"MOLLOY" SAMUEL BECKETT (1951)

I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I have just described. And so on. But this solution did not satisfy me fully. For it did not escape me that, by an extraordinary hazard, the four stones circulating thus might always be the same four. In which case, far from sucking the sixteen stones turn and turn about, I was really only sucking four, always the same, turn and turn about. But I shuffled them well in my pockets, before I began to suck, and again, while I sucked, before transferring them, in the hope of obtaining a more general circulation of the stones from pocket to pocket. But this was only a makeshift that could not long content a man like me. So I began to look for something else.

I might do better to transfer the stones four by four, instead of one by one, that is to say, during the sucking, to take the three stones remaining in the right pocket of my greatcoat and replace them by the four in the right pocket of my trousers , and these by the four in the left pocket of my trousers, and these by the four in the left pocket of my greatcoat, and finally these by the three from the right pocket of my greatcoat, plus the one, as soon as I had finished sucking it, which was in my mouth. Yes, it seemed to me at first that by so doing I would arrive at a better result. But onfurther reflection I had to change my mind and confess that the circulation of the stones four by four came to exactly the same thing as their circulation one by one. For if I was certain of finding each time, in the right pocket of my greatcoat, four stones totally different from their immediate predecessors, the possibility nevertheless remained of my always chancing on the same stone, within each group of four, and consequently of my sucking, not the sixteen turn and turn about as I wished, but in fact four only, always the same, turn and turn about. So I had to seek elswhere than in the mode of circulation. For no matter how I caused the stones to circulate, I always ran the same risk. It was obvious that by increasing the number of my pockets I was bound to increase my chances of enjoying my stones in the way I planned, that is to say one after the other until their number was exhausted. Had I had eight pockets, for example, instead of the four I did have, then even the most diabolical hazard could not have prevented me from sucking at least eight of my sixteen stones, turn and turn about. The truth is I should have needed sixteen pockets in order to be quite easy in my mind. And for a long time I could see no other conclusion than this, that short of having sixteen pockets, each with its stone, I could never reach the goal I had set myself, short of an extraordinary hazard. And if at a pinch I could double the number of my pockets, were it only by dividing each pocket in two, with the help of a few safety-pins let us say, to quadruple them seemed to be more than I could manage. And I did not feel inclined to take all that trouble for a half-measure. For I was beginning to lose all sense of measure, after all this wrestling and wrangling, and to say, All or nothing. And if I was tempted for an instant to establish a more equitable proportion between my stones and my pockets , by reducing the former to the number of the latter, it was only for an instant. For it would have been an admission of defeat. And sitting on the shore, before the sea, the sixteen stones spread out before my eyes, I gazed at them in anger and perplexity ...

One day suddenly it dawned on me, dimly, that I might perhaps achieve my purpose without increasing the number of my pockets, or reducing the number of my stones, but simply by sacrificing the principle of trim. The meaning of this illumination, which suddenly began to sing within me, like a verse of Isaiah, or of Jeremiah, I did not penetrate at once, and notably the word trim, which I had never met with, in this sense, long remained obscure. Finally I seemed to grasp that this word trim could not here mean anything else, anything better, than the distribution of the sixteen stones in four groups of four, one group in each pocket, and that it was my refusal to consider any distribution other than this that had vitiated my calculations until then and rendered the problem literally insoluble. And it was on the basis of this interpretation, whether right or wrong, that I finally reached a solution, inelegant assuredly, but sound, sound. Now I am willing to believe, indeed I firmly believe, that other solutions to this problem might have been found and indeed may still be found, no less sound, but much more elegant than the one I shall now describe, if I can ...

Good. Now I can begin to suck. Watch me closely. I take a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat , suck it, stop sucking it, put it in the left pocket of my greatcoat, the one empty (of stones). I take a second stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, suck it put it in the left pocket of my greatcoat. And so on until the right pocket of my greatcoat is empty (apart from its usual and casual contents) and the six stones I have just sucked, one after the other, are all in the left pocket of my greatcoat. Pausing then, and concentrating, so as not to make a balls of it, I transfer to the right pocket of my greatcoat, in which there are no stones left, the five stones in the right pocket of my trousers, which I replace by the five stones in the left pocket of my trousers, which I replace by the six stones in the left pocket of my greatcoat. At this stage then the left pocket of my greatcoat is again empty of stones, while the right pocket of my greatcoat is again supplied, and in the vright way, that is to say with other stones than those I have just sucked. These other stones I then begin to suck, one after the other, vand to transfer as I go along to the left pocket of my greatcoat, being absolutely certain, as far as one can be in an affair of this kind, that I am not sucking the same stones as a moment before, but others. And when the right pocket of my greatcoat is again empty (of stones), and the five I have just sucked are all without exception in the left pocket of my greatcoat, then I proceed to the same redistribution as a moment before, or a similar redistribution, that is to say I transfer to the right pocket of my greatcoat, now again available, the five stones in the right pocket of my trousers, which I replace by the six stones in the left pocket of my trousers, which I replace by the five stones in the left pocket of my greatcoat. And there I am ready to begin again. Do I have to go on?

