Pause. He closes dictionary, switches on, resumes listening posture.
TAPE
—bench by the weir from where I could see her window. There I sat, in the biting wind, wishing she were gone. (Pause.) Hardly a soul, just a few regulars, nursemaids, infants, old men, dogs. I got to know them quite well—oh by appearance of course I mean! One dark young beauty I recollect particularly, all white and starch, incomparable bosom, with a big black hooded perambulator, most funereal thing. Whenever I looked in her direction she had her eyes on me. And yet when I was bold enough to speak to her—not having been introduced—she threatened to call a policeman. As if I had designs on her virtue! (Laugh. Pause.) The face she had! The eyes! Like ... (hesitates) ... chrysolite! (Pause.) Ah well... (Pause.) 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. I happened to look up and there it was. All over and done with, at last. I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and pawing at me. (Pause.) Moments. Her moments, my moments. (Pause.) The dog’s moments. (Pause.) In the end I held it out to him and he took it in his mouth, gently, gently. A small, old, black, hard, solid rubber ball. (Pause.) I shall feel it, in my hand, until my dying day. (Pause.) I might have kept it. (Pause.) But I gave it to the dog.
Pause.
Ah well...
Pause.
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. The vision, at last. 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. What I suddenly saw then was this, that the belief I had been going on all my life, namely— (Krapp switches off impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again)—great granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning like a propellor, clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most— (Krapp curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again)—unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light of the understanding and the fire—(Krapp curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again)— my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
Pause.
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
Pause.
Here I end—
Krapp switches off, winds tape back, switches on again.
—upper lake, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the stream and drifted. She lay stretched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. (Pause.) 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. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low.) Let me in. (Pause.) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (Pause.) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
Pause.
Past midnight. Never knew—
Krapp switches off, broods. Finally he fumbles in his pockets, encounters the banana, takes it out, peers at it, puts it back, fumbles, brings out the envelope, fumbles, puts back envelope, looks at his watch, gets up and goes backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. Sound of bottle against glass, then brief siphon. Ten seconds. Bottle against glass alone. Ten seconds. He comes back a little unsteadily into light, goes to front of table, takes out keys, raises them to his eyes, chooses key. unlocks first drawer, peers into it, feels about inside, takes out reel, peers at it, locks drawer, puts keys back in his pocket, goes and sits down, takes reel off machine, lays it on dictionary, loads virgin reel on machine, takes envelope from his pocket, consults back of it, lays it on table, switches on, clears his throat and begins to record.
KRAPP
Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that’s all done with anyway. (Pause.) The eyes she had! (Broods, realizes he is recording silence, switches off, broods. Finally.) Everything there, everything, all the— (Realizes this is not being recorded, switches on.) Everything there, everything on this old muckball, all the light and dark and famine and feasting of ... (hesitates)... the ages! (In a shout.) Yes! (Pause.) Let that go! Jesus! Take his mind off his homework! Jesus! (Pause. Weary.) Ah well, maybe he was right. (Pause.) Maybe he was right. (Broods. Realizes. Switches off. Consults envelope.) Pah! (Crumples it and throws it away. Broods. Switches on.) Nothing to say, not a squeak. What’s a year now? The sour cud and the iron stool. (Pause.) Revelled in the word spool. (With relish.) Spooool! Happiest moment of the past half million. (Pause.) Seventeen copies sold, of which eleven at trade price to free circulating libraries beyond the seas. Getting known. (Pause.) One pound six and something, eight I have little doubt. (Pause.) Crawled out once or twice, before the summer was cold. Sat shivering in the park, drowned in dreams and burning to be gone. Not a soul. (Pause.) Last fancies. (Vehemently.) Keep ‘em under! (Pause.) Scalded the eyes out of me reading Effie again, a page a day, with tears again. Effie ... (Pause.) Could have been happy with her, up there on the Baltic, and the pines, and the dunes. (Pause.) Could I? (Pause.) And she? (Pause.) Pah! (Pause.) Fanny came in a couple of times. Bony old ghost of a whore. Couldn’t do much, but I suppose better than a kick in the crutch. The last time wasn’t so bad. How do you manage it, she said, at your age? I told her I’d been saving up for her all my life. (Pause.) Went to Vespers once, like when I was in short trousers. (Pause. Sings.)
Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows— (coughing, then almost
inaudible)— of the evening
Steal across the sky.
(Gasping.) Went to sleep and fell off the pew. (Pause.) Sometimes wondered in the night if a last effort mightn’t— (Pause.) Ah finish your booze now and get to your bed. Go on with this drivel in the morning. Or leave it at that. (Pause.) Leave it at that. (Pause.) Lie propped up in the dark —and wander. Be again in the dingle on a Christmas Eve, gathering holly, the red-berried. (Pause.) Be again on Croghan on a Sunday morning, in the haze, with the bitch, stop and listen to the bells. (Pause.) And so on. (Pause.) Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn’t enough for you. (Pause.) Lie down across her.
Long pause. 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.
TAPE
—gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on, and she agreed, without opening her eyes. (Pause.) 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. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. (Pause. Low.) Let me in. (Pause.) We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! (Pause.) I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side.
Pause. Krapp’s lips move. No sound.
Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited.
> Pause.
Here I end this reel. Box—(pause)— three, spool—(pause)— five. (Pause.) Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.
Krapp motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence.
CURTAIN
Part III
Later Works (1960-1975)
Fiction
How It Is (Part 1)
The young English critic Michael Robinson has called How It Is “the strangest novel ever written,” and, at least at first glance, it might well appear to be just that.
Originally it had been the author’s intent to publish the novel in one unpunctuated block, that is, without paragraphs or punctuation, and, except for the three-part division, without breaks. At some point prior to publication he decided to break the text into blocks, or paragraphs, although within these blocks no punctuation exists—all of which prompted some critics to accuse him of making one last effort to “assassinate the novel.” Those who do grossly misjudge Beckett’s integrity as an artist. Or, perhaps, they simply forget his early conviction that content and form must be one, a conviction that has never wavered from work to work. If the form of How It Is differs markedly from that of earlier prose works, it is because the content demanded it.
As for the difficulty of reading it or sorting out the sense, the reader can, quite easily, accustom him- or herself to the rhythms and find the cesuras. Once that is done, meaning follows. The method here is by fits and starts, little gasps on the part of the narrator, a method completely in keeping with his situation. Thus sense is cumulative rather than linear and, as with so much of Beckett, there is circularity here: the end is the beginning (in French, comment c’est—“how it is”—is pronounced like commencer—“to begin”—a wordplay necessarily lost in translation) and the plan, like the journey, laid out clearly from the start:
how it was I quote before Pim with Pim after Pim how it is three parts I say it as I hear it
Set in the primeval mud, How It Is describes, in a language stripped even cleaner than that of the Trilogy—bare, stark, panting, yet charged in every line with pure poetry— the narrator’s painful, inching journey toward another; his meeting with the other, Pim, whose torturer he will become, even as earlier (later?) the narrator was the victim of a tormentor referred to as Bom; and the journey away from Pim the victim toward him who will become the victim’s torturer. Here is how it is, then, in the primeval mud: three creatures, four stages, with the distinction between past, present, and future gone, merged into one indistinguishable, timeless time, and yet doubtless applicable to “millions millions there are millions of us and there are three.”
