Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

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Segment 1

36(b)

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Segment 2

[3081] grimacing in disgust. [3082] That was all the thanks I got. [3083] I waited until the
last drop, the last crumb, had disappeared.
[3084] He turned to the wall and I
tucked him in.
[3085] I was within a hair's breadth of kissing him. [3086] Neither he
nor I had uttered a word.
[3087] We had no further need of words, for the time
being.
[3088] Besides my son rarely spoke to me unless I spoke to him. [3089] And when
Id[|] did so he answered but lamely and as it were with reluctance.

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Segment 3

[3090] And yet
with his little friends, when he thought I was out of the way, he was
incredibly voluble.
[3091] That my presence had the effect of fdampening this
disposition was far from displeasing me.
[3092] Not one person in a hundred is[]
able []knows how to be silent and listen, no, nor even to conceive what such a thing
means.

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[3093] Yet only then can you detect, beyond the fatuous clamour, the sil
silence of which the universe is made.
[3094] I desired this advantage for my
son.
[3095] And that he should hold aloof from those who pride themselves on
their eagle gaze.
[3096] I had not struggled, toiled, suffered, made good, lived
like a Hottentot, so that my son should do the same.
[3097] I tiptoed out. [3098] I
quite enjoyed playing my parts []through to the bitter end.

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Segment 5

[3099] Since in this way I shirked the issue, I have I to apologise for saying
so?
[3100] I let fall this suggestion for what it is worth. [3101] And perfunctorily.
[3102] For in describing this day I am once more he who suffered it, who crammed
it full of futile anxious life, with no other purpose than his own
stultification,[] and the means of not doing what he had to do.
[3103] And as then
my thoughts would have none of Molloy, so tonight my pen.
[3104] This confession
has been preying on my mind for some time past.
[3105] To have made it gives me
no relief.

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[3106] I reflected with bitter satisfaction that if my son lay down and died
by the wayside, it would be none of my doing.
[3107] To every man his own
responsibilities.
[3108] I know of some they do not keep awayke.

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Segment 7

[3109] I said, There is something in this house tying my hands. [3110] A man like

Transcription
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