Digital Manuscript ProjectMalone meurt / Malone Dies

[0325] He attended his classes with his mind elsewhere.
[0326] He liked sums,
[0327] but not the way they were taught.
[0328] What he liked was the manipulation
of concrete numbers.
[0329] All calculation seemed to him idle in which
the nature of the unit was not specified.
[0330] He made a practice, alone
and in company, of mental arithmetic.
[0331] And the figures then marshalling
in his mind thronged it with colours and with forms.
[0332] What tedium.
[0333] He was the eldest child [0334] of poor and sickly parenys parents.
[0335] He
often heard them talk of what they ought to do in order to have
better health and more money.
[0336] He was struck each time by the vague-
ness of these palavers and not surprised that they never led to
anything.
[0337] His father was a salesman, in a shop.
[0338] He used to say to
his wife, I really must find work for the evenings and the Saturday
afternoon.
[0339] He added, faintly, And the Sunday.
[0340] His wife would answer,
But if you do any more work you'll fall ill.
[0341] And Mr Saposcat had to
allow that he would indeed be ill-advised to forego his Sunday rest.
[0342] These people at least are grown up.
[0343] But his health was not so poor
that he could not work in the evenings and the Sat of the week and
the Saturday afternoon.
[0344] At what, said his wife, work at what?
[0345] Perhaps
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Malone meurt / Malone Dies © 2017 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt