MS-HRC-SB-4-2-3

[0357] n't do l^much, but I suppose better than nothing.[0358] The last
time wasn't so bad.[0359] How do you manage it, she said, at your
age?[0360] I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.[0361] (Pause.)
[0362] Went to Vespers once, like when I was a child.[0363] (Pause. [0364] Sings.)

[0358] The last
time wasn't so bad.[0359] How do you manage it, she said, at your
age?[0360] I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.[0361] (Pause.)
[0362] Went to Vespers once, like when I was a child.[0363] (Pause. [0364] Sings.)

[0365] Now the day is over
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows ^{- (fit of coughing.) xxx Faintly) -} of the evening
Steal across the sky.

[0367] Went to sleep and feel^ll off the pew.[0368] (Pause.)[0369] Sometimes
wondered in the night if a last effort mightn't -[0370] (Pause.)[0371] ^Ah
D^drink out your bottle now and the bottle ^{your poison} now and get to your
bed.[0372] Finish this puke in the morning.[0373] Or leave it at that.
[0374] (Pause.)[0375] Leave it at that.[0376] (Pause.)[0377] Lie proppsed up on my back
in the dark - and wander.[0377|001] (Pause.)[0378] Be again in the dingle on
a Christmas Eve, gathering holly.[0379] (Pause.)

[0380] Be again on Croghan
on a Sunday morning, in the haze, with the bitch, stop and
listen to the bells.[0381] (Pause.)[0382] And so on.[0383] (Pause.)[0384] Be again,
be again.[0385] (Pause.)[0386] All that old misery.[0387] (Pause.)[0388] Once wasn't
enough [⁁] ^{for me}.[0389] (Pause.)[0390] Lie down across her.[0391] (Long pause. [0392] He suddenly
bends over machine, switches off, wrenches off tape, throws it
away, puts on the other, winds it ^forward to the passage he wants,
switches on, listens staring front.

[0393] - gooseberries, she said.[0394] I said again I thought it was
hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening
her eyes.[0396] I asked her to[0395] (Pause.)[0396] I asked her to look at l^me
and after a few moments - (P^pause.) - after a few moments she
did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare.[0397] I bent over
g^her to get them in the shadow and they opened.[0398] (Pause. [0399] Low.)

[0400] Let me in.[0401] (Pause.)[0402] We drifted in among the reeds and stuck.
[0403] The way they bent, sighing, before the stem.^![0404] (Pause.)[0405] I lat^y
down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her.
[0406] We lay without moving.[0407] But underneath us all moved, and moved
us, ^gently up and down, and from side to side.

[0408] Pause. [0409] Krapp's lips move. [0410] No sound.
[0411] Past midnight.[0412] Never knew such silence.[0413] ^{The earth might be uninhabited.}
[0414] Pause.
[0415] Here I ^end this...(hesitates)...episode ^{tape reel}.[0416] Box...he (hestitates)...
three, Bow^x - (pause) - three, spool -(paus)^e)- five.[0417] (Pause.)

[0418] ^{Well... [⁁]} [⁁] P^perhaps my best years a^re gone.[0419] When there was a chance of
happiness.[0420] But I wouldn't want them over again ^back.[0421] Not with the
fire in me now.[0422] No, I wouldn't want them over again ^back.
[0423] A^Krapp motionless staring before him. [0424] The tape runs on in a
silence.

[0425] Curtain