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[1675] here and now the impressive list of them it is because I shall never draw it up.
[1676] No, I shall never draw it up, yes, perhaps I shall.
[1677] And then I should be sorry to give a wrong idea of my health which, if it was not exactly rude, to the extent of my bursting with it, was at bottom of an incredible robustness.
[1678] For otherwise how could I have reached the enormous age I have reached.
[1679] Thanks to moral qualities?
[1680] Hygienic habits?
[1681] Fresh air?
[1682] [⁁]Starvation?
[1683] Lack of sleep?
[1684] Solitude?
[1685] Persecution?
[1686] The long silent screams (dangerous to scream)?
[1687] The daily longing for the earth to swallow me up?
[1688] Come come.
[1689] Fate is rancorous, but not to that extent.
[1690] Look at [⁁]mammy.
[1691] What rid me of her, in the end.
[1692] I sometimes wonder.
[1693] Perhaps they buried her alive, it wouldn't surprise me.
[1694] Ah the old bitch, a nice dose she gave me, she and her lousy unconquerable genes.
[1695] Bristling with boils ever since I was a [⁁]brat, a fat lot of good that ever did me.
[1696] The heart beats, and what a beat.
[1697] That my ureters — no, not a word on that subject.
[1698] And the capsules.
[1699] And the bladder.
[1700] And the urethra.
[1701] And the glans.
[1702] Santa Maria.
[1703] I give you my word, I cannot piss, my word of honour, [⁁]as a gentleman.
[1704] But my prepuce, sat verbum, oozes urine, day and night, at least I think it's urine, it smells of kidney.
[1705] What's all this, I thought I had lost the sense of smell.
[1706] Can one speak of pissing, under these conditions?
[1707] Rubbish!
[1708] My sweat too, and God knows I sweat, has a queer smell.
[1709] I think it's in my dribble as well, and [⁁]heaven knows I dribble.
[1710] How I eliminate, to be sure, uremia will never be the death of me.
[1711] Me too they would bury alive, in despair, if there was any justice in the world.
[1712] And this list of my weak points I shall never [⁁]draw up, for fear of [⁁]it's 
finishing me, I shall perhaps, one day, when the time comes for the inventory of my goods and chattels.
[1713] For that day, if it ever dawns, I shall be less afraid, of being finished, than I am today.
[1714] For today, if I do not feel precisely at the beginning of my career, I have not the presumption either to think I
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[1714] am near the end. [1715] So I husband my strength, for the [⁁]spurt. [1716] For to be unable to [⁁]spurt, when the hour strikes, no, you might as well give up. [1717] But it is forbidden to give up and even to stop an instant. [1718] So I wait, jogging along, for the bell to say, Molloy, one last effort, it's the end. [1719] That's how I reason, with the help of images little suited to my situation. [1720] And I can't shake off the feeling, I don't know why, that the day will come for me to say what is left of all I had. [1721] But I must first wait, to be sure there is nothing more I can acquire, or lose, or throw away, or give away. [1722] Then I can say, without fear of error, what is left, in the end, of my possessions. [1723] For it will be the end. [1724] And between now and then I may get poorer, or richer, oh not to the extent of being any better off, or any worse off, but sufficiently to preclude me from announcing, here and now, what is left of all I had, for I have not yet had all. [1725] But I can make no sense of this presentiment, and that I understand is very often the case with the best presentiments , that you can make no sense of them. [1726] So perhaps it is a true presentiment, apt to be [⁁]borne out. [1727] But can any more sense be made of false presentiments? [1728] I think so, yes, I think that all that is false may more readily be reduced, to notions clear and distinct, distinct from all other notions. [1729] But I may be wrong. [1730] But I was not given to presentiments, but to sentiments sweet and simple, to episentiments rather, if I may venture to say so. [1731] For I knew in advance, which made all presentiment superfluous. [1732] I will even go further (what can I lose?), I knew only in advance, for when the time came I knew no longer, you may have noticed it, or only when I made a superhuman effort, and when the time was past I no longer knew either, I regained my ignorance. [1733] And all that taken together, if that is possible, should serve to explain many things, and notably my astonishing old age, still green in places, assuming the state of my health, in spite of all I have
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[1733] said about it, is insufficient to account for it. [1734] Simple supposition, committing me to nothing. [1735] But I was saying that if my progress, at this stage, was becoming more and more slow and painful, this was not due solely [⁁]to my legs, but also [⁁]to innumerable so-called weak points, having nothing to do with my legs. [1736] Unless one is to suppose, gratuitously, that they and my legs were part of the same syndrome, which in that case would have been of a diabolical complexity. [1737] The fact is, and I deplore it, but it is too late now to do anything about it, that I have laid too much stress on my legs, throughout these wanderings, to the detriment of the rest. [1738] For I [⁁]was no ordinary cripple, far from it, and there were days when my legs were the best part of me, with the exception of the brain capable of forming such a judgement. [1739] I was therefore obliged to stop more and more often, I shall never weary of repeating it, and to lie down, in defiance of the rules, now prone, now supine, now on one side, now on