
[0381] that question, I understood it immediately.
[0382] Resting, I said.
[0383] Resting, he said.
[0384] Resting, I said.
[0385] Will you answer my question?
he cried.
[0386] So it always is when I'm reduced to confabulation,I
honestly believe I have answered the question I am asked and in
reality I do nothing of the kind.
[0387] I won't reconstruct the
conversation in all its meanderings.
[0388] It ended in my understanding
that my way of resting, my attitude when at rest, astride my
bicycle, my arms on the handlebars, my head on my arms, was a
violation of I don't know what, public order, public decency.
[0389] Modestly I pointed to my crutches and ventured one or two noises
regarding my infirmity, which obliged me to rest as I could,
rather than as I should.
[0390] But there are not two laws, that was
the next thing I thought I understood, not two laws, one for the
healthy, another for the sick, but one only to which all must
bow, rich and poor, young and old, happy and sad.
[0391] He was eloquent.
[0392] I pointed out that I was not sad.
[0393] That was a mistake.
[0394] Your papers,
he said, I knew it a moment later.
[0395] Not at all, I said, not at all.
[0396] Your papers! he cried.
[0397] Ah my papers.
[0398] Now the only papers I
carry with me are bits of newspaper, to wipe myself, you understand,
when I have a stool.
[0399] Oh I don't say I wipe myself every time I
have a stool, no, but I like to be in a position to do so, if I
have to.
[0400] Nothing strange about that, it seems to me.
[0401] In a panic
I took this paper from my pocket and thrust it under his nose.
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt