In this immensity, this
obscurity?
Samuel Beckett
I must have tried.
All the things they've told me, all the things I've tried!
They come in useful still, when I think of them.
That too - you must go on thinking too, the old thoughts.
They call that thinking: it's visions, shreds of old visions, that's all you can see - a few old pictures, a window.
What need had they to show me a window, saying - no, I forget, it doesn't come back to me - a window, saying "There are others, even more beautiful"?
And the rest: walls, sky, man (like Mahood), a little nature.
(Too long to go over, too forgotten, too little forgotten.
) Was it necessary?
But was that how it happened?
Who can have come here?
The devil perhaps: I can think of no one else.
It's he showed me everything - here, in the dark.
And how to speak, and what to say, and a little nature, and a few names.
And the outside of men (those in my image, whom I might resemble), and their way of living - in rooms, in sheds, in caverns, in woods (or coming and going, I forget).
And who went away and left me, knowing I was tempted, knowing I was lost, whether I succumbed or not.
Have I succumbed, or not?
I don't know.
It's not I, that's all I know.
Since that day it's not I any more, since that day there is no one any more.
I must have succumbed.
That's all hypotheses, that helps you forward: I believe in progress, I believe in silence.
Ah yes, a few words on the silence, then the little world: that will be enough, for the rest of eternity.
(You'd think it was I - I speaking, I hearing, I making plans, for the passing hour, for the rest of eternity.
Whereas I'm far, or in my arms somewhere, or stowed away somewhere, behind walls.
) A few words on the silence, then just one thing more.
Just one space and someone within, perhaps, until the end.
I believe it?
.
.
(it's evening already: I call that evening, I wish you could see it)?
.
I believe it this evening, it's announced and I believe it.
You announce, then you renounce.
So it is.
That helps you on, that helps the end to come, evenings when there is an end.
(I speak of evening, someone speaks of
evening. Perhaps it's still morning, perhaps it's still night. Personally I have no opinion. ) They love each other, marry (in order to love each other better, more conveniently). He goes to the wars, he dies at the wars. She weeps (with emotion) at having loved him, at having lost him. (Yep! ) Marries again (in order to love again, more conveniently again). They love each other. (You love as many times as necessary - as necessary in order to be happy. ) He come back (the other comes back) from the wars: he didn't die at the wars after all. She goes to the station, to meet him. He dies in the train (of emotion) at the thought of seeing her again, having her again. She weeps (weeps again, with emotion again) at having lost him again. (Yep! ) Goes back to the house. He's dead - the other is dead. The mother-in-law takes him down: he hanged himself (with emotion) at the thought of losing her. She weeps (weeps louder) at having loved him, at having lost him. There's a story for you! That was to teach me the nature of emotion (that's called emotion): what emotion can do (given favourable conditions), what love can do. (Well well! So that's emotion! That's love! ) And trains, the nature of trains. And the meaning of your back to the engine, and guards, stations, platforms, wars, love, heart-rending cries. (That must be the mother-in-law: her cries rend the heart as she takes down her son. Or her son-in-law? I don't know. It must be her son, since she cries. ) And the door? The house-door is bolted: when she got back from the station she found the house-door bolted. Who bolted it? He the better to hang himself? Or the mother-in-law the better to take him down? Or to prevent her daughter-in-law from re-entering the premises? There's a story for you! (It must be the daughter-in-law: it isn't the son-in-law and the daughter, it's the daughter-in-law and the son. How I reason to be sure this evening! ) It was to teach me how to reason, it was to tempt me to go, to the place where you can come to an end. I must have been a good pupil up to a point (I couldn't get beyond a certain point). I can understand their annoyance, this evening I begin to understand. (Oh there's no danger: it's not I, it wasn't I. ) The door, it's the door interests me (a wooden door). Who bolted the door, and for what purpose? I'll never know. There's a story for you! I thought they were over. Perhaps it's a new one, lepping fresh. Is it the return to the world of fable? No, just a reminder, to make me regret what I have lost, long to be again at the place I was banished from. (Unfortunately it doesn't remind me of anything. ) The silence. Speak of the silence before going into it. Was I there already? I don't know. At every instant I'm there. Listen to me speaking of it, I knew it would come. I emerge from it to speak of it, I stay in it to speak of it. (If it's I who speak - and it's not: I act as if I were, sometimes I act as if I were. ) But at length? Was I ever there at length, a long stay? I understand nothing about duration, I can't speak of it. I never
say "never" and "ever", I speak of the four seasons and the different parts of the day and night. (The night has no parts, that's because you are asleep. ) The seasons must be very similar: perhaps it's springtime now. That's all words they taught me (without making their meaning clear to me). That's how I learnt to reason. I use them all, all the words they showed me. There were columns of them (oh the strange glow all of a sudden! ): they were on lists, with images opposite. I must have forgottten them, I must have mixed them up - these nameless images I have, these imageless names. These windows I should perhaps rather call doors (at least by some other name). And this word "man" which is perhaps not the right one for the thing I see when I hear it? But an instant, an hour, and so on - how can they be represented? A life, how could that be made clear to me, here, in the dark? (I call that the dark, perhaps it's azure. ) Blank words. But I use them, they keep coming back - all those they showed me, all those I remember. I need them all, to be able to go on. (It's a lie: a score would be plenty, tried and trusty, unforgettable, nicely varied - that would be palette enough. I'd mix them, I'd vary them. That would be gamut enough. ) All the things I'd do if I could! If I wished (if I could wish)! No need to wish, that's how it will end: in heart-rending cries, inarticulate murmurs (to be invented, as I go along, improvised, as I groan along). I'll laugh - that's how it will end, in a chuckle. "Chuck chuck, ow, ha, pa. " (I'll practise). "Nyum, hoo, plop, psss. " (Nothing but emotion). "Bing bang! " (That's blows. ) "Ugh, pooh! " What else? "Oooh, aaah! " (That's love. ) Enough, it's tiring. "Hee hee! " (That's the Abderite - no, the other). In the end (it's the end, the ending end) it's the silence, a few gurgles on the silence, the real silence. Not the one (where I macerate up to the mouth, up to the ear) that covers me, uncovers me, breathes with me, like a cat with a mouse: that of the drowned. I've drowned, more than once (it wasn't I), suffocated, set fire to me, thumped on my head with wood and iron. It wasn't I. There was no head, no wood, no iron. I didn't do anything to me, I didn't do anything to anyone, no one did anything to me: there is no one (I've looked), no one but me. No, not me either (I've looked everywhere). There must be someone? The voice must belong to someone? I've no objection. What it wants I want. I am it. (I've said so, it says so: from time to time it says so, then it says not - I've no objection. ) I want it to go silent, it wants to go silent, it can't. It does for a second, then it starts again: that's not the real silence. What can be said of the real silence? I don't know. That I don't know what it is? That there is no such thing? That perhaps there is such a thing? Yes, that perhaps there is somewhere. I'll never know. But when it falters? And when it stops? But it falters every instant, it stops every instant! Yes, but when it stops for a good few moments, a good few moments (what are a good few moments? ) -
what then? Murmurs, then it must be murmurs. And listening, someone listening. No need of an ear, no need of a mouth: the voice listens, as when it speaks, listens to its silence - that makes a murmur, that makes a voice (a small voice - the same voice only small). It sticks in the throat (there's the throat again, there's the mouth again), it fills the ear (there's the ear again). Then I vomit, someone vomits, someone starts vomiting again. That must be how it happens. I have no explanations to offer, none to demand. The comma will come where I'll drown for good, then the silence. I believe it this evening. Still this evening! How it drags on! (I've no objection. ) Perhaps it's springtime: violets (no, that's autumn). There's a time for everything: for the things that pass, the things that end (they could never get me to understand that), the things that stir, depart, return, a light changing (they could never get me to see that). And death into the bargain: a voice dying. (That's a good one! ) Silence at last. Not a murmur, no air, no one listening (not for the likes of me). Amen. On we go. Enormous prison, like a hundred thousand cathedrals. Never anything else any more, from this time forth. And in it, somewhere, perhaps - riveted, tiny - the prisoner. How can he be found? (How false this space is! What falseness instantly, to want to draw that round you, to want to put a being there! A cell would be plenty. ) If I gave up! If only I could give up! Before beginning, before beginning again! (What breathlessness! That's right, ejaculations! That helps you on, that puts off the fatal hour. No? The reverse? I don't know. ) Start again?
