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

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-2

Typescript II of CRAPP'S LAST TAPE

[p. 1r] 3.58

[0003] Front centre, [0004] sitting on a small plain wooden chair before a small plain wooden table, X.

[0004] Little wearish old man

[0004] Front centre, sitting [] facing front on a small wooden chair at a narrow wooden table, [] the two drawers of which open towards audience facing front X.

[0004] Little wearish old man.

[0005] Rusty black narrow trousers, too short for him. [0006] Rusty black sleeveless waistcaot, four capacious pockets. [0007] Heavy silver watch and chain. [0008] Grimy white shirt, open at neck. No collar. [0009] Surprising pair of dirty white boots, size ten, very narrow and pointed.

[0010] Pallid face. [0011] Purple nose. [0012] Disordered grey hair. [0013] Unshaven.

[0014] Very near-sighted (but unspectacled) and [0015] hard of hearing. [0014]

[0016] Cracked voice, [0017] peculiar accent.

[0019] On centre of table a tape-recorder. On its right a number of cardboard boxes containing recorded tapes. [0019|001] [] On its left A thick worn ledger.

[0020] Table and immeditaely adjacent area in strong white light. [0021] Rest of stage in darkness. [cf. Verso]

[0036] .

[p. 1v] [0022] Crapp sits a moment motionless, looks at his watch, feels in his waistcoat pockets, takes out an envelope, puts it back, feels, takes out a small bunch of keys, raises it close to his eyes, chooses a key, gets up and moves to front of table. [0023] He stoops, unlocks a drawer, peers into it, feels about inside it, closes it, locks it, opens the other, peers into it, feels about inside, takes out a large banana , closes and locks drawer, puts keys back in his pocket. [0024] He turns, advances to edge of stage, halts, peels banana droops skin, puts the end of the banana in his mouth, staring vacuously before him. [0025] He turns aside and starts walking to and fro at edge of stage, in light, i.e. not more than 4 or five paces in either direction, eating banana and meditation. [0026] He treads on skin, slips, nearly falls, recovers himself, pushes skin with his foot over edge of stage into pit, [0027] resumes his pacing, finishes banana, returns to table, takes keys from his pocket, raises them to his eyes, chooses key, unlocks and opens wrong drawer, peers and feels inside, locks it, unlocks and opens other drawer, takes out a second banana, locks drawer, puts keys back in his pocket, turns, advances to edge of stage, peels banana, puts skin in his pocket, puts the end of banana in his mouth, staring vacuously before him. [0028] He has a sudden idea, drops banana at his feet, turns and goes backstage into dark. [0029] Ten seconds. [0030] Loud pop of cork. [0031] Ten seconds. [0032] He comes back into light, sits down at table. [0033] He wipes his mouth, wipes his hands on his waistcoat, brings them smartly together, rubs them them together.

A

[0034] (briskly) [0035] Ah! [0036] (He bends over ledger, turns the pages, finds the entry he wants, reads.) [0036|001] Etc

[p. 1r] [0037] Box...thrree... spool...five. ([0038] He turns his head and stares front. [0039] With relish.) [0040] Spool! [0041] (Pause.) [0042] Spoool! ([0044] Pause. [0045] He turns back to table, starts peering and poking at the boxes.) [0046] Box... thrree...thrree...four...two...(with surprise) nine!.. Jesus!...seven...ah!..the little rascal! [0047] (He separates box three from the others.) [0048] Box thrree. [0049] (He opens it, peers at the spools inside.) [0050] Spool...(he peers at ledger, finds the entry)...five. (He peers at spools.) Five...five... [0051](He takes out a spool, straightens up, holds up spool between finger and thumb.) [0052] Spool five. [0053] (He lays it on table, closes box three and puts it back with the others. He takes up spool.) [0054] Box thrree, spool five. [0061] (He puts spool on machine, peers at ledger. Reading entry at foot of page.) [0062] Mother at rest... [0064] The black ball... ([0065] He raises his head. [0066] Puzzled.) [0067] Black ball? ([0067|001] Pause. [0068] He peers again at ledger, reads.) [0069] The dark nurse. [0070] (He raises his head, broods, peers again at ledger.) [0071] Improvement of bowel condition... [0073] Memorable...what? [0074] (He peers closer.) [0075] Equinox, memorable equinox. ([0076] He raises his head, stares front. [0077] Puzzled.) [0078] Memorable equinox? ([0079] Pause. [0080] He shrugs his shoulders, peers again at ledger.) [0081] Farewell to - (he turns the page) - love.

