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[0475] suppose, and there I was told to sit down. [0476] I must have tried to
explain. [0477] I won't go into it. [0478] I obtained permission, if not to
lie down on a bench, at least to remain standing, propped against
the wall. [0479] The room was dark and full of people hastening to and
fro, malefactors, policemen, lawyers, priests, and journalists I suppose. [0480] All that made it [?] 
dark, dark forms crowding in a dark place.
[0481] They paid no attention to me and I repaid the compliment. [0482] Then how could I know that they were paying no attention to me and how could I repay the compliment, since they were paying no attention to me?
[0483] I don't know. [0484] I knew it and I did it, that's all I know. [0485] But
suddenly a woman materialized before me, a big, fat woman dressed
in black, or rather in mauve. [0486] I still wonder today if it wasn't
the social worker. [0487] She was holding out to me, on an odd saucer,
a mug full of a grayish concoction which must have been green tea
with saccharine and powdered milk. [0488] Nor was that all, for between mug and saucer a thick slab of dry bread was precariously lodged,
so that I began to say; in a kind of anguish, it's going to fall,
it's going to fall, as if it mattered whether it fell or not. [0489] A
moment later I myself was holding, in my trembling hands, this
little pile of tottering disparates, in which the hard, the liquid,
and the soft were joined, without understanding how the transfer had
been effected. [0490] Let me tell you this, when social workers offer you,
free, gratis, and for nothing, something to hinder you from losing
consciousness, which with them is an obsession, it is useless to
recoil, [0491] they will pursue you to the end of the earth, the vomitory
in their hand. [0492] The Salvation Army is no better. [0493] Against the
charitable gesture there is no defense that I know of. [0494] You sink
your head, you put out your hands all trembling and twined together
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[0494] and you say, Thankyou, thankyou lady, thankyou kind lady. [0495] To
him who has nothing it is forbidden not to relish filth. [0496] The
liquid overflowed, the mug rocked with a noise of chattering
teeth, not my teeth, I had no teeth, and the sodden bread sagged
more and more. [0497] Until, panic-stricken, I flung it all far from me.
[0498] I did not let it fall, no, but with a convulsive thrust of both
my hands I threw it on the floor where it smashed to smithereens,
or against the wall, far from me, with all my strength. [0499] I will
not tell what followed, for I am weary of this place, I want
to leave this place. [0500] It was late afternoon when they told me
I could go. [0501] I was advised to behave better in the future.
[0502] Conscious of my wrongs, knowing now the reasons for my arrest,
alive to my irregular situation as exposed by the inquiry, I
was surprised to find myself so soon at freedom once again, if
that was what it was, unpenalized. [0503] Had I, without my knowledge,
a protector in high places? [0504] Had I, without knowing it, favorably
impressed the sergeant? [0505] Had they succeeded in reaching my
mother and obtaining from her, or from the neighbors, partial
confirmation of my statements? [0506] Were they of the opinion that it
was useless to prosecute me? [0507] To apply the letter of the law to
a creature like me is not an easy matter. [0508] It can be done, but
reason is against it. [0509] It is better to leave things to the
police. [0510] I don't know. [0511] If it is unlawful to be without papers,
why did they not insist on my getting them. [0512] Because that
costs money and I had none? [0513] But in that case could they not
have appropriated my bicycle? [0514] Probably not, without a court
order. [0515] All that is incomprehensible. [0516] What is certain is
this, that I never rested in that way again, my feet obscenely
resting on the earth, my arms on the handle[#]bars and on my arms
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[0516] my head, rocking and abandoned. [0517] It is indeed a deplorable sight,
a deplorable example for the people, who so need to be encouraged
in their bitter toil, and to have before their eyes manifestations
of strength only, of courage and of joy, without which they
might collapse at the end of the day and roll on the ground. [0518] I
have only to be told what good behavior is, and I am well [|=|] behaved, within the limits of my physical possibilities. [0519] And
so I have never ceased to improve, from this point of view, for I --[
] I used to be intelligent and quick. [0520] And as far as good[#]will
is concerned, I had it to overflowing, the exasperated good[#]will
of the overanxious. [0521] So that my repertory of permitted attitudes
has never ceased to grow, from my first steps until my last,
executed last year. [0522] And if I have always behaved like a pig, the
fault lies not with me but with my superiors, who corrected me
only on points of detail instead of showing me the essence of the
system, after the manner of the great English schools, and the
guiding principles of good manners and how to proceed, without
going wrong, from the latter to the former, and how to trace back
to its ultimate source a given comportment. [0523] For that would have
allowed me, before parading in public certain habits such as the
finger in the nose, the scratching of the balls, digital emunction and the peripatetic pee,[?] to refer them to the first rules of a
reasoned theory. [0524] On this subject I had only negative and empirical
notions, which means that I was in the dark, most of the time, and
all the more completely as a lifetime of observations had left me
doubting the possibility of systematic decorum, even within a
limited area. [0525] But it is only since I have ceased to live that I
think of these things and the other things. [0526] It is in the tranquillity of decomposition that I remember the long, confused emotion which
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[0526] was my life, and that I judge it, as it is said that God will
judge us, and with no less impertinence. [0527] To decompose is to live
too, I know, I know, don't torment me, but one sometimes forgets.
[0528] And of that life, too, I shall tell you perhaps one day, the day when
I know that when I thought I knew I was merely existing, and that
passion without form or stations will have devoured me down to
the rotting flesh itself, and that when I know that I know nothing,
I am only crying out as I have always cried out, more or less
piercingly, more or less openly. [0529] Let me cry out then, it's
said to be good for you. [0530] Yes, let me cry out, this time, then
another time perhaps, then perhaps a last time. [0531] Cry out that
the declining sun fell full on the white wall of the barracks.
[0532] It was like being in China. [0533] A confused shadow was cast. [0534] It was
I and my bicycle. [0535] I began to play, gesticulating, waving my hat,
moving my bicycle to and fro before me, blowing the horn, [0536] watching
the wall. [0537] They were watching me through the bars, I felt their
eyes upon me. [0538] The policeman on guard at the door told me to go
away. [0539] He needn't have, I was calm again. [0540] The shadow in the end
is no better than the substance. [0541] I asked the man to help me, to
have pity on me. [0542] He didn't understand. [0543] I thought of the food I
had refused. [0544] I took a pebble from my pocket and sucked it. [0545] It
was smooth, from having been sucked so long by me, and beaten by
the storm. [0546] A little pebble in your mouth, round and smooth,
appeases, soothes, makes you forget your hunger, forget your
thirst. [0547] The man came toward me, displeased by my slowness. [0548] Him,
too, they were watching, through the windows. [0549] Somewhere someone
laughed. [0550] Inside me, too, someone was laughing. [0551] I took my sick leg
in my hands and passed it over the frame. [0552] I went. [0553] I had forgotten
where I was going. [0554] I stopped to think. [0555] It is difficult to think
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[0555] riding, for me. [0556] When I try and think riding I lose my balance
and fall. [0557] I speak in the present tense, it is so easy to speak
in the present tense, when speaking of the past. [0558] It is the
mythological present, don't pay any heed to it. [0559] I was already
settling in my rag[|=|]limp stasis when I remembered that it wasn't
done. [0560] I went on my way, that way of which I knew nothing, qua [] way, which was nothing more than a surface, bright or dark, smooth
or rough, and always dear to me, in spite of all, and the dear sound
of that which goes and is gone, with a brief dust, when the weather
is dry. [0561] There I am then, before I knew I had left the town,
on the canal[#]bank. [0562] The canal goes through the town, I know I know,
there are even two. [0563] But then these hedges, these fields? [0564] Don't
torment yourself Molloy. [0565] Suddenly I see, it was my right leg,
the stiff one, then. [0566] Toiling toward me along the twopath
I saw a team of little gray donkeys, on the other bank, and I
heard angry cries and dull blows. [0566|001] I got down. [0567] I put my foot
to the ground the better to see the approaching barge, so
gently approaching that the water was unruffled. [0568] It was a
cargo of nails and timber, on its way to some carpenter I
suppose. [0569] My eyes caught a donkey's eyes, they fell to his
little feet, their brave, fastidious tread. [0570] The boatman rested
his elbow on his knee, his head on his hand. [0571] Every three or
four puffs, without taking his pipe from his mouth, he spat
into the water. [0572] The horizon was burning with sulphur and
phosphorous, it was there I was bound. [0573] At last I got down,
hobbled down to the ditch and lay down, beside my bicycle.
[0574] I lay at full stretch, with outspread arms. [0575] The white hawthorn
stooped toward[₰] me, unfortunately I don't like the smell of
hawthorn. [0576] In the ditch the grass was thick and high, I took
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