MS-UoR-1477-6

[0020] all still just the leaves and ears and you too still
on the stone in a kind of daze not speaking ^{a word} only every
now and again to vow you loved each other ^{just a murmur} one thing could
ever bring tears to your eyes ^{a tear} till they dried up altogether
that thought when it came up among the others floated up
that picture ^scene

[0022] till you m^lifted your head and f^there before your eyes when
they opened a vast oil black with age and dirt someone
famous in his time presumably some famous man or woman
or even child such as a young prince or princess some
young prince or princess of the blood w^sheeted with glass ^{black with age behind the glass (sheet)}
where gradually as you looked trying to make it out
gradually of all things a face appeared that made you
swivel round ^{turn on the slab} to see who it was there in the rom^om you
hadn't heard ^{at your shoulder elbow}

[0021] Foley was it Foley's Folly bit of the ^a tower still standing
all the rest rubble and nettles where did you sleep no
friends all the homes gone was it that kip on the front
where you no she was with you then still with you then
just the one night in any case off the ferry one morning
and back on her the next to look was the ^ruin still there
where none ever came where you hid as a child slip off
when no one was looking and hide there all day on a stone
among the nettles with your picture-book

[0023] on the stone in the sun gazing at the wheat or seeming
to ^{the sky or the eyes closed} nothing else to be seen from where you sat but the
wheat turning yellow and the blue sky vowing every now and
again ^then you loved each other ^{just a murmur} tears without fail till they
dried up altogether suddenly there in whatever thoughts
you might be having ^coming whatever visions ^scenes perhaps way ^[stet] back ^xxx in
your childhood or the womb that was the worst of all or
that old Chinaman long before Christ born with long white
a^hi^air

[0025] or talking ti^o yourself whl^o else out loud imaginary con-
versations there was childhood for you ten or eleven on
a stone among the giant nettles making it up now one voice
now another till you wre^ere hoarse and they all sounded
alike ^{the same} well on into the night some moods in the dark or
moonlight have them ^{and they} all out on the roads looking for you

[0024] never the same after that never quite the same but that
was nothing new if it was ^wasn't this it was that common occur-
rence something you could never be the same after crawling
around year after year with your eyes on the ground sunk
in your lifelong mess muttering to yourself who else you'll
never be the same after this you were never the same after
that

[0026] or just sitting by the window in the dark listening ^harking to the
owl not a thought in your head till you began finding it
hard to believe harder and harder to believe you ever told
anyone you loved them or anyone you till it became ^justjust one of
those things ^{old tales} you used to make up ^{went on muttering} to keep the void out just
another of those things you uw^sed to keep making up for
yourself to keep the void from pouring in on top of you
the shroud