There was something more than a principle I abandoned, when I abandoned the equal distribution, it was a bodily need. But to suck the stones in the way I have described, not haphazard, but with method, was also I think a bodily need. Here then were two incompatible bodily needs, at loggerheads. Such things happen. But deep down I didn't give a tinker's curse about being off my balance, dragged to the right hand and the left, backwards and forewards. And deep down it was all the same to me whether I sucked a different stone each time or always the same stone, until the end of time. For they all tasted exactly the same. And if I had collected sixteen, it was not in order to ballast myself in such and such a way, or to suck them turn about, but simply to have a little store, so as never to be without. But deep down I didn't give a fiddler's curse about being without, when they were all gone they would be all gone, I wouldn't be any the worse off, or hardly any. And the solution to which I rallied in the end was to throw away all the stones but one, which I kept now in one pocket, now in another, and which of course I soon lost, or threw away, or gave away, or swallowed ...

Je profitai de ce séjour pour m'approvisionner en pierres à sucer. C'étaient des cailloux mais moi j'appelle ça des pierres. Oui, cette fois-ci, j'en fis une réserve importante. Je les distribuai avec équité entre mes quatre poches et je les suçais à tour de rôle. Cela posait un problème que je résolus d'abord de la façon suivante. J'avais mettons seize pierres, dont quatre dans chacune de mes quatre poches qui étaient les deux poches de mon pantalon et les deux poches de mon manteau. Prenant une pierre dans la poche droite de mon manteau, et la mettant dans ma bouche, je la remplaçais dans la poche droite de mon manteau par une pierre de la poche droite de mon pantalon, que je remplaçais par une pierre de la poche gauche de mon pantalon, que je remplaçais par une pierre de la poche gauche de mon manteau, que je remplaçais par la pierre qui était dans ma bouche, dès que j'avais fini de la sucer. Ainsi il y avait toujours quatre pierres dans chacune de mes quatre poches, mais pas tout à fait les mêmes pierres. Et quand l'envie me reprenait de sucer je puisais à nouveau dans la poche droite de mon manteau, avec la certitude de ne pas y prendre la même pierre que la dernière fois. Et, tout en la suçant, je réarrangeais les autres pierres, comme je viens de l'expliquer. Et ainsi de suite. Mais cette solution ne me satisfaisait qu'à moitié. Car il ne m'échappait pas que cela pouvait être, par l'effet d'un hasard extraordinaire, toujours les mêmes quatre pierres qui circulaient. Et en ce cas, loin de sucer les seize pierres à tour de rôle, je n'en suçais en réalité que quatre, toujours les mêmes, à tour de rôle. Mais je les brassais bien dans mes poches, avant de faire sucette, et en le faisant, avant de procéder aux transferts, dans l'espoir de généraliser la circulation des pierres, de poche en poche. Mais ce n'était là qu'un pis-aller dont ne pouvait longtemps se contenter un homme comme moi. Je me mis donc à chercher autre chose. Et tout d'abord je me demandai si je ne ferais pas mieux de transférer les pierres quatre à quatre, au lieu d'une à une, c'est-à-dire, pendant que je suçais, de prendre les trois pierres qui restaient dans la poche droite de mon manteau et de mettre à leur place les quatre de la poche droite de mon pantalon, et à la place de celles-ci les quatre de la poche gauche de mon pantalon, et à la place de celles-ci les quatre de la poche gauche de mon manteau, et finalement à la place de ces dernières les trois de la poche droite de mon manteau plus celle, dès que j'aurais fini de la sucer, qui était dans ma bouche. Oui, il me semblait d'abord qu'en faisant ainsi j'arriverais a un meilleur résultat. Mais je dus changer d'avis, à la réflexion, et m'avouer que la circulation des pierres par groupes de quatre revenait à la même chose exactement que leur circulation par unités. Car si j'étais assuré de trouver chaque fois, dans la poche droite de mon manteau, quatre pierres totalement différentes de celles qui les y avaient immédiatement précédées, la possibilité n'en subsistait pas moins que je tombe toujours sur la même pierre, à l'intérieur de chaque groupe de quatre, et que par conséquent, au lieu de sucer les seize à tour de rôle, comme je le désirais, je n'en suce effectivement que quatre, toujours les mêmes, à tour de rôle. Il fallait donc chercher ailleurs que dans le mode de circulation. Car de quelque façon que je fisse circuler les pierres, je tombais toujours sur le même aléa. Il était évident qu'en augmentant le nombre de mes poches j'augmentais du même coup mes chances de profiter de mes pierres comme j'entendais le faire, c'est-à-dire l'une après l'autre jusqu'à épuisement du nombre. J'aurais eu huit poches, par exemple, au lieu des quatre que j'avais, que le hasard le plus malveillant n'aurait pu empêcher que sur mes seize pierres j'en suce au moins huit, à tour de rôle. Pour tout dire il m'aurait fallu seize poches pour être tout à fait tranquille. Et pendant longtemps je m'arrêtai à cette conclusion, qu'à moins d'avoir seize poches, chacune avec sa pierre, je n'arriverais jamais au but que je m'étais proposé, à moins d'un hasard extraordinaire. Et s'il était concevable que je double le nombre de mes poches, ne fût-ce qu'en divisant chaque poche en deux, au moyen de quelques épingles doubles supposons, les quadrupler me semblait dépasser mes possibilités. Et je ne tenais pas à me donner du mal pour une demi-mesure. Car je commençais à perdre le sens de la mesure, depuis le temps que je me débattais dans cette histoire, et à me dire, Ce sera tout ou rien. Et si j'envisageai un instant d'établir une proportion plus équitable entre mes pierres et mes poches en ramenant celles-là au nombre de celles-ci, ce ne fut qu'un instant. Car ç'aurait été m'avouer vaincu. Et assis sur la grève, devant la mer, les seize pierres étalées devant mes yeux, je les contemplais avec colère et perplexité.