How It Is

How It Is by Samuel Beckett Page B

Book: How It Is by Samuel Beckett Read Free Book Online
Authors: Samuel Beckett
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for the
     down-stroke of the Roman N when suddenly too soon too soon a few more little scenes
     suddenly I cross it out good and deep Saint Andrew of the Black Sea and opener signifying
     again I’m subject to these whims
    my life again above in the light the sack stirs grows still again stirs again the
     light through the worn thread strains less white sharp sounds distant still but less
     it’s evening he crawls tiny out of the sack me again I’m there again the first is
     always me then the others
    what age my God fifty sixty eighty shrunken kneeling arse on heels hands on ground
     splayed like feet very clear picture thighs aching the arse rises the head drops touches
     the straw it’s preferable sound of sweeping the dog’s tail we want to go on home at
     last
    my eyes open still to light I see each halm sounds of hammers three or four at least
     hammers chisels crosses perhaps or some other ornament
    I crawl to the door raise my head yes I assure you peer through a chink and so I would
     go to the world’s end on my knees to the world’s end right round it on my knees arms
     forelegs eyes an inch from the ground I’d smell the world again my laughter in dry
     weather raises the dust on my knees up the gangways between decks with the emigrants
    homer mauve light of evening mauve wave among the streets the serotines abroad already
     we not yet not such fools I’m the brain of the two sounds distant still but less its
     the evening air does that one must understand these things and later drawing near
     that it’s only a creaking of wheels drawing near iron felly jolting on the stones
     the harvest perhaps coming home but the hooves in that case
    no matter there I am again how I last on my knees hands joined before my face thumb-tips
     before my nose finger-tips before the door my crown or vertex against the door one
     can see the attitude not knowing what to say whom to implore what to implore no matter it’s the attitude
     that counts it’s the intention
    how I last some day it will be night and all asleep we shall slip out the tail sweeps
     the straw it hasn’t all its wits mine now to think for us both here come the veils
     most dear from left and right they wipe us away then the rest the whole door away
     life above little scene I couldn’t have imagined it I couldn’t
    thump on skull no point in post mortems and then what then what we’ll try and see
     last words cut thrust a few words DO YOU LOVE ME CUNT no disappearance of Pim end
     of part two leaving only part three and last one can’t go on one goes on as before
     can one ever stop put a stop that’s more like it one can’t go on one can’t stop put
     a stop
    so Pim stops life above in the light he can’t give any more me permitting or thump
     on skull I can’t take any more it’s one or the other and what them him me I’ll ask
     him but first me when Pim stops what becomes of me but first the bodies glued together
     mine on the north good so much for the trunks the legs but the hands when Pim stops
     where are they the arms the hands what are they at
    his right way off on the right axis of the clavicle or cross Saint Andrew of the Volga
     mine about his shoulders his neck I can’t see good so much for the right arms and
     their hands I can’t see it’s not said in keeping and the others the left the arms
     we’re talking of our arms full stretch before us the hands together in the sack good
     so much for the four arms the four hands but how together touching simply or clasped
    clasped but how clasped as in the handshake no but his flat mine on top the crooked
     fingers slipped between his the nails against his palm it’s the position they have
     finally adopted clear picture of that good and parenthesis the vision suddenly too
     late a little late of how my injunctions by other means more humane
    my behests by a different set of signals quite different more humane more subtle from
     left hand to left hand in the sack nails and palm

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