This document was written with the typewriter, and contains edits in typewriter, black ink. In this visualisation, unclear words are placed between [brackets].
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[3399] And with such zeal that I am far more he who finds than he who tells [⁁]what he has found,, now as then, most of the time, I do not exaggerate.
[3400] And in the silence of my room, and all over as far as I am concerned, I know scarcely any better where I am going and what awaits me than the night I clung to the wicket, beside my idiot of a son, the in the lane.
[3401] And it would not surprise me if I deviated, in the pages to follow, from the true and exact succession of events.
[3402] But I do not think even Sisyphus is required to scratch himself, or to groan, or to rejoice, as the fashion is now, always at the same appointed places.
[3403] And it may even be they are not too particular about the route he takes provided it gets him to his destination safely and on time.
[3404] And perhaps he thinks each journey is the first.
[3405] This would keep hope alive, would it not, hellish hope.
[3406] Whereas to see yourself doing the same thing endlessly over and over again fills you with satisfaction.
[3407] By the Molloy country I mean that narrow region whose administrative limits he had never crossed and presumably never would, either because he was forbidden to, or because he had no wish to, or of course because of some extraordinary fortuitous conjunction of circumstances.
[3408] This region was situated in the north, I mean compared [⁁]in relation to mine, less bleak, and comprised a settlement, dignified by some with the name of market-town by others regarded as no more than a village, and the surrounding country.
[3409] This market-town, or village, was I hasten to say called Bally, and represented, with its dependent lands, a surface area of five or six square miles at the most.
[3410] In modern countries this is what I think is called a commune, or a canton, I forget, but there exists with us no abstract and generic term for such territorial subdivisions.
[3411] And to express them we have another system, of singular beauty and simplicity, which consists in saying Bally (we are (since we are talking of Bally) when you mean Bally and Ballyba when you mean Bally plus its domains
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[3411] and Ballyba[⁁]ba when you mean the domains exclusive of Bally itself. [3412] I myself for example lived, and come to think of it still live, in Turdy, hub of Turdyba. [3413] And in the evening, when I went for a stroll, in the country outside Turdy, to get a breath of fresh air, it was the fresh air of Turdybaba that I got, and no other.
[3414] Ballybaba, in spite of its limited range, could boast of a certain diversity. [3415] Pastures so-called, a little bogland, a few copses and, as you neared its confines, undulating and almost smiling aspects, as if Ballybaba was glad to go no further.
[3416] But the principal beauty of this region was a kind of strangled creek which the slow grey tides emptied and filled, emptied and filled.
[3417] And the people came flocking from the town, unromantic people, to admire this spectacle.
[3418] Some said, There is nothing more beautiful thatnn these wet sands[x].
[3419] Others, High tide is the best time to see the creek of Ballyba.
[3420] How lovely then that leaden water, you would swear it was stagnant, if you did not know it was not.
[3421] And yet others held it was like an underground lake.
[3422] But all were agreed, like the inhabitants of Blackpool, that their town was on the sea.
[3423] And they had Bally-on-Sea printed on their notepaper.
[3424] The population of Ballyba was small. I confess this thought gave me great satisfaction.
[3425] The land did not lend itself to cultivation.
[3426] No sooner did a tilth, or a meadow, begin to be sizeable than it fell foul of a sacred grove or a stretch of marsh from which nothing could be had [⁁]obtained beyond a little inferior turf or scraps of bog[o][₰]oak used for making amulets, paper-knives, napkin-rings, rosaries and other knick-knacks.
[3427] Martha's madonna, for example, came from Ballyba.
[3428] The pastures, in spite of the torrential rains, were exceedingly meagre and strewn with boulders.
[3429] Here only quitchweed grew in abundance, and a curious bitter blue grass fatal to cows and horses, though tolerated apparently by the ass, the goat and the black
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[3429] sheep. [3430] What then was the source of Ballyba's prosperity? [3431] I'll tell you. [3432] No, I'll tell you nothing. [3433] Nothing.
[3434] That then is a part of what I thought I knew about Ballyba when I left home. [3435] I wonder if I was not confusing it with some other place.
[3436] Some twenty paces from my wicket-gate the lane skirts the graveyard wall.
[3437] The lane descends, the wall rises, higher, and higher.
[3438] Soon you are moving below the dead.
[3439] It is there I have my plot in perpetuity.
[3440] As long as the earth endures that spot is mine, in therory.
[3441] Sometimes I went and looked at my grave.
[3442] The stone was up already.
[3443] It was a simple Latin cross, white.
[3444] I wanted to have my name put on it, with the here lies and the date of my birth.
[3445] Then all it would have wanted was the date of my death.
[3446] They would not let me.
[3447] Sometimes I smiled, as if I were dead already.
[3448] We walked for several days, by sequestered ways. [3449] I did not want to be seen on the highways.
[3450] The first day I found the butt of Father Ambrose's cigar. [3451] Not only had I not thrown it away, in the ash-tray, in the waste-paper basket, but I had put it in my pocket, when changing my suit. [3452] That had happened unbeknown to me. [3453] I looked at it in astonishment, lit it, took a few puffs, threw it away. [3454] This was the outstanding event of the first day.
[3455] I showed my son how to use his pocket compass. [3456] This gave him great pleasure. [3457] He was behaving well, better than I had hoped. [3458] On the third day I gave him back his knife.
[3459] The weather was kind. [3460] We easily managed our ten miles a day. [3461] We slept in the open. [3462] Safety first.
[3463] I showed my son how to make a shelter out of branches. [3464] He was in the scouts, but knew nothing. [3465] Yes, he knew how to make a camp fire. [3466] At every halt he implored me to let him exercise this talent. [3467] I saw no point in
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[3467] doing so.
[3468] We lived on tinned food which I sent him to get in the villages. [3469] He was that much use to me. [3470] We drank the water of the streams.
[3471] All these precautions were assuredly useless.
[3472] One day in a field I saw a farmer I knew.
[3473] He was coming towards us.
[3474] I turned immediately, took my son by the arm and led him away in the direction we were coming from.
[3475] The farmer overtook us, as I had foreseen.
[3476] Having greeted me, he asked where we were going.
[3477] It must have been his field.
[3478] I replied that we were going hom[x]e.
[3479] Fortunately we had not yet left it far behind.
[3480] Then he asked me where we had been.
[3481] Perhaps one of his cows had been stolen, or one of his pigs.
[3482] Out walking, I said.
[3483] I'd give you a lift and weldcome, he said, but I won't be leaving till night.
[3484] A pity [⁁]Oh how very unfortunate,, I said.
[3485] If you like care to wait, he said, Yyyou're very welcome.
[3486] I declined with thanks.
[3487] Fortunately it was not yet midday.
[3488] There was nothing strange in not wanting to wait till night.
[3489] Well, safe home, he said.
[3490] We made a wide detour and turned our faces to the north again.
[3491] These precautions were doubtless exaggerated. [3492] The right thing would have been to travel by night and hide during the day, at least in the early stages. [3493] But the weather was so fine I could not bring myself to do it. [3494] My pleasure was not my sole consideration, but it was a consideration! [3495] Such a thing had never happened to me before, in the course of my work. [3496] And our snail's pace! [3497] I cannot have been in a hurry to arrive.
[3498] I gave [⁁]fitful thought, off and on, while basking in the balm of the hot warm summer days, to Gaber's instructions.
[3499] I could not reconstruct them to my entire satisfaction.
[3500] In the night, under the boughs, screened from the charms of nature, I devoted myself entirely[₰] to this problem.
[3501] The sounds my son made during his sleep hindered me considerably.
[3502] Sometimes I went out of the shelter and walked up and down, in the dark.
[3503] Or I sat down with
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[3503] my back against a trunk, drew my feet up under me, took my legs in my arms and rested my chin on my knee. [3504] Even in this posture I could throw no light on the matter. [3505] What was I looking for exactly? [3506] It is hard to say. [3507] I was looking for what was wanting to make Gaber's statement complete. [3508] I felt he must have told me what to do with Molloy once he was found. [3509] My particular duties never terminated with the running to earth. [3510] That would have been too easy. [3511] But I had always to deal with the client in one way or another, according to instructions. [3512] Such operations took on a multitude of forms, from the most vigorous to the most discreet. [3513] The Yerk affair, which took me nearly three months to conclude successfully, was over on the day I succeeded in possessing myself of his tiepin and destroying it. [3514] Establishing contact was the least important part of my work. [3515] I found Yerk on the third day. [3516] I was never required to prove I had succeeded, my word was enough. [3517] Youdi must have had some way of verifying. [3518] Sometimes I was asked for a report.
[3519] On another occasion my mission consisted in bringing the person to a certain place at a certain time.
[3520] A most delicate affair, for the person concerned was not a woman.
[3521] I have never had to deal with a woman.
[3522] I regret it.
[3523] I don't think Youdi had much interest in them.
[3524] That reminds me of the old joke about the female soul.
[3525] Question, Have women a soul?
[3526] Answer, Yes.
[3527] Question, Why?
[3528] Answer, In order that they may be damned.
[3529] Very witty.
[3530] Fortunately I had been allowed considerable licence as to the day.
[3531] The hour was the important thing, not the date.
[3532] He came to the appointed place and there I left him, on some pretext or other.
[3533] He was a nice youth, rather sad and silent.
[3534] I vaguely remember having invented some story about a woman.
[3535] Wait, it's coming back.
[3536] Yes, I told him she had been in love with him for six months and greatly desired to meet him in some secluded place.
[3537] I even gave her name.
[3538] A quite [⁁]Quite a well-known acrtress.
[3539] Having brought him to the place