MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3178] night.

[3179] My son could only embarrass me. [3180] He was like a thousand other boys of
his age and condition. [3181] There is something about a father that discourages
dev^rision. [3182] Even grotesque he commands a certain respect. [3183] And when he is
seen out with his young hopeful, whose face grows longer and longer and
longer with every step, then no further work is possible. [3184] He is taken for
a widower, the gaudiest colours are of no avail, rather make things worse,
he finds himself saddled with a wife long since deceased, ^{[⁁]in child-bed} as likely as not.

[3185] And my antics would be viewed as the harmless effect of my widowhood,
presumed to have unhinged my mind. [3186] I boiled with anger at the thought of
him who had shackled me thus. [3187] If he had desired my failure he could not
have devised a better way to ensure ^{[⁁]means to} it. [3188] And ^[₰] i^If I could have reflected
with my usual calm on the work I was required to do, it would perhaps have
seemed of a nature more likely to benefit than to suffer by the presence
of my son.

[3189] But let us not go back on that. [3190] Perhaps I could pass him off
as my assistant, or a mere nephew. [3191] I would forbid him to call me papa, or
or show me any sign of affection, in public, if he did not want to get one
of thoa^se clouts he so dreaded.

[3192] And if I did whistle^d a stave or two ^fitfully while revolving these lugubrious
thoughts, I suppose it was because I was happy at heart to leave my house,
my garden, my village, I who usually left them with regret. [3193] Some people
whistle for no reason at all. [3194] Not I.

[3195] And while I came and went in my
room, tidying up, putting back my clothes in the wardrobe and my hats in
the boxes from which I had taken them the better to make my choice, locking
the various drawers, while thus employed I had the joyful vision of myself
far from home, from the familiar faces, from all my sheet-anchors, sitting
on a milestone in the dark, my legs crossed, one hand on my thigh, my elbow
in that hand, my chin cupped in the other, my eyes fixed on the earth as on