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 [x]but 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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