MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

[1275] tried to discover ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]find out}, of wearing out that ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]the} small voice saying, Get out of
here, Molloy, take to your crutches and get out of here, and which I
had taken so long to understand, for had I not been hearing it for a
long time. [1276] And perhaps I understood it all wrong, but I understood
it and that was the novelty. [1277] And it seemed to me I was not necessarily
going for good but ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]and that I} might come back one day, by deviu ^{[place = overwritten] o}us winding ways, to
the place I was leaving. [1278] And perhaps my course is not yet fully run.

[1279] Outside in the road the wind was blowing, it was another world. [1280] Not
knowing where I was nor consequently what way I ought to go I went with
the wind. [1281] And when, well slung between my crutches, I took off, then
I felt it helping me, that little wind blowing from what quarter I
could not tell. [1282] And don't come talking at me of the stars, they look
all the same to me, yes ^{[place = inline] ,} I can't ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]cannot} read the stars, in spite of my
astronomical studies.

[1283] But I entered the first shelter I came to and
stayed there till dawn, for I knew that ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]I was bound to be stopped by} the first policeman would not
fail to stop me and ask me ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]asked} what I was doing, a question to which I
have never been able to find the correct reply. [1284] But it cannot have
been a real shelter and I did not stay till dawn, for a man came in
soon after me and drove me out.

[1285] And yet there was room for two. [1286] I
think he was a kind of nightwatchman, a man of some kind certainly,
he must have had the watching ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]been employed to watch} over some kind of public works, digging
I suppose. [1287] I see a brazier. [1288] There must have been a touch of autumn
in the air, as the saying is. [1289] I therefore moved on and ensconced
myself on a flight of stairs, in a poor house, because mean lodging-
-house, because there was no door or it didn't shut, I don't know.

[1290] Long before dawn this lodging-house began to empty. [1291] People came down
the stairs, men and women. [1292] I glued myself to ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]against} the wall. [1293] They paid no
heed to me, nobody interfered with me. [1294] In the end I too went away,
when I deemed it prudent, and wandered about the town in search of a