Digital Manuscript ProjectKrapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande

[0157] suit of happiness.[0158] Unattainable laxation.[0163] Shadow of
the magnum opus.[0164] Closing with - (brief laugh) - a yelp
to Providence.[0165] (Prolonged laugh in which A joins.)[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 darkness. [0172] Ten
seconds. [0173] Pop of cork. [0174] Ten seconds. [0175] Second cork. [0176] Ten seconds.
[0177] Third cork. [0178] Ten seconds. [⁁] [0179] [place = margin left] Brief rau burst of raucous song.[⁁][0183] He comes back into light front
right, sits down, switches on machine, resumes his pose.)
[0184] - back on [place = supralinear] over the year that is gone, with what I hope are [/] [place = margin top] perhaps the
old eyes to come, there is of course the house on the canal
where mother lay a-dying, in the early autumn, after her
long viduity (A gives a start), and the - (A switches off (A givesa
machine, gets up, goes backstage into darkness and comes
same way with a dictionary start), and the -
[0185] (A switches off machine, wind backs winds tape a little
back tape a little, bends his ear closer to machine)
[0186] -
a-dying, in the early autumn, after her long viduity, and
the -[←] [0187] [place = margin left] A. - (A switches off machine, turns face front. [0187|001] Puzzled.)
[0188] Viduity?[0189] (Pause. [0190] He gets up, goes backstage into darkness,
comes back with a large dictionary volume of the Concise
Oxford [place = margin left] or Johnson's dictionary and quotes example, lays it on the table, sits down, looks up viduity,
[0191] [place = infralinear] xeadsreads, nods, [0206] closes dictionary, switches on machine, re-
sumes his pose.)[0207] [place = margin left] Tape. - - ba [place = overwritten] ench by the weir from where I d [place = overwritten] could
see her window.[0208] There I sat, da wishing she were gone.
[0210] Quite a number of people I got to know then, oh I mean by
appea [place = inline] rance, nursemaids, children, i [place = overwritten] old men, dogs.[0211] One dark
young beauty I recall [place = supralinear] recollect particularly, [place = margin left] all white and starch, [place = inline] splendid bosom,[⁁] with a big black hooded
pram.[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] 8 [place = overwritten] I was there when - (A 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. [place = supralinear] chance wd. have it.[0224] I happened to [place = supralinear] happened look [place = inline] ed up and there it was.[0225] Over
at last.[0226] I sat [place = supralinear] on for a moment or two [place = margin left] few moments with the ball in my hand
hand and the dog ba [place = inline] rking and pawing at me.[0227] (Pause.)
[0228] Moments
Moments.[0228|001] (Pause.)[0229] Her moments. My moments.[0230] (Pause.) [⁁][0231] [place = margin left] The dog's moments.[0232] [place = margin left] (Pause.)[⁁][0233] In the
end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth, gently
gently.[0234] An old tennis ball, black and sodden, but unpunct-
ured.[0235] (Pause.)[0236] I wonder will that mean something some day.
[0241] [←] [place = margin left] Pause.
[0242] [place = margin left] Bowels better on the whole.
[0243] Pause.
[0244] Intellectually a year of profound gloom and indigence until
that memorable night in March, at the end of the pier, in
the howling wind, never to be forgotten, when suddenly I
saw the whole thing.[0245] The turning-point, at last.This I
imagine is what I hac [place = overwritten] ve chiefly to set down this evening,
against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no
[0246] This I
imagine is what I hac [place = overwritten] ve chiefly to set down this evening,
against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no
- Segments
- Marginal Additions
Krapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande © 2015 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle and Vincent Neyt