
[3467] doing so.
[3471] All these precautions were assuredly useless.
[3472] One day in a field I
saw a farmer I knew.
[3473] He was coming towards us.
[3474] I turned immediately, took
my son by the arm and led him away in the direction we were coming from.
[3475] The farmer overtook us, as I had foreseen.
[3476] Having greeted me, he asked
where we were going.
[3477] It must have been his field.
[3478] I replied that we were
going homx [place = overwritten] e [place = inline] .
[3479] Fortunately we had not yet left it far behind.
[3480] Then he asked
me where we had been.
[3481] Perhaps one of his cows had been stolen, or one of
his pigs.
[3482] Out walking, I said.
[3483] I'd give you a lift and weld [place = overwritten] come, he said,
but I won't be leaving till night.
[3484] A pity [place = supralinear] [⁁]Oh how very unfortunate,, I said.
[3485] If you like [place = supralinear] care to wait,
he said, Y [place = overwritten] y [place = margin left] you're very welcome.
[3486] I declined with thanks.
[3487] Fortunately it was
not yet midday.
[3488] There was nothing strange in not wanting to wait till night.
[3489] Well, safe home, he said.
[3490] We made a wide detour and turned our faces to the
north again.
[3491] These precautions were doubtless exaggerated.
[3492] The right thing would
have been to travel by night and hide during the day, at least in the
early stages.
[3493] But the weather was so fine I could not bring myself to do
it.
[3494] My pleasure was not my sole consideration, but it was a consideration!
[3495] Such a thing had never happened to me before, in the course of my work.
[3496] And our snail's pace!
[3497] I cannot have been in a hurry to arrive.
[3498] I gave [place = supralinear] [⁁]fitful thought [place = inline] , off and on, while basking in the balm of the hot [place = inline] warm
summer days, to Gaber's instructions.
[3499] I could not reconstruct them to my
entire satisfaction.
[3500] In the night, under the boughs, screened from the
charms of nature, I devoted myself entirely [place = margin left] [₰] to this problem.
[3501] The sounds
my son made during his sleep hindered me considerably.
[3502] Sometimes I went
out of the shelter and walked up and down, in the dark.
[3503] Or I sat down with
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Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt