
[1860] all my life, I think I had been going to my mother, with the purpose of
establishing our relations on a less precarious footing.
[1861] And when I was
with her, and I often succeeded, I left her without having done anything.
[1862] And when I was no longer with her I wqas again on my way to her, hoping to
do better the next time.
[1863] And when I appeared to give up and to busy
myself with something else, or with nothing at all any more, in reality
I was hatching my plans and seeking the way to her house.
[1864] This is taking
a queer turn.
[1865] So even without this so-called imperative I impugn, it
would have been difficult for me to stay in the forest, since I was
forced to assume my mother was not there.
[1866] And yet it might have been
better for me to try and stay.
[1867] But I also said, Yet a little while, at
the rate things are going, and I won't be able to move, but will have to
stay, where I happen to be, unless someone comes and carries me.
[1870] And every time I say, I said this, or,
I said that, or speak of a voice saying, far away inside me, Molloy,
and then a fine phrase more or less clear and simple, aor find myself
compelled to attribute to others intelligible words, or hear my own
voice uttering to others more or less articulate sounds, I am merely
complying with the demands of the convention that you lie or hold your
peace.
[1871] For what really happened was quite different. [1872] And I did not
say, Yet a little while, at the rate things are going, etc., but that
resembled perhaps what I would have said, if I had been able.
[1873] In reality
I said nothing at all, but I heard a murmur, something gone wrong with
the silence, and I pricked up my ears, like an animal I imagine, who
gives a start and pretends to be dead.
[1874] And then sometimes there arose
in me, confusedly, a kind of consciousness, which I exrp8ressed by saying,
I said, etc., or, Don't do it Molloy, or, Is that your mother's name?
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt