Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

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Segment 1

[1032] favourite devices, to stop suddenly at the least sign of
adhesion from me, leaving me high and dry, with nothing for my
renewal xbut the life they have imputed to me.
[1033] And it is only
when they see I am stranded that they take up again the thread
of my misfortunes, judging me insufficiently vitalized to bring
them to a successful conclusion alone and unaided.

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Segment 2

[1034] But instead
of making the junction, I have often noticed this, I mean instead
of resuming me at the point where I was left off, they pick me
up at a much later stage, perhaps thereby hoping to induce in
me the delusion that I had got through the interval all on my
own, lived without help of any kind for quite some time, and

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Segment 3

[1034] with no recollection of by what means or in what circumstances,
or even died, all on my own, and come back to earth again, by
way of the vagina, like a real live baby, and reached a ripe age,
and even senility, without the least assistance from them and
thanks solely to the indications they had given me.

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Segment 4

[1035] To saddle
me with a lifetime is probably not enought for them, I have to
be given a taste of two of three generations.
[1036] But it is not
certain.
[1037] Perhaps all they have told me has reference to a single
existence, the confusion of identities being merely apparent
and due to my inaptitude to assume any.

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Segment 5

[1038] If I ever succeed in
dying under my own steam, then they will be in a better position
to decide whether I am worthy to adorn another age, or to try
the same one again, with the benefit of my experience.

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Segment 6

[1039] I may
therefore legitimately suppose that the one-armed, one-legged
wayfarer of a moment ago and the wedge-headed trunk in which
I am now marooned are simply two phases of the same carnal
envelope, the soul being notoriously immune from deterioration
and sdismemberment.
[1040] Having lost one leg, what indeed more likely
than that I should mislay the other.
[1041] And similarly for the arms.

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Segment 7

[1042] A natural transition in sum.But what then of that other old
age they bestowed upon me, if I remember right, and that other

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Segment 8

[1043] But what then of that other old
age they bestowed upon me, if I remember right, and that other

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