MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3287] I had long since given up going for walks with my son, thought ^{[place = margin left] [₰]} I sometimes
longed to do so. [3288] The least outing with him was torture, he lost his way so
easily. [3289] Yet when alone he seemed to know all the short cuts. [3290] When I sent
him to the grocer's, or to Mrs. ^{[place = margin left] [₰]} Clement's, or even further afield, on the
road to V for grain, he was back in half the time I would have taken for
the journey myself, and without having run.

[3291] For I did not want my son to
be seen capering in the streets like the little hooligans he frequented on
the sly. [3292] No, I wanted him to walk like his father, with little rapid steps,
his head up, his breathing even and economical, his arms swinging, looking
neither to left nor right, apparently oblivious to everything and in
reality x ^{[place = overwritten] m}issing nothing.

[3293] But with me he invariably took the wrong turn,
a crossing or a simple corner was all he needed to stray from the right
road, it of my election. [3294] I do not think he did this on purpose. [3295] But
leaving everything to me he did not mind ^{[place = supralinear] heed} what he was doing, or looke where
he was going, and went on mechanically plunged in a kind of dream. [3296] It was
as though he let himself be sucked in and ^{[place = margin left] [₰]} out of sight by v ^{[place = overwritten] e}very opening
that offered.

[3297] So that we had got into the habit of taking our walks
separately. [3298] And the only walk we regularly took together was that which
led us, every Sunday, from home to church and, mass over, from church to
home. [3299] Caught up then in the slow tide of the faithful my son was not alone
with me. [3300] But he was part of that docile herd going yet again to thank God
for his goodness and to implore his mercy and forgiveness, and then
returning, their souls made easy, to other gratifications.

[3301] I waited for him to come back, then spoke the words calculated to sett-
-le settle this matter once and for all. [3302] Get behind me, I said, and keep
behind ^{[place = supralinear] [⁁]me}. [3303] This solution had its points, from several points of view. [3304] But
was he capable of keeping behind ^{[place = inline] [⁁] [place = supralinear] me}? [3305] Would not the time be bound to come when