Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Malone meurt / Malone Dies

MS-WU-MSS008-2-47

This document was written with the typewriter, and contains edits in typewriter, black ink, blueblack ink, blue ink, pencil, red crayon. In this visualisation, unclear words are placed between [brackets].

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[1772] of less consequence, or simply wait, doing nothing, or counting perhaps, one, two, three and so on, until all danger to myself from myself is past at last. [1773] That is what comes of being scrupulous. [1774] If I had a penny I would let it make up my mind. [1775] Decidely Decidedly the night is long and poor in counsel. [1776] Perhao[]p[p]s I should persist until dawn. [1777] All things considered. [1778] Good idea, excellent. [1779] If at dawn I am still there I shall take a decision. [1780] I am half asleep. [1781] But I dare not [] slaeeep sleep. [1782] Rectifications in extremis, in extremissimis, are always possible after all. [1783] But have I not perhaps just passed awauy.? [1784] Malone, Malone, no more of that. [1785] Perhaps I should call in all my possessions such as they are and take them into bed with me. [1786] How would that be? Would that be of any use? [1787] I suppose not. [1788] But I may. [1789] I have always that re[re][]esource. [1790] When it is light enough to see. [1791] Then I shall have them all round me, on top of me, under me, in the corner there will be nothing left, all will be in the bed, with me. [1792] I shall hold my photograph in my hand, my stone, so that they can't get away. [1793] I shall put on my hat. [1794] Perhaps I shall have something in my mouth, my scrap of newspaper perhaps, or my buttons, and I shall be lying on other treasures still. [1795] My photograph. [1796] It is not a photograph of me, but I am perhaps at hand. [1797] It is an ass, taken from in front and close up, at the edge of the ocean, its it is not the ocean, but for me it is the ocean. [1798] They naturally tried to make it raise its head, so that its beautiful eyes might be impressed on the celluloid, but it holds it lowered. [1799] You can tell by its ears that it is not pleased. [1800] They put a boater on its head. [1801] The thin hard parallel legs, the little hooves light and d

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[1801] and dainty on the sand. [1802] The outline is blurred, that's the operator's giggle shaking the camera. [1803] The ocean looks so iunnatural that you'd think you were in a studio, [1804] but is it not trather the reverse I should say? [1805] No trace left of any clothes for example, apart from the [BOOT] pb[b]oot, the hat and three socks, I counted them. [1806] Where have my clothes disappeared, my greatcoat, tmy trousers and the flannel that MMr Quin gave me, with the remarlk that he did not need it any more? [1807] Perhaps they were burnt. [1808] But our business is not with what I have no longer, such things do not count at such a moment, whatever people may say. [1809] In any case I think I'll stop. [1810] I was keeping the best for the end, but I don't feel very well, perhaps I'm going, that would surprise me. [1811] It is a passing weakness; ness, everyone has experienced that. [1812] One weakens, then it passes, one's strength comes back and one resumes. [1813] That is probably what is happening to me. [1814] I yawn, would I yawn if it was serious? [1815] Why not? [1816] I would gladly eat a little soup, if there was any left. [1817] No, even if there was some left I would not eat it. [1818] So there. [1819] It is some days now since my soup was renewed, did I mention that? [1820] I suppose so. [1821] It is in vain I de[]i[i]spatch my table to the door, bring it back beside me, move it to and fro in the hope that the noise will be heard and correctly interpreted,[] in the right quarters, the dish remains empty. [1822] One of the pots on the other hand hand remains full, and the other is filling slowly. [1823] If I ever succeed in filling it I shall empty them both out on the floor, but it is unlikely. [1824] Now that I have stopped eating I produce less waste and so eliminate less. [1825] The pots do not seem to be mine, I

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[1825] simply have the use of them. [1826] They answer to the definition of what is mine, but they are not mine. [1827] Perhaps it is the definition that is at fault. [1828] They have each two handles or ears, projecting abobve the rim and facing each other, into which I insert my stick. In this way I move my pots about, lift them up and set them down. [1829] Nothing has been left to chance. [1830] Or is it a happy chance? [1831] I can therefore easily turn them upside down, if I am driven to it, and wait for them to empty, as long as nevcessary. [1832] After this passing reference to my pots I feel a little miore lively. [1833] They are not mine, but I say my pots, as I say my bed, my window, as I say me. [1834] Nevertheless I shall stop. [1835] It is my belon possessions have weakened me, if I start talking about them again I shall weaken again, for the same causes give rise to the same effects. [1836] I should have liked to speak of the cap of the bell of my bicycle,[] my bicycle-bell [my bicycle-bell,] of my half-crutch, the top half, you'd think it was a baby's crutch. [1837] But I can still do so, whatv is there to prevent me? I don't know. I can't. [1838] To think I shall perhaps die of starvatio hunger, after all, of starvation rather, after having struggled successfully all my life against that menace. [1839] I can't believe it. [1840] There is a providence for impotent old men, to the end. [1841] And when they cannot swallow any more someone rams a tube down their gullet, or up their rectum, and fills them full of [vitaminized]viatminized [] [tr.] pap, so as not to be accused of murder. [1842] I shall therefore die of old age pure and simple, glutted with days as in the days before the flood, on a full stomach. [1843] Perhaps they think I am dead. [1844] Or perhaps they are dead themselves. [1845] I say they, though perhaps I should not. [1846] In the beginning, but was it the beginning, I used to see an old woman, then for a time an old yellow arm, then

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[1846] for a time an old yellow hand. But these were probably no more than the agents of a consortium. [1847] And indee[]d[d] the silence at times is cuh such that the earth seems uninhabited. [1848] That is what comes of the taste for generalisation. [1849] You have only to hear nothing for a few days, in your hole, nothing but the sounds of things, and you begin to fancy yourself the last of human kind. [1850] What if I started to scream? [1851] Not that I wish to dra w draw attention to myself, simply to try and find out if there is someone about. [1852] But I don't like screalming. [1853] I have spoken softly, gone my ways softly, all my days, as behoves one who has nothing to say, nowhere to go, [1854] and so nothing to gain by being seen or heard. [1855] Not to mention the possibility of their[]re[re] being not a living soul within a radius of one hundred yards, and then such a[] multitude[]s[s] of people that they are walking on top of one another. [1856] They do not dare come near me. [1857] In that case i[]I[I] could scream my head off to no purpose. [1858] I shall try all the same. [1859] I have tried. [1860] I heard nothing out of the ordinary. [1861] No, I exaggerate, I heard a kind of burning croak deep down in the windpipe, as when one has heartburn. [1862] With practice I might produce a groan, before I die. [1864] I am not sleepy any more. [1865] In any case I must not sleep any more. [1866] What tedium. [1867] I have missed the ebb. [1868] Did I say I only say a small proportion of the things that come into my head? [1869] I must have. [1870] I choose those that seem somehow akin. [1871] It is not always easy. [1872] I hope they are the most important. [1873] I wonder if I shall ever be able to stop. [1874] PPerhaps I should throw away my lead. [1875] I could never retrieve it now. [1876] I might be sorry. [1877] My little lead. [1878] It is a risk I do not feel inclined to take, just now. [1879] What then? [1880] I wonder if I could not contrive, wielding my stick like a punt-pole, to

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[1880] move my bed. [1881] It may well be on castors, many beds are. [1882] Incredible I should never have thought of this, all the time I have been hhere. [1883] I might even suc[]c[c]eed in steering it, it is so narrow, through the fdoor, and even down the stairs, if there is a stairs that goes down. [1884] To be off[] and away [and away.]. [1885] The dark is against me, in a sense. [1886] But I can always try and see if the bed will move. [1887] I have only to set the stick against the wall and push. [1888] And I can see myself already, if successful, taking a little turn in the room, until it is light enough for me to set forth. [1889] At least while thus employed I shall stop telling myself lies. [1890] And then, who knows, the physical effort may [] finish polish me off, by [] menas means of heart failure. []

[][1891] I have lost my stick. [1892] That is the outstanding ecvent of the day, for it is day again. [1893] The bed has not stirred. [1894] I must have miss"ed my point of purchase, in the dark. [1895] Sine qua non, Archimedes was right. [1896] The stick, having slipped, would have plucked me from the bed if I had not let it go. [1897] It would of course have been better for me to relinquish my bed than to lose my stick. [1898] But I had not time to think. [1899] The fear of falling is the source of many a folly. [1900] It is a disaster. [1901] I suppose the wisest thing now is to live it over again, meditate upon it and be edified. [1902] It is thus that man distinguishes himself from the ape and rises, from discovery to discovery, ever higher, towards the light. [1903] Now that I have lost my stick I realize what it is I have lost and all it meant to me. [1904] And thence ascend, painfully, to an understanding of the Stick, shorn of all its accidents, such as I had never dreamt of. [1905] What a boradening [] [tr.] of the mind. [1906] So that I half discern, in the veritable

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