Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Molloy

MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

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Segment 1

[3964] of disaster sought to contain itself. [3965] And that I did not labour at them
more diligently was a further index of the great changes I had suffered and
of my growing resignation to being dispossessed of self.
[3966] And doubtless I
should have gone from discovery to discovery, concerning myself, if I had
persisted.
[3967] But at the first faint light, I mean in these wild shadows
gathering about me, dispensed by a vision or by an effort of thought, at
the first light I fled to other cares.

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Segment 2

[3968] And all had been for nothing. [3969] And
he who acted thus was a stranger to me too.
[3970] For it was not my nature, I
mean it was not my custom, to conduct my calculations simultaneously, but
separately and turn about, pushing each one as far as it would go before
turning in desperation to another.
[3971] Similarly the missing instructions
concerning Molloy, when I felt them stirring in the depths of my memory,
I turned from them in haste towards other unknowns.

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Segment 3

[3972] And I who a fortnight
before would joyfully have reckoned how long I could survive on the prov-
-isions that remained, probably with reference to the question of calories
and vitamins, and established in my head a series of menus asymptotically
approaching nutritional zero, was now content to note feebly that I should
soon be dead of inanition, if I did not succeed in renewing my provisions.

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Segment 4

[3973] So much for the second day. [3974] But one incident remains to be noted, before
I go on to the third.

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Segment 5

[3975] It was evening. I had lit my fire and was watching it take when I
heard myself hailed.
[3976] The voice, already so near that I started violently,
was that of a man.
[3977] []But after this one violent start I collected myself and
continued to busy myself with my fire as if nothing had happened, poking
it with a branch I had torn from its tree for the purpose a little earlier
and stripped of its twigs and leaves and even part of its bark, with my
bare nails.
[3978] I have always loved skinning branches and laying bare the
pretty white glossy shaft of sapwood.
[3979] But obscure feelings of love and

Transcription
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