MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[0407] and joyful faces, faces of men, of women and of children.
[0408] I seemed to hear, at a certain moment, a distant music. [0409] I stopped,
the better to listen. [0410] Go on, he said. [0411] Listen, I said. [0412] Get on,
he said. [0413] I wasn't allowed to listen to the music. [0414] It might have
drawn a crowd. [0415] He gave me a shove. [0416] I had been touched, oh not
my skin, but none the less my skin had felt it, it had felt a man's
hard fist, through its coverings.

[0417] While still putting my best foot
foremost I gave myself up to that golden moment, as if I had been
someone else. [0418] It wq ^{[place = overwritten] a}s the hour of rest, the forenoon's toil ended,
the afternoon's to come. [0419] The wisest perhaps, lying in the squares
or sitting on their doorsteps, were savouring its languid ending,
forgetful of recent cares, indifferent to those at hand.

[0420] Others
on the contrary were using it to make their plans, their heads in
their hands. [0421] Was there one among them to put himself in my place,
to feel how removed I was then from him I seemed to be, and in that
remove what strain, as of hawsers about to snap. [0422] It's possible.

[0423] Yes, I was straining towards those spurious deeps, their lying
promise of gravity and peace, from all my old poisons I struggled
towards it, safely bound. [0424] Under the blue sky, under the watchful
gaze. [0425] Forgetful of my mother, at liberty ^{[place = supralinear] set free} from ^{[place = supralinear] the} acts, merged in
this alien hour, saying, respite, respite. [0426] At the police station
I was xxx to ^{[place = supralinear] brought before} a very strange official.

[0427] Dressed in plain-clothes,
in his shirt-sleeves, he was sprawling in an arm-chair, his feet
on his desk, a straw hat on his head and protruding from his mouth
a thin flexible object I could not identify. [0428] I had time to become
aware of these details before he dismissed me. [0429] He listened to his
subordinate's report and then began to interrogate me in a tone