) That is to say I never stop
speaking
- but sometimes too low, too far away, too far within, to hear.
Samuel Beckett
Secondly where it comes from.
Thirdly how I manage, to do it (seeing that this, considering that that, inasmuch as God knows what - that's clear now): how I manage to hear, and how
I manage to understand (it's a lie - what would I understand with, that's what I am asking? ), how I manage to understand. Oh not the half, not the hundredth, nor the five thousandth (let us go on dividing by fifty), nor the quarter millionth (that's enough): but a little nevertheless - it's essential, it's preferable. (It's a pity, but there it is. ) Just a little all the same, the least possible. It's appreciable, it's enough: the rough meaning of one expression in a thousand, in ten thousand (let us go on multiplying by ten, nothing more restful than arithmetic), in a hundred thousand, in a million. It's too much, too little. We've gone wrong somewhere. No matter: there is no great difference here between one expression and the next. When you've grasped one you've grasped them all. (I am not in that fortunate position. ) All! How you exaggerate! Always out for the whole hog, the all of all and the all of nothing - never in the happy golden. "Never", "always" - it's too much, too little: "often", "seldom". Let me now sum up (after this digression). There is I (yes, I feel it, I confess, I give in): there is I, it's essential (it's preferable). I wouldn't have said so, I won't always say so. So let me hasten to take advantage of being now obliged to say (in a manner of speaking) that there is I, on the one hand, and this noise on the other. That I never doubted. (No, let us be logical: there was never any doubt about that. ) This noise, on the other (if it is the other): that will very likely be the theme of our next deliberation. I sum up. (Now that I'm here it's I will do the summing up, it's I will say what is to be said and then say what it was. That will be jolly! ) I sum up: I and this noise. I see nothing else for the moment, but I have only just taken over my functions. I and this noise. (And what about it? Don't interrupt me, I am doing my best. ) I repeat: I and this noise. On the subject of which (inverting the natural order) we would seem to know for certain, among other things, what follows: namely, on the one hand (with regard to the noise), that it has not been possible up to date to determine with certainty, or even approximately, what it is, in the way of noise - or how it comes to me, or by what organ it is emitted, or by what perceived, or by what intelligence apprehended (in its main drift). And on the other, that is to say with regard to me (this is going to take a little longer) - with regard to me (nice time we're going to have now) - with regard to me, that it has not yet been our good fortune to establish with any degree of accuracy what I am, where I am: whether I am words among words, or silence in the midst of silence (to recall only two of the hypotheses launched in this connection). (Though silence to tell the truth does not appear to have been very conspicuous up to now. But appearances may sometimes be deceptive. ) I resume: not yet our good fortune to establish, among other things, what I am (no, sorry - already mentioned), what I'm doing, how I manage to hear (if I hear, if it's I who hear), and how to understand
(ellipse when possible, it saves time) - how to understand (same observation), and how it happens (if it's I who speak - and it may be assumed it is, as it may be suspected it is not), how it happens (if it's I who speak) that I speak without ceasing, that I long to cease, that I can't cease (I indicate the principal divisions: it's more synoptic). I resume: not the good fortune to establish, with regard to me (if it's I who seek), what exactly it is I seek, find, lose, find again, throw away, seek again, find again, throw away again (no, I never threw anything away, never threw anything away of all the things I found, never found anything that I didn't lose, never lost anything that I mightn't as well have thrown away); if it's I who seek, find, lose, find again, lose again, seek in vain, seek no more: if it's I, what it is (and if it's not I, who it is, and what it is). I see nothing else for the moment. Yes, I do. I conclude: not the good fortune to establish, considering the futility of my telling myself even any old thing, to pass the time, why I do it (if it's I who do it). As if reasons were required for doing any old thing to pass the time! No matter, the question may be asked (off the record): why time doesn't pass, doesn't pass, from you? Why it piles up all about you, instant on instant, on all sides, deeper and deeper, thicker and thicker? (Your time, others' time, the time of the ancient dead and the dead yet unborn. ) Why it buries you grain by grain neither dead nor alive? With no memory of anything, no hope of anything, no knowledge of anything, no history and no prospects, buried under the seconds, saying any old thing, your mouth full of sand. Oh I know it's immaterial: time is one thing, I another. But the question may be asked, why time doesn't pass? (Just like that, off the record, en passant - to pass the time. ) I think that's all, for the moment. I see nothing else (I see nothing whatever), for the time being. But I really mustn't ask myself any more questions (if it's I), I really must not. More resolutions, while we're at it. (That's right: resolutely, more resolutions. ) Make abundant use of the principle of parsimony, as if it were familiar to me (it is not too late). Assume notably henceforward that the thing said and the thing heard have a common source (resisting for this purpose the temptation to call in question the possibility of assuming anything whatever). Situate this source in me (without specifying where exactly, no finicking): anything is preferable to the consciousness of third parties and (more generally speaking) of an outer world. Carry if necessary this process of compression to the point of abandoning all other postulates than that of a deaf half-wit, hearing nothing of what he says and understanding even less. . Evoke at painful junctures (when discouragement threatens to raise its head) the image of a vast cretinous mouth (red, blubber and slobbering) in solitary confinement, extruding indefatigably (with a noise of wet kisses and washing in a tub) the words that obstruct it. Set aside once and for all (at
the same time as the analogy with orthodox damnation) all idea of beginning and end. Overcome (that goes without saying) the fatal leaning towards expressiveness. Equate me (without pity or scruple) with him who exists (somehow, no matter how, no finicking), with him whose story this story had the brief ambition to be. Better: ascribe to me a body. Better still: arrogate to me a mind. Speak of a world of my own (sometimes referred to as the inner) without choking. Doubt no more. Seek no more. Take advantage of the brand-new soul and substantiality to abandon, with the only possible abandon, deep down within. And finally (these and other decisions having been taken) carry on cheerfully as before. Something has changed nevertheless. Not a word about Mahood, or Worm, for the pastAh yes, I nearly forgot: speak of time, without flinching. And what is more, it just occurs to me (by a natural association of ideas), treat of space with the same easy grace. As if it were not bunged up on all sides, a few inches away. After all that's something - a few inches - to be thankful for. It gives one air: room for the tongue to loll, to have lolled, to loll on. When I think (that is to say no, let it stand), when I think of the time I've wasted with these bran-dips (beginning with Murphy, who wasn't even the first), when I had me on the premises, within easy reach! Tottering under my own skin and bones (real ones), rotting with solitude and neglect, till I doubted my own existence. And even still, today, I have no faith in it, none: so that I have to say, when I speak, "Who speaks? " - and seek. And so on and similarly for all the other things that happen to me and for which someone must be found (for things that happen must have someone to happen to). Someone must stop them. But Murphy and the others (and last but not least the two old buffers here present) could not stop them, the things that happened to me. Nothing could happen to them, of the things that happened to me. And nothing else either: there is nothing else (let us be lucid for once), nothing else but what happens to me (such as speaking, and such as seeking), and which cannot happen to me - which prowl round me, like bodies in torment: the torment of no abode, no repose. No, like hyenas, screeching and laughing (no, no better - no matter). I've shut my doors against them, I'm not at home to anything, my doors are shut against them. Perhaps that's how I'll find silence, and peace at last: by opening my doors, and letting myself be devoured. They'll stop howling, they'll start eating, the maws now howling. "Open up, open up! You'll be all right, you'll see! " What a joy it is, to turn and look astern, between two visits to the depths! Scan in vain the horizon for a sail! It's a real pleasure, upon my word it is, to be unable to drown, under such conditions. Yes, but there it is: I am far from my doors, far from my walls. Someone would have to wake the turnkey (there must be one somewhere). Far from my subject too. Let us get back
to it. It's gone! No longer there where I thought I last saw it! [Strange this mixture of solid and liquid. ] Where was I? Ah yes, my subject: no longer there, or no longer the same. Or I mistake the place? No? Yes? It's the same, still there, in the same place. It's a pity. I would have liked to lose it, I would have liked to lose me: lose me the way I could long ago (when I still had some imagination) - close my eyes and be in a wood, or on the seashore. Or in a town where I don't know anyone. It's night, everyone has gone home. I walk the streets, I lash into them one after the other. It's the town of my youth. I'm looking for my mother to kill her. (I should have thought of that a bit earlier, before being born. ) It's raining, I'm all right. I stride along on the crown of the street with great yaws to left and right. Now that's all over: with closed eyes I see the same as with them open, namely Wait: I'll say it, I'll try and say it. I'm curious to know what it can possibly be that I see (with closed eyes, with open eyes). Nothing. I see nothing. Well that is a disappointment! I was hoping for something better than that. Is that what it is to be unable to lose yourself? (I'm asking myself a question). Is that what it is: to see nothing, no matter where I look? Nor, eyeless, the little creature in his different guises: coming and going (now in shadow, now in light, doing his best, seeking the means of staying among the living, of getting off with his life), or shut up looking out of the window at the ever-changing sky. Is that it, to be unable to lose myself? I don't know. What did I see in the old days, when I ventured a quick look? I don't know, I don't remember. There I am in any case equipped with eyes, which I open and shut (two, perhaps blue), knowing it avails nothing. (For I have a head now too, where all manner of things are known. ) Can it be of me I'm speaking? Is it possible? Of course not: that's another thing I know. I'll speak of me when I speak no more. In any case it's not a question of speaking of me, but of speaking, of speaking no more. This slight confusion augurs well. Now I'll have to find a name for this latest surrogate, his head splitting with vile certainties and his doll's eyes. Later on, later on. First I must describe him in greater detail, see what he's capable of, whence he comes and whither he returns (in his head of course - we don't intend to relapse into picaresque, with the stink of Mahood and Worm still in our nostrils). Now it's I the orator. The beleaguerers have departed. I am master on board (after the rats). I no longer crawl between the thwarts, under the moon, in the shadow of the lash. Strange this mixture of solid and liquid! A little air is all we need to complete the elements. (No, I'm forgetting fire. ) Unusual hell when you come to think of it. Perhaps it's paradise. Perhaps it's the earth. Perhaps it's the shores of a lake beneath the earth. You scarcely breathe, but you breathe (it's not certain). You see nothing. (Hear nothing? You hear the long kiss of dead water and mud. ) Aloft at less than a score of
fathoms men come and go. You dream of them: in your long dream there's a place for the waking. You wonder how you know all you know. You even see grass - grass at dawn, glaucous with dew: not so blind as all that my eyes. (They're not mine, mine are done. They don't even weep any more, they open and shut by the force of habit - fifteen minutes exposure, fifteen minutes shutter, like the owl cooped in the grotto in Battersea Park. ) Ah misery! Will I never stop wanting a life for myself? No no, no head either: anything you like, but not a head. In his head he doesn't go anywhere either, I've tried. (Lashed to the stake, blindfold, gagged to the gullet, you take the air - under the elms in se, murmuring Shelley - impervious to the shafts. ) Yes a head - but solid: solid bone. And you imbedded in it, like a fossil in the rock. Perhaps there go I after all. I can't go on in any case. But I must go on. So I'll go on. Air! Air, I'll seek air: air in time, the air of time. And in space, in my head. That's how I'll go on. All very fine - but the voice is failing. It's the first time. No, I've been through that: it has even stopped, many a time. That's how it will end again. I'll go silent, for want of air, then the voice will come back and I'll begin again. (? My voice? ? ? The voice? ? ) I hardly hear it any more. I'm going silent. Hearing this voice no more, that's what I call going silent. That is to say I'll hear it still, if I listen hard. I'll listen hard. (Listening hard, that's what I call going silent. ) I'll hear it still, broken, faint, unintelligible, if I listen hard. (Hearing it still, without hearing what it says, that's what I call going silent. ) Then it will flare up, like a kindling fire, a dying fire (Mahood explained that to me), and I'll emerge from silence. (Hearing too little to be able to speak, that's my silence.
) That is to say I never stop speaking - but sometimes too low, too far away, too far within, to hear. (No, I hear: to understand. Not that I ever understand). It fades. It goes in, behind the door. I'm going silent, there's going to be silence. I'll listen, it's worse than speaking (no: no worse, no better). Unless this time it's the true silence, the one I'll never have to break any more, when I won't have to listen any more, when I can dribble in my corner, my head gone, my tongue dead. The one I have tried to earn, that I thought I could earn. I'm going to stop - that's to say I'm going to look as if I had (it will be like everything else). As if anyone were looking at me! As if it were I! It will be the same silence, the same as ever, murmurous with muted lamentation: panting and exhaling of impossible sorrow, like distant laughter. And brief spells of hush, as of one buried before his time. Long or short, the same silence. Then I resurrect and begin again. That's what I'll have got for my pains. Unless this time it's the real silence at last! Perhaps I've said the thing that had to be said (that gives me the right to be done with speech, done with listening, done with hearing) without my knowing it. I'm listening already, I'm going silent. The next time I won't go to such
pains: I'll tell one of Mahood's old tales (no matter which, they are all alike). They won't tire me. I won't bother any more about me. I'll know that no matter what I say the result is the same: that I'll never be silent, never at peace. Unless I try once more (just once more, one last time), to say what has to be said, about me (I feel it's about me, perhaps that's the mistake I make, perhaps that's my sin), so as to have nothing more to say, nothing more to hear, till I die. It's coming back. I'm glad. I'll try again. Quick before it goes again! Try what? I don't know. To continue? Now there is no one left. (That's a good continuation. ) No one left? It's embarrassing. If I had a memory it might tell me that this is a sign of the end: this having no one left, no one to talk to, no one to talk to you, so that you have to say: "It's I who am doing this to me, I who am talking about me. " Then the breath fails, the end begins, you go silent. It's the end (short-lived). You begin again. You had forgotten: there's someone there, someone talking to you (about you, about him). Then a second, then a third. Then the second again. Then all three together (these figures just to give you an idea), talking to you (about you, about them). All I have to do is listen. Then they depart, one by one, and the voice goes on. It's not theirs: they were never there. There was never anyone but you, talking to you about you. The breath fails, it's nearly the end. The breath stops, it's the end (short-lived). I hear someone calling me, it begins again. (That must be how it goes, if I had a memory. ) Even if there were things, a thing somewhere, a scrap of nature, to talk about, you might be reconciled to having no one left, to being yourself the talker. If only there were a thing somewhere, to talk about (even though you couldn't see it, or know what it was, simply feel it there, with you), you might have the courage not to go silent. No, it's to go silent that you need courage: for you'll be punished, punished for having gone silent. And yet you can't do otherwise than go silent (than be punished for having gone silent, than be punished for having been punished) since you begin again. The breath fails. If only there were a thing! But there it is, there is not: they took away things when they departed, they took away nature. There was never anyone, anyone but me, anything but me, talking to me of me. Impossible to stop, impossible to go on. But I must go on - without anyone, without anything, but me, but my voice. That is to say I'll stop, I'll end. It's the end already (short-lived). What is it? A little hole. You go down into it, into the silence (it's worse than the noise). You listen, it's worse than talking (no, not worse: no worse). You wait, in anguish. Have they forgotten me? No? Yes? No. Someone calls me. I crawl out again. What is it? A little hole, in the wilderness. It's the end that is the worst. No, it's the beginning that is the worst - then the middle, then the end. In the end it's the end that is the worst, this voice that. . . . I don't know. It's every second that
is the worst, it's a chronicle. The seconds pass, one after another - jerkily, no flow. (They don't pass, they arrive, bang bang - they bang into you, bounce off, fall and never move again. ) When you have nothing left to say you talk of time, seconds of time. There are some people add them together to make a life, I can't: each one is the first. (No, the second, or the third. I'm three seconds old! ) Oh not every day of the week. I've been away, done something, been in a hole. I've just crawled out. Perhaps I went silent. No, I say that in order to say something, in order to go on a little more: you must go on a little more, you must go on a long time more, you must go on evermore. If I could remember something by heart I'd be saved: I have to keep on saying the same thing and each time it's an effort. The seconds must be alike and each one is infernal. What am I saying now? I'm saying I wish I knew. And yet I have memories. I remember Worm (that is to say, I have retained the name). And the other (what is his name? what was his name? ) in his jar. I can see him still, better than I can see me. I know how he lived, now I remember. I alone saw him. But no one sees me, nor him: I don't see him any more. (Mahood, he was called Mahood. ) I don't see him any more, I don't know how he lived any more, he isn't there any more, he was never there, in his jar, I never saw him. And yet I remember. I remember having talked about him. (I must have talked about him. The same words recur and they are your memories. ) It is I invented him (him and so many others, and the places where they passed, the places where they stayed), in order to speak (since I had to speak) without speaking of me. I couldn't speak of me, I was never told I had to speak of me. I invented my memories, not knowing what I was doing: not one is of me. It is they asked me to speak of them. They wanted to know what they were, how they lived. That suited me (I thought that would suit me), since I had nothing to say and had to say something. I thought I was free to say any old thing, so long as I didn't go silent. Then I said to myself that after all perhaps it wasn't any old thing, the thing I was saying: that it might well be the thing demanded of me (assuming something was being demanded of me). No, I didn't think anything and I didn't say anything to myself. I did what I could, a thing beyond my strength, and often for exhaustion I gave up doing it. And yet it went on being done, the voice being heard - the voice which could not be mine (since I had none left), and yet which could only be mine (since I could not go silent, and since I was alone, in a place where no voice could reach me). Yes, in my life (since we must call it so) there were three things: the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude. That's what I've had to make the best of. Yes, now I can speak of my life: I'm too tired for niceties. But I don't know if I ever lived, I have really no opinion on the subject. However that may be I think I'll soon go
silent for good, in spite of its being prohibited. Then (yes, phut! just like that, just like one of the living), then I'll be dead, I think I'll soon be dead. I hope I find it a change. I should have liked to go silent first. There were moments I thought that would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly: to enter living into silence. So as to be able to enjoy it? No, I don't know why. So as to feel myself silent? One with all this quiet air shattered unceasingly by my voice alone? (No, it's not real air. ) I can't say it. I can't say why I should have liked to be silent a little before being dead. So as in the end to be a little as I always was and never could be? Without fear of worse to come peacefully in the place where I always was and could never rest in peace? No, I don't know. It's simpler than that. I wanted myself, in my own land for a brief space. I didn't want to die a stranger in the midst of strangers (a stranger in my own midst), surrounded by invaders. No, I don't know what I wanted, I don't know what I thought. I must have wanted so many things, imagined so many things, while I was talking, without knowing exactly what - enough to go blind, with longings and visions, mingling and merging in one another. I'd have been better employed minding what I was saying. But it didn't happen like that, it happened like this, the way it's happening now, that is to say, I don't know: you mustn't believe what I'm saying. I'm doing as I always did, I'm going on as best I can. As to believing I shall go silent for good and all: I don't believe it particularly. I always believed it, as I always believed I would never go silent. You can't call that believing. (It's my walls. ) But has nothing really changed, all this time? If instead of having something to say I had something to do, with my hands or feet - some little job! Sorting things out for example, or simply arranging things. Suppose for the sake of argument I had the job of moving things from one place to another. Then I'd know where I was, and how far I had got. No, not necessarily (I can see it from here). They would contrive things in such a way that I couldn't suspect the two vessels (the one to be emptied and the one to be filled) of being in reality one and the same. It would be water. Water. With my thimble I'd go and draw it from one container, and then I'd go and pour it into another. Or there would be four (or a hundred), half of them to be filled, the other half to be emptied (numbered: the even to be emptied the uneven to be filled). No, it would be even more complicated, less symmetrical. No matter: to be emptied, and filled, in a certain way, a certain order, in accordance with certain homologies (the word is not too strong) - so that I'd have to think. Tanks, communicating (communicating! ), connected by pipes under the floor (I can see it from here). Always showing the same level? No, that wouldn't work, too hopeless: they'd arrange for me to have little attacks of hope from time to time (yes, pipes and taps - I can see it from here), so that I might fool myself
from time to time. If I had that to do, instead of this! Some little job with fluids, filling and emptying (always the same vesssel). I'd be good at that, it would be a better life than this. (No, I mustn't start complaining. ) I'd have a body. I wouldn't have to speak. I'd hear my steps, almost without ceasing, and the noise of the water, and the crying of the air trapped in the pipes. (I don't understand. ) I'd have bouts of zeal. I'd say to myself: "The quicker I do it the quicker it will be done. " (The things one has to listen to! ) That's where hope would come in. It wouldn't be dark? Impossible to do such work in the dark? That depends. Yes, I must say I see no window, from here. Whereas here that has no importance, that I see no window. Here I needn't come and go (fortunately: I couldn't). Nor be dextrous. For naturally the water would have great value and the least drop spilt on the way (or in the act of drawing, or in the act of pouring) would cost me dear. And how could you tell in the dark, if a drop. What's this story? It's a story! Now I've told another little story, about me - about the life that might have been mine for all the difference it would have made. Which was perhaps mine: perhaps I went through that before being deemed worthy of going through this. Who knows towards what high destiny I am heading?
