Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-9-3

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Segment 1

[2282] nobody to talk to you, so that you have
to say, It's I am doing this to me, I who
am talking to me about me.

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Segment 2

[2283] Then your
breath fails, the end begins, you go silent,
it's the end, short-lived, you begin again,
you had forgotten, there is someone,
someone talking to you, about you, about
him, then a second, then a third, then
the second again, then all three together,

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Segment 3

[2283] these figures just to give you an idea,
talking to you, about you, about them,
all I have to do is listen, then they depart,
one by one, and the voice goes on, it's
not theirs, they were never there, there
was never anybody, but you, never anybody

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Segment 4

[2283] but you, talking to you about you, your
breath fails, it's nearly the end, your
breath stops, it's the end, short-lived,
I hear someone calling me, it begins again,
that must be how it goes, if I had a
memory.

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Segment 5

[2284] Even if there were things, a
thing somewhere,
a morsel of nature, to speak about, you might
reconcile yourself to having nobody left, to being
yourself the speaker, if there were
only a thing somewhere, to speak about,
even though you couldn't see, or know what

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Segment 6

[2284] it was, simply to feel it there, with you,
somewhere, you might the courage not to
go silent, no, it's to go silent that you need
courage, for you'll be punished, punished
for having gone silent, and yet you can't do
otherwise than go silent, than be punished
for going silent, than be punished for having

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Segment 7

[2284] been punished, since you begin again, your
breath fails, if only there were a thing, but
there it is, there is not, they took away
things when they departed, they took away
nature, there was never anybody, anybody
but me, anything but me, talking to me of
me, impossible to stop, impossible to go on,
but I must go on, I'll go on, with anybody,

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Segment 8

[2284] without anything, but me, but my voice,
that is to say I'll stop, I'll end, it's
the end already, short-lived, what is it,
a little hole, you go down into it, into the
silence, it's worse than the noise, you listen,
it's worse than speaking, no, not worse, no
worse, you wait, anxious, have they forgotten

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Doodle 65
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