[p. 26r]
[2740] Mother Molloy, or Mollose, was not completely foreign to me either, it seemed. [2741] But she was much less alive than her son, who God knows was far from being so. [2742] After all perhaps I knew nothing of mother Molloy, or Mollose, save in so far as such a son might bear, like a scurf of placenta, her stamp.
[2743] Of these two names, Molloy and Mollose, the second seemed to me perhaps the more correct. [2744] But barely. [2745] What I heard, in my soul I suppose, where the acoustics are so bad, was a first syllable, Mol, very clear, followed almost at once by a second, very thick, as though gobbled by the first, and which might have been oy as it might have been ose, or one, or even oc. [2746] And if I inclined towards ose, it was doubtless that my mind had a weakness for this ending, whereas the others left it cold. [2747] But since Gaber had said Molloy, not once but several times, and each time with equal incisiveness, I was compelled to admit that I too should have said Molloy and that in saying Mollose I was at fault. [2748] And henceforward, unmindful of my preferences, I shall force myself to say Molloy, like Gaber. [2749] That there may have been two different persons involved, one my own Mollose, the other the Molloy of the enquiry, was a thought which did not so much as cross my mind, and if it had I should have driven it away, as one drives away a fly, or a hornet. [2750] How little one is at one with oneself, good God. [2751] I who prided myself on being a sensible man, cold as crystal and as free from spurious depth.
[2752] I knew then about Molloy, without however knowing much about him. [2753] I shall say briefly what little I did know about him. [2754] I shall also draw attention, in my knowledge of Molloy, to the most striking lacunae.
[2755] He had very little room. [2756] His time too was limited. [2757] He hastened incessantly on, as if in despair, towards extremely close objectives. [2758] Now, a prisoner, he hurled himself at I know not what narrow confines,
[p. 27r]
[2758] and now, hunted, he sought refuge near the centre.
[2759] He panted. [2760] He had only to rise up within me for me to be filled with panting.
[2761] Even in open country he seemed to be crashing through jungle. [2762] He did not so much walk as charge. [2763] In spite of this he advanced but slowly. [2764] He swayed, to and fro, like a bear.
[2765] He rolled his head, uttering incomprehensible words.
[2766] He was massive and hulking,to the point of misshapenness. [2767] And, without being black, of a dark colour.
[2768] He was forever on the move. [2769] I had never seen him rest. [2770] Occasionally he stopped and glared furiously about him.
[2771] This was how he came to me, at long intervals. [2772] Then I was nothing but uproar, bulk, rage, suffocation, effort unceasing, frenzied and vain. [2773] Just the opposite of myself, in fact. [2774] It was a change. [2775] And when I saw him disappear, his whole body a vociferation, I was almost sorry.
[2776] What it was all about I had not the slightest idea.
[2777] I had no clue to his age. [2778] As he appeared to me, so I felt he must have always appeared and would continue to appear until the end, an end indeed which I was hard put to imagine. [2779] For being unable to conceive what had brought him to such a pass, I was no better able to conceive how, left to his own resources, he could put an end to it. [2780] A natural end seemed unlikely to me, I don't know why. [2781] But then my own natural end, and I was resolved to have no other, would it not at the same time be his? [2782] Modest, I had my doubts. [2783] And then again, what end is not natural, are they not all by the grace of nature, the undeniably good and the so-called bad? [2784] Idle conjectures.
[2785] I had no information as to his face. [2786] I assumed it was hirsute, craggy and grimacing. [2787] Nothing justified my doing so.
[p. 28r]
[2788] That a man like me, so meticulous and calm in the main, so patiently turned towards the outer world as towards the lesser evil, creature of his house, of his garden, of his few poor possessions, discharging faithfully and ably a revolting function, reining back his thoughts within the limits of the calculable so great is his horror of fancy, that a man so contrived, for I was a contrivance, should let himself be haunted and possessed by chimeras, this ought to have seemed strange to me[₰] and been a warning to me to have a care, in my own interest. [2789] Nothing of the kind. [2790] I saw it only as the weakness of a solitary, a weakness admittedly to be deplored, but which had to be indulged in if I wished to remain a solitary, and I did, I clung to that, with as little enthusiasm as to my hens or to my faith, but no less lucidly. [2791] Besides this took up very little room in the inenarrable contraption I called my life, jeopardized it as little as my dreams and was as soon forgotten. [2792] Don't wait to be hunted to hide, that was always my motto. [2793] And if I had to tell the story of my life I should not so much as allude to these apparitions, and least of all to that of the unfortunate Molloy. [2794] For his was a poor thing, compared to others.