In this immensity, this obscurity? Go through the motions of starting again. ? You who can't stir, you who never started? You the who? Go through the motions? What motions? You can't stir. You launch your voice, it dies away in the vault. (It calls that a vault - perhaps it's the abyss: those are words). It speaks of a prison (I've no objection) vast enough for a whole people, for me alone (or waiting for me). I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now. I can't stir. I'm there already! I must be there already! Perhaps I'm not alone: perhaps a whole people is here, and the voice its voice, coming to me fitfully. We would have lived, been free a moment. Now we talk about it, each one to himself (each one out loud for himself). And we listen. A whole people, talking and listening, all together! That would ex No, I'm alone (perhaps the first, or perhaps the last): talking alone, listening alone, alone alone. The others are gone, they have been stilled (their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-coming). Another will come? I won't be the last? I'll be with the others (I'll be as gone) in the silence? (It won't be I, it's not I. ) I'm not there yet. I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now. No use trying. I wait for my turn: my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone. (It's unending, it will be unending. ) Gone where? Where do you go
from there? You must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again, and so on (a whole people, or I alone). And come back? And begin again? No: go on, go on again. It's a circuit, a long circuit. I know it well. (I must know it well. ) It's a lie. I can't stir. I haven't stirred. (I launch the voice? I hear a voice. ) There is nowhere but here. There are not two places, there are not two prisons. It's my parlour (it's a parlour! ), where I wait for nothing. I don't know where it is, I don't know what it's like, that's no business of mine. I don't know if it's big, or if it's small, or if it's closed, if it's open. (That's right, reiterate: that helps you on. ) Open on what? There is nothing else, only it. Open on the void, open on the nothing. (I've no objection: those are words. ) Open on the silence, looking out on the silence, straight out - why not? All this time on the brink of silence, I knew it! On a rock, lashed to a rock, in the midst of silence. Its great swell rears towards me, I'm streaming with it. (It's an image: those are words. ) It's a body, it's not I - I knew it wouldn't be I. I'm not outside, I'm inside, I'm in something, I'm shut up: the silence is outside. Nothing but this voice and the silence all round. No need of walls? Yes, we must have walls: I need walls, good and thick. I need a prison (I was right), for me alone. I'll go there now, I'll put me in it. I'm there already: I'll start looking for me now, I'm there somewhere. It won't be I - no matter, I'll say it's I. Perhaps it will be I. Perhaps that's all they're waiting for (there they are again) to give me quittance. Waiting for me to say I'm someone, to say I'm somewhere, to put me out, into the silence. I see nothing. It's because there is nothing. Or it's because I have no eyes. Or both. (That makes three possibilities, to choose from. ) But do I really see nothing? It's not the moment to tell a lie. But how can you not tell a lie? What an idea! A voice like this, who can check it? It tries everything. It's blind, it seeks me blindly, in the dark. It seeks a mouth, to enter into. Who can query it? There is no other. (You'd need a head? you'd need things? I don't know. I look too often as if I knew. It's the voice does that: it goes all knowing, to make me think I know, to make me think it's mine. ) It has no interest in eyes. It says I have none, or that they are no use to me. Then it speaks of tears. Then it speaks of gleams. It is truly at a loss. Gleams? Yes: far or near. (Distances: you know, measurements. Enough said? ) Gleams, as at dawn. Then dying, as at evening. Or flaring up - they do that too: blaze up more dazzling than snow, for a second (that's short! ), then fizzle out. That's true enough? If you like: one forgets, I forget. I say I see nothing, or I say it's all in my head (as if I felt a head on me! ). That's all hypotheses, lies. These gleams too: they were to save me, they were to devour me. That came to nothing. I see nothing (either because of this or else on account of that). And these images at which they watered me, like a camel, before the desert? I don't know. More lies, just for the fun of
it? (Fun! What fun we've had! What fun of it! ) All lies? (That's soon said - you must say soon, it's the regulations. ) The place. I'll make it all the same. I'll make it in my head, I'll draw it out of my memory, I'll gather it all about me. (I'll make myself a head, I'll make myself a memory. ) I have only to listen: the voice will tell me everything (tell it to me again), everything I need - in dribs and drabs, breathless. It's like a confession, a last confession. You think it's finished, then it starts off again: there were so many sins, the memory is so bad. The words don't come, the words fail, the breath fails. No, it's something else. It's an indictment, a dying voice accusing. (Accusing me: you must accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable. ) It speaks of my sins, it speaks of my head. It says it's mine, it says that I repent, that I want to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up (a victim is essential). I have only to listen. It will show me my hiding-place: what it's like, where the door is (if there's a door), and whereabouts I am in it. And what lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country (whether it's sea, or whether it's mountain). And the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself up, come to the place where the axe falls (without further ceremony) on all who come from here. (I'm not the first, I won't be the first. ) It will best me in the end (it has bested better than me). It will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair. (That's how I reason, that's how I hear myself reasoning. ) All lies: it's not me they're calling, not me they're talking about. It's not yet my turn, it's someone else's turn. That's why I can't