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

MS-UoR-1227-7-7-1

MS. Pages: cover - 13r 13v - 18r 18v - 23r 23v - 25r
[p. 18v]

DOODLE 29
addition 9→
addition 10→

[0380] Croghan
Croghan

DOODLE 30
DOODLE 31
DOODLE 32
[p. 19r]

[0301] all the light and dark of the ... (hesitates) ... ages. [0305] Let that go! [0306] Jesus! [0307] Take his mind off his homework! [0308] Jesus! ([0309] Pause.) [0311] Ah well, maybe he was right. [0312] (Pause.) [0313] Maybe he was right. ([0314] Broods. [0316] Switches off. [0317] Consults envelope. [0319] Crumples it and throws it away. [0320] Broods. [0321] Switches on.)

[0322] Not a goddamn thing to say. [0323] What's a year now? [0324] Reverie and constipation obstipation. The old trouble. The odd hard stool. [0331] Seventeen copies sold, one pound six and something, eight probably. [0332] xxx Getting known. [0336] Went out a couple of times once or twice, in July or August. [0337] Sat in the park in the middle of the brats and skivvies, dreaming & wished and wishing I were gone. [←] [0340] Last fancies. [0342] Swore to resist them fight them off. [0342|001] Resolutions. A Aspirations. Resolutions. [⁁][←] [0344] Read Effie Burnt the eyes out of me reading Effie again, a couple of pages a day, with tears again. [0347] Could have been happy with her, up there on the cold sea, and the woods pines, and the dunes. [0348] (Pause.) [0355] Cxxx Fanny came in a couple of times. [0356] Fat old whore. [0357] Couldn't do much, but better than nothing. [0358] The last time wasn't so bad. [0359] How do you do 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. [0367] Fast asleep. Slept. [0368] (Pause.) [0369] Days when Sometimes wondered in the night I wonder x if a last effort wouldn't mightn't - [0370] (Pause.) [0371] xx Empty the bottle now and get to bed. [0372] Finish this vomit tomorrow. [0373] Or leave it at that. [0374] (Pause.) [0375] Leave it at that. [0376] (Pause.) [0377] Lie propped up on my back in the dark, and wander. [0378] Be again in the dingle on a Xmas Eve, with my nanny, picking xx picking holly. [0379] (Pause) [0380] Walk over Be again on Croghan on a Sunday

[p. 19v]

[0382] And so on. [0383] (Pause)

DOODLE 33
DOODLE 34

[0415] Perhaps
Here I end this tape. [0418] Perhaps my best years are over. [0420] But I wouldn't have want them back. [0421] Not with the xxx fire in me now. [0422] No, I wouldn't have them back. DOODLE 35

[p. 20r]

[0380] morning, in the snow, stop and listen to the bells. [0381] (Pause.) [0382] And so on. [0384] Be again. [0385] (Pause.) [0386] All that old rubbish. [0387] (Pause.) [0388] Once wasn't enough. [0382] And so on. [0383] (Pause.) [0386] All that old rubbish. [0387] (Pause.) [0384] Be again. [0384] Be again. [0385] (Pause.) [0386] All that old rubbish rubbish. [0387] (Pause.) [0388] Once wasn't enough. [0389] (Pause.) [0390] Lie down across her. ([0391] Long pause. [0392] He suddenly bends to the machine, switches off wrenches off tape, throws it away, puts on the other, winds it to the passage he wants, switches on, listens staring front.

Tape

[0393] - gooseberries, she said. [0393|001] Etc.

[0408] Pause.

[0411] Past midnight, [0412] never knew such a silence.

[0414] Pause.

[0415] Here I end this tape. [0418] Perhaps my best years are over. [0420] But I wouldn't want them back. [0421] Not with the fire in me now. [0422] No, I wouldn't have them back.

[0423] A sits motionless staring before him. [0424] The tape runs on in silence.