I manage to understand (it's a lie - what would I understand with, that's what I am asking? ), how I manage to understand. Oh not the half, not the hundredth, nor the five thousandth (let us go on dividing by fifty), nor the quarter millionth (that's enough): but a little nevertheless - it's essential, it's preferable. (It's a pity, but there it is. ) Just a little all the same, the least possible. It's appreciable, it's enough: the rough meaning of one expression in a thousand, in ten thousand (let us go on multiplying by ten, nothing more restful than arithmetic), in a hundred thousand, in a million. It's too much, too little. We've gone wrong somewhere. No matter: there is no great difference here between one expression and the next. When you've grasped one you've grasped them all. (I am not in that fortunate position. ) All! How you exaggerate! Always out for the whole hog, the all of all and the all of nothing - never in the happy golden. "Never", "always" - it's too much, too little: "often", "seldom". Let me now sum up (after this digression). There is I (yes, I feel it, I confess, I give in): there is I, it's essential (it's preferable). I wouldn't have said so, I won't always say so. So let me hasten to take advantage of being now obliged to say (in a manner of speaking) that there is I, on the one hand, and this noise on the other. That I never doubted. (No, let us be logical: there was never any doubt about that. ) This noise, on the other (if it is the other): that will very likely be the theme of our next deliberation. I sum up. (Now that I'm here it's I will do the summing up, it's I will say what is to be said and then say what it was. That will be jolly! ) I sum up: I and this noise. I see nothing else for the moment, but I have only just taken over my functions. I and this noise. (And what about it? Don't interrupt me, I am doing my best. ) I repeat: I and this noise. On the subject of which (inverting the natural order) we would seem to know for certain, among other things, what follows: namely, on the one hand (with regard to the noise), that it has not been possible up to date to determine with certainty, or even approximately, what it is, in the way of noise - or how it comes to me, or by what organ it is emitted, or by what perceived, or by what intelligence apprehended (in its main drift). And on the other, that is to say with regard to me (this is going to take a little longer) - with regard to me (nice time we're going to have now) - with regard to me, that it has not yet been our good fortune to establish with any degree of accuracy what I am, where I am: whether I am words among words, or silence in the midst of silence (to recall only two of the hypotheses launched in this connection). (Though silence to tell the truth does not appear to have been very conspicuous up to now. But appearances may sometimes be deceptive. ) I resume: not yet our good fortune to establish, among other things, what I am (no, sorry - already mentioned), what I'm doing, how I manage to hear (if I hear, if it's I who hear), and how to understand
(ellipse when possible, it saves time) - how to understand (same observation), and how it happens (if it's I who speak - and it may be assumed it is, as it may be suspected it is not), how it happens (if it's I who speak) that I speak without ceasing, that I long to cease, that I can't cease (I indicate the principal divisions: it's more synoptic). I resume: not the good fortune to establish, with regard to me (if it's I who seek), what exactly it is I seek, find, lose, find again, throw away, seek again, find again, throw away again (no, I never threw anything away, never threw anything away of all the things I found, never found anything that I didn't lose, never lost anything that I mightn't as well have thrown away); if it's I who seek, find, lose, find again, lose again, seek in vain, seek no more: if it's I, what it is (and if it's not I, who it is, and what it is). I see nothing else for the moment. Yes, I do. I conclude: not the good fortune to establish, considering the futility of my telling myself even any old thing, to pass the time, why I do it (if it's I who do it). As if reasons were required for doing any old thing to pass the time! No matter, the question may be asked (off the record): why time doesn't pass, doesn't pass, from you? Why it piles up all about you, instant on instant, on all sides, deeper and deeper, thicker and thicker? (Your time, others' time, the time of the ancient dead and the dead yet unborn. ) Why it buries you grain by grain neither dead nor alive? With no memory of anything, no hope of anything, no knowledge of anything, no history and no prospects, buried under the seconds, saying any old thing, your mouth full of sand. Oh I know it's immaterial: time is one thing, I another. But the question may be asked, why time doesn't pass? (Just like that, off the record, en passant - to pass the time. ) I think that's all, for the moment. I see nothing else (I see nothing whatever), for the time being. But I really mustn't ask myself any more questions (if it's I), I really must not. More resolutions, while we're at it. (That's right: resolutely, more resolutions. ) Make abundant use of the principle of parsimony, as if it were familiar to me (it is not too late). Assume notably henceforward that the thing said and the thing heard have a common source (resisting for this purpose the temptation to call in question the possibility of assuming anything whatever). Situate this source in me (without specifying where exactly, no finicking): anything is preferable to the consciousness of third parties and (more generally speaking) of an outer world. Carry if necessary this process of compression to the point of abandoning all other postulates than that of a deaf half-wit, hearing nothing of what he says and understanding even less. . Evoke at painful junctures (when discouragement threatens to raise its head) the image of a vast cretinous mouth (red, blubber and slobbering) in solitary confinement, extruding indefatigably (with a noise of wet kisses and washing in a tub) the words that obstruct it. Set aside once and for all (at
