Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

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Segment 1

[0180] probably the most pleasing to me.[0181] In a word: no change since I
have been [here,] here, apparently; disorder of the lights perhaps
an illusion; all change to be feared; incomprehensible uneasiness.

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Segment 2

[0182] That I am not [e]sotone deaf appears clearly from the sounds is shown by the sounds that come to that
reach me.
[0183] For though the silence here is almost total unbroken, it is not
completely so.

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Segment 3

[0184] I remember the first sound heard in this place, I
have aoften heard it since.
[0185] For I am onbliged to assume a beginning
to my sojourn residence here, if only for convenience of the exposition. sake of clarity.
[0186] Hell itself, al[]though eternal, dates from the revolt of Lucifer.
[0187] It is therefore permissible, in the light of this distant remote analogy,
to think of myself as being here for ever, but not as having been here
for ever.
[0188] This will greatly help me in my relation.

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Segment 4

[0189] Memory notably,
which I did not think myself entitled to call up[]on though I could not draw upon did not think myself entitled to draw upon, will have its
word to say, if necessary.
[0190] This represents at least a thousand words
I was not counting on had not reckoned with.[Stet]
[0191] I may well need well be glad of them.[0192] So after a long period
of immaculate silence a feeble cry was heard, by me.
[0193] I do not know
if Malone heard it too.
[0194] I was surprised, the word is not too strong.
[0195] After so long a silence a little cry, stifled forthwith outright.

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Segment 5

[0196] As to de-
termining
wWhat kind of xcreature uttered it and, continues, if it is
the same, to do so, every now and then, impossible.[] still does, from time to time? There is no knowing. impossible to say.[]
[0197] Not a human one
creature in any case, there are no ghuman creatures here, or if there
are they havinge finished done with crying.
[0198] Is Malone the guilty one culprit.?[0199] Am I?
[0200] Is it not perhaps a simple little fart, they can be rending?[0201] De-
plorable mania, when something happens, of wanting to know to want inquire what.

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Segment 6

[0202] If only I were not obliged to manifest.[0203] And why speak of a cry?
[0204] It is perhaps something breaking, some two things colliding.[0205] There are
sounds here, from time to time, let that suffice.
[0206] This one to be
cry to begin with, since it was the first.
[0207] And others, rather dif-
ferent.
[0208] I am getting to know them.[0209] I do not know them all.[0210] A man may
die at the age of seventy without ever having had the possibility
of seeing Halley's comet.

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Segment 7

[0211] It would help me, since to me too I must attribute a beginning,

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Addition 1
did not think myself entitled to draw upon
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Addition 2
impossible to say.[]
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Metamark 1
Metamark: Stet Note: \'Stet\' in the margin.
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions
  • Metamarks