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]
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 ^{in stature},
^periods [⁁] ^{[ADDITION]Addition on page 32vpale the periods of Ptomaine,} and
the 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,
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, ^{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
in the ordinary way never answered
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, 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 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 looks as
if he had slowed down, since last year.