Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

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Segment 1

[0762] your return, patiently, and you too must be patient.[0763] It was
swarming with them, grandpa, grandma, little mother and the eight
or nine brats.
[0764] With their eyes glued to the slits and they followed observed witnessed surveyed
my efforts struggles,
their hearts going out to me .
[0765] This yard so long deserted
was now enlived, tha by me enlivened, for them, by me.
[0766] So we turned, in our
different orbits, they I without, they within.

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Segment 2

[0767] At night, keeping
watch by turns, they onbserved me with the help of a searchlight.
[0768] So the seasons came and went.[0769] The children grew in stature, the
periods of Ptomaine paled grew pale, the two old ones ancients glowered at each
other, saying to themselves, I'll bury you yet, yYou'll bury me yet.
[0770] Since my
arrival they had a subject of conversation, and even of discussion,
the same as of yore old, at the time of my departure my setting forth, perhaps even an
interest in life, the same as of yore old.

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Segment 3

[0771] Time hung less heavy on
their hands.
[0772] What about throwing him a few scraps?[0773] No, no, it might
upset him.
[0774] They did not want to check the impetus that was sweeping
me towards thelm.
[0775] You wouldn't know him![0776] True, and yet somehow one it can only be he
does you can't mistake him.
[0777] They who in the ordinary way never answered when spoken to,
my parents, my wife, she who had chosen fastened on me, rather than on one of
her suitors.
[0778] A few more summers and he'll be in our lmidst.

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Segment 4

[0779] Where
am I going to put him?
[0780] In the basement?[0781] Perhaps after amll I am
merely simply in the basement.
[0782] What possesses him to be stopping all the
time?
[0783] Oh he was always like that, ever since he was a tiny tot mite,
always stopping, wasn't he, Granny?

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Segment 5

[0784] Yes indeed, never easy, always
stopping.
[0785] According to Mahhod I never got there, that is to say
they all died first, the whole ten or elevent of that them, carried off
by sausage poisoning, in excruciating pain great pain agony.
[0786] Incommoded
first by their shrieks, then by the stench of decomposition, I had
turned back.

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Segment 6

[0787] But let us not go too not so fast, otherwise we'll never
arrive get there arrive.
[0788] It's no longer I in any case.[0789] Will he ever arrive reach us, at his
present rate speed of going?
[0790] He looks as if he had slowed down, since
last year.
[0791] Oh the last rounds laps won't take him long.[0792] My missing leg
didn't seem to affect them.
[0793] Perhaps it was already lmissing when
I left.
[0794] What about throwing him a sponge?[0795] No, no, it might upset
him.
In the evening, after supper, while my wife kept her eye on

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Segment 7

[0796] In the evening, after supper, while my wife kept her eye on

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Addition 1
surveyed
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Addition 2
you can't mistake him
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Addition 3
arrive
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions