[p. 45r]
[3305] he would raise his head and find himself alone, in a strange place, and when I, waking from my reverie, would turn and find him gone? [3306] I toyed briefly with the idea of attaching him to me by means of a long rope, its two ends tied about our waists. [3307] There are various ways of attracting attention and I was not sure that this was one of the good ones. [3308] And he might have undone his knots in silence, and escaped, leaving me to go on my way alone, followed by a long rope trailing in the dust, like a burgess of Calais. [3309] Until such time as the rope, catching on some fixed or heavy object, should stop me dead in my stride. [3310] We should have needed, not the soft and silent rope, but a chain, which was not to be dreamt of. [3311] And yet I did dream of it, for an instant I amused myself dreaming of it, imagining myself in a world less ill contrived and wondering how, having nothing more than a simple chain, without collar or band or gyves or fetters of any kind, I could chain my son to me in such a way as to prevent him from ever shaking me off again. [3312] It was a simple problem of toils and knots and I could have solved it at a pinch. [3313] But already I was called elsewhere by the image of my son no longer behind me, but before me. [3314] Thus in the rear I could keep my eye on him and intervene, at the least false movement he might make. [3315] But apart from having other parts to play, during this expedition, than those of keeper and sick nurse, the prospect was more than I could bear of being unable to move a step without having before my eyes my son's little sullen plump body. [3316] Come here! I cried. [3317] For on hearing me say we were to go to the left he had gone to the left, as if his dearest wish was to infuriate me. [3318] Slumped over my umbrella, my head sunk as beneath a malediction, the fingers of my free hand between two slats of the wicket, I no more stirred than if I had been of stone. [3319] So he came back a second time. [3320] I tell you to keep behind me and you go before me, I said.
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[3321] It was the summer holidays. [3322] His school cap was green with [₰] initials and a boar's head, or a deer's, in gold braid on the front. [3323] It lay plumb on his big blond skull as precise as a lid on a pot. [3325] There is something about this strict sit of hats and caps that never fails to exasperate me. [3326] As for his raincoat, instead of carrying it folded over his arm, or flung across his shoulder, as I had told him, he had rolled it in a ball and was holding it with both hands, on his belly. [3327] There he was before me, his big feet splayed, his knees sagging, his stomach sticking out, his chest receding, his chin in the air, his mouth open, in the attitude of a veritable half-wit. [3328] I myself must have looked as if only the support of my umbrella and the wicket were keeping me from falling. [3329] I managed finally to articulate, Are you capable of following me? [3330] He did not answer. [3331] But I seized his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them, namely, And you, are you capable of leading me? [3332] Midnight struck, from the steeple of my beloved church. [3333] It did not matter. [3334] I was gone from home. [3335] I sought in my mind, where all I need is to be found, [₰] what treasured possession he was likely to have about him. [3336] I hope, I said you have not forgotten your scout-knife, we might need it. [3337] This knife comprised, apart from the five or six indispensable blades, a cork-screw, a tin-opener, a punch, a screw-driver, a claw, [⁁]a gouge for removing stones from hooves and I know not what other futilities besides. [3338] I had given it to him myself, on the occasion of his first first prize for history and geography, subjects which, at the school he attended, were for obscure reasons regarded as inseparable. [3339] The veriest dunce when it came to literature and the so-called exact sciences, he had no equal for the dates of battles, revolutions, restorations and other exploits of the human race, in its slow ascension towards the light, and for the configuration of frontiers and the heights of mountain peaks. [3340] He deserved his scout-knife. [3341] Don't tell me you've left it behind, I said.