the same time as the analogy with orthodox damnation) all idea of beginning and end. Overcome (that goes without saying) the fatal leaning towards expressiveness. Equate me (without pity or scruple) with him who exists (somehow, no matter how, no finicking), with him whose story this story had the brief ambition to be. Better: ascribe to me a body. Better still: arrogate to me a mind. Speak of a world of my own (sometimes referred to as the inner) without choking. Doubt no more. Seek no more. Take advantage of the brand-new soul and substantiality to abandon, with the only possible abandon, deep down within. And finally (these and other decisions having been taken) carry on cheerfully as before. Something has changed nevertheless. Not a word about Mahood, or Worm, for the pastAh yes, I nearly forgot: speak of time, without flinching. And what is more, it just occurs to me (by a natural association of ideas), treat of space with the same easy grace. As if it were not bunged up on all sides, a few inches away. After all that's something - a few inches - to be thankful for. It gives one air: room for the tongue to loll, to have lolled, to loll on. When I think (that is to say no, let it stand), when I think of the time I've wasted with these bran-dips (beginning with Murphy, who wasn't even the first), when I had me on the premises, within easy reach! Tottering under my own skin and bones (real ones), rotting with solitude and neglect, till I doubted my own existence. And even still, today, I have no faith in it, none: so that I have to say, when I speak, "Who speaks? " - and seek. And so on and similarly for all the other things that happen to me and for which someone must be found (for things that happen must have someone to happen to). Someone must stop them. But Murphy and the others (and last but not least the two old buffers here present) could not stop them, the things that happened to me. Nothing could happen to them, of the things that happened to me. And nothing else either: there is nothing else (let us be lucid for once), nothing else but what happens to me (such as speaking, and such as seeking), and which cannot happen to me - which prowl round me, like bodies in torment: the torment of no abode, no repose. No, like hyenas, screeching and laughing (no, no better - no matter). I've shut my doors against them, I'm not at home to anything, my doors are shut against them. Perhaps that's how I'll find silence, and peace at last: by opening my doors, and letting myself be devoured. They'll stop howling, they'll start eating, the maws now howling. "Open up, open up! You'll be all right, you'll see! " What a joy it is, to turn and look astern, between two visits to the depths! Scan in vain the horizon for a sail! It's a real pleasure, upon my word it is, to be unable to drown, under such conditions. Yes, but there it is: I am far from my doors, far from my walls. Someone would have to wake the turnkey (there must be one somewhere). Far from my subject too. Let us get back
to it. It's gone! No longer there where I thought I last saw it! [Strange this mixture of solid and liquid. ] Where was I? Ah yes, my subject: no longer there, or no longer the same. Or I mistake the place? No? Yes? It's the same, still there, in the same place. It's a pity. I would have liked to lose it, I would have liked to lose me: lose me the way I could long ago (when I still had some imagination) - close my eyes and be in a wood, or on the seashore. Or in a town where I don't know anyone. It's night, everyone has gone home. I walk the streets, I lash into them one after the other. It's the town of my youth. I'm looking for my mother to kill her. (I should have thought of that a bit earlier, before being born. ) It's raining, I'm all right. I stride along on the crown of the street with great yaws to left and right. Now that's all over: with closed eyes I see the same as with them open, namely Wait: I'll say it, I'll try and say it. I'm curious to know what it can possibly be that I see (with closed eyes, with open eyes). Nothing. I see nothing. Well that is a disappointment! I was hoping for something better than that. Is that what it is to be unable to lose yourself? (I'm asking myself a question). Is that what it is: to see nothing, no matter where I look? Nor, eyeless, the little creature in his different guises: coming and going (now in shadow, now in light, doing his best, seeking the means of staying among the living, of getting off with his life), or shut up looking out of the window at the ever-changing sky. Is that it, to be unable to lose myself? I don't know. What did I see in the old days, when I ventured a quick look? I don't know, I don't remember. There I am in any case equipped with eyes, which I open and shut (two, perhaps blue), knowing it avails nothing. (For I have a head now too, where all manner of things are known. ) Can it be of me I'm speaking? Is it possible? Of course not: that's another thing I know. I'll speak of me when I speak no more. In any case it's not a question of speaking of me, but of speaking, of speaking no more. This slight confusion augurs well. Now I'll have to find a name for this latest surrogate, his head splitting with vile certainties and his doll's eyes. Later on, later on. First I must describe him in greater detail, see what he's capable of, whence he comes and whither he returns (in his head of course - we don't intend to relapse into picaresque, with the stink of Mahood and Worm still in our nostrils). Now it's I the orator. The beleaguerers have departed. I am master on board (after the rats). I no longer crawl between the thwarts, under the moon, in the shadow of the lash. Strange this mixture of solid and liquid! A little air is all we need to complete the elements. (No, I'm forgetting fire. ) Unusual hell when you come to think of it. Perhaps it's paradise. Perhaps it's the earth. Perhaps it's the shores of a lake beneath the earth. You scarcely breathe, but you breathe (it's not certain). You see nothing. (Hear nothing? You hear the long kiss of dead water and mud. ) Aloft at less than a score of
fathoms men come and go. You dream of them: in your long dream there's a place for the waking. You wonder how you know all you know. You even see grass - grass at dawn, glaucous with dew: not so blind as all that my eyes. (They're not mine, mine are done. They don't even weep any more, they open and shut by the force of habit - fifteen minutes exposure, fifteen minutes shutter, like the owl cooped in the grotto in Battersea Park. ) Ah misery! Will I never stop wanting a life for myself? No no, no head either: anything you like, but not a head. In his head he doesn't go anywhere either, I've tried. (Lashed to the stake, blindfold, gagged to the gullet, you take the air - under the elms in se, murmuring Shelley - impervious to the shafts. ) Yes a head - but solid: solid bone. And you imbedded in it, like a fossil in the rock. Perhaps there go I after all. I can't go on in any case. But I must go on. So I'll go on. Air! Air, I'll seek air: air in time, the air of time. And in space, in my head. That's how I'll go on. All very fine - but the voice is failing. It's the first time. No, I've been through that: it has even stopped, many a time. That's how it will end again. I'll go silent, for want of air, then the voice will come back and I'll begin again. (? My voice? ? ? The voice? ? ) I hardly hear it any more. I'm going silent. Hearing this voice no more, that's what I call going silent. That is to say I'll hear it still, if I listen hard. I'll listen hard. (Listening hard, that's what I call going silent. ) I'll hear it still, broken, faint, unintelligible, if I listen hard. (Hearing it still, without hearing what it says, that's what I call going silent. ) Then it will flare up, like a kindling fire, a dying fire (Mahood explained that to me), and I'll emerge from silence. (Hearing too little to be able to speak, that's my silence.