[0082] He broods, closes ledger, bends over machine, switches it on and assumes listening posture, i.e. . leaning forward, elbows on table, hand cupping ear, face front.

Tape

[0083] (strong young voice, rather pompous, obviously A's at a much earlier time.) [0084] Thirty-seven today, sound - [0085] (Settling himself more comfortably A knocks a box off the table. He curses, switches off machine, sweeps boxes [p. 2r] and ledger violently from table, winds tape back to beginning, switches on machine, resumes pose.) [0086] Thirty-seven today, sound [] as a whistle, apart from the old trouble, and intellectually I have little doubt at the peak of my powers, or thereabouts. [0087] Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the Winehouse. [0088] No face there I knew. [0089] Sprawled in front of the fire with closed eyes, separating the grain from the chaff. [0090] Jotted down a few notes, on the back of an envelope. [0091] 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)...me.

[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 my dust has settled. [0107] I close my eyes and try to imagine them.

[0108] Pause.

[0110] Extraordinary silence this evening. I strain my ears and do not hear a sound. [0111] Old Miss Hare always sings at this hour. [0113] Songs of her girlhood, she says. [0112] But not tonight. [0115] Wonderful woman.[] [0116] Connaught. [0118] Shall I sing when I am her age, if I ever am? [0119] No. [] [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 ten or twelve years ago. [0129] At that time I was still living on and off with Bianca [] in Trafalgar Street. [0130] Well out of that. [0131] Hopeless business. [0133] Not much reference to her. A queer passage about her eyes. [0135] I suddenly saw them again. [0137] Matchless. [0138] (Pause.) [0139] Ah well. [0140] (Pause.) [0141] These old P.M.s are gruesome, but I - (A switches off, broods, switches on again) - always find them a help before embarking on a new...(hesitates)... conspectus. [0142] Hard to believe I was ever that young pup. [0143] That voice! [0145] And the aspirations! [0146] (Brief laugh in which A joins.) [0147] And the resolutions! [0148] (Brief laugh in which A joins.) [0149] To drink less, in particular. [0150] (Brief laugh of A alone.) [0151] Statistics. [0152] Seventeen hundred hours, out of the preceding eight thousand odd, consumed on licensed premises alone. [0153] Over 20%.[] [0155] Plans for a less wearing sexual life. [0156] Last illness of his father. [0157] Flagging pur [p. 3r]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] Brief burst of raucous song.[] [0183] He comes back into light front right, sits down, switches on machine, resumes his pose.) [0184] - back over the year that is gone, with what I hope are [/] 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 givesa start), and the - [0185] (A switches off machine, winds back tape a little, bends his ear closer to machine) [0186] - a-dying, in the early autumn, after her long viduity, and the -[]

A. -

([0187] 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 volume of the Concise Oxford or Johnson's dictionary and quotes example, lays it on the table, sits down, looks up viduity, [0191] reads, nods, [0206] closes dictionary, switches on machine, resumes his pose.)

Tape. -

[0207] - bench by the weir from where I could see her window. [0208] There I sat, wishing she were gone. [0210] Quite a number of people I got to know then, oh I mean by appearance, nursemaids, children, old men, dogs. [0211] One dark young beauty I recollect particularly, all white and starch, 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...moonstone. [0223] 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 chance wd. have it. [0224] I happened looked up and there it was. [0225] Over at last. [0226] I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog barking and pawing at me. [0227] (Pause.) [0228] Moments. [0228|001] (Pause.) [0229] Her moments. My moments. [0230] (Pause.) [] [0231] The dog's moments. [0232] (Pause.)[] [0233] In the end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth, gently. [0234] An old tennis ball, black and sodden, but unpunctured. [0235] (Pause.) [0236] I wonder will that mean something some day.

[0241] []Pause.
[0242] 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. [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 [p. 4r] place left 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] (A switches off impatiently, winds tapes 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 been fighting off all this time is in reality my most - [0250] (A curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again) [0251] - unshatterable association till my dying day of storm and night with the light of the understanding and - [0252] (A curses louder, switches off, winds tape violently 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] A 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] Sun blazing down, 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 her to look at me and after a few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. [0271] I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. ([0272] Pause. [0273] Low.) [0274] Let me in. [0275] (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 underneath us all moved, and moved us, [] gently, up and down, and from side to side.

[0282] Pause.

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

[0285] A switches off, broods, [0286] fumbles in his waistcoat pockets, takes out an old envelope, fumbles, puts back the envelope, looks at his watch, gets up and goes backstage into darkness. [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, lays it on table, puts the [p. 5r] other tape on machine, takes envelope from his pocket, lays it on the table, switches on and begins to record.

A

[0293] Just been listening to that stupid bastard I was thirty years ago, find it hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. [0295] (Pause) [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, everything on earth, all the light and dark and hunger & crapulence of...(hesitates)...the ages! [0302] [0303] [0303|001] [0304] (Pause.) [0305] Let that go! [0306] Jesus! [0307] Take his mind off his homework! [0308] Jesus! ([0309] Pause. [0310] Weary.) [0311] Ah well, maybe he was right. [0312] (Pause.) [0313] Maybe he was right. ([0314] Broods. [0315] Realizes. [0316] Switches off. [0317] Consults envelope. [0319] Crumples it and throws it away. [0320] Broods. [0321] Switches on.) [0322] Nothing to say, nothing. [0323] What's a year now? [0324] Reverie and irreversible constipation. [0326] Revelled in the word spool. [0327] (With relish.) [0328] Spoool! [0329] Happiest moment of the year. [0330] (Pause.) DOODLE 1 [0331] Seventeen copies sold, of which eleven overseas. [0332] Getting known. [0334] One pound six and something, eight no doubt. [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 fight them off. [0342|001] Aspirations. [0342|002] Resolutions. [0344] Scalded the eyes out of me reading Effie again, a page a day, with tears again. [0345] Effie... [0346] (Pause.) [0347] Could have been happy with her, up there on the cold sea, and the pines, and the dunes. [0348] (Pause.) [0355] Fanny came in a couple of times. [0356] Bony old whore. [0357] Couldn't do much, but better than nothing. [0358] The last time wasn't so bad. [0359] How do you manage 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, like when I was a child. [0367] [] []

([0364] Sings.)
[0365] Now the day is over
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows of the evening,
Steal across the sky.

[0367] Went to sleep and fell off the pew. [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 wander. [0377|001] (Pause.) [0378] Be again in the dingle on a Christmas Eve, picking gathering holly. [0379] (Pause.) [0380] Be again on Croghan on a Sunday morning, in the haze, with the bitch, stop and listen to the bells. [0381] (Pause.) [0382] And so on. [0383] (Pause.) [0384] Be again. [0387] (Pause.) [0386] All that old misery. [0385] (Pause.) [0388] Once wasn't enough. [0389] (Pause.) [0390] Lie down across her. ([0391] Long pause. [0392] He suddenly bends to the machine, switches off, wrenches off tape, throws it away, puts on the other, winds it to the passage he wants, switches on, listens staring front.)

Tape

[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 few moments - (pause) - after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. [0397] I bent over her [p. 6r] to get them in the shadow and they opened. ([0398] Pause. [0399] Low.) [0400] Let me in. [0401] (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 underneath us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.

[0408] Pause. [0409] A's lips move. [0410] No sound.

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

[0414] Pause.

[0415] Here I end this...(hesitates)... spool, [0416] box - (pause) - thrree, number - (pause) - five. [0417] (Pause.) [0418] Perhaps my best years are gone. [0419] When there was a chance of happiness. [0419|001] [0420] But I wouldn't want them over again. [0421] Not with the fire in me now. [0422] No, I wouldn't want them over again.

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

[0425] Curtain

for
Jake Schwartz
Sam Beckett
March 1958

[p. 6v]

80
17
= 100
?

1
80,1700²
___100
.100