Free The Collected Shorter Plays by Samuel Beckett Page A

time I laid eyes on him I was on my way to the Post Office to cash an order for back-pay. The area before the building is shut off by a row of bollards with chains hung between them. He was seated on one of these with his back to the Thompson works. To all appearances down and out. He sat doubled in two, his hands on his knees, his legs astraddle, his head sunk. For a moment I wondered if he was not vomiting. But on drawing nearer I could see he was merely scrutinizing, between his feet, a lump of dogshit. I moved it slightly with the tip of my umbrella and observed how his gaze followed the movement and fastened on the object in its new position. This at three o’clock in the afternoon if you please! I confess I had not the heart to bid him the time of day, I was overcome. I simply slipped into his hip pocket a lottery ticket I had no use for, while silently wishing him the best of luck. When two hourslater I emerged from the Post Office, having cashed my order, he was at the same place and in the same attitude. I sometimes wonder if he is still alive.” Testimony of Mr. Feckman, certified accountant and friend for better and for worse.
[
Pause
.]
    A Dated when?
    B Recent.
    A It has such a bygone ring. [
Pause
.] Nothing else?
    B Oh . . . bits and scraps . . . good graces of an heirless aunt . . . unfinished—
    A Hairless aunt?
    B . . . heirless aunt . . . unfinished game of chess with a correspondent in Tasmania . . . hope not dead of living to see the extermination of the species . . . literary aspirations incompletely stifled . . . bottom of a dairy-woman in Waterloo Lane . . . you see the kind of thing.
[
Pause
.]
    A We pack up this evening, right?
    B Without fail. Tomorrow we’re at Bury St. Edmunds.
    A [
sadly
] We’ll leave him none the wiser. We’ll leave him now, never to meet again, having added nothing to what he knew already.
    B All these testimonies were new to him. They will have finished him off.
    A Not necessarily. [
Pause
.] Any light on that? [
Papers
.] This is vital. [
Papers
.] Something . . . I seem to remember . . . something . . . he said himself.
    B [
papers
] Under “Confidences” then. [
Brief laugh
.] Slim file. [
Papers
.]
Confidences . . . confidences . . . ah!
    A [
impatient
] Well?
    B [
reading
] “. . . sick headaches . . . eye trouble . . . irrational fear of vipers . . . ear trouble . . .”—nothing for us there—“. . . fibroid tumours . . . pathological horror of songbirds . . . throat trouble . . . need of affection . . .”—we’re coming to it—“. . . inner void . . . congenital timidity . . . nose trouble . . .”—ah! listen to this!— “ . . . morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others . . .” [
Looks up
.] What did I tell you?
    A [
glum
] Tsstss!
    B I’ll read the whole passage: “. . . morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others—” [
His lamp goes out
.] Well! The bulb has blown! [
The lamp goes on again
.] No, it hasn’t! Must be a faulty connexion. [
Examines lamp, straightens flex
.] The flex was twisted, now all is well. [
Reading
.] “. . . morbidly sensitive—” [
The lamp goes out
.] Bugger and shit!
    A Try giving her a shake. [
B shakes the lamp. It goes on again
.] See! I picked up that wrinkle in the Band of Hope.
[
Pause
.]

    B What?
    A Keep your hands off the table. If it’s a connexion the least jog can do it.
    B [
having pulled back his chair a little way
] “. . . morbidly sensitive—”
[
The lamp goes out. B bangs on the table with his fist. The lamp goes on again. Pause
.]
    A Mysterious affair, electricity.
    B [
hurriedly
] “. . . morbidly sensitive to the opinion of others at the time, I mean as often and for as long as they entered my awareness—” What kind of Chinese is that?
    A [
nervously
] Keep going, keep going!
    B “. . . for as long as they entered my awareness, and that in either case, I mean whether such on the one hand as to give me pleasure or on the contrary on the other to cause me pain, and truth to