Digital Manuscript ProjectMalone meurt / Malone Dies

[1201] Five years now it had been going on, five or six, not more.
[1202] She told herself she had a woman's disease, but half-heartedly.
[1203] Night seemed less night in the kitchen pervaded with the every-
day tribulations, day less dead.
[1204] It helped her, when things were
bad, to cling with her fingers to the worn table at which her
family would soon be united, waiting for her to serve them, and
to feel about her, ready for use, the lifelong pots and pans.
[1205] She opened the door and looked out.
[1206] The moon had gone, but the
stars were shining.
[1207] She stood gazing up at them.
[1208] It was a scene
that had sometimes solaced her.
[1209] She went to the well and grasped
the chain.
[1210] The bucket was at the bottom, the windlass locked.
[1211] So it was.
[1212] Her fingers strayed along the sinuous links.
[1213] Her mind
was a press of formless questions, mingling and crumbling limply
away.
[1214] Some seemed to have to do with her daughter, that minor
worry, [1215] now lying sleepless in her bed, listening.
[1218] Then, as people do when
someone even insignificant dies, they summoned up such memories
as he had left them, helping one another and trying to agree.
[1219] But we all know that little flame and its flickerings in the
wild shadows.
[1220] And agreement only comes a little later, with the
forgetting.
- Segments
Malone meurt / Malone Dies © 2017 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt