MS-OSU-RARE-115

[p. 81v] [1643] night. [1644] But these were mere crises, and what are crises compared to all that never stops, that knows neither ebb nor flow, with its leaden face and infernal deeps, nothing. [1645] Not a word, not a word against the crises that seized me, wrung me and in the end cast me aside, amiably, without drawing attention to me. [1646] And I wrapped my head in my coat, to muffle the obscene noise that choking makes, or I made it sound like a fit of coughing, universally admitted and approved and whose only drawback is this,that you run the risk of being pitied. DOODLE 7 [1647] But perhaps the moment has come to observe, since it is never too late to do the right thing, that when I speak of my progress as being ^weakened by the failure of my good leg I express only a minute part of the truth. [1648] For the truth is I had other weak points, here and there, and they too were becoming weaker and weaker, as might have been foreseen. [1649] But what could not have been foreseen was the rapidity with which their weakness had increased, since my departure from the seashore. DOODLE 8 [1650] For while I remained at the seashore my weak points, though increasing in weakness, as was only to be expected, had not seemed to do so. [1651] And I would have been hard set to affirm, fingering my anus for example, gracious goodness, it's much worse than yesterday, you wouldn't think it was the same hole. [1652] I apologize for resorting to this shameful orifice, ^tis my muse will have it so. [1653] And perhaps less than the blemish that is named, we should see in it the symbol of all those that are not, a distinction due perhaps to its centrality and to its vague air of copula between me and the other excrement. [1654] Poor little misjudged hole, which we call the arse's, and affect to despise. [1655] Is it not rather the true portal of our being, and the celebrated mouth the back-door? [1656] Nothing enters it, or so little, that is not

[p. 82r]

[p. 82v] DOODLE 9 [1656] rejected forthwith, or very nearly. [1657] Averse to almost all that approaches it from without, it cannot be said either to make any great fuss ^over that which it receives from within. [1658] Are not these significant facts? [1659] Events will tell. [1660] But nevertheless I shall try and devote rather less space to it in ^the future. [1661] And this will be easy, ^{in the future} the unspeakable foregone future. [1662] And as for neglecting the essential, I fancy there are few things I do better, arrested by the contradictory information in my possession, regarding this phenomenon. [1663] But to return to my weak points, I repeat that they have evolved normally, by the seaside, yes, I have noticed nothing abnormal. [1664] Either because I did not pay sufficient ^attention to them, absorbed as I was in the metamorphosis of my excellent leg, or else because there was in fact nothing to engage my attention, in this connexion. [1665] And no sooner had I left the shore, harried by the dread of waking one fine day, far from my mother, with my two legs as rigid as my crutches, than they began to gallop, I refer to my weak points, till their weakness was the weakness almost of death, with all the disadvantages that such a thing entails, when the points affected are not vital points. [1666] I situate at this period the ignominious capitualation of my toes, in the very heat of the battle as it were. [1667] This, you may object, falls under the same heading as my legs, and does not call for separate mention, since I was already debarred, toes or no toes, from putting my foot to the ground. [1668] Admitted. [1669] But do you even know which foot we are talking about? [1670] No. [1671] Nor I. [1672] Wait till I see. [1673] No, you are right, strictly speaking they were not a weak ^point, I refer to my toes, on the contrary, they were in excellent condition, or so I thought, apart from a few corns, bunions

[p. 83r]

[p. 83v] [1673] ingrowing nails and occasional cramps. [1674] No, my true weak points were elsewhere. [1675] And And if I do set them forth here and now, in their long array, it is because I shall never do so. [1676] For it is certain that I shall never do so, no, even this is not certain. [1677] And then there is this, that it would be a pity to give a wrong idea of my health which, without being exactly brilliant, or ^boisterous, was at bottom of an unheard of robustness. [1678] For how otherwise could I have lived to the enormous age to which I have lived? [1679] Thanks to moral qualities? [1680] To an appropriate hygiene? [1681] To the open ^spaces? [1682] To lack of food? [1683] To lack of sleep? [1684] To solitude? [1685] To persecution? [1686] To the long silent screaming (dangerous to scream)? [1687] To the longing ^for the earth to swallow me up? [1688] Come, come, [1689] fate is rancorous, but not to that extent. [1690] Take the case of mother. [1691] What put a stop to her, in the end? [1692] I wonder. [1693] Perhaps they buried her alive, it ^wouldn't surprise me. [1694] Pox on the old hag and her indefectible genes^{, they're} all I ever got out of her. [1695] To be bristling with pimples ever since my infancy, what good has that done me? [1696] The heart thumps so. [1697] Look at my ureters - no, not a word on that subject. [1698] And ^the plumerals. [1699] And the bladder. [1700] And the urethra. [1701] And the glans. [1702] Santa Maria. [1703] I tell you what it is, I no longer piss, so help me God. [1704] But my prepuce, sat verbum, oozes urine night and day, or something very similar, it smells of kidney^, [1705] so much for that lost sense. [1706] Can this be called pissing. [1707] Hardly. [1708] My sweat also, and I sweat without ceasing, has a curious

[p. 84r]

[p. 84v] DOODLE 10 [1708] odour. [1709] And the spittle I secrete in such abundance tastes of it too, , if I am not mistaken. [1710] What an eliminator I am to be sure, of my waste products^, nothing to be hoped from uremia. [1711] Me too they'd bury alive, if there was a justice. [1712] , I shall perhaps set them forth yet, the weak points that I shall never set forth, when the ^days come to draw up the inventory of my goods and chattels. DOODLE 11 [1713] For that day, if it ever dawns, I shall be less afraid of finishing me off than I am to day . [1714] For to day , ^though if I flatter myself that the first lap is over, I do not that the last is at hand. [1715] I therefore reserve myself, for the sprint. [1716] For not to sprint, when the time comes - no, better abandon. [1717] But it is forbidden to abandon or even to pause an instant. [1718] So I wait, jogging on, for the bell to say, Molloy, nurse your strength no more, it is the end. [1719] It is then I reason, with the help of images ill adapted to my situation. [1720] And ^now the feeling never leaves me, I don't know why, or hardly ever, that it's day will come when I must make the statement, the statement of what is left me of all I ever had. [1721] But I must wait for the ^day to come, so as to be certain that nothing more can be acquired, nothing more lost, nothing more thrown away, nothing more given away, by me. [1722] ^{That day} I shall be in a position to state^, without risk of error, what is left me, in the end, of all I ever had, [1723] for it will be the end. [1724] And in the meantime I may grow poorer, richer, oh not to the extent of modifying my situation, but sufficiently to debar me from announcing, forthwith, what is left me of all I have had,

[p. 85r]

[p. 85v] [1724] for I have not yet had all, not yet lost all. [1725] But as to what this presentiment is all about, I really have no idea, and this I think is often the case with the best presentiments, that one really has no idea what they are all about. [1726] Which would seem to suggest that it is a true presentiment, susceptible of coming true. [1727] But are we any better off when it comes to false presentiments, I mean with regard to having an idea of what they are all about. [1728] I think we are, yes, I think that whatever is false admits more readily of reduction, I mean to notions that are clear and distinct, distinct from all other notions. [1729] But I may be wrong. [1730] But I was a creature ^little prone to presentiments, but rather to sentiments pure and simple, or better still, I venture to say, to episentiments. [1731] For I knew beforehand, which made presentiment unnecessary. DOODLE 12 [1732] I will go even further (it costs me nothing), the only time I knew was beforehand, for when the moment came I no longer long knew, as you may perhaps have observed, or only at the cost of superhuman efforts, and when the moment was past I no longer knew either, I was restored to ignorance. [1733] And all this taken together, if such a thing is possible, ought to explain many things, and notably my astonishing old age, still green in places, on the supposition that the state of my health, in spite of all that has been said on that subject, is insufficient to account for it.

[p. 86r] You may put your translation as the Molloy extract. I can make nothing of it.

The passage I suppose is from the top of p. 117 "Et maintenant ma progression...-" to the end of Part I.

Yours sincerely