[p. 21r]
[2616] should mention that Martha had insisted, before entering my service, that I permit her to keep her rocking-chair in the kitchen. [2617] I had refused, indignantly. [2618] Then, seeing she was inflexible, I had yielded. [2619] I was too kind-hearted.
[2620] My weekly supply of lager, half-a-dozen quart bottles, was delivered every Saturday.
[2621] I never touched them until the next day, for lager must be left to settle after the slightest change of place least disturbance.
[2622] Of these six bottles Gaber and I, together, had emptied one.
[2623] There should therefore be five left, plus the remains of a bottle from the previous week.
[2624] I went into the pantry.
[2625] The five bottles were there, corked and sealed, and one open bottle three quarters empty.
[2626] Martha followed me with her eyes. [2627] I left without uttering [₰] a word to her and went upstairs.
[2628] I did nothing but go to and fro.
[2629] I went into my son's room.
[2630] Sitting at his little desk he was admirhing his stamps, the two albums, large and small, open before him.
[2631] When I came up [⁁]On my approach he shut them hastily.
[2632] I saw at once what he was up to.
[2633] But first I said, Have you got your things ready?
[2634] He stood up, got his pack and gave it to me.
[2635] I looked inside.
[2636] I put my hand inside and felt through the contents, staring vacantly before me.
[2637] Everything was in.
[2638] I gave it back to him.
[2639] What are you doing? I said.
[2640] Looking at my stamps, he said.
[2641] You call that looking at your stamps? I said.
[2642] Yes papa, he said, with unimaginable effrontery.
[2643] Silence, you little liar! I cried.
[2644] Do you know what he was doing?
[2645] Transferring to the album of duplicates from his good collection properly so-called, certain rare and valuable stamps which,[₰]he was in the habit of gloating over daily and could not bring himself to leave, even for a few days.
[2646] Show me your new Timor, the five reis orange, I said.
[2647] He ehesitated.
[2648] Show it to me! I cried.
[2649] I had given it to him myself, it had cost me a florin.
[2650] A bargain, at the time.
[2651] I've put it in here, he said piteously, picking up the album of duplicates.
[2652] That was all
[p. 22r]
[2652] I wanted to know, to hear him say rather, for I knew it already.
[2653] Very good, I said.
[2654] I went to the door.
[2655] You shall leave both your albums at home, I said, the small one as well as the large one.
[2656] Not a word of reproach, a simple prophetic future, on the model of those employed by Youdi. [2657] Your son shall go with you.
[2658] I went out. [2659] But as with delicate steps, almost mincing, congratulating myself as usual on the resilience of my Axminster Wilton, I followed the corridor towards my room, I was struck by a thought which made me go back to my son's room.
[2660] He was sitting in the same place, but in a slightly different attitude, his arms on the table and his head on his arms.
[2661] This sight went straight to my heart, but nevertheless I did my duty.
[2662] He did not move.
[2663] To make assurance doubly sure, I said, Wwe shall put the albums in the safe, until our return.
[2664] He still did not move.
[2665] Do you hear me? I said.
[2666] He rose with a bound that knocked over his chair and uttered the furious words, Do what you like with them!
[2667] I never want to see them again!
[2668] Anger should be left to cool, in my opinion, crisis to pass, before one operates.
[2669] I took the albums and withdrew, without a word.
[2670] He had been lacking in respect, but this was not the moment to have him admit it.
[2671] Motionless in the corridor I heard sounds of falling and collision.
[2672] Another, less master of himself than I of myself, would have intervened.
[2673] But it did not positively displease me that my son should give free vent to his grief.
[2674] It purges.
[2675] Sorrow does more harm when dumb, to my mind.
[2676] The albums under my arm, I returned to my room. [2677] I had spared my son a grave temptation, that of putting in his pocket his most cherished stamps, in order to gloat on them, during our journey. [2678] Not that his having one or two stamps about him was reprehensible in itself. [2679] But it would have been an act of disobedience. [2680] To look at them he would have had to hide from his father. [2681] And when he had lost them, as he inevitably would, he would
[p. 23r]
[2681] have been driven to lie, to account for their disappearance.
[2682] No, if he could not really bear to be parted from the gems of his collection, it would have been better for him to take the entire album.
[2683] For an album is less readily lost than a stamp.
[2684] But I was a better judge than he of what he could and could not.
[2685] For I knew what he did not yet know, among other things that this ordeal would be of profit to jhim.
[2686] Sollst entbehren, that was the lesson I desired to impress upon him, while he was still young and tender.
[2687] Magic words which I had never dreamt, until my fifteenth year, could be coupled together.
[2688] And should this understandingtaking make me odious in his eyes and not only me, but the very idea of fatherhood, I would pursue it none[|] the[|] less, with everything in my power.
