Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

X
Segment 1

[1496] Having won, shall I be left in peace.[1497] It doesn't look like [] it,
I seem to be going on talking.
[1498] In any case all these suppositions
are probably errobneous.
[1499] I shall perhaps be launched again, girt
with better arms, against the fortress of mortality.
[1500] What is more
important is that I should know what is going on now, in order to
announce it, as my function requires.
[1501] It must not be forgotten,
sometimes I gforget, that all is a question of voices.

X
Segment 2

[1503] I say what
I am told to say, in the hope that some day they will weary of
talking at me.
[1504] The trouble is I say it wrong, having no ear, no
head, no memory.
[1505] Now I hear them saying it is Worm's voice be-
ginning, I pass on the news, for what it is worth.
[1506] Do they believe
that I believe it is I who am talking?
[1507] That's theirs too.[1508] To make
me think I have an ego of my own and can speak of it, as they of
theirs.

X
Segment 3

[1509] Another trap, so that I may suddenly find myself caught,
snap!,
among the living.
[1510] It's how to fall into it that they can't
have explained to me properly.
[1511] They'll never get the better of
my stupidity.
[1512] Why do they speak to me thus?[1513] It is possible certain
things change on their way [] passage through me, and that they can't do any- in a way they can't prevent?
thing about that.
[1514] Do they believe I believe that it is I who am
asking these questions?
[1515] That's theirs too,[1516] a little distorted
perhaps.
[1517] I don't say it's not the right method.

X
Segment 4

[1518] I don't say they
won't get me in the end.
[1519] I wish they would, to be thrown away.
[1520] It'sthis hunt that is tiring, this unending being at bay.[1521] Images,
they imagine that by piling on the images they'll net [] smother me in the
end.
[1522] Like the mother that whistles to prevent baby from catc 's bladder from
getting nephritis bursting., there's another.
[1523] They, yes, they, now they're all in the same
boat.
[1524] Worm to play, his lead, I wish him a happy time.[1525] To think I
thought he was against what they were trying to do with me.

X
Segment 5

[1526] To
think I saw in him, if not exactly me, a step towards me.
[1527] To get
me to be he, the anti-Mahood, and then say, But what am I doing
but living, in a kind of way, in the only possible way?
[1528] That's
the combination.
[1529] Or by the absurd prove to me that I am, the ab-
surd of not being able.
[1530] Unfortunately it is no help my being
forewarned, I never remain so for long.
In any case I wish him

X
Segment 6

[1531] In any case I wish him

X
Doodle 7
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Doodles