Beckett's appearance is rough-hewn Irish. The features of his face are distinct, but not fine. They look as if they had been sculptured with an unsharpened chisel. Unruly hair goes straight up from his forehead, standing so high that the top falls gently over, as if to show that it really is hair and not bristle. One might say it combines the man; own pride and humility. For he has the pride that comes of self acceptance and the humility, perhaps of the same genesis, not to impose himself upon another. His light blue eyes, set deep within the face, are actively and continually looking. He seems, by some unconscious division of labor, to have given them that one function and no other, leaving communication to the rest of the face. The mouth frequently breaks into a disarming smile. The voice is light in timbre, with a rough edge that corresponds to his visage. The Irish accent is, as one would expect, combined with slight inflections from the French. His tweed suit was a baggy gray and green. He wore a brown knit sports shirt with no tie.

We walked down the Rue de L ' Arcade, thence along beside the Madeleine and across to a sidewalk cafe opposite that church. The conversation that ensued may have been engrossing but it could hardly be called world shattering. For one thing, the world that Beckett sees is already shattered. His talk turns to what he calls ``the mess,'' or sometimes ``this buzzing confusion.'' I reconstruct his sentences from notes made immediately after our conversation. What appears here is shorter than what he actually said but very close to his own words.