Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-BRML-NWWR-2-38

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Segment 1

[0407] after us, calm faces and joyful faces, faces of men, of women [place = inline] ,
and of children.
[0408] I seemed to hear, at a certain moment, a
distant music.
[0409] I stopped, the better to listen. [0410] Go on, he
said.
[0411] Listen, I said. [0412] Get on, he said. [0413] I wasn't allowed to
listen to the music.
[0414] It might have drawn a crowd.

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Segment 2

[0415] He gave me
a shove.
[0416] I had been touched, oh not my skin, but none the less
my skin had felt it, it had felt a man's hard fist, through its
coverings.
[0417] While still putting my best foot foremost I gave
myself up to that golden moment, as if I had been someone else.

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Segment 3

[0418] It was the hour of rest, the forenoon's toil ended, the afternoon's
to come.
[0419] The wisest perhaps, lyaing in the squares or sitting on
their doorsteps, were savouring its languid ending, forgetful
of recent cares, indifferent to those at hand.
[0420] Others [place = inline] , on the
contrary [place = inline] , were using it to make their plans, their heads in their
hands.

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Segment 4

[0421] Was there one among them to put himself in my place,
[place = margin left] [stet] to feel how [place = supralinear] more removed I was then from him I seemed to be, and in
that remove what strain, as of hawsers about to snap.
[0422] It's
possible.
[0423] Yes, I waa [place = overwritten] s straining towards [place = infralinear] [] those spurious deeps,
their lying promise of gravity and peace, from all my old
poisons I struggled towards [place = infralinear] [] it, safely bound.
[0424] Under the blue
sky, under the watchful gaze.
[0425] Forgetful of my mother, set free
from the acts, merged in this alien hour, saying, respite, respite.

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Segment 5

[0426] At the police station I was brought before a very strange offi-
cial.
[0427] Dressed in plain-clothes, in his shirt-sleeves, he was
sprawling in an arm-chair, his feet on his desk, a straw hat on
his head [place = inline] , and protruding from his mouth a thin [place = inline] , flexible object
I could not identify.
[0428] I had time to become aware of these
details before he dismissed me.
[0429] He listened to his subordinate's
report and then began to interrogate me in a tone which, from

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Addition 1
[stet]
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Addition 2
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Addition 3
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Transcription
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  • Marginal Additions