MS-WU-MSS008-3-49

[0467] 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 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, policema^en, lawyers,
priests and journalists I suppose.

[0480] All that made a dark, dark
[?] forms crowding in a dark place. [0481] They paid no attention to me and
I was doing as much for them ^{repaid the compliment}. [0482] Then how could I know that they were
paying no attention to me and how could I be doing as much for them ^{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 rose up ^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 greyish 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