MS-BRML-NWWR-2-38

[0429] the point of view of civility, left increasingly ^much to be desired,
in my opinion. [0430] Between his questions and my answers, I mean those
deserving of consideration, the intervals were more or less long
and turbulent. [0431] I am so little used to being asked anything that
when I am asked something I take some time to know what.

[0432] And the
mistake I make then is this, that instead of quietly reflecting on
what I have just heard, and heard distinctly, not being hard ^[|=|] of ^[|=|]
hearing, in spite of all I have heard, I hasten to answer blindly,
fearing perhaps lest my silence raise their anger to fury. [0433] I am
full of fear, I have gone in fear all my life, in fear of blows.

[0434] Insults, abuse, these I can easily bear, but I could never get
used to blows. [0435] It's strange. [0436] Even spits still pain me. [0437] But they
have only to be a little gentle with me, I mean refrain from
hitting me, and I seldom fail to give satisfaction, in the long
run.

[0438] Now the sergeant was content to threaten me with a cylindrical
ruler, and was repaid, little by little, by the discovery that I
had no papers in the sense this word had a sense for him, nor any
occupation, nor any domicile, that my surname escaped me for the
moment and that I was on my way to my mother, whose charity kept
me ^from dying.^[(?)]

[0439] As to her address, I was in the dark, but knew how to
get there, even in the dark. [0440] The district? [0441] By the slaughterhouse^,
your lordship, for from my mother's room, through the closed
windows, I had heard, stilling her chatter, the bellowing of the
cattle, that violent^, raucous^, tremulous bellowing not of the pastures
but of the towns, their slaughterhouses and cattle-^[#]markets.

[0442] Yes,
after all, I had perhaps gone too far in saying that my mother
lived near the slaughterhouse, it could equally well have been the
cattle-^[#]market, iⁿear which she lived. [0443] Don't worry, said the