) That is to say I never stop speaking - but sometimes too low, too far away, too far within, to hear. (No, I hear: to understand. Not that I ever understand). It fades. It goes in, behind the door. I'm going silent, there's going to be silence. I'll listen, it's worse than speaking (no: no worse, no better). Unless this time it's the true silence, the one I'll never have to break any more, when I won't have to listen any more, when I can dribble in my corner, my head gone, my tongue dead. The one I have tried to earn, that I thought I could earn. I'm going to stop - that's to say I'm going to look as if I had (it will be like everything else). As if anyone were looking at me! As if it were I! It will be the same silence, the same as ever, murmurous with muted lamentation: panting and exhaling of impossible sorrow, like distant laughter. And brief spells of hush, as of one buried before his time. Long or short, the same silence. Then I resurrect and begin again. That's what I'll have got for my pains. Unless this time it's the real silence at last! Perhaps I've said the thing that had to be said (that gives me the right to be done with speech, done with listening, done with hearing) without my knowing it. I'm listening already, I'm going silent. The next time I won't go to such
pains: I'll tell one of Mahood's old tales (no matter which, they are all alike). They won't tire me. I won't bother any more about me. I'll know that no matter what I say the result is the same: that I'll never be silent, never at peace. Unless I try once more (just once more, one last time), to say what has to be said, about me (I feel it's about me, perhaps that's the mistake I make, perhaps that's my sin), so as to have nothing more to say, nothing more to hear, till I die. It's coming back. I'm glad. I'll try again. Quick before it goes again! Try what? I don't know. To continue? Now there is no one left. (That's a good continuation. ) No one left? It's embarrassing. If I had a memory it might tell me that this is a sign of the end: this having no one left, no one to talk to, no one to talk to you, so that you have to say: "It's I who am doing this to me, I who am talking about me. " Then the breath fails, the end begins, you go silent. It's the end (short-lived). You begin again. You had forgotten: there's someone there, someone talking to you (about you, about him). Then a second, then a third. Then the second again. Then all three together (these figures just to give you an idea), talking to you (about you, about them). All I have to do is listen. Then they depart, one by one, and the voice goes on. It's not theirs: they were never there. There was never anyone but you, talking to you about you. The breath fails, it's nearly the end. The breath stops, it's the end (short-lived). I hear someone calling me, it begins again. (That must be how it goes, if I had a memory. ) Even if there were things, a thing somewhere, a scrap of nature, to talk about, you might be reconciled to having no one left, to being yourself the talker. If only there were a thing somewhere, to talk about (even though you couldn't see it, or know what it was, simply feel it there, with you), you might have the courage not to go silent. No, it's to go silent that you need courage: for you'll be punished, punished for having gone silent. And yet you can't do otherwise than go silent (than be punished for having gone silent, than be punished for having been punished) since you begin again. The breath fails. If only there were a thing! But there it is, there is not: they took away things when they departed, they took away nature. There was never anyone, anyone but me, anything but me, talking to me of me. Impossible to stop, impossible to go on. But I must go on - without anyone, without anything, but me, but my voice. That is to say I'll stop, I'll end. It's the end already (short-lived). What is it? A little hole. You go down into it, into the silence (it's worse than the noise). You listen, it's worse than talking (no, not worse: no worse). You wait, in anguish. Have they forgotten me? No? Yes? No. Someone calls me. I crawl out again. What is it? A little hole, in the wilderness. It's the end that is the worst. No, it's the beginning that is the worst - then the middle, then the end. In the end it's the end that is the worst, this voice that. . . . I don't know. It's every second that
is the worst, it's a chronicle. The seconds pass, one after another - jerkily, no flow. (They don't pass, they arrive, bang bang - they bang into you, bounce off, fall and never move again. ) When you have nothing left to say you talk of time, seconds of time. There are some people add them together to make a life, I can't: each one is the first. (No, the second, or the third. I'm three seconds old! ) Oh not every day of the week. I've been away, done something, been in a hole. I've just crawled out. Perhaps I went silent. No, I say that in order to say something, in order to go on a little more: you must go on a little more, you must go on a long time more, you must go on evermore. If I could remember something by heart I'd be saved: I have to keep on saying the same thing and each time it's an effort. The seconds must be alike and each one is infernal. What am I saying now? I'm saying I wish I knew. And yet I have memories. I remember Worm (that is to say, I have retained the name). And the other (what is his name? what was his name? ) in his jar. I can see him still, better than I can see me. I know how he lived, now I remember. I alone saw him. But no one sees me, nor him: I don't see him any more. (Mahood, he was called Mahood. ) I don't see him any more, I don't know how he lived any more, he isn't there any more, he was never there, in his jar, I never saw him. And yet I remember. I remember having talked about him. (I must have talked about him. The same words recur and they are your memories. ) It is I