Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
En attendant Godot / Waiting for Godot

MS-HRC-DA-145-1

MS. Pages: cover - 02r 03r - 07r 08r - 12r 13r - 17r 18r - 22r 23r - 27r 28r - 32r 33r - 37r 38r - 42r 43r - 47r 48r - 52r 53r - 57r 58r - 62r 63r - 67r 68r - 72r 73r - 77r 78r - 81v 82r - 86r 87r - 91r 91v - 95r 96r - 99r 100r - 100r
[p. cover]
WAITING FOR GODOT

Tragicomedy in Two Acts

By

SAMUEL BECKETT

To be copied

[p. tp]
WAITING FOR GODOT

Tragicomedy in Two Acts

By

SAMUEL BECKETT

[p. dp]

ESTRAGON
VLADIMIR
LUCKY
POZZO
A BOY

*****

[p. 01r]

[0001] ACT ONE

[0002] A country road. A tree.

[0003] Evening.

[0004] ESTRAGON, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. [0005] He pulls at it with both hands, panting. [0006] He stops, exhausted, rests, begins again. [0007] As before.

[0008] Enter VLADIMIR.

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

[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. Yes.

ESTRAGON

[0019] Am I?

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

[0022] Me too.

VLADIMIR

[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.

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

[0032] In a ditch.

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

[0038] And they didn't beat you?

ESTRAGON

[0038|001] BEAT ME? [0039] Certainly they beat me.

VLADIMIR

[0041] The same lot as usual?

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

[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. XAR

[p. 02r]

ESTRAGON

[0049] And what of it?

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

[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. X to his L [0062] (ESTRAGON tears at his boot) [0063] What are you doing?

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

[0070] IT HURTS?

ESTRAGON

[0071] HurS! [0072] He wants to know if it' hurS!

VLADIMIR

[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. clutch balls SIT

ESTRAGON

[0078] It hurts ?

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

[0081] (Pointing) [0082] .

VLADIMIR

[0083] (Stooping) [0084] . [0085] (he buttons his fly) [0086] .

ESTRAGON

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

VLADIMIR

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

ESTRAGON

[0093] WHY DON'T you help me?

VLADIMIR

[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. Hat [0099] (with emphasis) [0100] AP-PALLED. [0101] (he takes off his hat again, peers inside it) [0102] Funny. [0103] (he knocks on the

MS. Pages: cover - 02r 03r - 07r 08r - 12r 13r - 17r 18r - 22r 23r - 27r 28r - 32r 33r - 37r 38r - 42r 43r - 47r 48r - 52r 53r - 57r 58r - 62r 63r - 67r 68r - 72r 73r - 77r 78r - 81v 82r - 86r 87r - 91r 91v - 95r 96r - 99r 100r - 100r