[0425] Curtain

[p. 20v]

with my nose in a [⁁]my little cloud

beg, borrow, steal, cadge or even buy, and lend me posthaste, a prospectus xx (directions for use) of a tape-recorder. [↑] I have written, involving this tape-recor object, a stage mono. for Magee, and want to must check up on the xx mechanic mechanics of it This seems is as important as necessary to me at the moment as the critique of thaw to frost in Siberia.

xxx
xxx

I hear from Deryk that Fin de Partie and mime are to be performed, in conjoint xxx tandem, at the Venice Biennale. Possibly also at the Holland Festival.

Endspiel is xxx, mise en scène x in Vienna the day after tomorrow. Suzanne is off there tomorrow. I stay here, with my noise in my little cloud.

DOODLE 36

 [p. 21r]

For page I.
 [0130] Well out of that. [0131] Hopeless business. [0133] Not much allusi on reference to her. A queer passage about her eyes. [0135] I don't xxx remember what colour they were. suddenly saw them again. [0137] Incomparable Matchless. [0139] Ah well. [0141] I find these ... (He switches off, broods, switches on) ... [0140] (Pause) [0141] I find - (he switches off, broods, switches on) - these old PMs P.M.s a great help before embarking on a new ... (hesitates) ... conspectus. [0142] Hard to believe I was ever that young pup.

Opening.
 [0061] Consults register and reads out rubrics.
 [0075] "Memorable equinox"
 [0062] "Death of mother "Mother at peace" [0081] "Farewell to love"
 etc. [0064] "The black ball" [0071] Improvement of bowel condition - [0081] Farewell to - love (he turns page) - love.

[p. 21v]

addition 11→

 [p. 22r]
In memoriam

Will those who think of him today
a little simple prayer to xxx say.

___

gone, but not forgotten

___

He only takes the best

___

On earth you suffered, in heaven you rest,
God bless you, dear -, you were one
of the best

___

you always did your best for us

___

God needed a star in heaven,
A beautiful light to shine,
Out of this world of sorrow
He chose the fatter of swine
[←] But why oh why did it have to be
That wonderful uncle of mine

___

Like falling leaves the years slip by
But memories of you will never die

___

We think of you in silence
And make no outward show
But what it means to lose you
Only God will ever know

___

Whatever else I fail to do
I shall never forget to pray for you

___

These words are written with deep regret
By a - that xx loved you and
will never forget

___

Pray for us, dear -
To Jesus Christ our king,
That he may bless our lovely home,
where once you dwelt therein

___

I often sit and wonder why
The thorns live on, but the roses die

___

Only a cluster of memories
Sprayed with a million tears.

___
[p. 22v]
BRAM

Among the immovable masses of a being set aside, closed shut pent up and in for ever on itself, pathless, airless, cyclopean a flare of flames and being placi lit fitfully xxx the fit the colours of the fitful fires of the spectrum of dark. An Endless unveiling veil after beyond veil, plane after plane of imp imperfect transparency, an unveiling towards the unveilable, the nothing, the thing again. And bBurial in oneness the only, in the a space of xxx with impenetrable closeness imminence closeness, cell cell painted on the xxx stone of cell, art of incarceration.

DOODLE 37

DOODLE 38

 [p. 23r]

The shock was sudden, the blow severe,
We little thought your end was near,
This only those who have lost can tell,
The sorrow of parting, dear Dad, without
farewell.

___

The wound is deep, it will not heal,
God only knows how we feel

___

These words are written with deep regret
By a wife who loved you & will
never forget

___

God takes the best for reasons divine
But your memory will live till the end of time

___

On Mary's beads we plead your needs
And in the holy mass

___

I love you, Pop, I love you yet

___

Guard him, o Mary, don't leave him
alone,
love him, dear Jesus, as we did at home.

___

God has a beautiful garden
For he only chooses the best

___

We think of him each morning,
We think of him at night,
Of all the pain he suffered,
God knows it was a fight.

___

Never did a heart more tender
Throb within a human breast

___

Hard was the xxx that compelled us to part
with our dear loved Mommy, so dear to our hearts

___
MS. Pages: cover - 13r 13v - 18r 18v - 23r 23v - 25r

Krapp's Last Tape / La Dernière Bande © 2015 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle and Vincent Neyt