Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
Krapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-5

X
Segment 1

[0157] happiness.[0158] Unattainable laxation.[0159] Sneers at what he calls
his youth and thanks to God that it is over.
[0161] False ring
there.
[0162] (Pause.)[0163] Shadow of the opus...magnum.[0164] VClosing with
a - (brief laugh) - yelp to Providence.
[0165] (Prolonged laugh
in which Krapp joins
.)
[0166] What remains of all that misery?
[0167] A girl in a shabby green coat, on a railway-station plat-
form?
[0168] No?

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Segment 2

[0169] Pause.
[0170] When I look -[0171] (Krapp
[0171] Krapp switches off, broods, looks at his watch, gets
up, goes backstage into darkness.
[0172] Ten seconds. [0173] Pop of
cork.
[0174] Ten seconds. [0175] Second cork. [0176] Ten seconds. [0177] Third cork.
[0178] Ten seconds. [0179] Brief burst of wavering song. quavering song.

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Segment 3

[0180] (sings).[0181] Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows -
[0182] Fit of coughing. [0183] He comes back into light, sits down,
wipes his mouth, switches on, eresumes his listening
posture
.

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Segment 4

[0184] - back on the year that is gone, with what I hope is perhaps
a glint of the old eye to come, there is of course the
house on the canal where mother lay a-dying, in the late
autumn, after her long viduity (Krapp gives a start), and
the -
[0185] (Krapp switches off, winds back tape a little, bends
his ear closer to machine, switches on
)
[0186] - a-dying, after
her long viduity, and the -

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Segment 5

[0187] Krapp switches off, raises his head, stares blankly before
him.
[0188] His lips move in the syllables of viduity. [0189] No sound.
[0190] He gets up, goes backstage into darkness, comes back with
an enormous dictionary, lays it on table, sits down and
looks up the word
.

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Segment 6

[0191] (reading from dictionary).[0192] State - or condition - of being -
or remaining - a widow - or widower.
[0193] (Looks up. [0194] Puzzled.)
[0195] Being - or remaining?...[0196](Pause. [0197] He peers again at diction-
ary.
[0198] Reading.)[0199] "Deep weeds of viduity"...[0200]Also of an animal,
especially a bird...the vidua or weaver-bird...
[0201]Black plumage
of male...
[0202](He looks up. [0203] With relish.)[0204] The vidua-bird!

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Segment 7

[0205] Pause. [0206] He closes dictionary, switches on, resumes listening
posture
.
[0207] - bench by the weir from where I could see her window.
[0208] There I sat, in the biting wind, wishing she were gone.[0209] (
(Pause.)
[0210] Deserted spot it was, Hardly a soul just a few regulars, nurse-
maids, infants, old men, dogs. I got to know them quite
well - oh by appearance of course I mean!

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Segment 8

[0211] One dark young
beauty I recollect particularly, all white and starch, in-
comparable bosom, with a big black hooded perambulator,
most funereal thing.
[0212] Whenever I looked in her direction she
had her eyes on me.
And yet when I was bold enough to speak

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Segment 9

[0213] And yet when I was bold enough to speak

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Addition 1
Hardly a soul
Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions