When Samuel Beckett was stabbed by a pimp
Samuel Beckett in Paris five decades after the crime
Quelle: Getty Images/Ulf Andersen
The author of “Waiting for Godot” goes out to eat with friends in Paris. A fateful encounter occurs in a cul-de-sac. Beckett’s life hangs by a few inches. A famous colleague pays his hospital bill. The stabber later apologizes.
APoets are also involved in stabbings. François Villon stabbed a priest. Christopher Marlowe died from a knife wound in his eye. Samuel Beckett almost died in a similar way in 1938. If the blade of a Parisian pimp hadn’t just missed the Irishman’s heart and lungs, plays like Waiting for Godot or The Last Tape, which revolutionized 20th-century stagecraft, would never have been written.
The fateful scene on Epiphany Night 1938 began with a harmless meal among friends. Beckett walked friends Alan and Belinda Duncan home after going out to a restaurant at 1 a.m. 50 years later, a year before his death, he described the scene to his biographer James Knowlson: “This pimp showed up and started harassing us, we should go with him.”
A war of words ensues. The pimp stabs Beckett: “And I was bleeding on the pavement.” The pimp runs away. The Duncans carry Beckett to their apartment. When they undress him and see the wound, they are horrified. They take him to the nearest hospital. The knife entered Beckett’s left side and pierced the pleura. You fear for your life. More details cannot be determined for the time being, since Beckett cannot yet be transported to the X-ray.
During the uncertainty, the newspapers are already writing about the incident, both in Dublin and Paris. Beckett’s mother, brother and sister-in-law leave for Paris immediately. The poet Brian Coffey, who Beckett intended to meet the next day, calls the Duncans and encourages them to ask James Joyce if there is anything he can do for Beckett.
The other great Irishman, already a celebrity by this point, makes his way to the hospital, where Beckett lies unconscious. “I woke up in one common room, a large room. The first thing I saw when I came to was Joyce. And thanks to Joyce and his crazy doctor, I got a single room.” The doctor was Thérèse Fontaine, kind of the personal doctor of Joyce and his wife Nora.
The Joyces each beg Beckett in their own way. James brings him a reading lamp, Nora makes him a custard. The writer colleague also donates extra costs for the single room. But the most loving of all are the Duncans, who come to the hospital every day and keep reporters at bay from Beckett. Nevertheless, a real small Beckett bedside tourism develops, so Peggy Guggenheim and the Irish ambassador come. Using a criminal album that the police bring to the hospital, Beckett eventually identifies a four-time convicted pimp named Prudent as the perpetrator.
Proud owner of a pleural barometer
On January 22, Beckett is released. dr Fontaine advises him to check his lung pressure regularly. He writes to a friend: “I shall be the proud owner of a pleural barometer for years to come.”
In March he meets the stabber Prudent in the courtroom. He asks him why he did it. “Je ne sais pas, Monsieur,” replies the pimp, adding a polite “Je m’excuse.” (I don’t know sir. I apologize). Prudent gets away with two months in prison. Beckett sarcastically comments, “Not bad for a fifth conviction.” His blood-soaked clothes, which the police kept as evidence, will never be returned to him.”
It is said that all writer’s life is paper. In this series, we present evidence to the contrary.