invented him (him and so many others, and the places where they passed, the places where they stayed), in order to speak (since I had to speak) without speaking of me. I couldn't speak of me, I was never told I had to speak of me. I invented my memories, not knowing what I was doing: not one is of me. It is they asked me to speak of them. They wanted to know what they were, how they lived. That suited me (I thought that would suit me), since I had nothing to say and had to say something. I thought I was free to say any old thing, so long as I didn't go silent. Then I said to myself that after all perhaps it wasn't any old thing, the thing I was saying: that it might well be the thing demanded of me (assuming something was being demanded of me). No, I didn't think anything and I didn't say anything to myself. I did what I could, a thing beyond my strength, and often for exhaustion I gave up doing it. And yet it went on being done, the voice being heard - the voice which could not be mine (since I had none left), and yet which could only be mine (since I could not go silent, and since I was alone, in a place where no voice could reach me). Yes, in my life (since we must call it so) there were three things: the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude. That's what I've had to make the best of. Yes, now I can speak of my life: I'm too tired for niceties. But I don't know if I ever lived, I have really no opinion on the subject. However that may be I think I'll soon go
silent for good, in spite of its being prohibited. Then (yes, phut! just like that, just like one of the living), then I'll be dead, I think I'll soon be dead. I hope I find it a change. I should have liked to go silent first. There were moments I thought that would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly: to enter living into silence. So as to be able to enjoy it? No, I don't know why. So as to feel myself silent? One with all this quiet air shattered unceasingly by my voice alone? (No, it's not real air. ) I can't say it. I can't say why I should have liked to be silent a little before being dead. So as in the end to be a little as I always was and never could be? Without fear of worse to come peacefully in the place where I always was and could never rest in peace? No, I don't know. It's simpler than that. I wanted myself, in my own land for a brief space. I didn't want to die a stranger in the midst of strangers (a stranger in my own midst), surrounded by invaders. No, I don't know what I wanted, I don't know what I thought. I must have wanted so many things, imagined so many things, while I was talking, without knowing exactly what - enough to go blind, with longings and visions, mingling and merging in one another. I'd have been better employed minding what I was saying. But it didn't happen like that, it happened like this, the way it's happening now, that is to say, I don't know: you mustn't believe what I'm saying. I'm doing as I always did, I'm going on as best I can. As to believing I shall go silent for good and all: I don't believe it particularly. I always believed it, as I always believed I would never go silent. You can't call that believing. (It's my walls. ) But has nothing really changed, all this time? If instead of having something to say I had something to do, with my hands or feet - some little job! Sorting things out for example, or simply arranging things. Suppose for the sake of argument I had the job of moving things from one place to another. Then I'd know where I was, and how far I had got. No, not necessarily (I can see it from here). They would contrive things in such a way that I couldn't suspect the two vessels (the one to be emptied and the one to be filled) of being in reality one and the same. It would be water. Water. With my thimble I'd go and draw it from one container, and then I'd go and pour it into another. Or there would be four (or a hundred), half of them to be filled, the other half to be emptied (numbered: the even to be emptied the uneven to be filled). No, it would be even more complicated, less symmetrical. No matter: to be emptied, and filled, in a certain way, a certain order, in accordance with certain homologies (the word is not too strong) - so that I'd have to think. Tanks, communicating (communicating! ), connected by pipes under the floor (I can see it from here). Always showing the same level? No, that wouldn't work, too hopeless: they'd arrange for me to have little attacks of hope from time to time (yes, pipes and taps - I can see it from here), so that I might fool myself
from time to time. If I had that to do, instead of this! Some little job with fluids, filling and emptying (always the same vesssel). I'd be good at that, it would be a better life than this. (No, I mustn't start complaining. ) I'd have a body. I wouldn't have to speak. I'd hear my steps, almost without ceasing, and the noise of the water, and the crying of the air trapped in the pipes. (I don't understand. ) I'd have bouts of zeal. I'd say to myself: "The quicker I do it the quicker it will be done. " (The things one has to listen to! ) That's where hope would come in. It wouldn't be dark? Impossible to do such work in the dark? That depends. Yes, I must say I see no window, from here. Whereas here that has no importance, that I see no window. Here I needn't come and go (fortunately: I couldn't). Nor be dextrous. For naturally the water would have great value and the least drop spilt on the way (or in the act of drawing, or in the act of pouring) would cost me dear. And how could you tell in the dark, if a drop. What's this story? It's a story! Now I've told another little story, about me - about the life that might have been mine for all the difference it would have made. Which was perhaps mine: perhaps I went through that before being deemed worthy of going through this. Who knows towards what high destiny I am heading?
