Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett

(He raises what remains of the carrot by the stub of leaf, twirls it before his eyes.) Funny, the more you eat the worse it gets. VLADIMIR: With me it’s just the opposite. ESTRAGON: In other words? VLADIMIR: I get used to the muck as I go along. ESTRAGON: (after prolonged reflection). Is that the opposite? VLADIMIR: Question of temperament. ESTRAGON: Of character. VLADIMIR: Nothing you can do about it. ESTRAGON: No use struggling. VLADIMIR: One is what one is. ESTRAGON: No use wriggling. VLADIMIR: The essential doesn’t change.

Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all.

pale, ever a little paler, a little paler until (dramatic pause, ample gesture of the two hands flung wide apart) pppfff! finished! it comes to rest. But—(hand raised in admonition)— but behind this veil of gentleness and peace night is charging (vibrantly) and will burst upon us (snaps his fingers) pop! like that! (his inspiration leaves him) just when we least expect it. (Silence. Gloomily.) That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth. Long silence. ESTRAGON: So long as one knows. VLADIMIR: One can bide one’s time. ESTRAGON: One knows what to expect. VLADIMIR: No further need to worry. ESTRAGON: Simply wait. VLADIMIR: We’re used to it.

POZZO: I don’t seem to be able . . . (long hesitation) . . . to depart. ESTRAGON: Such is life.

VLADIMIR: That passed the time. ESTRAGON: It would have passed in any case.

VLADIMIR: You don’t know if you’re unhappy or not? BOY: No Sir. VLADIMIR: You’re as bad as myself. (Silence.)

I sometimes wonder if we wouldn’t have been better off alone, each one for himself. (He crosses the stage and sits down on the mound.) We weren’t made for the same road. VLADIMIR: (without anger). It’s not certain. ESTRAGON: No, nothing is certain.

ESTRAGON: Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me! VLADIMIR: Did I ever leave you? ESTRAGON: You let me go.

To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.

We could start all over again perhaps. ESTRAGON: That should be easy. VLADIMIR: It’s the start that’s difficult. ESTRAGON: You can start from anything. VLADIMIR: Yes, but you have to decide. ESTRAGON: True.

Now what did we do yesterday evening? ESTRAGON: Do? VLADIMIR: Try and remember. ESTRAGON: Do . . . I suppose we blathered. VLADIMIR: (controlling himself). About what? ESTRAGON: Oh . . . this and that I suppose, nothing in particular. (With assurance.) Yes, now I remember, yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in particular. That’s been going on now for half a century.

ESTRAGON: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist? VLADIMIR: (impatiently). Yes yes, we’re magicians.

Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!