Digital Manuscript ProjectKrapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande

[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 par-
ticularly, [⁁] 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.
[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 thankful-
ness, 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 for-
ward, 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 floor-
boards 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 goose-
berries, she said.[0268] I said again I thought it was hopeless and no
good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes.I asked
[0270] I asked
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Krapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande © 2015 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle and Vincent Neyt