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

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-3

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Segment 1

[0211] [ADDITION]Addition on page 4v recollect particularly, all white and starch, incomparable
bosom, with a big black hooded pram, most funereal thing.
[0212] Whenever I looked in her
direction she had her eyes on me.
[0213] But one day when I was ingenuous enough
to speak to her
try and pat her on the bottom [Stet] she threatened to call a policeman.
[0217] The
face she had!
[0218] Eyes[0219] like - moonstone![0220] (Pause.)

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Segment 2

[0223] I was there
when - (Krapp switches off, broods, switches on again) - the
blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs,
throwing a ball for fox terrier as chance would have it.
[0224] I happened
to look up and there it was.
[0225] All over, at last.[0226] I sat on for
a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog
yelping 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.)

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Segment 3

[0233] In
the end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth,
gently.
[0234] A small old, black , [] solid rubber ball. []
[0235] (Pause.)[0236]
[0236]

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Segment 4

[0241] Pause.
[0244] Spiritually 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 vision, at last.

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Segment 5

[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 left in my memory, no thankfulness, for the
miracle
that...(hesitates)...for the fire that set it alight.

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Segment 6

[0247] What
I suddenly saw then [] was this, [] that the belief I had been going on all
my life, namely -
[0248] (Krapp switches off impatiently, winds
tape forward, switches on again
)
[0249] - granite rocks the foam
flying up in the light of the beacon and the anemometer wind gauge spin-
ning like a propellor, clear to me at last that the dark I
[] have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most -

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Segment 7

[0250] (Krapp
curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again
)
[0251] -
- unshatterable association until my ...(hesitates)...dissolution of storm and night with the light of the understanding
and -
[0252] (Krapp 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.

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Segment 8

[0256] Pause.
[0257] Past midnight.[0258] Never knew such silence.[0259] The earth might be
uninhabited.

[0260] Pause.
[0261] Here I end -
[0262] Krapp switches off, winds tape back, switches on again.

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Segment 9

[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, water nice and
lively.
[0266] I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how
she came by it.
[0267] Picking gooseberries, she said.
I said again I

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Segment 10

[0268] I said again I

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Addition 1
most funereal thing.
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Addition 2
solid rubber ball. []
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Addition 3
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Addition 4
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Addition 5
[0235] (Pause.) [0236] I shall feel it, in my hand, until my dying day. [0237] (Pause.) [0238] I wish I had kept it. [0239] (Pause.) [0240] But I gave it to the dog.
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Addition 6
was this, []
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Addition 7
have always struggled to keep under
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Addition 8
...(hesitates)...dissolution
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Addition 9
gently
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Metamark 1
Metamark: Stet Note: \'Stet\' in the margin.
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Doodle 6
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions
  • Metamarks
  • Doodles