
[0805] for my stiff leg.
[0806] Without ceasing to ply me with delicacies she kept up
a chatter of which I did not understand the hundredth part.
[0807] With her own
hand she took off my hat, and [⁁]carried it away, to hang it up somewhere, on
a [⁁]hat-rack I suppose, and seemed surprised when the lace pulled her up in
her stride.
[0808] She had a parrot, very pretty, all the most approved colours.
[0809] I understood him better than his mistress.
[0810] I don't mean I understood him
better than she understood him, I mean I understood him better than I
understood her.
[0811] He exclaimed from time to time, Fuck the son of a bitch,
fuck the son of a bitch.
[0812] He must have belonged to an American sailor,
before he belonged to Lousse.
[0813] Pets often change masters.
[0814] He didn't say
much else.
[0815] No, I'm wrong, he also said, Putain de merde!
[0816] He must have
belonged to a French sailor before he belonged to the American sailor.
Putain de merde!
[0817] Unless he had hit on it alone, it wouldn't surprise me.
[0818] Lousse tried to make him say, Pretty Polly!
[0819] I think it was too late. [0820] He
listened, his head on one side, pondered, then said, Fuck the son of a
bitch.
[0821] It was clear he was doing his best.
[0822] Him too one day she would
bury.
[0823] In his cage probably.
[0824] Me too, if I had stayed, she would have
buried.
[0825] If I had her address I'd write to her, to come and bury me.
[0826] I fell asleep.
[0827] I woke up in a bed, in my skin.
[0828] They had carried their
impertin[⁁]ence to the point of washing me, to judge by the smell I gave off,
no longer gave off.
[0829] I went to the door.
[0830] Locked.
[0831] To the window.
[0832] Barred.
[0833] It was not yet quite dark.
[0834] What is there left to try when you have tried
the door and the window?
[0835] The chimney perhaps.
[0836] I looked for my clothes.
[0837] I found a light switch and switched it on.
[0838] No result.
[0839] What a story!
[0840] All that left me cold, or nearly.
[0841] I found my crutches, against an easy
chair.
[0842] It may seem strange that I was able to go through the motions
I have described without their help.
[0843] I find it strange.
[0844] You don't
remember immediately who you are, when you wake.
[0845] On a chair I found
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt