The Collected Shorter Plays (18 page)
Read The Collected Shorter Plays Online
Authors: Samuel Beckett
M | It will come. Must come. There is no future in this. |
W2 | On the other hand things may disimprove, there is that danger. |
M | Oh of course I know now— |
W1 | Is it that I do not tell the truth, is that it, that some day somehow I may tell the truth at last and then no more light at last, for the truth? |
W2 | You might get angry and blaze me clean out of my wits. Mightn’t you? |
M | I know now, all that was just . . . play. And all this? When will all this— |
W1 | Is that it? |
W2 | Mightn’t you? |
M | All this, when will all this have been . . . just play? |
W1 | I can do nothing . . . for anybody . . . any more . . . thank God. So it must be something I have to say. How the mind works still! [ |
W2 | But I doubt it. It would not be like you somehow. And you must know I am doing my best. Or don’t you? |
M | Perhaps they have become friends. Perhaps sorrow— |
W1 | But I have said all I can. All you let me. All I— |
M | Perhaps sorrow has brought them together. |
W2 | No doubt I make the same mistake as when it was the sun that shone, of looking for sense where possibly there is none. [ |
M | Perhaps they meet, and sit, over a cup of that green tea they both so loved, without milk or sugar, not even a squeeze of lemon— |
W2 | Are you listening to me? Is anyone listening to me? Is any one looking at me? Is anyone bothering about me at all? |
M | Not even a squeeze of— |
W1 | Is it something I should do with my face, other than utter? Weep? |
W2 | Am I taboo, I wonder. Not necessarily, now that all danger is averted. That poor creature—I can hear her—that poor creature— |
W1 | Bite off my tongue and swallow it? Spit it out? Would that placate you? How the mind works still to be sure! |
M | Meet, and sit, now in the one dear place, now in the other, and sorrow together, and |
W1 | If only I could think, There is no sense in this . . . either, none whatsoever. I can’t. |
W2 | That poor creature who tried to seduce you, what ever became of her, do you suppose?—I can hear her. Poor thing. |
M | Personally I always preferred Lipton’s. |
W1 | And that all is falling, all fallen, from the beginning, on empty air. Nothing being asked at all. No one asking me for anything at all. |
W2 | They might even feel sorry for me, if they could see me. But never so sorry as I for them. [ |
W1 | I can’t. |
W2 | Kissing their sour kisses. |
M | I pity them in any case, yes, compare my lot with theirs, however blessed, and— [ |
W1 | I can’t. The mind won’t have it. It would have to go. Yes. |
M | Pity them. |
W2 | What do you do when you go out? Sift? |
M | Am I hiding something? Have I lost— |
W1 | She had means, I fancy, though she lived like a pig. |
W2 | Like dragging a great roller, on a scorching day. The strain . . . to get it moving, momentum coming— |
W2 | Kill it and strain again. |
M | Have I lost . . . the thing you want? Why go out? Why go— |
W2 | And you perhaps pitying me, thinking, Poor thing, she needs a rest. |
W1 | Perhaps she has taken him away to live . . . somewhere in the sun. |
M | Why go down? Why not— |
W2 | I don’t know. |
W1 | Perhaps she is sitting somewhere, by the open window, her hands folded in her lap, gazing down out over the olives— |
M | Why not keep on glaring at me without ceasing? I might start to rave and—[ |
W2 | No. |
M | —don. |
W1 | Gazing down out over the olives, then the sea, wondering what can be keeping him, growing cold. Shadow stealing over everything. Creeping. Yes. |
M | To think we were never together. |
W2 | Am I not perhaps a little unhinged already? |
W1 | Poor creature. Poor creatures. |
M | Never woke together, on a May morning, the first to wake to wake the other two. Then in a little dinghy— |
W1 | Penitence, yes, at a pinch, atonement, one was resigned, but no, that does not seem to be the point either. |
W2 | I say, Am I not perhaps a little unhinged already? [ |
M | A little dinghy— |
W1 | Silence and darkness were all I craved. Well, I get a certain amount of both. They being one. Perhaps it is more wickedness to pray for more. [ |
M | A little dinghy, on the river, I resting on my oars, they lolling on air-pillows in the stern . . . sheets. Drifting. Such fantasies. |
W1 | Hellish half-light. |
W2 | A shade gone. In the head. Just a shade. I doubt it. |
M | We were not civilized. |
W1 | Dying for dark—and the darker the worse. Strange. |
M | Such fantasies. Then. And now— |
W2 | I |
W1 | Yes, and the whole thing there, all there, staring you in the face. |
M | And now, that you are . . . mere eye. Just looking. At my face. On and off. |
W1 | Weary of playing with me. Get off me. Yes. |
M | Looking for something. In my face. Some truth. In my eyes. Not even. |
M | Mere eye. No mind. Opening and shutting on me. Am I as much— |
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M | [ |
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[Spots o. . Blackout. Five seconds. Spot on M.] | |
M | We were not long together— |
Curtain
LIGHT
