MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[4434] licked his finger, turned over the pages till he came to the right page,
raised it towards his eyes which at the same time he lowered towards it.
[4435] I can see nothing, he said. [4436] He was dressed as when I had last seen him.
[4437] My strictures on his Sunday clothes had therefore been unjustified.
[4438] Unless it was Sunday again. [4439] But had I not always seen him dressed in
this way?

[4440] Would you have a match? he said. [4441] I did not reco^gnize this
far-off voice. [4442] Or a torch, he said. [4443] He must have seen from my face that
I possessed nothing of a luminous nature. [4444] He took a small electric torch
from his pocket and shone it on his page. [4445] He read, Moran, Jacques, home,
instanter. [4446] He put out his torch, closed his notebook on his finger and
looked at me.

[4447] I can't walk, I said. [4448] What? he said. [4449] I'm sick, I can't
move, I said. [4450] I can't hear a word you say, ^he said. [4451] I cried to him that
I could not move, that I was sick, that I should have to be carried, that
my son had abandoned me, that I could ^[⁁]bear no more. [4452] He examined me
laboriously from head to foot. [4453] I executed a few steps leaning on my
umbrella to prove to him I could not walk.

[4454] He opened his notebook again,
shone the torch on his page, studied it at length and said, Moran, home,
inst^anter. [4455] He closed his notebook, put it back in his pocket, put his
lamp back in his pocket, stood up, drew his hands over his chest and
announced he was dying of thirst.

[4456] Not a word on how I was looking. [4457] And
yet I had not shaved since the day my son brought back the bicycle from
Hole, nor combed my hair, nor washed, not to mention all the privations
I had suffered and the great inward metamorphoses. [4458] Do you recognize me?
I cried.

[4459] Do I recognize you? he said. [4460] He reflected. [4461] I knew what he was
doing, he was searching for the phrase most apt to wound me. [4462] ^{Ah Moran, he
said, what a man!} [4463] I was st^aggering with weakness. [4464] If
I had dropped dead at his feet he would have said, Ah poor old Moran,
that's him all over. [4465] It was getting darker and darker. [4466] I wondered if