MS-HRC-SB-5-4

[0365] Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows - (coughing, then almost inaudible) -
of the evening
Steal across the sky.

[0366] (gasping)[0367] Went to sleep and fell off the pew.[0368] (pause)
[0369] Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort
mightn't -[0370] (pause)[0371] Ah finish your booze now and
get to your bed.[0372] Go on with this drivel in the morn-
ing.[0373] Or leave it at that.[0374] (pause)[0375] Leave it at that.
[0376] (pause)[0377] Lie propped up in the dark - and wander.

[0378] Be again in the dingle on a Christmas Eve, gathering
holly, the red-berried.[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 you.[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 back to the passage he wants,
switches on, listens staring front.

[0392|001] (Action interrupted by second look into
darkness backstage) )

[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.[0395] (pause)[0396] I asked her to
look at me and after a few moments - (pause) -
after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits,
because of the glare.[0397] I bent over 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 flags and stuck.

[0403] The way they went down, sighing, before the stem!
[0404] (pause)[0405] I lay down across her with my face in her
breasts and my hand on her.[0406] We lay there without
moving.[0407] But under 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)