Digital Manuscript ProjectMalone meurt / Malone Dies

[0050] with what I saw.
[0051] People and things ask nothing better than to
play, certain animals too.
[0052] All went well at first, they all came
to me, pleased that someone should want to play with them.
[0053] If I
said, Now I need a hunchback, immediately one came running, proud
as punch of his fine hunch that was going to perform.
[0054] It did not
occur to him that I might have to ask him to undress.
[0055] But it was
not long before I found myself alone, in the dark.
[0056] That is why
I gave up trying to play and took to myself for ever shapeless-
ness and speechlessness, incurious wondering, darkness, long stumb-
ling with outstretched arms, hiding.
[0057] Such is the earnestness from
which, for nearly a century now, I have never been able to
depart.
[0058] From now on it will be different. I shall never do any-
thing any more from now on but play.
[0059] No, I must not begin with
an exaggeration.
[0060] But I shall play a great part of the time, from
now on, the greater part, if I can.
[0061] But perhaps I shall not
succeed any better than hitherto.
[0062] Perhaps as hitherto I shall
find myself abandoned, in the dark, without anything to play
with.
[0063] Then I shall play with myself.
[0064] To have been able to con-
ceive such a plan is
encouraging.
[0065] I must have thought about my time-table during the night.
[0066] I
think I shall be able to tell myself four stories, each one
on a different theme.
[0067] One about a man, another about a woman,
a third about a thing and finally one about an animal, a bird
probably.
[0068] I think that is everything.
[0070] Perhaps I shall put the
man and the woman in the same story, there is so little difference
between a man and a woman, between mine I mean.
[0071] Perhaps I shall
not have time to finish.
[0072] On the other hand perhaps I shall finish
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Malone meurt / Malone Dies © 2017 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Pim Verhulst and Vincent Neyt