
[2976] puffing out my lips which normally recede into my mouth.
[2977] What do I look
like;? I said.
[2978] The sight of my moustache, as always, annoyed me.
[2979] It
wasn't quite right.
[2980] It suited me, without a moustache I was inconceivable.
[2981] But it ought to have suited me better.
[2982] A slight change in the cut would
have sufficed.
[2983] But what change?
[2984] Was there too much of it, not enough?
[2985] Now, I said, without ceasing to inspect myself, get back on the pot and
strain.
[2986] Was it not rather the colour?
[2987] A noise as of a waste recalled me
to less elevated preoccupations.
[2988] He stood up trembling all over.
[2989] We bent
together over the poittwhich at length I took by the handle and tilted from
side to side.
[2990] A few fibrous shreds floated in the yellowish liquid.
[2991] How
can you hope to shit, I said, when you've nothing in your stomach.
[2992] He
protested he had had his lunch.
[2993] You ate nothing, I said.
[2994] He said no more.
[2995] I had scored a hit.
[2996] You forget we are leaving in an hour or so, I said.
[2997] I can't, he said.
[2998] So that, I pursued, you will have to eat something.
[2999] An
acute pain shot through my knee.
[3000] What's the matter, papa? he said.
[3001] I let
myself fall on the stool, pulled up the leg of my trousers and examined my
knee, flexing and unflexing it.
[3002] Quick the iodex, I said.
[3003] You're sitting
on it, he said.
[3004] I stood up and the leg of my trousers fell down over my
ankle.
[3005] This intertia of things is enough to drive [⁁]one you literally insane.
[3006] I let out a bellow which must have been heard by the Elsner sisters.
[3007] They
stop reading, raise their heads, look at each other, listen.
[3008] Nothing more.
[3009] Just another cry in the night.
[3010] Two old hands, veined, ringed, seek each
other, clasp.
[3011] I pulled up the leg of my trousers again, rolled it in a
fury round my thigh, raised the lid of the stool, took out the iodex and
rubbed it [⁁]into on my thigh [⁁]knee.
[3012] The knee is full of little loose bones.
[3013] Let it
soak well in, said my son.
[3014] He would pay for that later on.
[3015] When I had
finished I put everything back in place, rolled down the leg of my
trousers, sat down on the stool again and listened.
[3016] Nothing more.
[3017] Unless
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt