MS-WU-MSS008-3-51-2

[0148] wish to speak of now, everything in due course, but A or B returning to the town
he had just left. [0149] But after all what was there particularly urban in his aspect?
[0150] He was barep ^{[place = overwritten] -}headed, wore sand-shoes, smoked a cigar. [0151] He moved with a kind of loi-
tering indolence which rightly or wrongly seemed to me expressive. [0152] But all that
proved nothing, refuted nothing. [0153] Perhaps he had come from afar, from the other end
of the island even, and was approaching the town for the first time or returning to
it after a long absence.

[0154] A little dog followed him, a pomeranian I think, but I
don't think so. [0155] I wasn't sure at the time and I'm still not sure, though I've hardly
thought about it. [0156] The little dog followed wretchedly, after the fashion of pomera-
nians, stopping, describing long gyrations, giving up and then, a little farther on,
beginning all over again. [0157] Constipation is a sign of good health in pomeranians.

[0158] At a given moment, pre-established if you like, I don't mind, the gentleman turned
back, took the little creature in his arms, drew the cigar from his lips, and plunged
his face in the orag ^{[place = overwritten] n}ge fleece, [0159] for it was a gentleman, that was obvious. [0160] Yes, it was
an orange pomeranian, the less I think of it the more certain I am. [0161] And yet. [0162] But
would this gentleman have come from afar, barep ^{[place = overwritten] -}headed, in sand-shoes, smoking a cigar,
followed by a pomeranian? [0163] Did he not seem rather to have issued from the ramparts,
after a good dinner, to take his dog and himself for a walk, like so many citizens,
dreaming and farting, when the weather is fine?

[0164] But was not perhaps in reality the
cigar a cutty, and were not the sand-shoes boots, hobnailed, dust-whitened, and what
prevented the dog from being one of those stray dogs that you pick up and take in your
arms, from compassion or because you have long been straying with no other company
than these endless roads, sands, shingle, bogs and heather, than this nature answerable
to another court, than at long intervals the fellow convict you long to stop, embrace,
suck, suckle and whom you pass by, with hostile ye ^{[place = overwritten] ey}es, for fear of his familiarities.

[0165] Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms, you catch
up in yours the first mangy cur you meet, carry it the time needed for it to love you