[2689] The thought that between my death and his own, ceasing for an instant from heaping curses on my memory, he might wonder, in a flash, whether I had not been right, that was enough for me, that repaid me for all the trouble I had taken and was still to take.
[2690] He would answer in the negative, the first time, and resume his execrations.
[2691] But the doubt would be sown.
[2692] He would go back to it.
[2693] That was how I reasoned.
[2694] I still haxd a few hours left before dinner.
[2695] I decided to make the most of them.
[2696] Because after dinner I drowse.
[2697] I took off my coat and shoes, opened my trousers and giot in between the sheets.
[2698] It is lying down, in the warmth, in the gloom, that I best pierce the outer turmoil's
veil, discern my quarry, sense what course to follow, find peace in another's ludicrous distress.
[2699] Far from the world, its clamours, frenzzies, bitterness and dingy light, I pass judgement on it and on those, like me, who are plunged in it beyond recall, and on him who has need of me to be delivered, who cannot deliver myself.
[2700] All is dark, but with that simple darkness that follows like a balm upon the great dismemberings.
[2701] From their places masses move, stark as laws. no matter made of what.
[2702] Masses of what? One does not ask.
[2703] There
[p. 24r]
[2703] somewhere man is too, vast conglomerate of all of nature's kingdoms, as lonely and as bound.
[2704] And in that block the prey is lodged and thinks himself a being apart.
[2705] Anyone would serve.
[2706] But I am paid to seek.
[2707] I arrive, he comes away. His life has been nothing but a waiting for this, to see himself preferred, to fancy himself damned, blessed, to fancy himself everyman, above all aothers.
[2708] Warmth, gloom, smells of my bed, such is the effect they sometimes have on me.
[2709] I get up, go out, and everything is changed.
[2710] The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eayes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena.
[2711] It is at the mercy of these sensations, which happily I know to be illusory, that I have to live and work.
[2712] It is thanks to them I find myself a meaning.
[2713] So he whom a sudden pain awakes.
[2714] He stiffens, ceases to breathe, waits, says, It's a bad dream, or, It's a touch of neuralgia, breathes again, sleeps again, still trembling.
[2715] And yet it is not unpleasant, before gsetting to work, to steep oneself again in this slow and massive world, where all things move with the ponderous sullenness of oxen, patiently through the immemorial ways, thand where of course no investigations[₰]would be p9ossible.
[2716] But on this occasion, I repeat, on this occasion, my reasons for doing so were I trust more serious and imputable less to pleasure than to business.
[2717] For it was only by transferring it to this atmosphere, how shall I say, of finality without end, why not, that I could venture to consider the work I had on hand.
[2718] For where Molloy could not be, nor Moran either for that matter, there Moran could bend over Molloy.
[2719] And though this examination should have be prove unprofitable and of no utility for the execution of my orders, I should nevertheless have established a kind of connexion, and one not necessarily false.
[2720] For the falsity of the terms does not invariably neccessarily
[p. 25r]
[2720] imply that of the relation, so far as I know.
[2721] And not only this, but I should have invested mhy man, from the outset, with the air of a fabulous being, which something told me could not fail to help me later on.
[2722] So I took off my coat and my shoes, I opened my trousers and I slipped in between the sheets, with an easy conscience, knowing only too well what I was doing.
[2723] Molloy, or Mollose, was no stranger to me.
[2724] If I had had colleagues, I might have suspected I had spoken of him to them, as of one destined to occupy us, sooner or later.
[2725] But I had no colleagues and knew nothing of the circumstances in which I had learnt of his existence.
[2726] Perhaps I had invented him, I mean found him ready made in my head.
[2727] There is no doubt one sometimes meets with strangers who are not entire strangers, through their having played a part in certain cerebral reels.
[2728] This had never happened to me, KI considered myself immune from such experiences, and even the simple deja 
vu seemed infintitely outbeyond my reach.
[2729] But it was happening to me then, Oor I was greatly mistaken.
[2730] For who could have spoken to me of Molloy if not myself and to whom if not to myself could I have spoken of him?
[2731] I racked my mind in vain. [2732] For in my rare conversations with men I avoided such subjects.
[2733] If anyone else had spoken to me of Molloy I would have requested him to stop and I myself would not have confided his existence to a living soul for anything in the world.
[2734] If I had had colleagues things would naturally have been different.
[2735] Among colleagues one says things which in any other company one keeps to oneself.
[2736] But I had no colleagues.
[2737] And perhaps this accounts for the immense uneasiness I had been feeling ever since the beginning of this affair.
[2738] For it is no small matter, for a grown man thinking he is done done with surprises, to see himself the theatre of such ignominy.
[2739] I had really good cause to be alarmed.