how it was I quote before Pim with Pim after Pim how it is three parts I say it as I hear it
voice once without quaqua on all sides then in me when the panting stops tell me again finish telling me invocation
past moments old dreams back again or fresh like those that pass or things things always and memories I say them as I hear them murmur them in the mud
in me that were without when the panting stops scraps of an ancient voice in me not mine
my life last state last version ill-said ill-heard ill-recaptured ill-murmured in the mud brief movements of the lower face losses everywhere
recorded none the less it’s preferable somehow somewhere as it stands as it comes my life my moments not the millionth part all lost nearly all someone listening another noting or the same
here then part one how it was before Pim we follow I quote the natural order more or less my life last state last version what remains bits and scraps I hear it my life natural order more or less I learn it I quote a given moment long past vast stretch of time on from there that moment and following not all a selection natural order vast tracts of time
part one before Pim how I got here no question not known not said and the sack whence the sack and me if it’s me no question impossible too weak no importance
life life the other above in the light said to have been mine on and off no going back up there no question no one asking that of me never there a few images on and off in the mud earth sky a few creatures in the light some still standing
the sack sole good sole possession coal-sack to the feel small or medium five stone six stone wet jute I clutch it it drips in the present but long past long gone vast stretch of time the beginning this life first sign very first of life
then on my elbow I quote I see me prop me up thrust in my arm in the sack we’re talking of the sack thrust it in count the tins impossible with one hand keep trying one day it will be possible
empty them out in the mud the tins put them back one by one in the sack impossible too weak fear of loss
no appetite a crumb of tunny then mouldy eat mouldy no need to worry I won’t die I’ll never die of hunger
the tin broached put back in the sack or kept in the hand it’s one or the other I remember when appetite revives or I forget open another it’s one or the other something wrong there it’s the beginning of my life present formulation
other certainties the mud the dark I recapitulate the sack the tins the mud the dark the silence the solitude nothing else for the moment
I see me on my face close my eyes not the blue the others at the back and see me on my face the mouth opens the tongue comes out lolls in the mud and no question of thirst either no question of dying of thirst either all this time vast stretch of time
life in the light first image some creature or other I watched him after my fashion from afar through my spy-glass sidelong in mirrors through windows at night first image
saying to myself he’s better than he was better than yesterday less ugly less stupid less cruel less dirty less old less wretched and you saying to myself and you bad to worse bad to worse steadily
something wrong there
or no worse saying to myself no worse you’re no worse and was worse
I pissed and shat another image in my crib never so clean since
I scissored into slender strips the wings of butterflies first one wing then the other sometimes for a change the two abreast never so good since
that’s all for the moment there I leave I hear it murmur it to the mud there I leave for the moment life in the light it goes out
on my face in the mud and the dark I see me it’s a halt nothing more I’m journeying it’s a rest nothing more
questions if I were to lose the tin-opener there’s another object or when the sack is empty that family
abject abject ages each heroic seen from the next when will the last come when was my golden every rat has its heyday I say it as I hear it
knees drawn up back bent in a hoop I clasp the sack to my belly I see me now on my side I clutch it the sack we’re talking of the sack with one hand behind my back I slip it under my head without letting it go I never let it go
something wrong there
not fear I quote of losing it something else not known not said when it’s empty I’ll put my head in it then my shoulders my crown will touch the bottom
another image so soon again a woman looks up looks at me the images come at the beginning part one they will cease I say it as I hear it murmur it in the mud the images part one how it was before Pim I see them in the mud a light goes on they will cease a woman I see her in the mud
she sits aloof ten yards fifteen yards she looks up looks at me says at last to herself all is well he is working
my head where is my head it rests on the table my hand trembles on the table she sees I am not sleeping the wind blows tempestuous the little clouds drive before it the table glides from light to darkness darkness to light
that’s not all she stoops to her work again the needle stops in midstitch she straightens up and looks at me again she has only to call me by my name get up come and feel me but no
I don’t move her anxiety grows she suddenly leaves the house and runs to frien
ds
that’s all it wasn’t a dream I didn’t dream that nor a memory I haven’t been given memories this time it was an image the kind I see sometimes see in the mud part one sometimes saw
with the gesture of one dealing cards and also to be observed among certain sowers of seed I throw away the empty tins they fall without a sound
fall if I may believe those I sometimes find on my way and then make haste to throw away again
warmth of primeval mud impenetrable dark
suddenly like all that was not then is I go not because of the shit and vomit something else not known not said whence preparatives sudden series subject object subject object quick succession and away
take the cord from the sack there’s another object tie the neck of the sack hang it from my neck knowing I’ll need both hands or else instinct it’s one or the other and away right leg right arm push pull ten yards fifteen yards halt
in the sack then up to now the tins the opener the cord but the wish for something else no that doesn’t seem to have been given to me this time the image of other things with me there in the mud the dark in the sack within reach no that doesn’t seem to have been put in my life this time useful things a cloth to wipe me that family or beautiful to the feel
I can’t go on, I’ll go on Page 37