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

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-7

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Segment 1

[0248] switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on
again
)
[0249]—great granite rocks the foam flying up in the
light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning like
a propeller, 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 2

[0250] (KRAPP curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches
on again
)
[0251]—unshatterable association until my dissolution
of storm and night with the light of the understanding
and the fire—
[0252](KRAPP 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
under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down,
and from side to side.

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Segment 3

[0256] ([] Pause.)[]
[0257] Past midnight.[0258] Never knew such silence.[0259] The earth might
be uninhabited.
[0260] ([] Pause.)[]
[0261] Here I end—

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Segment 4

[0262] ([] KRAPP 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, water nice and lively.
[0266] I noticed a scratch on her
thigh and asked her how she came by it.

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Segment 5

[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.
[0269] (Pause.)[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.

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Segment 6

[0275] (Pause.)[0276] We drifted in among the flags and stuck.[0277] The
way they went down, sighing, before the stem!
[0278] (Pause.)
[0279] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and
my hand on her.
[0280] We lay there without moving.[0281] But
under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down,
and from side to side.

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Addition 1
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Addition 2
after a few moments
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Metamark 1
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Metamark 2
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Metamark 3
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Metamark 4
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Metamark 6
Metamark: Note: Deleatur in left margin.
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Metamark 7
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Metamark 8
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Metamark 9
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Metamark 10
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Metamark 11
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Metamark 12
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Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions
  • Metamarks