- Waiting for Godot
-
-
tragicomedy in 2
acts
- by
-
Samuel Beckett
-
- Estragon
- Vladimir
- Lucky
- Pozzo
- a boy
ACT
I
A country
road. A tree.
Evening.
- Estragon, sitting on a
low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands,
panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again.
- As
before.
- Enter
Vladimir.
- ESTRAGON:
- (giving up again).
Nothing to be done.
- VLADIMIR:
- (advancing with short,
stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to that
opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be
reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.
(He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there
you are again.
- ESTRAGON:
- Am I?
- VLADIMIR:
- I'm glad to see you back. I
thought you were gone forever.
- ESTRAGON:
- Me too.
- VLADIMIR:
- Together again at last!
We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.) Get up till I
embrace you.
- ESTRAGON:
- (irritably). Not
now, not now.
- VLADIMIR:
- (hurt, coldly). May
one inquire where His Highness spent the night?
- ESTRAGON:
- In a ditch.
- VLADIMIR:
- (admiringly). A
ditch! Where?
- ESTRAGON:
- (without gesture).
Over there.
- VLADIMIR:
- And they didn't beat
you?
- ESTRAGON:
- Beat me? Certainly they
beat me.
- VLADIMIR:
- The same lot as
usual?
- ESTRAGON:
- The same? I don't
know.
- VLADIMIR:
- When I think of it . . .
all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . .
(Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of bones at
the present minute, no doubt about it.
- ESTRAGON:
- And what of
it?
- VLADIMIR:
- (gloomily). It's too
much for one man. (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the
good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it
a million years ago, in the nineties.
- ESTRAGON:
- Ah stop blathering and help
me off with this bloody thing.
- VLADIMIR:
- Hand in hand from the top
of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days.
Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his
boot.) What are you doing?
- ESTRAGON:
- Taking off my boot. Did
that never happen to you?
- VLADIMIR:
- Boots must be taken off
every day, I'm tired telling you that. Why don't you listen to
me?
- ESTRAGON:
- (feebly). Help
me!
- VLADIMIR:
- It hurts?
- ESTRAGON:
- (angrily). Hurts! He
wants to know if it hurts!
- VLADIMIR:
- (angrily). No one
ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if
you had what I have.
- ESTRAGON:
- It hurts?
- VLADIMIR:
- (angrily). Hurts! He
wants to know if it hurts!
- ESTRAGON:
- (pointing). You
might button it all the same.
- VLADIMIR:
- (stooping). True.
(He buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of
life.
- ESTRAGON:
- What do you expect, you
always wait till the last moment.
- VLADIMIR:
- (musingly). The last
moment . . . (He meditates.) Hope deferred maketh the something
sick, who said that?
- ESTRAGON:
- Why don't you help
me?
- VLADIMIR:
- Sometimes I feel it coming
all the same. Then I go all queer. (He takes off his hat, peers inside
it, feels about inside it, shakes it, puts it on again.) How shall I
say? Relieved and at the same time . . . (he searches for the word)
. . . appalled. (With emphasis.) AP-PALLED. (He takes off his
hat again, peers inside it.) Funny. (He knocks on the crown as
though to dislodge a foreign body, peers into it again, puts it on
again.) Nothing to be done. (Estragon with a supreme effort
succeeds in pulling off his boot. He peers inside it, feels about inside
it, turns it upside down, shakes it, looks on the ground to see if
anything has fallen out, finds nothing, feels inside it again, staring
sightlessly before him.) Well?
- ESTRAGON:
- Nothing.
- VLADIMIR:
- Show me.
- ESTRAGON:
- There's nothing to
show.
- VLADIMIR:
- Try and put it on
again.
- ESTRAGON:
- (examining his
foot). I'll air it for a bit.
- VLADIMIR:
- There's man all over for
you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. (He takes off his hat
again, peers inside it, feels about inside it, knocks on the crown, blows
into it, puts it on again.) This is getting alarming. (Silence.
Vladimir deep in thought, Estragon pulling at his toes.) One of the
thieves was saved. (Pause.) It's a reasonable percentage.
(Pause.) Gogo.
- ESTRAGON:
- What?
- VLADIMIR:
- Suppose we
repented.
- ESTRAGON:
- Repented
what?
- VLADIMIR:
- Oh . . . (He
reflects.) We wouldn't have to go into the details.
- ESTRAGON:
- Our being
born?
- Vladimir breaks into a
hearty laugh which he immediately stifles, his hand pressed to his pubis,
his face contorted.
- VLADIMIR:
- One daren't even laugh any
more.
- ESTRAGON:
- Dreadful
privation.
- VLADIMIR:
- Merely smile. (He smiles
suddenly from ear to ear, keeps smiling, ceases as suddenly.) It's not
the same thing. Nothing to be done. (Pause.) Gogo.
- ESTRAGON:
- (irritably). What is
it?
- VLADIMIR:
- Did you ever read the
Bible?
- ESTRAGON:
- The Bible . . . (He
reflects.) I must have taken a look at it.
- VLADIMIR:
- Do you remember the
Gospels?
- ESTRAGON:
- I remember the maps of the
Holy Land. Coloured they were. Very pretty. The Dead Sea was pale blue.
The very look of it made me thirsty. That's where we'll go, I used to say,
that's where we'll go for our honeymoon. We'll swim. We'll be
happy.
- VLADIMIR:
- You should have been a
poet.
- ESTRAGON:
- I was. (Gesture towards
his rags.) Isn't that obvious?
- Silence.
- VLADIMIR:
- Where was I . . . How's
your foot?
- ESTRAGON:
- Swelling
visibly.
- VLADIMIR:
- Ah yes, the two thieves. Do
you remember the story?
- ESTRAGON:
- No.
- VLADIMIR:
- Shall I tell it to
you?
- ESTRAGON:
- No.
- VLADIMIR:
- It'll pass the time.
(Pause.) Two thieves, crucified at the same time as our Saviour.
One—
- ESTRAGON:
- Our what?
- VLADIMIR:
- Our Saviour. Two thieves.
One is supposed to have been saved and the other . . . (he searches for
the contrary of saved) . . . damned.
- ESTRAGON:
- Saved from
what?
- VLADIMIR:
- Hell.
- ESTRAGON:
- I'm going.
- He does not
move.
- VLADIMIR:
- And yet . . .
(pause) . . . how is it –this is not boring you I hope– how is it
that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved. The
four of them were there –or thereabouts– and only one speaks of a thief
being saved. (Pause.) Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you,
once in a while?
- ESTRAGON:
- (with exaggerated
enthusiasm). I find this really most extraordinarily
interesting.
- VLADIMIR:
- One out of four. Of the
other three two don't mention any thieves at all and the third says that
both of them abused him.
- ESTRAGON:
- Who?
- VLADIMIR:
- What?
- ESTRAGON:
- What's all this about?
Abused who?
- VLADIMIR:
- The Saviour.
- ESTRAGON:
- Why?
- VLADIMIR:
- Because he wouldn't save
them.
- ESTRAGON:
- From hell?
- VLADIMIR:
- Imbecile! From
death.
- ESTRAGON:
- I thought you said
hell.
- VLADIMIR:
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