Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

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Segment 1

[2325.2] take him down, or to prevent her daughter-in-law from re-entering
the premises, [2325.3] there's a story for you, it must be the daughter-
in-law, it isn't the son-in-law and the daughter, it's the
daughter-in-law and the son, how I reason to be sure this evening,
it was to teach me how to reason, it was to tempt me to go, to
the place where you can come to an end, I must have been a good
pupil, up to a certain point, I couldn't get beyond a certain
point, I can understand their being cross angry with me, this evening

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Segment 2

[2325.3] I begin to understand, oh there's no danger, it is it's not I, it
was not wasn't I, the door, it's the door that interests me, it's of a wooden
wood door, who bolted the door, and for what purpose, I'll never know,
there's a story for you, I thought they were over, all forgotten,
perhaps it's a new one, lepping fresh, is it the return to the
world of fable, no, only a reminder, so that I may regret what
I have lost, so that I may long again to be in the place I was
banished from, unfortunately it doesn't remind me of anything.

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Segment 3

[2326.1] The silence, speak of the silence before going into it, have I
been there already, I don't know, at every instant I am there,
there I am speaking of it, I knew it would come, I emerge from
it to speak of it, I am in it while I speak of it, if it's I
who speak, and it's not, I act as if it were, often I act as
if it were I, but at lenght, was I ever there at length, a long

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Segment 4

[2326.1] stay, I understand nothing about duration, I can't speak of it,
oh I know I speak of it, I say never and always, I speak of
the four seasons and of the differrents parts of the day and of
the night, the night has no parts, that's because you are
asleep, the seasons must resemble one another, be very similar, perhaps it's
springtime now, that's allw words they taught me, without

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Segment 5

[2326.1] making their meaning clear to me, that's how I know learnt how to reason
reason, I used them all, all the words they showed me, there
were lists of them, ah what a the strange glow all of a sudden, they
were on lists, with images opposite, I must have forgotten
them, I must have mixed them up, these nameless images I have,
these imageless names, these windows that I should perhaps

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