
[3733] calmly picking up the objects littered on the ground and putting them back
in his pockets.
[3734] How could he be made to understand?
[3735] Stop that and listen,
I said.
[3736] I gave him the notes.
[3737] Count them, I said.
[3738] He counted them.
[3739] How
much? I said.
[3740] Four pounds ten, he said.
[3741] Ten what? I said.
[3742] Ten shillings,
he said.
[3743] You have four pounds ten shillings, a [place = overwritten] I said.
[3744] Yes, he said.
[3747] It
was not true, I had given him five.
[3748] You agree, I said.
[3749] Yes, he said.
[3750] And why do you think I have given you all that money? I said.
[3752] His face
brightened.
[3753] To buy a bicycle, he said, without hesitation.
[3756] Do you imagine
a second-hand bicycle costs four pounds ten shillings? I said.
[3757] I don't
know, he said.
[3758] I did not know either.
[3759] But that was not the point.
[3760] What
did I tell you exactly? I said.
[3761] We racked our brains together.
[3762] Second-
-hand for preference, I said finally, that's what I told you.
[3763] Ah, he said.
[3764] I am not giving this duet in extenso [place = supralinear] full. Just the main lines [place = supralinear] [⁁]themes.
[3765] I didn't tell
you second-hand, I said, I told you second-hand for preference.
[3766] He had
started picking up his things again.
[3767] Will you stop that, I cried, and
pay attention to what I am saying.
[3768] He ostentatiously let fall a big ball
of tangled string.
[3769] The ten shillings were perhaps inside it. [3770] You see no
difference between second-hand and second-hand for preference, I said, do
you?
[3771] I looked at my watch.
[3772] It was ten o'clock.
[3773] I was only making our
ideas more confused.
[3774] Stop trying to understand, I said, just listen to
what I am going to say, because I shall not say it twice.
[3775] He came over
to me and knelt down.
[3776] You would have thought I was about to breathe my
last.
[3777] Do you know what a new bicycle is? I said.
[3778] Yes papa, he said.
[3779] Very well, I said, if you can't find a second-hand bicycle buy a new
bicycle.
[3780] I repeat.
[3781] I repeated.
[3782] I who had said I would not repeat.
[3783] Now
tell me what you are to do, I said.
[3784] I added, Take your face away, your
breath stinks.
[3785] I almost added, You don't brush your teeth and you complain
of having an abscesses, but I stopped myself in time.
[3786] It was not the
- Segments
Molloy © 2016 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Magessa O'Reilly, Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt