Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Krapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-1

Typescript I of Krapp's Last Tape 3.58.

Tape

[p. 1r] [0083] (strong young voice, but unmistakeably A's. Rather pompous.) [0086] Thirty-seven today, sound apparently in wind ( he rimes this word with mind) and limb, apart from my old trouble, and intellectually I have little doubt at the peak of my powers, or thereabouts. [0087] Celebrated the dreadful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the Winehouse. [0088] No face there I knew. [0089] Sat before the fire with closed eyes separating the grain from the chaff. [0090] Jotted down a few notes, on the back of an envelope. [0091] It is good to be home again, in my old rags. [0097] The new light above my table is a great improvement. [0098] With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. [0099] (Pause.) [0100] In a way. [0101] (Pause.) [0102] I like to get up and move about in it, then back here to...(hesitates)... myself.

[0105] Pause.

[0106] The grain, what do I mean by that, I mean...(Pause.) I suppose I mean those things worth having when all the dust has - when all this dust has settled. [0107] I close my eyes and try and imagine them.

[0108] Pause.

[0110] Extraordinary silence this evening. I strain my ears and do not hear a sound. [0111] Old Miss Beamish always sings at this hour. [0113] [] songs of her girlhood, she says.[][] [0112] But not tonight. [0115] I admire her.[] [0112|001] [0118] Shall I sing when I am her age [0119] [] if I ever am. Unlikely. [0121] Did I sing as a boy? [0122] No. [0124] Did I ever sing? [0125] No.

[0126] Pause.

[0127] I have just listened to an old year, []passages at random. [0128] I did not check in the book, but it must be at least twelve or fifteen years ago. [0129] At that time I was living on and off with Furry in Street. [] [0131] [Insert][] DOODLE 1 DOODLE 2 [0141] [0142] [0143] The voice is not mine. [0145] Aspirations. [0147] Resolutions. [0149] To drink less, in particular. [0151] Statistics. [0152] Seventeen hundred hours, out of the preceding eight thousand odd, consumed on licensed premises alone. [0155] Plans for a less exhausting sexual life. [0156] Last illness of his father. [0157] [] DOODLE 3 [0157] Flagging pursuit of happiness. [0163] [] . [0163] Shadow of the magnum opus. [0164] Closing with a - (brief laugh) - squeal Providence. [0165] (Prolonged laugh.) [0166] What remains of all that misery? [0167] A girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station platform?

[0169] Pause.

[0170] When I look - ([0171] A switches off machine, broods, looks at watch, gets up and goes backstage into shadows. [0172] Pause of ten seconds. [0173] Sound of cork popping. [0174] Ten seconds. [0175] Second cork. [0176] Ten seconds. [0177] Third cork. [0178] Ten seconds. [0179] (Brief burst of raucous song.) [0183] He comes back into light from an unexpected angle, front right , sits down, resumes his pose, switches on machine.) [0184] - back on the year that is gone, [p. 2r] with the old eyes to come, there is of course the house on the canal where mother lay dying, in the early autumn, after her long widowhood, and the [0207] bench by the weir from where I could see her window. [0208] I sat there, wishing she were gone. [0208|001] [0210] Quite a number of people I got to know then, oh I mean by appearance, nursemaids and children, old men, dogs. [0211] One dark young beauty I remember particularly, [] all white and starch [] with a big black pram. [0211|001] [0212] Whenever I looked in her direction she had her eyes on me. [0213] But when I [] was foolish enough to speak to her she threatened to call a policeman. [0217] The face she had! [0218] Eyes [0219] like...moonstones. [0223] I was there when - (He switches off, broods, switches on again)- the blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs, throwing a ball for a dog as it happened [Stet.] . [0224] I looked up and there it was. [0225] Over at last. [0226] I sat a for a moment or so with the ball in my hand and the dog barking and pawing at me. [] [0228] []Moments ... [0228|001] (Pause.) [0229] Her moments. My moments. [0230] (Pause.) [0233] In the end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth, very gently. [0234] An old tennis ball, black and sodden, but unpunctured. [0235] ( (Pause.) [0236] I wonder ) will that ever mean anything.

[/] [0241] Pause
[0242] Bowels better on the whole.
[0243] Pause

[0243] Pause.

[0244] Intellectually a year of profound gloom until that wonderful night in March, at the end of the pier, in the high wind, when suddenly I saw the whole thing. [0245] The turning-point, at last.[] [0246] This I imagine is what I have chiefly to set down this evening, against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no place in my memory, and no thankfulness, for the miracle that -[] - (Pause) - for the fire that set it alight.[] [0247] What I saw then was that the assumption I had been going on all , my life, namely - [0248] (He switches off machine impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again) [0249] - granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the beacon and the anemometer spinning like a propellor, clear to me at last that the dark I have struggled to keep at bay is in reality my most valuable - [0250] (He curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again) [0251] - strange association till my dying day of storm and night with the light of understanding and the - [0252] (He curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again) [0253] - my face in her breasts and my hand on her. [0254] We lay there without moving. [0255] But underneath us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.

[0256] Pause.

[0257] Past midnight. [0258] Never knew such a silence.

[0260] Pause.

[0261] Here I end this -

[0262] He switches off, winds tape back, switches on again.

