MS-WU-MSS008-2-47

[1065] watching his ^[⁁] son, drinking his own marc. ^son. [1067] Sapo sat down before hi
him, laid his hand on the table and his head on his hand, thinking
he was alone. [1068] Between his head and hsⁱs hand he slipped the other
hand and sat there marble still. [1069] Louis began to talk. [1070] He seemed
in good spirits. [1071] The mule, in his opinion, had died of old age.
[1072] He had bought it, two years before, on its way to the slaughter-[^-]
house. [1073] So he could not complain.

[1074] After the transaction the owner
of the mule predicted that it would drop down dead at the first
ploughing. [1075] But Lambert was a connoisseur of mules. [1076] In the case of
mules it is the eye that counts, the rest is unimportant. [1077] So he
looked the mule full in the ey^[⁁]e[⁁][^e], at the gates of the slaughter-house,
and saw it could be still^[  ] maf^de to serve. [1078] And the mule returned his
gaze, in the yard of the slaughter-house. [1079] As Lambert unfole^ded his
story the slaughter-house loomed larger and larger.

[1080] Thus the w^[⁁]s[^s]ite
of the transaction shifted gradually from the road that led to the
slaughter-house to the gates of the slaughter-house and thence to
the yard itself. [1081] Yet a little while and he would have contended for
the mule with the knacker. [1082] The look in his eye, he said, was like
a prayer to me to take him. [1083] It was covered with sores, but in the
case of mules one should never let oneself be deterred by senile
sores.

[1085] Someone said, He's done ten miles already, you'll never
get him home, he'll drop down dead on the road. [1086] I thought I might
screw six months out of him, said Lambert, and I screwed two years.
[1087] All the time he told this story he kept his eyes fixed on his son.
[1088] There they sat, the table between them, in the gloom, one speaking,
the other listening, and far removed, the one from what he said,
the other from what he heard, and far from each other. [1089] The heap of