Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

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Segment 1

[0569] fastidious tread. [0570] The boatman rested his elbow on his knee, his
head [xx] [] 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 [x] [] could not see his eyes. [0572] The horizon was burning
with sulphur and phosphorous, it was there I was bound.

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Segment 2

[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 hwawthorn.
[0576] In the ditch the grass was thick and high, I took off
my hat and pressed about my face the long leafy stalks.

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Segment 3

[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.

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Segment 4

[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.

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Segment 5

[0585] For the particulars, if you are interested in particulars,
there is no need to despair, you may scrabble on the right doo[x]r[]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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Segment 6

[0589] What am I waiting
for then, to exorciaze mine?
[0590] It's coming, it's coming. I hear from
here the howl resolving all, even if it is not mine.
[0591] Meanwhile
there's no use knowing you are gone, you are not, you are writhing
yet, the hair is growing, the nails are
[→ p. 30]

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Metamark 1
Metamark: → p. 30 Note: An arrow indicating that the retyped portion of the typescript ends here and that the text reconnects with p. 30 of the carbon copy at this point.
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Metamarks