
[0569] fastidious tread.
[0570] The boatman rested his elbow on his knee, his
head [₰]
on his hand.
[0570|001] He had a long white beard.
[0571] Every three or
four puffs, without taking his pipe from his mouth, he spat into
the water.
[0571|001] I [₰] could not see his eyes.
[0572] The horizon was burning
with sulphur and phosphorous, it was there I was bound.
[0573] At last
I got right down, hobbled down to the ditch and lay down, beside
my bicycle.
[0574] I lay at full stretch, with outspread arms.
[0575] The white
hawthorn stooped towards me, unfortunately I don't like the smell
of hawthorn.
[0576] In the ditch the grass was thick and high, I took off
my hat and pressed about my face the long leafy stalks.
[0577] Then I
could smell the earth, the smell of the earth was in the grass that
my hands wove round my face till I was blinded.
[0578] I ate a little too,
a little grass.
[0579] It came back to my mind, from nowhere, as a moment
before my name, that I had set out to see my mother, at the beginning
of this ending day.
[0580] My reasons? [0581] I had forgotten them. [0582] But I knew
them, I must have known them, I had only to find them again and I
would sweep, with the clipped wings of necessity, to my mother.
[0583] Yes,
it's all easy when you know why, a mere matter of magic.
[0584] Yes, the
whole thing is to know what saint to implore, any fool can implore
him.
[0585] For the particulars, if you are interested in particulars,
there is no need to despair, you may scrabble on the right door[⁁]r, in
the right way, in the end.
[0586] It's for the whole there seems to be
no spell.
[0587] Perhaps there is no whole, before you're dead.
[0588] An opiate
for the life of the dead, that should be easy.
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- Metamarks
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt