Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-BRML-NWWR-2-38

This document was written with the typewriter, and contains edits in typewriter, red pencil, blue pencil, pencil. In this visualisation, unclear words are placed between [brackets].

MS. Pages: 01r - 05r 06r - 10r 11r - 15r 16r - 20r 21r - 24r

[p. 06r] [0353] her, I don't diffuse the perfumes of Araby myself. [0354] [[]Shall I describe the room? [0355] No. [0356] I shall have occasion to do so later perhaps. [0357] When I seek refuge there, bet, all shame drunk, my prick in my rectum, [?] who knows.? [0358] Good. [0359] Now that we know where we're going, let's go there. [0360] It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. [0361] It almost rids you of the wish to go there. [0362] I was distraught, who am so seldom distraught, (from what should I be distraught,?) and as to my motions even more uncertain than usual.[]] [0363] [[]The night must have tired me, at least weakened me, and the sun, hoisting itself higher and higher in the east, had poisoned me, while I slept. [0364] I ought to have put the bulk of the rock between it and me before closing my eyes. [0365] I confuse east and west, the poles too, I invert them readily. [0366] I was out of sorts. [0367] They are deep, my sorts, a deep ditch, and I am not often out of them. [0368] That's why I mention it. [0369] Nevertheless, I covered several miles and found myself under the ramparts. [0370] There I dismounted in compliance with the regulations. [0371] Yes, on entering and leaving town the police compel cyclists to dismount, cars to go into bottom gear, and horsedrawn vehicles to slow down to a walk. [0372] The reason for this regulation is I think this, that the ways into and of course the ways out of this town are narrow and darkened by enormous vaults, without exception. [0373] It is a good rule, and I observe it meticulously, in spite of the difficulty I have in advancing on my crutches and pushing my bicycle at the same time. [0374] I managed somehow. [0375] Being ingenious. [0376] Thus we cleared these difficult straits, my bicycle and I, together. [0377] But a little further on I heard myself hailed. [0378] I raised my head and saw a policeman. [0379] Elliptically speaking, for it was only later, by way of induction, or of deduction, I forget which, that I knew what it was. [0380] What are you doing there? he

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[p. 07r] [0380] said. [0381] I"'m used to that question, I understood it immediately. [0382] Resting, I said. [0383] Resting, he said. [0384] Resting, I said. [0385] Will you answer my question? he cried. [0386] So it always is when I'm reduced to confabulation, I honestly believe I have answered the qeuestions I am asked and in reality I do nothing of the kind. [0387] I won't reconstruct the conversation in all its meanderings. [0388] It ended in my understanding that my way of resting, my attitude when at rest, astride my bicycle, my arms on the handle[#]bars, my heads on my arms, was a violation of I don't know what, public order, public decency. [0389] Modestly I pointed to my crutches and ventured one or two noises regarding my infirmity, which obliged me to rest as I could, rather than as I should. [0390] But there are not two laws, that was the next thing I thought I understood, not two laws, one for the healthy, another for the sick, but one only to which all must bow, rich and poor, young and old, happy and sad. [0391] He was eloquent. [0392] I pointed out that I was not sad. [0393] That was a mistake. [0394] Your papers, he said, I knew it after a moment. [0395] Not at all, I said, not at all. [0396] Your papers! he cried. [0397] Ah, my papers. [0398] Now the only papers I carry with me are bits of newspaper, to wipe myself,[?] you understand, when I have a stool. [0399] Oh I don't say I wipe myself every time I have a stool, no, but I like to be in a position to do so, if I have to. [0400] Nothing strange about that, it seems to me. [0401] In a panic I took this paper from my pocket and thrust it under his nose. [0402] The weather was fine. [0403] We took the little side streets, quiet, sunlit, I springing along between my crutches, he pushing my bicycle, with the tips of his white-gloved fingers. [0404] I wansn't ---[] I didn't feel ununhappy. [0405] I stopped a momen[x]t, I made so bold, to lift my hand and touch the crown of my hat. [0406] It was scorching. [0407] I felt the faces turning to look

