MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

[0774] have done, and I would have done it gladly. [0775] And yet I did not do it.
[0776] All the things you would do gladly, oh without enthusiasm, but gladly,
all the things there seems no reason for ^your not doing, and that you do not
do! [0777] Can it be we are not free? [0778] It might be worth looking into. [0779] But
what was my contribution to this burial. [0780] It was she dug the hole, put
in the dog, filled up the hole. [0781] On the whole I was a mere spectator,
[0782] I contributed my presence. [0783] As if it had been my own burial. [0784] And it was.

[0785] It was a larch. [0786] It is the only tree I can identify, with certainty.
[0787] Funny she should have chosen, to bury her dog beneath, the only tree I
can identify, with certainty. [0788] The sea-green needles are like silk and
speckled, it always seem^[⁁]ed to me, with little red, how shall I say, with
little red specks. [0789] The dog had ticks in his ears, I have an eye for such
things, they were buried with him.

[0790] When she had finished her grave she
handed me the spade and began to muse, or brood. [0791] I thought she was
^{[⁁]going to cry}, it was the thing to do, but on the contrary she laughed. [0792] It was
perhaps her way of crying. [0793] Or perhaps I was mistaken and she was really
crying, with the noise of laughter. [0794] Tears and laughter, they are so much
Hebrew to me.

[0795] She would see him no more, her Teddy she had loved
like ^{[⁁]an only} child. [0796] I wonder why, since she had obviously made up her
mind to bury the dog at home, she had not asked the vet to call, and
destroy the ^[⁁]brute on the premises. [0797] Was she really on her way to the vet
at the moment her path crossed mine^? [0798] Or had she said so ^solely in order
to attenuate my guilt? [0799] Private calls are naturally more expensive.

[0800] She
ushered me into the drawing-room and gave me food and drink, good things
without a doubt. [0801] Unfortunately I didn't much care for good things to eat.
[0802] But I quite liked getting drunk. [0803] If she lived in embarrassed circumstances
there was no sign of it. [0804] That kind of embarrassment I feel at once.
[0805] Seeing how painful the sitting posture was for me she fetched a chair