Digital Manuscript ProjectMalone meurt / Malone Dies

[0490] Sapo’s calm, his silent ways, were not
calculated to please.
[0491] In the midst of tumult,
at school and at home, he remained motionless where he was in his place, often standing, and
looked straight before him with eyes as pale and fixed unwavering as a gull's.
[0492] People wondered
what he could brood on thus, for hours at a time
stretch.
[0493] His father supposed him the prey of
the first stirrings of sex.
[0494] At sixteen I was
the same, he would say.
[0495] At sixteen you were
making a living, said his wife.
[0496] So I was, said
Mr. Saposcat.
[0497] For his teachers xxx But in the
opinion of his teachers the signs were those of
besottedness pure and simple.
[0498] Sapo dropped his
jaw and breathed through his mouth.
[0499] It is hard
to see wherein this expression is incompatible
with erotic thoughts.
[0500] But indeed his dream was less o less of girls than of himself, his own life,
his life to come.
[0501] There is ample matter there
That is more than enough to stop up the nose
of a clear-si lucid and sensitive boy, and
cause his jaw to sag.
[0502] But it is time I took
a little rest, for safety's sake.
[0503] These gull's eyes I don't like these
gull's eyes.
[0504] They remind me of an old
shipwreck, I forget which.
[0505] It's a small
thing I know.
[0506] But I am easily
frightened now.
[0507] I know the little phrase
these little phrases that seem so innocent
and, when you let them in, can pollute the
whole of speech.
[0508] Nothing is realer than nothing
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Malone meurt / Malone Dies © 2017 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt