MS-HRC-SB-5-9-1

[0810] losing ground.[0811] Ptoto set their minds
at rest.[0812] I had moved, no further proof
was required.[0813] I had been drawing near for
so long now that there was no cause for anxiety
so long as I didn't remain rooted to the spot.

[0814] I was launched, there was no reason why
I should suddenly begin to retreat,
I wasn't made that way.[0815] Then
having kissed all round and wished one
another happy dreams and sweet repose
they all retired, with the exception naturally
of the watch.[0816] What about hailing him?

[0817] Poor
papa, he would have liked to encourage me
vocally.[0818] Stick it, lad ^{my boy}, it's your last winter.
[0819] But in view of the trouble I was having,
the trouble I was taking, they prevented
him, pointing out that it wasn't the moment
to give me a shock.

[0820] But what where my
own feelings at this time,[0821] what was I thinking
of?[0822] With what?[0823] Was I having difficulty
with my morale?[0824] The answer to all that
is this, I quote Mahood, that I was
entirely absorbed by the business on hand
and not in the least concerned to know in what
precisely, or even approximately, it consisted.

[0825] The only problem for me was how
to continue, since I could not do otherwise,
to the best of my declining powers, in the
motion that had been imparted to me.

[0826] This obligation, and the virtual impossibility
of fulfilling it, engrossed me in a purely
mechanical way, excluding notably the
free play of my intelligence & sensibility,
so that my situation rather resembled that
of an old broken-down

[0826] cart or bathorse which
can receive no
information either from ^its instinct or its
observation as to whether it is
moving towards its stable or away from
it, and does not greatly care.

[0827] The question,
among others, of how such
things ^are possible had long since
ceased to preoccupy me.

[0828] This
touching picture of my situation I found by
no means unattractive and as I recall it
I find myself wondering again if I
was not in fact the creature revolving in that
yard, as Mahood assured me.[0829] Well
supplied with painkillers I used them freely,
without however permitting myself the lethal