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

MS-HRC-SB-4-2-7

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Segment 1

[0210] infants, old men, dogs, I got to know them quite well—
oh by appearance of course I mean!
[0211] One dark young
beauty I recollect particularly, all white and starch,
incomparable bosom, with a big black hooded
perambulator, most funereal thing.
[0212] Whenever I looked
in her direction she had her eyes on me.

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Segment 2

[0213] And yet when
I was bold enough to speak to her—not having been
introduced—she threatened to call a policeman.
[0214] As if I
had designs on her virtue!
[0215] (Laugh.[0216] Pause.)[0217] The face she
had!
[0218] The eyes![0219] Like...(hesitates)...chrysolite!
[0220] (Pause.)[0221] Ah well....[0222] (Pause.)

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Segment 3

[0223] I was there when—
(KRAPP switches off, broods, switches on again)—the
blind went down, one of those dirty brown roller affairs,
throwing a ball for a little white dog, as chance would
have it.
[0224] I happened to look up and there it was.[0225] All
over and done with, at last.

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Segment 4

[0226] I sat on for a few moments
with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and
pawing at me.
[0227] (Pause.)[0228] Moments.[0229] Her moments, my
moments.
[0230] (Pause.)[0231] The dog's moments.[0232] (Pause.)

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Segment 5

[0233] In the
end I held it out to him,[] and he took it in his mouth,
gently, gently.
[0234] A small, old, black,, hard, solid rubber []
ball.
[0235] (Pause.)[0236] I shall feel it, in my hand, until my dying
day.
[0237] (Pause.)[0238] I might have kept it.[0239] (Pause.)[0240] But I gave it
to the dog.

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Segment 6

[0241] ([] Pause.)[]
[0242] Ah well....
[0243] ([] Pause.)[]

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Segment 7

[0244] Spiritually a year of profound gloom and indigence until
that memorable night in March, at the end of the jetty,
in the howling wind, never to be forgotten, when
suddenly I saw the whole thing.

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Segment 8

[0245] The vision at last.[0246] This
I fancy is what I have chiefly to record this evening,
against the day when my work will be done and perhaps
no place left in my memory, warm or cold, for the
miracle that...(hesitates)...for the fire that set it
alight.
[0247] What I suddenly saw then was this, that the
belief I had been going on all my life, namely—
[0248](KRAPP

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Transcription
  • Segments
  • Marginal Additions
  • Metamarks