In the register only that one row remains, with neither date nor hand.
At half past one I looked for the one that diverged.
There is one.
It is the eighth page I copied out on the twenty-second of May.
That one is a transfer.
There is no field that divides a transfer from a transcription.
At two I looked below what I had written.
The paper does not end.
One line stands blank.
At twenty past two I looked for the procedure for leaving it blank.
There is none.
There is no procedure for filling it either.
At half past two I looked at last December's again.
The one before me left two lines blank.
He had entered that he left them so because there was no ground either way for whether he belonged to that number.
At twenty to three I looked for the name of the field.
The seven fields have names.
Only the eighth has none.
What goes into the field with no name stands only in the procedure for transcription.
At three I left one line blank.
I entered it in the margin.
At ten past three I opened the box.
Eight articles. Eight marks. Day six hundred and forty-five.
The eighth mark has no wording.
On the marks of the four the ten characters are pressed.
What I wrote and what is pressed differ only in the strokes.
At half past three I counted the rest.
The right-hand material is nine hundred and seventeen pages. The page added is dated 29 December 1999. The third line of page five hundred and thirty-nine has stood blank three hundred and thirty-seven days. The original of the fifth bundle is a hundred and seventy-seven pages and has not grown for seven hundred and fifteen days.
At ten to four I opened the list of entering parties.
There are twenty-nine rows.
My row stands at one thousand four hundred and thirty-six.
The gap to the row of the one before me is two thousand one hundred and fifty-five.
At thirty a day there are some seventy days left.
At four I opened the register of post.
The twelfth page has not come for two hundred and three days.
Head office has sent nothing for a hundred and eighty-two.
The reply with no address is still inside.
At twenty past four I opened the progress of the application.
It says it is under examination.
A fortnight of the term remains.
This room is the side that examines.
At twenty to five a letter came from head office.
The first in a hundred and eighty-two days.
The cover says it is a reply on the circumstances of a current entry for a wound-up body.
I looked at the field for the party addressed.
It is not blank.
It says: To the editorial department, Pnakotic Press.
At ten to five I assigned it a serial without breaking the seal.
The field for the party addressed on July's letter from the holding library said the same.
This time head office entered it.
The field for the party addressed on head office's form is not a field a person fills.
It is drawn from the list.
At five I opened that list.
I found the row the field for the party addressed is drawn from.
It is the set's row.
On the detail screen there is the editorial department.
On the list screen there are the eight letters.