
[2515] as due to myself.
[2516] I was floundering. I so sly as a rule.
[2517] I tried to
mend matters, saying, A little later than usual, not before nine.
[2518] She
turned to go, her simple mind already in a turmoil.
[2519] I am at home to no
one, I said.
[2520] I knew what she would do, she would throw a sack over her
shoulders and slip off to the bottom of the garden.
[2521] There she would call
Hannah, the old cook of the Elsner sisters, and they would whisper together
for a long time, through the railings.
[2522] Hannah never went out, she did not
like going out.
[2523] The Elsner sisters were not bad neighbours, as neighbours
go.
[2524] They made a little too much music, that was the only fault I could
find with them.
[2525] If there is one thing gets on my nerves it is music.
[2526] What
I assert, deny, question, in the present, I still can.
[2527] But mostly I shall
use the various tenses of the past.
[2528] For mostly I do not know, it is
perhaps no longer so, it is too soon to know, I simply do not know, perhaps
shall never know.
[2529] I thought a little of the Elsner sisters.
[2530] Everything
remained to be planned and there I was thinking of the Elsner sisters.
[2531] They had an aberdeen called Zulu.
[2532] People called it Zulu.
[2533] Sometimes, when
I was in a good humour, I called, Zulu!
[2534] Little Zulu! and he would come
and talk to me, through the railings.
[2535] But I had to be feeling gay. [2536] I
don't like animals.
[2537] It's a strange thing, I don't like men and I don't
like animals.
[2538] As for God, he is beginning to disgust me.
[2539] Crouching down
I would stroke his ears, through the railings, and utter wheedling words.
[2540] He did not realize he disgusted me.
[2541] Hereared up on his hind legs and
pressed his chest against the bars.
[2542] Then I could see his little black
penis ending in a thin wisp of wetted hair.
[2543] He felt insecure, his hams
trembled, his little paws fumbled for purchase, one after the other.
[2544] I
too wobbled, squatting on my heels.
[2545] With my free hand I held on to the
railings.
[2546] Perhaps I disgusted him too.
[2547] I found it hard to tear myself
away from these vain thoughts.
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt