MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[1753] to time I came on a kind of crossroads, you know, a star, or circus,
of the kind to be found in even the most unexplored of forests. [1754] And
turning then methodically to face the radiating paths, hoping for I
know not what, I turned in a complete circle, or in less than a circle,
or more than a circle, so great was the resemblance between the paths.
[1755] Here the gloom was not so thick and I made haste to leave it. [1756] I don't
like gloom to lighten, it's suspicious.

[1757] I had a certain number of
encounters in this forest, naturally, where does n^one not, but nothing
serious. [1758] I notably encountered a charcoal-burner. [1759] I might have loved
him, I think, if I had been seventy years younger. [1760] But it's not certain.
[1761] But then he too would have been younger by as much, oh not quite as much,
but much younger. [1762] I never really had much love to spare, but all the
same I had my little quota, when I was small, and it went to the old men,
when it could,^.

[1763] And I even think I had the time to love one or two, oh
not [r]^with true love, no, nothing like the old woman, I've lost her name
again, Rose, no, anyway you see who I mean, but all the same, how shall
I say, tenderly, as those on the brink of a better earth. [1764] Ah I was a
precocious child, and then I was a precocious man. [1765] Now they all give
me the shits, the ripe, the unrib^pe and the rotting from the bough. [1766] He
was all over me, begging me to share his hut, believe it or not.

[1767] A total
stranger. [1768] Sick with solitude probably. [1769] I say charcoal-burner, but I
really don't know. [1770] I see smoke somewhere. [1771] That's something that never
escapes me, smoke. [1772] A long dialogue ensued, interspersed with groans.
[1773] I could not ask him the way to my town, the name of which escaped me stilll^.
[1774] I asked him the way to the nearest town, I found the necessary words,
and accents. [1775] He did not know.

[1776] He was born in the forest probably and
had spent his whole life there. [1777] I asked him to show me the nearest way
out of the forest. [1778] I grew eloquent. [1779] His reply was exceedingly confused.
[1780] Either I didn't understand a word he said, or he didn't understand a word