MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[0429] which, from the point of view of civility, left increasingly 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 turn^bulent. [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 amake 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 being beaten ^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 rough-handling ^hitting me, and I seldom fail to give
satisfaction, in the long run. [0438] Now the sergeant was content to
threaten me with a cylinc^drical ruler, xxx to ^{and was repaid,}
discover, 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 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