[2795] But images of this kind the will cannot revive without doing them violence. [2796] Much of what they had it takes away, much they never had it foists upon them. [2797] And the Molloy I brought to light, that memorable August Sunday, was certainly not the true denizen of my dark places, for it was not his hour. [2798] But so far as the essential features were concerned, I was easy in my mind, the likeness was there. [2799] And the discrepancy could have been still greater for all I cared. [2800] For what I was doing I was doing neither for Molloy, who mattered nothing to me, nor for myself, of whom I despaired, but on behalf of a cause which, while having need of us to be accomplished, was in its essence anonymous, and would subsist, haunting the minds of men, when its miserable artisans should be no more. [2801] It will
[p. 29r]
[2801] not be said, I think, that I did not take my work to heart. [2802] But rather, tenderly, Ah those old craftsmen, their race is extinct and the mould broken.
[2803] Two remarks.
[2804] [⁁]Between the Molloy I stalked within me thus and the true Molloy, after whom I was so soon to be in full cry, over hill and dale, [₰] the resemblance cannot have been great.
[2805] I was annexing perhaps already, without my knowing it, to [⁁]my private Molloy, , elements of the Molloy described by Gaber.
[2806] The fact was there were three, no, four Molloys.
[2807] He that inhabited me, my caricature of same, Gaber's and the man of flesh and blood somewhere awaiting me.
[2808] To these I would add Youdi's were it not for Gaber's corpse fidelity to the letter of his messages.
[2809] Bad reasoning.
[2810] For could it seriously be supposed that Youdi had confided to Gaber all he knew, or thought he knew(all one to Youdi) about his protégé 
?
[2811] Assuredly not.
[2812] He had only [⁁] revealed what he deemed of relevance for the prompt and proper execution of his orders.
[2813] I will therefore add a fifth Molloy, that of Youdi.
[2814] But would not this fifth Molloy necessarily coincide with the fourth, the real one as the saying is, him dogged by his shadow?
[2815] I would have given a lot to know.
[2816] There were others too, of course. [2817] But let us leave it at that, if you don't mind, the party is big enough.
[2818] And let us not meddle either with the question as to how far these five Molloys were constant and how far subject to variation.
[2819] For there was this about Youdi, that he changed his mind with great facility.
[2820] That makes three remarks. [2821] I had only anticipated two.
[2822] The ice thus broken, I felt equal to facing Gaber's report and getting down to the official facts. [2823] It seemed as if the enquiry was
[p. 30r]
[2823] about to start at last.
[2824] It was then that the sound of a gong, struck with violence, filled the house. [2825] True enough, it was nine o'clock. [2826] I got up, adjusted my clothes and hurried down. [2827] To give notice that the soup was in, nay, that it had begun to coagulate, was always for Martha a little triumph and a great satisfaction. [2828] For as a rule I was at table, my napkin tucked into my collar, crumbling the bread, fiddling with the cover, playing with the knife-rest, waiting to be served, a few minutes before the appointed hour. [2829] I attacked the soup. [2830] Where is Jacques? I said. [2831] She shrugged her shoulders. [2832] Detestable slavish gesture. [2833] Tell him to come down at once, I said. [2834] The soup before me had stopped steaming. [2835] Had it ever steamed? [2836] She came back. [2837] He won't come down, she said. [2838] I laid down my spoon. [2839] Tell me, Martha, I said, what is this preparation? [2840] She named it. [2841] Have I had it before? I said. [2842] She assured me I had. [2844] I then made a joke which pleased me enormously, I laughed so much I began to hiccup. [2845] It was lost on Martha who stared at me dazedly. [2846] Tell him to come down, I said at last. [2847] What? said Martha. [2848] I repeated my phrase. [2849] She still looked genuinely perplexed. [2850] There are three of us in this charming home, I said, you, my son and finally myself. [2851] What I said was, Tell him to come down. [2852] But he's sick, said Martha. [2853] Were he dying, I said, down he must [⁁]come. [2854] Anger led me sometimes to slight excesses of language. [2855] I could not regret them. [2856] It seemed to me that all language was an excess of language. [2857] Naturally I confessed them. [2858] I was short of sins.
[2859] Jacques was scarlet in the face. [2860] Eat your soup, I said, and tell me what you think of it. [2861] I'm not hungry, he said. [2862] Eat your soup, I said. [2863] I saw he would not eat it. [2864] What ails you? I said. [2865] I don't feel well, he said. [2866] What an abominable thing is youth. [2867] Try and be more explicit, I