
[1366] in my mind that it was not an objet de vertu [place = overwritten] [⁁] [place = supralinear] object of virtu, but [place = supralinear] [⁁]that it had a most specific
function always to be hidden from me.
[1367] I could therefore puzzle over it
endlessly and run no [place = supralinear] [⁁]without the least risk.
[1368] For to know nothing is nothing, not to want
to know anything too [place = supralinear] [⁁]likewise, but not to be [place = supralinear] unable to know [place = supralinear] [⁁]beyond knowing anything, to know you
are unable to know [place = supralinear] [⁁]beyond knowing anything, that is when peace enters in, to the soul
of the incurious seeker.
[1369] It is then the true division begins, of twenty-
-two by seven for example, and the pages fill with the true ciphers at
last.
[1370] But I would rather not affirm anything on this subject.
[1371] What does
seem undeniable to me on the contrary is [place = supralinear] [⁁]this, that giving in to the evidence,
to a very strong probabl [place = overwritten] ility rather, I left the shelter of o [place = overwritten] the doorway, [place = supralinear] [⁁]and began
levering myself forward, swinging slowly through the sullen air.
[1372] There
is rapture, or there shoud [place = overwritten] ld be, in the motion crutches give.
[1373] It's [place = supralinear] [⁁]It is a
series of little flights, skimming the ground.
[1374] You take off, you land,
through the throng [place = overwritten] [⁁] [place = supralinear] thronging sound in wind and limb, who have to fasten one foot
to the ground before they dare lift up the other.
[1375] And even their most
joyous hastening is less aerial than my hobble.
[1376] But these are reasonings,
based on analysis.
[1377] And though my mind was still taken up with my mother,
and with the desire to know if I was near her, it was gradually less so,
perhaps because of the silver in my pockets, but I think not, and then
too because these were ancient cares and the mind cannot always broor [place = overwritten] d
on the same cares, but needs fresh cares from time to time, so as to
revert with renewed vigour, when the time comes, to ancient cares.
[1378] But
can one speak here of fresh and ancient cares?
[1379] I think not.
[1380] But it
would be hard for me to prove it.
[1381] What I can assert, without fear of —
without fear, is that I gradually lost interest in knowing, among t [place = overwritten] other
things, what town I was in and if I should soon find my mother and settle
the matter between us.
[1382] And even the nature of that matter grew dim, for
me, without however vanishing completely.
[1383] For it was no small matter
and I was bent on it.
[1384] All my life, I think, I had been bent on it.
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt