[p. 125r]
[2147] until such time as she had the strength to go and fetch what was needed to clean up the mess.
[2148] Half a century younger she might have been taken for pregnant.
[2149] At the same time her hair began to fall out in abundance and she confessed to Macmann that she was afraid to did not dare comb it any more, for fear of malking it fall out even faster.
[2150] He said to himself with satisfaction, She tells me everything.
[2151] But these were small things compared to the change in her complexion, now rapidly turning from yellow to saffron.
[2152] The sight of her so doiminished did not damp Macmann's desire to take her, all stinking, yellow, bald and vomiting, in his arms.
[2153] And he would certainly have done so had she not been opposed to it.
[2154] One can understand him (her too).
[2155] For when one has within reach the one and only love requited of a life so monstrously prolonged, it is natural one should wish to to profit by it, before it is too late, and refuse to be deterred by feelings of squeamishness excusable in the faint-hearted, but which true love disdains.
[2156] And though all pointed to Moll's being out of sorts, Macmann could not help interpreting her attitude as a falling off of her affection for him.
[2157] And perhaps indeed there was something of that too.
[2158] At all events the more she declined the more Macmann longed to crush her to his breast, which is at least sufficiently curious and unusual to deserve of mention.
[2159] And when she turned and looked at him (and from time to time she did so still), with eyes in which he fancied he could read boundless regret and love, then a kind of frenzy seized upon him and he began to belabour with his fists his chest, his head and even the
[p. 126r]
[2159] mattress, writhing and crying out, in the hope perhaps she would take pity on him and come and comfort him and dry his tears, as on the day when he had demanded his hat.
[2160] No, it was not that, it was without malice he cried, writhed and beat his b breast, for she made no attempt to stop him[⁁] and even left the room if it went on too long for her liking.
[2161] Then, all alone and unobser unobesrved[ ] 
, he continued to behave as if beside himself, wjhich is proof positive, is it not, that he was disinterested, unless of course he suspected her of having stopped outside the door, to listen.
[2162] And when he grew calm again at last he mourned the long immunity he had lost, from shelter, charity and human tenderness.
[2163] And he even carried his inconsequence to the lenght [ ] of woba wondering what right anyone had to take care of him.
[2164] In a word most evil days, for Macmann.
[2165] For Moll too probably, naturally, admittedly.
[2166] It was at this time she lost her tooth. It fell unaided from the socket, happily in the datytime, so that she was able to recover it and put it away in a safe place.
[2167] Macmann said to himself, when she told him; him, There was a time she would have made me a present of it, or at least shown it to me.
[2168] But a little later he said, firstly, To have told me, when she need not have, is a mark of confidence and affection, [2169] and secondly, But I would have known in any case, when she opened her mouth to speak or smile, [2170] and finally, But she does not speak or smile any more.
[2171] One morning early a man whom he had never seen came and told him that Moll was dead.
[2172] There's one out of the way at least.
[p. 127r]
[2173] My name is Lemuel, he said, though my parents were probably Art Aryan, and it is in my charge you will be are from now on.
[2174] Here is it your porridge.
[2175] Eat is while it is boiling.
[2176] A last effort.
[2177] Lemuel gave the impression of being slightly more stupid and than malevolent, and yet his malevioelce malevolence was considerable.
[2178] When Macmann, more and more disturbed by his situation apparently and what is more now capable of isolating and expressing well enouggh to be understood a little of the little that passed through his m mind, when Maclmann I say asked a question it was seldom he got an immediate answer.
[2179] When asked for example to state whether Saint John of Gods was a private institution or run by by the State, a hospice for the aged and infirm or a madhouse, if once in one might entertain the hope of one day getting out and, in the affirmative,
by means of what steps, Lemuel remained for a long time plunged in thought, sometimes for as long as ten minutes or a quearter of an hour, motionless or if you prefer scratching his head or his armpit, as if such questions had never crossed his mind, or possibly thinking about something quite different.
[2180] And if Macmann, growing impatient or perhaps feeling he had not made himself clear, ventured to try again, an imperious gesture bid him be silent.
[2181] Such was this Lemuel, viewed from a certain angle.
[2182] Or he cried, stamping the ground with indescribable nervousness, Let me think, you shite!
[2183] It usually ended by his saying he did not know.
[2184] But he was subject to almost hypomaniacal fits of good-humour.
[2185] Then he would add, But I'll enquire.
[2186] And taking out a note-book as fat as a ship's log he made note, murmuring, Private or state, mad or like us me, how out, etc.
[p. 128r]
[2187] Macmann could then be sure he would never hear any more about it.
[2188] May I get up? he said one day.
[2189] Already in Moll's lifetime he had expressed the wish to get up and go out into the fresh air, but timidly, as when one asks for the moon.
[2190] And he had then been told that if he was good he might indeed be let up one day, and out into the pure plateau air, and that on that day, in the great hall where the staff assembled at dawn before entering on their duties, there would be seen pinned on the board a note thus conceived, Let one hundred and sixty-six get up and go out.
[2191] For when it came to the regulations Moll was inflexible and their voice was stronger than the voice of love, in her heart, whenever they made themselves heard there simultaneously.
[2192] The oysters for example, which the Board had refused in a note calling her attention to the article whereby therey were prohibited, but which she could easily have smuggled in, Macmann never saw sight or sign of the oysters.
[2193] But Lemuel was made of sterner stuff, in this connexion, and far from being a stickler for the statutes seemed to have little or no acquaintance qwith them.
[2194] Indeed the question might have arisen, in the mind of one looking down upon the scene, as to whether he had all his wits about him.
[2195] For when not rooted to the spot in a daze he was to be seen, with heavy, furious, reeling tread, stamping up and down for hours on end, gesticulating and ejaculating unintelligible words.
[2196] Flayed alive by memory, his mind crawling with cobras, not daring to dream or think and powerless not to, his cries were of two kinds, those having no other cause than moral anguish and those, similar in every respect, by means of whic which he hoped to forestall same.
[2197] Physical pain, on the con[⁁]trary,
[p. 129r]
[2197] seemed to help him greatly. And one day, rolling up the leg of his trousers, he showed Macmann his shin covered with bruises, scars and abrasions.
[2198] Then producing smartly a hammer from an inner pocket he dealt himself, right in the middle of his ancient wounds, so violent a blow that he fell down backwards, or perhaps I should say forwards.
[2199] But the part he struck most readily, with his hammer, was the head, and that is understandable, for it too is a bony part, and sensitive, and difficult to miss, and the seat of all the shit and misery, so you rain blows upon it, with more pleasure than on the leg for example, which never did you any harm, it's only human.
[2200] Up, cried Macmann, let Up! cried Macmann. Let me up!
[2201] Lemuel came to a standstill.
[2202] What? he roared.
[2203] Up! cried Macmann.
[2204] Let me up!
[2205] Let me up!
[2206] I have had a visit. [2207] Things were going too well. [2208] I had forgotten myself, lost myself. [2209] I exaggerate. [2210] Things were not going too badly. [2211] I was elsewhere. [2212] Another was suffering. [2213] Then I had the visit. [2214] To bring me back to dying. [2215] If that amuses them. [2216] The fact is they don't know, neither do I, but they think they know. [2217] An aeroplane passes, flying low, with a noise like thunder. [2218] It is a noise quite unlike thunder, one says thunder but one does not think it, it is just a loud, fleeting noise, nothing more, unlike any other. [2219] It is certainly the first time I have heard it here, to my knowledge. [2220] But I have heard aeroplanes elsewhere and have even seen them in flight, I saw the very first in flight and then in the end the latest models, oh not the very latest, the very second-latest, the very antepenultimate. [2222] I was present at one of