the other, and as [⁁]much as possible with the feet higher than the head, to dislodge the clots. [1740] And to lie with the feet higher than the head, when your legs are stiff, is no easy matter. [1741] But don't worry, I [⁁]did it. [1742] When my comfort was at stake there was no trouble I [⁁]would not go to. [1743] The forest was all about me and the boughs, twining together at a prodigious height, compared to mine, sheltered me from the light and the elements. [1744] Some days I advanced no more than thirty or forty paces, I give you my oath. [1745] To say I stumbled in impenetrable darkness, no, I cannot. [1746] I stumbled, but the darkness was not impenetrable. [1747] For there reigned a kind of blue gloom, more than sufficient for my visual needs. [1748] I was astonished this gloom was not green, rather than blue, but I saw it blue and perhaps it was. [1749] The red of the sun, mingling with the green of the leaves, gave a blue result, that is how I reasoned. [1750] But from time to time. [1751] From time to time. [1752] What tenderness in these little words, what savagery. [1753] But from time
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[1753] to time I came on a kind of crossroads, you know, a star, or circus, of the kind to be found in even the most unexplored of forests. [1754] And turning then methodically to face the radiating paths [⁁]in turn, hoping for I know not what, I described a complete circle, or less than a circle, or more than a circle, so great was the resemblance between [⁁]them. [1755] Here the gloom was not so thick and I made haste to leave it. [1756] I don't like gloom to lighten, [⁁]there's something shady about it.. [1757] I had a certain number of encounters in this forest, naturally, where does one not, but nothing [⁁]to signify. [1758] I notably encountered a charcoal-burner. [1759] I might have loved him, I think, if I had been seventy years younger. [1760] But it's not certain. [1761] [⁁]For then he too would have been younger by as much, oh not quite as much, but much younger. [1762] I never really had much love to spare, but all the same I had my little quota, when I was small, and it went to the old men, when it could. [1763] And I even think I had the time to love one or two, oh not with true love, no, nothing like the old woman, I've lost her name again, Rose, no, anyway you see who I mean, but all the same, how shall I say, tenderly, as those on the brink of a better earth. [1764] Ah I was a precocious child, and then I was a precocious man. [1765] Now they all give me the shits, the ripe, the unripe and the rotting from the bough. [1766] He was all over me, begging me to share his hut, believe it or not. [1767] A total stranger. [1768] Sick with solitude probably. [1769] I say charcoal-burner, but I really don't know. [1770] I see smoke somewhere. [1771] That's something that never escapes me, smoke. [1772] A long dialogue ensued, interspersed with groans. [1773] I could not ask him the way to my town, the name of which escaped me still. [1774] I asked him the way to the nearest town, I found the necessary words, and accents. [1775] He did not know. [1776] He was born in the forest probably and had spent his whole life there. [1777] I asked him to show me the nearest way out of the forest. [1778] I grew eloquent. [1779] His reply was exceedingly confused. [1780] Either I didn't understand a word he said, or he didn't understand a word
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[1780] I said, or he knew nothing, or he wanted to keep me near him. [1781] It was towards this fourth hypothesis that in all modesty I leaned, for when I made to go, he held me back by the sleeve. [1782] So I smartly freed a crutch and dealt him a good [⁁]dint on the skull. [1783] That calmed him. [1784] The dirty old [⁁]brute. [1785] I got up and went on. [1786] But I hadn't gone more than a few paces, and for me at this time a few paces meant something, when I turned and went back to where he lay, to examine him. [1787] Seeing he had not ceased to breathe[₰] I contented myself with giving him a few warm kicks in the ribs, with my heels. [1788] This is how I went about it. [1789] I carefully chose the most favourable position, a few paces from the body, with my back of course turned to [⁁]it. [1790] Then, nicely balanced on my crutches, I began to swing, backwards, forwards, feet pressed together, or rather legs pressed together, for how could I press my feet together, with my legs in the state they were? [1791] But how could I press my legs together, in the state they were? [1792] I pressed them together, that's all I can tell you. [1793] Take it or leave it. [1794] Or I didn't press them together. [1795] What can that possibly matter? [1796] I swung, that's all that matters, in an ever-widening arc, until I decided the moment had come and launched myself forward with all my strength and consequently, a moment later, backward, which gave the desired result. [1797] Where did I get this access of vigour? [1798] From my weakness perhaps. [1799] The shock knocked me down. Naturally. [1800] I came a cropper. [1801] You can't have everything, I've often noticed it. [1802] I rested a moment, then got up, picked up my crutches, took up my position on the other side of the body[₰] and [⁁]applied myself with method to the same exercise. [1803] I always had a mania for symmetry. [1804] But I must have aimed a little low and one of my heels sank in something soft. [1805] However. For if I had missed the ribs, with that heel, I had no doubt landed in the kidney, oh not hard enough to burst it, no, I fancy not. [1806] People imagine, because you are old, poor, crippled, terrified,