This document was written with the typewriter, and contains edits in typewriter, black ink, blueblack ink, pencil. In this visualisation, unclear words are placed between [brackets].
[p. 21r]
[0407] 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 wqas the hour of rest, the forenoon's toil ended, the afternoon's to come.
[0419] The wisest perhaps, lying 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, to feel how 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 was 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, [at liberty] set free from the acts, merged in this alien hour, saying, respite, respite. [0426] At the police station I was [xxx to] 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
[p. 22r]
[0429] which, from the point of view of civility, left increasingly 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 turnbulent.
[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 [a]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 [being beaten] 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 [rough-handling] hitting me, and I seldom fail to give satisfaction, in the long run.
[0438] Now the sergeant was content to threaten me with a cylin[c]drical ruler, [xxx to] and was repaid, [discover], 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 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
[p. 23r]
[0442] equally well have been the cattle-market, near which she lived.
[0443] Don't worry, said the sergeant, 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, 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 been 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 hori[x]zontal, down on the ground.
[0445] And 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 i[,]t, 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.
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[0448] And suddenly I remembered my name, Molloy.
[0449] My name is Molloy, I cried, all of a sudden,
now I remember.
[0450] Nothing 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 Molloy.
[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.
[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 thought it
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[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, policemaen, 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
[p. 25r]
[0490] nothing, something to keep hinder you from passing out losing consciousness,[⁁], which for 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 [know]no defence, that I know of.
[0494] You sink your head, you put out your hands all trembling and entangled twined together and you say, Thankyou, thankyou lady, thankyou kind lady.
[0495] To him who has nothing it is forbidden not to [xxx] 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 [drooped] 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 future.
[0502] Conscious of my wrongs, knowing now the reasons for my arrest, alive to my irregular situation as exposed by the enquiry, I was surprised to find myself so soon at freedom once again, if that is what it was, [and unscathed] unpenalised..
[0503] Had I, without my knowledge, a protector in high places?
[0504] Had I, without knowing it, favourably impressed the sergeant?
[0505] Had they succeeded in reaching my mother and obtaining from her, or from the neighbours, 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 dont know.