The sixteenth of December. I wrote the ten characters and left one line blank below them.
At ten past nine I opened the form of examination.
It is the last day of the term.
At half past nine I put my account into the field for the examiner.
The name comes out attached.
The side that applied and the side that examines are one.
There is no field that divides them.
At twenty to ten I counted the items of examination.
There are five.
The title, the imprint, the compiler, the imprint page and the consent.
Four come filled from the list.
The consent went in in August last year.
At ten I looked for what there was to examine.
There is nothing.
The work is to look at what comes filled.
At twenty past ten I marked yes.
The publication is settled.
At half past ten the imprint page was struck.
The date of issue is the sixteenth of December, two thousand and one.
The field for place of issue is blank.
In the compiler field there are eight letters.
At eleven I looked at the author field.
Four of the five bundles have no name.
I read what is entered for the fifth.
Three characters.
It is the name on the row that stands lowest in the list of entering parties.
At twenty past eleven I looked at the title.
The date of issue comes appended after it.
Two sets with one title are divided.
At half past eleven I applied to register the eighth article.
A serial attached.
The seventh.
At noon I counted the three.
Eight articles. Eight marks. Eight registered.
The three are all eight.
The line in the notebook holds.
There is no field for entering that it held.
At twenty past twelve I opened page sixty-five of the notebook.
It is blank.
The only hand that could write the next is mine.
I did not write it.
At one I opened the form for published material.
There is a field on the reverse of the imprint page.
It is the eighth field.
It is blank.
At twenty past one I chose the master.
I took the one whose strokes are complete.
It is the master the one before me used last year and the master I used last month.
At twenty to two I wrote it.
Ten characters.
We are watching a little further.
At two I wrote it twice and set the two against each other.
They are the same.
They do not diverge.
It is the fourth.
At ten past two I counted the four back.
The first is the first row of the register of transcriptions and has no date.
The second is 16 December last year.
The third is the last day of the eleventh month.
The fourth is today.
The second and the fourth fall on the same date.
At twenty past two I looked below what I had written.
The paper does not end.
There is room for one line to go in.
At twenty to three I opened last December's again.
The one before me left two lines blank.
It is entered that he left them so because there was no ground either way for whether he belonged to that number.
At ten to three I looked for that ground.
The last date of entry on the departmental account is today.
I am a hand that has been in that field.
Then I asked whether I belong.
There is no provision for counting the hands that have been in that field.
Nor is there anywhere to enter whether one belongs to what is not counted.
At three I left one line blank.
Not two.
One.
At twenty past three I looked for whether the blank line has a side that receives.
I opened the first line of the compiled set.
It says that this bundle passes to the next person who reads this line.
There is no field for the party addressed.
The side that receives is the next person who reads this line.
There is nowhere that divides the singular from the plural.
At half past three I looked at the record of reading.
The copy sent out stands at thirty-three in all.
This room's reading path stands at sixty-one.
Both have risen.
At twenty to four I notified the holding library that publication was settled.
The set outside this room has become a published set.
The day it went out is the last day of October.
The date of issue is today.
There is no field for entering that the day it went out comes before the date of issue.
At four I opened the register of handover.
The field for the party I pass to on my row is blank.
It is the last row.
It is a place that breaks off.
At twenty past four I opened the box.
Eight articles. Eight marks. Day six hundred and sixty-one.
The sixth field is fifteen thousand five hundred and twenty-seven. The set's row was opened two hundred and forty-six times yesterday and the imprint path a hundred and sixty. The compiler path, sixty.
The right-hand material is nine hundred and thirty-three pages. The page added is dated 14 January 2000. The third line of page five hundred and thirty-nine has stood blank three hundred and fifty-three days. The original of the fifth bundle is a hundred and seventy-seven pages and has not grown for seven hundred and thirty-one days. The twelfth page has not come for two hundred and nineteen.
At ten to five I looked at the lid of the box.
There is a field for the party addressed.
It is blank.
At five I entered today in the log.
Page nine hundred and thirty-three.
Entered, it goes inside the set by way of the sixth serial.
Between the reading of a thing and its becoming material there is not a day.
At half past five I looked at the blank line again.
It is blank.
That line becomes blank only if there is a side that reads.
With no side that reads it is simply paper.
That line is blank now.