Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Malone meurt / Malone Dies

MS-HRC-SB-4-3

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Segment 1

[1906] catastrophe that has befallen me, a bless ing [place = supralinear] blessing in disguise.
[1907] How comforting that is. [1908] Catastrophe too in the ancient sense no
doubt.
[1909] To be buried in lava and not turn a hair, it is then a
man shows what stuff he is made of.
[1910] To know you can do better
next time, unrecognizably better, and that there is no next time,
and that it is a blessing there is not, there is a thought to be
going on with.

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Segment 2

[1911] I thought I was turning the my stick to the best
possible account, like a monkey scratching itself [place = supralinear] its fleas with the stic
key that opens its cage.
[1913] For it is obvious to me now that by making
a more intelligent use of my stick I might have extracted myself
from my bed and perhaps even got myself back into it, when tired
of rolling and dragging myself about the floor or on the stairs.

[1914] That would have introduced a little variety into my decomposition.

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Segment 3

[1915] How is it it [place = margin left] that never occurred to me? [1916] It is true I had no wish to
leave my bed.
[1917] But can the sage have no wish for something the very
possibility of which he does not conceive?
[1918] I don't understand. [1919] The
sage perhaps.
[1920] But I? [1921] It is day again, at least what passes for such
here.
[1922] I must have fallen asleep after a brief bout of discourage-
ment, such as I have not experienced for a long time.
[1923] For why be
discouraged, one of the thieves was saved, that is a generous per-
ceb [place = margin left] ntage.
[1924] I see the stick on the floor, not far from the bed.

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Segment 4

[1925] That
is to say I see part of it, as of all one sees.
[1926] It might just as
well be at the equator, or one of the poles.
[1927] No, not quite, for
perhaps I shall devise a way of retrieving it, I am so ingenious.

[1928] All is not then yet quite irrevocably lost. [1929] In the meantime nothing
is mine any more, according to my definition, if I remember right-
ly, except my exercise-book, my lead and the French pencil, assuming

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that
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Addition 2
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Transcription
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