MS-BRML-NWWR-2-38

[0624] me and veils me from myself. [0625] The bleating grew faint, because
the sheep were less anxious, or because they were further away,
or because my hearing was worse than a moment before, which would
surprise me, for my hearing is still very good, scarcely blunted
coming up to dawn, and if I sometimes hear nothing for hours on
end it is for reasons of which I know nothing, or because about
me all goes really silent, from time to time, whereas for the just
the tumult of the world never stops.

[0626] That then is how that second
day began, unless it was the third, or the fourth, and it was a bad
beginning, because it left me with persisting doubts as to the
destination of those sheep, among which there were lambs, and often
wondering if they had safely reached some comm^onage or fallen, t^heir
skulls shattered, their thin legs crumpling, first to their knees,
then over on their fleecy sides, under the poleax, though that
is not the way they slaughter sheep.

[0627] But there is much to be said
too, for these little doubts. [0628] Good God, what a land of breeders,
you see quadrupeds everywhere.

[0629] And it's not over yet, there are
still horses and go^ats, to go no further, I feel them watching for
me, to get in my path. [0630] I have no need of that. [0631] But I did not lose
sight of my immediate goal, which was to go to my mother as
quickly as possible, and standing in the ditch I summoned to my
aid the good reasons I had for going there without a moment's delay^.

[0632] And though there were many things I could do without thinking, not
knowing what I was going to do until it was done, and not even then,
going to my mother was not one of them. [0633] My feet, you see, never took
me to my mother unless they received a definite order to do so.^[]]
[0634] ^[[]The glorious, the truly glorious weather would have gladdened any
other heart than mine. [0635] But I have no reason to be gladdened by the