Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-9-2

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Segment 1

[1527] living, in a kind of way, in the only
possible way?
[1528] That's the combination.
[1529] Or per absurdum by the absurd prove to me that I am,
[xxx] abs the absurd not being able.
[1530] Unfortunately
it is no help my being forewarned, I never
remain so for long.
[1531] In any case I wish
him every success, in his courageous under-
taking.

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Segment 2

[1532] And I am even prepared to
collaborate with him, as with Mahood and
Co, to the best of my ability, being unable
to do otherwise, and knowing my ability.
[1533] Worm, to say he does not know what he is,
where he is, what is happening, is an under-
statement.
[1534] What he does not is that there
there is anything to know.

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Segment 3

[1535] His senses tell him
nothing, nothing about himself, nothing
about the rest, and this distinction is unknown
to [xxx] him.

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Segment 4

[1536] Feeling nothing, knowing nothing,
he exists nevertheless, but not for himself,
for others men, others men conceive him and say,
Worm is here, since we conceive him, as
if there could be no life but life conceived,
if only by him who lives it.
[1537] Men.[1538] One alone,
then others.

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Segment 5

[1539] One alone turned towards the
all-impotent, all-ignorant, that haunts
him, then others.
[1540] Towards him whom he
would nourish, he the famished one, and who,
having nothing human, has nothing else, has
nothing, is nothing.
[1541] Come into the world unborn,
abiding there unliving, with no hope of death,
epicentre of joys, [x] of griefs, of calm.

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Segment 6

[1542] Which [seems] seems the truest possession,
because the most unchanging.
[1543] The one
outside of life [xxx] we always were in the end[], all our
long vain life long.
[1544] Who is not spared by the
mad need to speak, to think, to know what one
is, what one was, during the wild dream,
up above, under the sky, going out venturing forth at night.

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Segment 7

[1545] The one [x] ignorant of himself and silent [ADDITION]Addition on page 17vThe one who in speechless ignorance
of himself
, ignorant
of his silence and silent, who could not be and
gave up trying.
[1546] Who crouches in the midst of
their midst who [see themselves] see themselves in
him and [to] their ? [xxx] his unchanging [xxx].
in their eyes stares his unchanging stare.

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Segment 8

[1547] Thanks for these first notions.[1548] They are en-
couraging.
[1549] And it's not all.[1550] He who searches
for his true face, let him be of good cheer,
he'll find it, convulsed with anguish, [and] the
eyes out on stalks.
[1551] He who [xxx desired] desires to have
lived, while he was alive, let [him xxx] him be
reassured, life will tell him how.

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Segment 9

[1552] That's all
very comforting.
[1553] Worm, be Worm, you'll see, it's
impossible, what a velvet glove, a little worn at
the knuckles with all the [punching] hard hitting. [xxx]
[xxx]
(bashing).
[1554] Bah, let's turn the [xxx] black eye.
[1555] And [let] the starching begin at last , of this [xxx] [xxx]
[xxx] clout, pawed so [xxx] patiently in vain,
as limp and drooping still as before they began.

Transcription
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