Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-1

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Segment 1

[1195] yourself, Molloy, man or woman, what does it matter? [1196] But I cannot help
asking myself the following question.
[1197] Could a woman have stopped me as
I swept towards mother?
[1198] Probably. [1199] Better still, was such an encounter
possible, I mean between me and a woman?
[1200] Now men, I have rubbed up
against a few men in my time, but women?
[1201] Oh well, I may as well confess
it now, yes, I once rubbed up against one.

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Segment 2

[1202] I don't mean my mother, I
did more than rub up against her.
[1203] And if you don't mind we'll leave my
mother out of all this.
[1204] But another who might have been my mother, and
even I think my grandmother, if chance had not willed otherwise.
[1205] Listen
to him now talking about chance.
[1206] It was she made me acquainted with love.
[1207] She went by the peaceful name of Ruth I think, but I can't say for certain.

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Segment 3

[1208] Perhaps the name was Edith. [1209] She had a hole between her ld [place = overwritten] egs, oh not the
bunghole I had always imagined, but a slit, and [place = supralinear] in this I put, or rather she put,
my so-called virile member in, not without difficulty, and I toiled and
moiled until I came [place = supralinear] let fly[] discharged or gave up trying or was begged by her to stop.
[1210] A
balls of a [place = supralinear] mug's game in my opinion and tiring on top of that, in the long run.

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Segment 4

[1211] But I lent myself to it with [place = supralinear] a good enough grace, knowing it was love, for
she had told me so.
[1212] She bent over the couch, because of her rheumatism,
and [place = supralinear] in I got in [place = supralinear] []went from behind.
[1213] It was the only position she could bear,
because of her lumbago.
[1214] It seemed alright [place = supralinear] []all right to me, for I had seen dogs,
and I was astonished when she confided that you could go about it differen-
-tly.
[1215] I wonder what she meaa [place = overwritten] nt exactly. [1216] Perhaps after all she put me in
her rectum.
[1217] A matter of complete indifference to me, I neede [place = overwritten] n't tell you.

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Segment 5

[1218] But is it true love, in the rectum? [1219] That's what gets [place = supralinear] []bothers me down sometimes.
[1220] Have I never known love, after all. [place = overwritten] ? [1221] She too was an eminently flat woman
and she moved with short stiff steps, leaning on an ebony stick.
[1222] Perhaps
she too was a man, one more [place = supralinear] yet another of them..
[1223] But in that case surely our testicles would
have collided, while we writhed.
[1224] Perhaps she held hers tight in her hand,

Transcription
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