MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

[0541] have pity on me. [0542] He didn't understand. [0543] I thought of the food I
had refused. [0544] It I took a pebble from my pocket and sucked it.
[0545] It was smooth, from having been sucked so 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, angered 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 seasy to speak in the present tense, when
speaking of the past. [0558] It is the mythological present, don't mind it.
[0559] I was already settling in my raglimp stasis when I remembered 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 me, 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 carpetⁿⁿter I suppose. [0569] My
eyes caught a donkey's eyes, they fell to his little feet, their brave