Digital Manuscript ProjectMalone meurt / Malone Dies

[1461] through the dark thronging streets, his mouth full of curses.
[1462] But the passenger, having named the place he wants to go and know-
ing himself as helpless to act on the course of events as the dark
box that encloses him, abandons himself to the pleasant feeling
of being freed from all responsibility, or he ponders on what lies
before him, or on what lies behind him, saying, Twill not be ever
thus, and then in the same breath, But twas ever thus, for there
are not five hundred different kinds of passengers.
[1463] And so they
hasten, the horse, the driver and the passenger, towards the appoi
appointed place, byt by the shortest route or deviously, through
rthe press of other misplaced persons.
[1464] And each one has his reasons,
while wondering from time to time what they are worth, and if they
are the true ones, for going where he is going rather than some-
where else, and the horse hardly less darkly than the men, though
as a rule it will not know where it is going until it gets there,
and not always even then.
[1465] And if as suggested it is dusk, then
another phenomenon to be observed is the number of windows and
shop-windows that light up an instant, almost after the fashion
of the setting sun, though hthat all depends on the season.
[1466] But
for Macmann, thank God, he's still there, for Macmann it is a true
Spring evening, an equinoctial gale howls along the quays bordered
by high red houses many of which are warehouses.
[1467] Or it is perhaps
an evening in autumn and these leaves whirling in the air, whence
it is impossible to say, for here there are no trees, are perhaps
no longer the first of the year, barely green, but old leaves
that have known the long joys of summer and now are good for
nothing but to lie rotting in a heap, now ythat men and beasts
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Malone meurt / Malone Dies © 2017 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt