MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[3467] doing so.

[3468] We lived on tinned food which I sent him to get in the villages. [3469] He
was that much use to me. [3470] We drank the water of the streams.

[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] c}ome, 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] y}ou'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