[p. 47r]
[3342] Not likely, he said, with pride and satisfaction, tapping his pocket. [3343] Then give it to me, I said. [3344] Naturally he did not answer. [3345] Prompt obedience was contrary to his habits. [3346] Give me that knife, I cried. [3347] He gave it to me. [3348] What could he do, alone with me in the night that tells no tales? [3349] It was for his own good, to save him from getting lost. [3350] For where a scout's knife is, there is his heart also, unless he can afford to buy another, which was not the case with my son. [3351] For he never had any money in his pocket, not needing it. [3352] But every penny he received, and he did not receive many, he deposited first in his savings-box, then in the savings-bank, where they were entered in a book that remain[⁁]ed ed in my possession. [3353] He would doubtless at that moment with pleasure have cut my throat, with that selfsame knife I was putting so placidly in my pocket. [3354] But he was still a little on the young side, my son, a little on the soft side, for the great deeds of vengeance. [3355] But time was on his side and he consoled himself perhaps with that thought, foolish though he was. [3356] Be that as it may, he kept back his tears, for which I was obliged to him. [3357] I straightened myself and laid my hand on his shoulder, saying, Patience, my child, patience. [3358] The awful thing in affairs of this kind is that when you have the will you do not have the way, and vice versa. [3359] But of that my unfortunate son could as yet have no suspicion, he must have thought that the rage which distorted his features and made him tremble would never leave him till the day he could vent it as it deserved. [3360] And not even then. [3361] Yes, he must have felt his soul the soul of a pocket Monte Cristo, with whose antics as adumbrated in the Schoolboys' Classics he was needless to say familiar. [3362] Then with a good clap on that impotent back I said, Off we go. [3363] And off indeed I did go, what is more, and my son drew out behind me. [3364] I had left, accompanied by my son, in accordance with instructions received.
[p. 48r]
[3365] I have no intention of relating the various adventures which befell us, me and my son, together and singly, before we came to the Molloy country. [3366] It would be tedious. [3367] But that is not what stops me. [3368] All is tedious, in this relation that is forced upon me. [3369] But I shall conduct it in my own way, up to a point. [3370] And if it has not the good fortune to give satisfaction, to my employer, if there are passages that give offence to him and to his colleagues, then so much the worse for us all, for them all, for there is no worse for me. [3371] That is to say, I have not enough imagination to imagine it. [3372] And yet I have more than before. [3373] And if I submit to this paltry scrivening which is not of my province, it is for reasons very different from those that might be supposed. [3374] I am still obeying orders, if you like, but no longer out of fear. [3375] No, I am still afraid, but simply from force of habit. [3376] And the voice I listen to need[⁁]s no Gaber to make it heard. [3377] For it is within me and exhorts me to continue to the end the faithful servant I have always been, of a cause that is not mine, and patiently fulfil in all its bitterness my calamitous part, as it was my will, when I had a will, that others should. [3378] And this with hatred in my heart, and scorn, of my master and his designs. [3379] Yes, it is rather an ambiguous voice and not always easy to follow, in its reasonings and decrees. [3380] But I follow it none[|] the[|] less, more or less, I follow it in this sense, that I know what it means, and in this sense, that I do what it tells me. [3381] And I do not think there are many voices of which as much may be said. [3382] And I feel I shall follow it [⁁]from this day forth, no matter what it commands. [3383] And when it ceases, leaving me in doubt and darkness, I shall wait for it to come back, and do nothing, even though the whole world, through the channel of its innumerable authorities speaking with one accord, should enjoin upon me this and that, under pain of unspeakable punishments. [3384] But this evening, this morning, I have drunk a little more
[p. 49r]
[3384] than usual and tomorrow I may be of a different mind. [3385] It also tells me, this voice I am only just beginning to know, that the memory of this work brought scrupulously to a close will help me to endure the long anguish of vagrancy and freedom. [3386] Does this mean I shall one day be banished from my house, from my garden, lose my trees, my lawns, my birds of which the least is known to me and the way all its own it has of singing, of flying, of coming up to me or [⁁]fleeing at my coming, [⁁]lose and be banished from the absurd comforts of my home where all is snug and neat and all those things at hand without which I could not bear being a man, where my enemies cannot reach me, which it was my life's work to build, to adorn, to perfect, to keep? [3387] I am too old to lose all this, and begin again, I am too old! [3388] [⁁]Quiet, Moran, [⁁]quiet. [3389] No emotion, please.
[3390] I was saying I would not relate all the vicissitudes of the journey from my country to Molloy's, for the simple reason that I do not intend to. [3391] And in writing these lines I know in what danger I am of offending him [⁁]whose favour I know I should court,, now more than ever. [3392] But I write them all the same, and with a firm hand, weaving inexorably back and forth and devouring my page with the indifference of a shuttle. [3393] But some I shall relate briefly, because that seems to me desirable, and in order to give some idea of the methods of my full maturity. [3394] But before coming to that I shall say what little I knew, on leaving my home, about the Molloy country, so different from my own. [3395] For it is one of the features of this penance that I may not pass over what is over and straightway come to the heart of the matter. [3396] But that must again be unknown to me which is no longer so and that again fondly believed which then I fondly believed, at my setting out. [3397] And if I occasionally break this rule, it is only over details of little importance. [3398] And in the main I observe it.