MS-BL-LCP-1954-23

[0009] (Giving up again) [0010] Nothing to be done.

[0011] (Advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart) [0012] I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. [0014] All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. [0015] And I resumed the struggle. [0016] (he broods, musing on the struggle. [0017] To ESTRAGON) [0018] So there you are.

[0019] Am I?

[0020] I'm glad to see you back. [0021] I thought you were gone for ever.

[0022] Me too.

[0022|001] Together again at last! [0023] We'll have to celebrate this. But how? [0024] (he reflects) [0025] Get up till I embrace you.

[0027] (Irritably) [0028] Not now, not now.

[0030] (Hurt, coldly) [0031] May one enquire where his Highness spent the night?

[0032] In a ditch.

[0033] (Admiringly) [0034] A ditch! [0035] Where?

[0036] (Without gesture) [0037] Over there.

[0038] And they didn't beat you?

[0039] Certainly they beat me.

[0041] The same lot as usual?

[0042] The same? [0043] I don't know.

[0045] When I think of it...all these years...but for me... where would you be... [0046] (decisively) [0047] You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

[0049] And what of it?

[0051] It's too much for one man. [0052] (pause. [0053] Cheerfully) [0054] On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's how I look at it. [0055] We should have thought of it when the world was young, in the nineties.

[0056] Ah stop talking [0057] and help me off with this bloody thing.

[0058] Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. [0059] We were respectable in those days. [0060] Now it's too late. [0061] They wouldn't even let us up. [0062] (ESTRAGON tears at his boot) [0063] What are you doing?

[0064] Taking off my boot. [0065] Did that never happen to you?

[0066] Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. [0067] Why don't you listen to me?

[0068] (Feebly) [0069] Help me!

[0070] It's hurting you?

[0071] Hurting me! [0072] He wants to know if it's hurting me!

[0073] (Angrily) [0074] No one ever suffers but you. [0075] I don't count. [0077] I'd like to hear what you'd say [0076] if you had what I have.

[0078] It hurts you?

[0079] Hurts me! [0080] He wants to know if it hurts me!

[0081] (Pointing) [0082] You might button it all the same.

[0083] (Stooping) [0084] True. [0085] (he buttons his fly) [0086] Never neglect the little things of life.

[0087] What do you expect, you always wait till the last moment.

[0088] (Musingly) [0089] The last moment... [0090] (he meditates) [0091] Hope deferred maketh the something sick, [0092] who said that?

[0093] Will you not help me?

[0094] Sometimes I feel it coming all the same. [0095] Then I go all queer. [0096] (he takes off his hat, peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, puts it on again) [0097] How shall I say? [0098] Relieved and at the same time... (he searches for the word)... appalled. [0099] (with emphasis) [0100] AP-PALLED. [0101] (he takes off his hat again, peers inside it) [0102] Funny. [0103] (he knocks on the