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[p. 08r] [0407] after us, calm faces and joyful faces, faces of men, of women, 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. [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. [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, on the contrary, were using it to make their plans, their heads in their hands. [0421] Was there one among them to put himself in my place, [stet] to feel how [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 waas straining towards[] those spurious deeps, their lying promise of gravity and peace, from all my old poisons I struggled towards[] 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. [0426] At the police station I was brought before a very strange official. [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, and protruding from his mouth a thin, 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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[p. 09r] [0429] the point of view of civility, left increasingly [much] to be desired, in my opinion. [0430] Between his questions and my answers, I mean those deserving of consideration, the intervals were more or less long and turbulent. [0431] I am so little used to being asked anything that when I am asked something I take some time to know what. [0432] And the mistake I make then is this, that instead of quietly reflecting on what I have just heard, and heard distinctly, not being hard [|=|] of [|=|] hearing, in spite of all I have heard, I hasten to answer blindly, fearing perhaps lest my silence raise their anger to fury. [0433] I am full of fear, I have gone in fear all my life, in fear of blows. [0434] Insults, abuse, these I can easily bear, but I could never get used to blows. [0435] It's strange. [0436] Even spits still pain me. [0437] But they have only to be a little gentle with me, I mean refrain from hitting me, and I seldom fail to give satisfaction, in the long run. [0438] Now the sergeant was content to threaten me with a cylindrical ruler, and was repaid, little by little, by the discovery that I had no papers in the sense this word had a sense for him, nor any occupation, nor any domicile, that my surname escaped me for the moment and that I was on my way to my mother, whose charity kept me from dying.[(?)] [0439] As to her address, I was in the dark, but knew how to get there, even in the dark. [0440] The district? [0441] By the slaughterhouse, your lordship, for from my mother's room, through the closed windows, I had heard, stilling her chatter, the bellowing of the cattle, that violent, raucous, tremulous bellowing not of the pastures but of the towns, their slaughterhouses and cattle-[#]markets. [0442] Yes, after all, I had perhaps gone too far in saying that my mother lived near the slaughterhouse, it could equally well have been the cattle-[#]market, inear which she lived. [0443] Don't worry, said the

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[p. 10r] [0443] sergeahnt, it's the same district. [0444] I took advantage of the silence which followed these kind words to turn towards[] the window, blindly or nearly so, for I had closed my eyes, proffering to that blandness of blue and gold my face and neck alone, and my mind empty, too, or nearly, for I must have benen wondering if I did not feel like sitting down, after such a long time standing, and remembering what I had learnt in that connection, namely that the sitting posture was not for me any more, because of my short, stiff leg, and that there were only two postures for me, the vertical, drooping between my crutches, sleeping on my feet, and the horizontal, down on the ground. [0445] YAnd yet the desire to sit down came upon me from time to time, came back upon me from a vanished world. [0446] And I did not always resist it, forewarned though I was. [0447] Yes, my mind felt it surely, this tiny sediment, incomprehensibly stirring like grit at the bottom of a puddle, while on my face and great big Adam's apple the air of summer weighed and the splendid summer sky. [0448] And suddently I remembered my name, Molloy. [0449] My name is Molloy, I cried, all of a sudden , now I remember. [0450] Nothering compelled me to give this information, but I gave it, hoping to please I suppose. [0451] They let me keep my hat on, I don't know why. [0452] Is it your mother's name, said the sergeant, it must have been a sergeant. [0453] Molloy, I cried, my name is mMOlloy. [0454] Is that your mother's name, said the sergeant. [0455] What? I said. [0456] Your name is Molloy, said the sergeant. [0457] Yes, I said, now I remember,.[x] [0458] And your mother? said the sergeant. [0459] I didn't follow. [0460] Is your mother's name Molloy, too:? said the sergeant. [0467] I thouhght it over. [0468] Your mother, said the sergeant, is your mother's --[] [0469] Let me think"! I cried [0470] At least I imagine that's how it was. [0471] Take your time, said the sergeant. [0472] Was mother's name Molloy. [0473] Very likely. [0474] Her name must be Molloy, too, I said. [0475] They took me away, to the guard-room I

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