Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-9-3

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Segment 1

[2226] real ones, rotting with solitude and
neglect, till I doubted my own existence,
and even still, today, I don't believe
in it
have no faith in it, none, so that
I have to say, when I speak, Who speaks,
and seek, and when I seek, Who seeks,

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Segment 2

[2226] and seek, and so on and similarly for
all the other things that happen to me and
for which someone must be found, for
things that happen must have someone
to happen to, someone must stop them.

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Segment 3

[2227] But Murphy and the others, includ and last
but not least [our] the two boyos [hearties]
here present, could not stop them, the
things that happened to me, nothing could
happen to them either, of the things that
happened to me, and nothing else either,
there is nothing else, let us be lucid for once,
nothing else but what happens to me, such

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Segment 4

[2227] as speaking, seeking, and which cannot
happen to me, which prowl around me,
like bodies in torment, the torment of no
abode, no repose, [xxx] no, like hyenas,
howling and laughing, no, no better, no matter,
I've closed shut my doors against them, I'm
not at home for anything, my doors are shut
against them, perhaps that's how I'll find

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Segment 5

[2227] silence, and peace, by opening my doors and
letting myself be devoured, they'll stop
[growling] howling, they'll start eating, the [xxxling]
[maws]
maws howling, Open, open, you'll be
all right, you'll see.

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Segment 6

[2228] What a [pleasure to]
joy it is, to turn and look astern, between
two visits to the depths, scan the horizon in
vain the
in vain the horizon for a sail, it's
a real pleasure, upon my word it is, to be
unable to drown, under such conditions.

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Segment 7

[2229.1] Yes, but there it is, I am far from my doors,
far from my walls, someone would have to
wake the turnkey, there must be one somewhere,
far from my subject too, let's get back to it,
it's gone no longer there, no where I thought
I last saw it, strange this mixture of hard
and liqu
solid and liquid, no longer the
same, or else I mistake the place, yes, it's

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Segment 8

[2229.1] the same, still there, in the same place, it's
a pity, I would have liked to lose it, I
would have liked to lose myself, I'd like
to lose mysef myself the way I used to, in
the old days
I could long ago, when I had
some imagination, close my eyes and be
in a wood, or at the seashore, or in a town

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