Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-9-3

X
Segment 1

[2297] dead, so as in the end to be a little as I
always was and never could be, without
fear of worse to come peacefully in the
place where I always was and never
could be a rest in peace,
[place = facing leaf] [ADDITION]Addition on page 29vso as in the end to be a little as I always
was and never could be, without fear
of worse to come quietly in the p
peacefully in the place where I always
was and never could rest

X
Segment 2

[2297] I do no, I
don't know, it's simpler than that,
I wanted myself, in my own country [place = supralinear] land,
for a short moment [place = supralinear] brief space, I didn't want to die

X
Segment 3

[2297] a stranger among strangers in the
midst of strangers, a stranger in my own
midst, surrounded by invaders, no,
I don't know what I wanted, I
don't know what I thought, I must
have wanted so many things, I

X
Segment 4

[2297] imagined so many things, while I was
talking, without knowing exactly
what, enough to go blind, with longings
and visions, mingling and merging
in one another, I'd have been better
employed minding what I was saying.

X
Segment 5

[2298] And anyway it didn't happen like that, it
happened as it is happening now, that is
to say, I don't know, one mustn't believe
what I say, I don't know what I'm
saying, I'm doing as I always did,
I'm going on as best I can.

X
Segment 6

[2299] As to
believing that I shall go silent for good
and all, I don't believe it particularly,
I always believed it, as I always
believed that I would never go silent,
you can't call that believing, it's
my walls.
[2300] But has nothing really
changed, all this time?

X
Segment 7

[2301.1] If instead
of having to speak I had something
to do, with my hands, or my feet,
sorting out things for example, or simply
arranging things, suppose for the sake
of argument I had to move things
from one place to another, then I'd

X
Segment 8

[2301.1] know where I was, and how far I had
got, no, not necessarily, I can see
that from here, they'd contrive things in
such a way that I couldn't suspect
the two vessels, the one to be emptied and
the one to be filled, of being in reality

X
Segment 9

[2301.1] one and the same, it would be water,
water, with my thimble xxx I'd go
and xxx in one [place = supralinear] draw it from one container and go and
pour it into another, or there would be
four, or a hundred, half of them

Transcription
  • Segments