MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[0545] ^long, by me, and beaten by the storm. [0546] A little pebble in your
mouth, round and smooth, appeases, soothes, makes you forget your
hunger, forget your thirst. [0547] The man came towards me, displeased
by my slowness. [0548] Him too they were watching, through the windows.
[0549] Somewhere someone laughed. [0550] Inside me too someone was laughing.
[0551] I took my sick leg in my hands and passed it over the frame. [0552] I
went. [0553] I had forgotten where I was going. [0554] I stopped to think.

[0555] It is difficult to think riding, for me. [0556] When I try and think
riding I lose my balance and fall. [0557] I speak in the present tense,
it is so easy to speak in the present tense, when speaking of the
past. [0558] It is the mythological present, don't pay any hee^d to it.
[0559] I was already settling in my raglimp stasis when I remembered that
it wasn't done.

[0560] I went on my way, that way of which I knew nothing,
qua way, which was nothing more than a surface, bright or dark,
smooth or rough, and always dear to m^e, in spite of all, and the
dear sound of that which goes and is gone, with a brief dust, when
the weather is dry. [0561] There I am then, before I knew I had left the
town, on the canal-bank.

[0562] The canal goes through the town, I know
I know, there are even two. [0563] But then these hedges, these fields?
[0564] Don't torment yourself Molloy. [0565] Suddenly I see, it was my right
leg, the stiff one, then. [0566] Toiling towards me along the tow-path
I saw a team of little grey donkeys, on the other bank, and I
heard angry cries and dull blows.

[0566|001] I got down. [0567] I put my foot to
the ground the better to see the approaching barge, so gently
approaching that the water was unruffled. [0568] It was a cargo of nails
and timber, on its way to some carpenter I suppose. [0569] My eyes
caught a donkey's eyes, they fell to his little feet, their brave