The Complete Dramatic Works (38 page)

[
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
envelope,
fumbles,
puts
back
envelope,
looks
at
his
watch,
gets
up
and
goes
back
stage
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.
]

[
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 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

Written in French in the late 1950s. First published in English translation by Grove
Press, New York, in 1976.

A:
A penny for a poor old man, a penny for a poor old man. [
Silence.
He
resumes
playing,
stops
again,
turns
his
head
right,
listens.
Enter
 
B
right,
in
a
wheelchair
which
he
propels
by
means
of
a
pole.
He
halts.
Irritated.
]
A
penny for a poor old man!

[
Pause.
]

B:
Music! [
Pause.
]
So it is not a dream. At last! Nor a vision, they are mute and I am mute before them.
[
He
advances,
halts,
looks
into
bowl.
Without
emotion.
] Poor wretch. [
Pause.
]
Now I may go back, the mystery is over. [
He
pushes
himself
backwards,
halts.
] Unless we join together, and live together, till death ensue. [
Pause.
]
What would you say to that, Billy, may I call you Billy, like my son? [
Pause
.]
Do you like company, Billy? [
Pause.
]
Do you like tinned food, Billy?

A:
What tinned food?

B:
Corned beef, Billy, just corned beef. Enough to keep body and soul together, till
summer, with care. [
Pause.
]
No? [
Pause.
] A few potatoes too, a few pounds of potatoes too. [
Pause.
]
Do you like potatoes, Billy? [
Pause.
]
We might even let them sprout and then, when the time came, put them in the ground,
we might even try that. [
Pause.
]
I would choose the place and you would put them in the ground. [
Pause.
]
No? [
Pause.
]

A:
How are the trees doing?

B:
Hard to say. It’s winter, you know.

[
Pause
.]

A:
Is it day or night?

B:
Oh … [
he
looks
at
the
sky
]
… day, if you like. No sun of course, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked. [
Pause.
]
Do you follow my reasoning? [
Pause.
]
Have you your wits about you, Billy, have you still some of your wits about you?

A:
But light?

B:
Yes. [
Looks
at
sky.
]
Yes, light, there is no other word for it. [
Pause.
]
Shall I describe it to you? [
Pause.
]
Shall I try to give you an idea of this light?

A:
It seems to me sometimes I spend the night here, playing and listening. I used to
feel twilight gather and make myself ready. I put away fiddle and bowl and had only
to get to my feet, when she took me by the hand.

[
Pause
.]

B:
She?

A:
My woman. [
Pause.
]
A woman. [
Pause.
]
But now…

[
Pause
.]

B:
Now?

A:
When I set out I don’t know, and when I get here I don’t know, and while I am here
I don’t know, whether it is day or night.

B:
You were not always as you are. What befell you? Women? Gambling? God?

A:
I was always as I am.

B:
Come!

A:
[
Violently
.]
I was always as I am, crouched in the dark, scratching an old jangle to the four
winds!

B:
[
Violently
.]
We had our women, hadn’t we? You yours to lead you by the hand and I mine to get
me out of the chair in the evening and back into it again in the morning and to push
me as far as the corner when I went out of my mind.

A:
Cripple? [
Without
emotion
.]
Poor wretch.

B:
Only one problem: the about-turn. I often felt, as I struggled, that it would be
quicker to go on, right round the world. Till the day I realized I could go home backwards.
[
Pause.
]
For example, I am at A. [
He
pushes
himself
forward
a
little,
halts.
]
I push on to B. [
He
pushes
himself
back
a
little
,
halts.
]
And I return to A. [
With
élan.
]
The straight line! The vacant space! [
Pause.
] Do I begin to move you?

A:
Sometimes I hear steps. Voices. I say to myself, They are

coming back, some are coming back, to try and settle again, or to look for something
they had left behind, or to look for someone they had left behind.

B:
Come back! [
Pause.
] Who would want to come back here? [
Pause
.]
And you never called out? [
Pause.
]
Cried out? [
Pause
.]
No?

A:
Have you observed nothing?

B:
Oh me you know, observe … I sit there, in my lair, in my chair, in the dark, twenty-three
hours out of the twenty-four. [
Violently.
]
What would you have me observe? [
Pause.
]
Do you think we would make a match, now you are getting to know me?

A:
Corned beef, did you say?

B:
Apropos, what have you been living on, all this time? You must be famished.

A:
There are things lying around.

B:
Edible?

A:
Sometimes.

B:
Why don’t you let yourself die?

A:
On the whole I have been lucky. The other day I tripped over a sack of nuts.

B:
No!

A:
A little sack, full of nuts, in the middle of the road.

B:
Yes, all right, but why don’t you let yourself die?

A:
I have thought of it.

B:
[
Irritated.
]
But you don’t do it!

A:
I’m not unhappy enough. [
Pause.
]
That was always my unhap, unhappy, but not unhappy enough.

B:
But you must be every day a little more so.

A:
[
Violently.
]
I am not unhappy enough!

[
Pause
.]

B:
If you ask me we were made for each other.

A:
[
Comprehensive
gesture.
]
What does it all look like now?

B:
Oh me you know … I never go far, just a little up and down
before my door. I never yet pushed on to here till now.

A:
But you look about you?

B:
No no.

A:
After all those hours of darkness you don’t–

B:
[
Violently.
]
No! [
Pause.
]
Of course if you wish me to look about me I shall. And if you care to push me about
I shall try to describe the scene, as we go along.

A:
You mean you would guide me? I wouldn’t get lost any more?

B:
Exactly. I would say, Easy, Billy, we’re heading for a great muckheap, turn back
and wheel left when I give you the word.

A:
You’d do that!

B:
[
Pressing
bis
advantage.
]
Easy, Billy, easy, I see a round tin over there in the gutter, perhaps it’s soup,
or baked beans.

A:
Baked beans!

[
Pause.
]

B:
Are you beginning to like me? [
Pause.
]
Or is it only my imagination?

A:
Baked beans! [
He
gets
up,
puts
down
fiddle
and
bowl
on
the
stool
and
gropes
towards
 
B
.] Where are you?

B:
Here, dear fellow, [
A
lays
hold
of
the
chair
and
starts
pushing
it
blindly.
]
Stop!

A:
[
Pushing
the
chair.
]
It’s a gift! A gift!

B:
Stop! [
He
strikes
behind
him
with
the
pole.
A
lets
go
the
chair,
recoils.
Pause.
A
gropes
towards
his
stool,
halts,
lost.
] Forgive me! [
Pause.
]
Forgive me, Billy!

A:
Where am I? [
Pause.
]
Where was I?

B:
Now I’ve lost him. He was beginning to like me and I struck him. He’ll leave me and
I’ll never see him again. I’ll never see anyone again. We’ll never hear the human
voice again.

A:
Have you not heard it enough? The same old moans and groans from the cradle to the
grave.

B:
[
Groaning.
] Do something for me, before you go!

A:
There! Do you hear it? [
Pause.
Groaning.
] I can’t go!

[
Pause
.]
Do you hear it?

B:
You can’t go?

A:
I can’t go without my things.

B:
What good are they to you?

A:
None.

B:
And you can’t go without them?

A:
No. [
He
starts
groping
again,
halts.
]
I’ll find them in the end. [
Pause
]
Or leave them for ever behind me.

[
He
starts
groping
again.
]

B:
Straighten my rug, I feel the cold air on my foot, [
A
halts.
] I’d do it myself, but it would take too long. [
Pause.
]
Do that for me, Billy. Then I may go back, settle in the old nook again and say,
I have seen man for the last time, I struck him and he succoured me. [
Pause.
]
Find a few rags of love in my heart and die reconciled, with my species. [
Pause.
]
What has you gaping at me like that? [
Pause.
] Have I said something I shouldn’t have? [
Pause.
]
What does my soul look like?

[
A
gropes
towards
him.
]

A:
Make a sound.

[
B
makes
one.
A
gropes
towards
it,
halts.
]

B:
Have you no sense of smell either?

A:
It’s the same stink everywhere. [
He
stretches
out
his
hand.
] Am I within reach of your hand?

[
He
stands
motionless
with
outstretched
hand.
]

B:
Wait, you’re not going to do me a service for nothing? [
Pause.
]
I mean unconditionally? [
Pause.
]
Good God! [
Pause.
He
takes
 
A
’
s
hand
and
draws
it
towards
him.
]

A:
Your foot.

B:
What?

A:
You said your foot.

B:
Had I but known! [
Pause.
]
Yes, my foot, tuck it in. [
A
stoops,
groping.
]
On your knees, on your knees, you’ll be more at your ease. [
He
helps
him
to
kneel
at
the
right
place.
] There.

A:
[
Irritated.
]
Let go my hand! You want me to help you and you hold my hand! [
B
lets
go
his
hand, 
A
fumbles
in
the
rug
.] Have you only one leg?

B:
Just the one.

A:
And the other?

B:
It went bad and was removed.

[
A
tucks
in
the
foot
.]

A:
Will that do?

B:
A little tighter. [
A
tucks
in
tighter.
]
What hands you have!