
[1932] a ditch, I don't know why, and it was in this ditch that I became aware
of what had happened to me.
[1933] I suppose it was the fall into the ditch that
opened my eyes, for why would they have opened otherwise?
[1934] I looked at the
plain rolling away as far as the eye could see.
[1935] No, not quite [⁁]so far as
[⁁]that.
[1936] For my eye[⁁]s having got used to the light[₰] I fancied I
saw, faintly outlined against the horizon, the towers and steeples of a
town, which of course I could not assume was mine, on such slight evidence.
[1937] It is true the plain seemed familiar, but in my region all the plains
looked alike, when you knew one you knew them all.
[1938] [⁁]In any case, whether it
was my town or not, whether somewhere under that faint haze my mother
[⁁]panted on or whether she poisoned the air a hundred miles away, were
ludicrously idle questions for a man in my position, though of undeniable
interest on the plane of pure knowledge.
[1939] For how could I drag myself over
[⁁]that vast moor, where my crutches would fumble in vain.
[1940] Rolling perhaps.
[1941] And then?
[1942] Would they let me roll on to my mother's door?
[1943] Fortunately for
me at this painful juncture, which I had vaguely foreseen, but not in all
its bitterness, I heard a voice telling me not to [⁁]fret, that help was
coming.
[1944] Literally.
[1945] These words struck [⁁]it is not too much to say as
clearly on my ear, and on my understanding, as the urchin's thanks I
suppose when I stooped and picked up his marble.
[1946] Don't [⁁]fret, Molloy, we're
coming.
[1947] Well, I suppose you have to try everything once, succour included,
to get a complete picture of the resources of their planet.
[1948] I [⁁]lapsed
down to the bottom of the ditch.
[1949] It must have been [⁁]spring, a morning in
[⁁]spring.
[1950] I thought I heard birds, skylarks perhaps.
[1951] I had not heard a
bird for a long time.
[1952] How was it I [⁁]had not heard any in the forest?
[1953] Nor
seen any.
[1955] It had not seemed strange to me.
[1956] Had I heard any at the
seaside?
[1957] Mews?
[1958] I [⁁]could not remember.
[1959] I remembered the corn-crakes.
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt