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

MS-SYR-GP-95

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Segment 1

[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 2

[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.

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Segment 3

[0266] I noticed
a scratch on her thigh and asked her how
she came by 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.

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Segment 4

[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.[0275] (Pause.)[0276] We drifted in among

Transcription
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