MS-HRC-SB-5-9-1

[0762] return, patiently, and you too must be
patient.[0763] It was swarming with them,
grandpa, grandma, little mother and
the eight or nine brats.[0764] With their glued to
the slits they followed my efforts, their
hearts going out to me.[0765] This yard so
long deserted was now enlivened, by me.

[0766] As I turned without, so they turned
within, So we turned, in our different
orbits, I without, they within.[0767] At night,
keeping watch by turns, they observed me
with the help of a searchlight.[0768] So the seasons
came and went.

[0769] The children grew up ^{in stature},
the menses ^periods of Ptomaine now pale, [⁁] ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 32vpale the periods of Ptomaine,} and
the old folks two old ones glowered at
each other, saying, I'll bury you yet,
You'll bury me yet.

[0770] Since my arrival
they had a subject of conversation,
and even of discussion, the same as of yore,
xxx xxx at the time of my departure,
perhaps even an interest in life, the same as
of yore.[0771] Time hung less heavy on their
hands.[0772] What about throwing him something
to eat?[0773] No, no, we mustn't disturb ^{it might upset} him.

[0774] They didn't want to check the impetus
that was sweeping me towards them.[0775] You
wouldn't know him![0776] True, and yet
somehow one does.[0777] They who never answered
xxx xxx in the ordinary way never answered
xxx xxx when spoken to, my parents,
my wife, she who had chosen me, rather
than one of her suitors.

[0778] A few more summers
and he'll be in our bosom.[0779] Where am
I going to put him?[0780] In the basement?
[0781] Perhaps I am simply in the basement after
all.[0782] What possesses him to be stopping all
the time?

[0783] Oh he was always like that,
ever since he was a tiny tot, always
stopping, wasn't he, Granny?[0784] Yes indeed,
never easy, always stopping.[0785] According
to Mahood I never got there, that is to say
they all died first, carri the whole ten or
eleven of them carried off by sausage poisoning,
in appalling pain.

[0786] Incommoded first
by their shrieks, then by the stench of
putrefaction, I had turned back.[0787] But
let us xx us not anticipate, otherwise we'll
never arrive.[0788] It's no longer I in any case.
[0789] Will he ever get there, at his present rate of
going?[0790] He has slowed down, xx He looks as
if he had slowed down, since last year.