Summary

Wandering around on an empty road, Molloy reflects on several topics. One thing he muses on is the danger of being outside during the working day; he claims that “morning is the time to hide” due to the fact that it is the time for “lynching,” by the ends of an unnamed threat, an anonymous “they” from within society (62). Molloy also wonders whether death is an option for him, but considers that it might be a worse state than the vicissitudes of existence.

Next, Molloy ends up on a beach next to the seaside. After playing with some sand, he begins to lay out an array of “sucking-stones” (64). He goes through the various calculations to ensure that he sucks on sixteen stones in sequence, without sucking on the same stone twice before the revolution is complete. He narrates a counting system based on rotating...