[0263] - upper lake, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the stream and drifted. [0264] She lay stretched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. [0265] Blazing sun, with a bit of a breeze, and the water nice and lively. [0266] I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she got it. [0267] Picking gooseberries, she said. [0268] I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [0270] I asked [p. 3r] her to look at me and after a moment or so [/] - pause - after a moment or so she did, but her eyes just slits, because of the glare. [0271] I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. ([0272] Pause.) [0276] We drifted in among the reeds and stuck. [0277] The way they bent, sighing, before the stem. [0279] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. [0280] We lay without moving. [0281] But under us all moved, and moved us, up and down, and from side to side.

[0282] Pause.

[0283] Past midnight. [0284] Never knew -

[0285] He switches off, sits brooding, [0286] fumbles in his waistcoat pockets, takes out an old envelope, fumbles, puts back the envelope,[/] looks at his watch, gtes up and goes right into shadows. [0287] Ten seconds. [0288] Sound of bottle against glass, then brief siphon. [0289] Ten seconds. [0290] Bottle against glass alone. [0291] Fifteen seconds. [0292] He comes back front left into light, with an unused tape in his hand, sits down, takes tape off machine and lays it on table, puts other tape on machine, takes envelope from his pocket, lays it on the table, switches on and begins to record.

[0293] Just been listening to that stupid bastard I was 30 years ago, find it hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. [0296] The eyes she had! ([0297] Broods, realizes he is recording silence, switches off, broods.) [0299] Everything there, everything, all the - [0300] (Realizes this is not being recorded, switches on.) [0301] Everything there, every-[]thing on earth,, all the light and dark of the
vice and crystal and sorrow
and rejoicing
...(hesitates)...ages.
[0305] Let that go! [0306] Jesus! [0307] Take his mind off his homework! [0308] Jesus! ([0309] Pause.) [0311] Ah well, maybe he was right. [0312] (Pause.) [0313] Maybe he was right. ([0314] Broods. [0316] Switches off. [0317] Consults envelope. [0319] Crumples it and throws it away. [0320] Broods. [0321] Switches on.

[0322] Nothing to say. [0323] What's a year now? [0324] Reverie and [] galloping constipation. [0326] gloried in the word spool [0331] Seventeen copies sold, one pound six and something, eight probably. [0332] Getting known . [0336] Crawled out once or twice, before the summer was over. [0337] Sat in the park in the middle of the brats and skivvies, dreaming and wishing I were gone. [0340] Last fancies. [0342] Swore to keep them at bay. [0342|001] Aspirations. [0342|002] Resolutions. [0344] Burnt the eyes out of me reading Effie again, a page a day, with tears again. [0347] Could have been happy with her, up there on the cold sea, and the pines, and the dunes. [0348] (Pause.) [0348|001] DOODLE 4Chinese (Chinks) occupied Dublin. Poor devils. [0355] Fanny came in a couple of times. [0356] Fat old whore. [0357] Couldn't do much, but better than nothing. [0358] The last time wasn't so bad. [0359] How do you do it, she said, at your age? [0360] I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life. [0361] (Pause.) [0362] Went to vespers once, first time since I left school,. [0367] Slept. [0368] (Pause.) [0369] Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort mightn't - [0370] (Pause.) [0371] Empty the bottle now and get to your bed. [0372] Finish this puke tomorrow. [0373] Or leave it at that. [0374] (Pause.) [0375] Leave it at that. [0376] (Pause.) [0377] Lie propped up on my back in the dark, and wanderroam. [0377|001] (Pause.) [0378] Be again in the dingle on a Xmas Eve, picking holly. [0379] (Pause.) [0380] Be again on Croghan on a Sunday morning [], in the snow, with the bitch [] stop and listen to the bells. [0381] (Pause.) [0382] And so on. [0383] (Pause.) [0384] Be again. [0385] (Pause.) [0386] All that old misery. [0387] (Pause.) [0388] Once wasn't enough. [0389] (Pause.) [0390] Lie down across her. ([0391] Long pause. [0392] He suddenly bends to machine, switches off, wrenches off tape, throws it away, puts on [p. 4r]the other, winds it to the passage he wants, switches on, listens staring front.

[0393] - gooseberries, she said. [0394] I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [0396] I asked her to look at me and after a moment or so [/] - (Pause) - after a moment or so she did, but her eyes just slits because of the glare. [0397] I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. ([0398] Pause.) [0402] We drifted in among the reeds and stuck. [0403] The way they bent, sighing, before the stem. [0405] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. [0406] We lay without moving. [0407] But under us all moved and moved us, up and down, and from side to side.

[0408] Pause.

[0411] Past midnight. [0412] Never knew such silence.

[0414] Pause.

[0415] Here I end this , - (hesitates) - stage. [0416] box - (pause) - four, number - (pause) - three. [0417] (Pause.) [0418] Perhaps my best years are past. [0419] When there was a chance of happiness. [0420] But I wouldn't want them back. [0421] Not with the fire in me now. [0422] No, I wouldn't want them back.

[0423] A sits motionless staring before him. [0424] The tape runs on in silence.

[0425] Curtain

for
Jake Schwartz
Sam. Beckett
March 1958