Digital Manuscript ProjectNot I / Pas moi
All opening questions in tone of one intoning
The time? Pause
a question
- (Pause.) Night. (Pause.) He always
came at night. (Pause.) They never met by day,
(Pause.) He had never seen her, she had
never seen him, by the light of day.
How this was? - (Pause.) He was never free, in Pause
the daytime. Even in the long summer days
he was never free, in the daytime. Night
had to fall, before he could be free.
Met in the first place? - (Pause.) I hear told
this. (Pause.) He saw [place = supralinear] chanced to see her from, the street,
through the lighted window. She turned the
light low and saw his face pressed against
the glass. She went [place = supralinear] stood a moment looking, then over and pressed hers to it
too.
For the fun of it. The same pane, on her
side. She loved a bit of fun. fun. innocent
fun. He took off his cap. (Pause.) The smi laughing faces with just the glass
between them. (Pause.) I hear told all this.
Pause.
The place? - Her room, Mrs Frost's old room. [place = supralinear] that was.
(Pause.) A time came when Mrs Frost could no
longer manage the stairs. She said, What would
you say, Miss, to taking my room, it has a bath,
and letting me have yours? (Pause.) I can no longer
manage the stairs. (Pause.) It would mean everything
to me, Miss. (Pause.) It was a finer room in every way -
and could not be observed from the street. (Pause.)
It was there, not long after the change over.
(Pause.)
Her age? - (Pause.) No longer young, not yet (Pause.)
How often? (Pause.) Oh ... two hundred ... two fifty ...
old. (Pause.) Reasonably well preserved.
(Pause.) Withering beauty - but beauty still.
(Pause.) No glaring blemishes, as yet. (Pause.)
His? (Pause.) Impossible to say. (Pause.)
Brilliant exterior.
- Segments
Not I / Pas moi © 2022 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: James Little and Vincent Neyt