stir, that's why I don't feel a body on me. I'm not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body (complete with head, to be able to understand), to have eyes to light the way. I merely hear, without understanding, without being able to profit by it (by what I hear). To do what? To rise and go and be done with hearing. I don't hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me: it's not my turn. (The topographical and anatomical information in particular is lost on me. ) No, I hear everything (what difference does it make? ), the moment it's not my turn: my turn to understand, my turn to live, my turn of the life-screw (it calls that living! ), the space of the way from here to the door. It's all there, in what I hear, somewhere - if all has been said, all this long time. All must have been said. But it's not my turn to know what: to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop being it, to stop being there (that's coherent), so as to be another (no? the same? I don't know), depart into life, travel the road, find the door, find the axe (perhaps it's a cord) for the neck, for the throat, for the cords. (Or fingers: I'll have eyes, I'll see fingers. ) It will be the silence. (Perhaps it's a drop: find the door, open the door, drop. Into the silence. ) It won't be I. I'll stay here - or there (more likely there). It will never be I, that's all I know. It's been done
already, said and said again: the departure, the body that rises, the way (in colour), the arrival, the door that opens, closes again. It was never I. I've never stirred, I've listened. I must have spoken? Why deny it? Why not admit it, after all? (I deny nothing, I admit nothing. ) I say what I hear? I hear what I say? I don't know. One or the other. Or both. (That makes three possibilities: pick your fancy. ) All these stories about travellers, these stories about paralytics: all are mine. I must be extremely old (or it's memory playing tricks). If only I knew if I've lived, if I live, if I'll live - that would simplify everything! Impossible to find out, that's where you're buggered. I haven't stirred, that's all I know. (No, I know something else: it's not I - I always forget that. ) I resume (you must resume): never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories, to myself (hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else), wondering now and then where I got them from. Was I in the land of the living? Were they in mine? And where? Where do I store them? (In my head? I don't feel a head on me. ) And what do I tell them with? With my mouth? (Same remark. ) And what do I hear them with? And so on, the old rigmarole. It can't be I. Or it's because I pay no heed: it's such an old habit, I do it without heeding. Or as if I were somewhere else.
evening. Perhaps it's still morning, perhaps it's still night. Personally I have no opinion. ) They love each other, marry (in order to love each other better, more conveniently). He goes to the wars, he dies at the wars. She weeps (with emotion) at having loved him, at having lost him. (Yep! ) Marries again (in order to love again, more conveniently again). They love each other. (You love as many times as necessary - as necessary in order to be happy. ) He come back (the other comes back) from the wars: he didn't die at the wars after all. She goes to the station, to meet him. He dies in the train (of emotion) at the thought of seeing her again, having her again. She weeps (weeps again, with emotion again) at having lost him again. (Yep! ) Goes back to the house. He's dead - the other is dead. The mother-in-law takes him down: he hanged himself (with emotion) at the thought of losing her. She weeps (weeps louder) at having loved him, at having lost him. There's a story for you! That was to teach me the nature of emotion (that's called emotion): what emotion can do (given favourable conditions), what love can do. (Well well! So that's emotion! That's love! ) And trains, the nature of trains. And the meaning of your back to the engine, and guards, stations, platforms, wars, love, heart-rending cries. (That must be the mother-in-law: her cries rend the heart as she takes down her son. Or her son-in-law? I don't know. It must be her son, since she cries. ) And the door? The house-door is bolted: when she got back from the station she found the house-door bolted. Who bolted it? He the better to hang himself? Or the mother-in-law the better to take him down? Or to prevent her daughter-in-law from re-entering the premises? There's a story for you! (It must be the daughter-in-law: it isn't the son-in-law and the daughter, it's the daughter-in-law and the son. How I reason to be sure this evening! ) It was to teach me how to reason, it was to tempt me to go, to the place where you can come to an end. I must have been a good pupil up to a point (I couldn't get beyond a certain point). I can understand their annoyance, this evening I begin to understand. (Oh there's no danger: it's not I, it wasn't I. ) The door, it's the door interests me (a wooden door). Who bolted the door, and for what purpose? I'll never know. There's a story for you! I thought they were over. Perhaps it's a new one, lepping fresh. Is it the return to the world of fable? No, just a reminder, to make me regret what I have lost, long to be again at the place I was banished from. (Unfortunately it doesn't remind me of anything. ) The silence. Speak of the silence before going into it. Was I there already? I don't know. At every instant I'm there. Listen to me speaking of it, I knew it would come. I emerge from it to speak of it, I stay in it to speak of it. (If it's I who speak - and it's not: I act as if I were, sometimes I act as if I were. ) But at length? Was I ever there at length, a long stay? I understand nothing about duration, I can't speak of it. I never
say "never" and "ever", I speak of the four seasons and the different parts of the day and night. (The night has no parts, that's because you are asleep. ) The seasons must be very similar: perhaps it's springtime now. That's all words they taught me (without making their meaning clear to me). That's how I learnt to reason. I use them all, all the words they showed me. There were columns of them (oh the strange glow all of a sudden! ): they were on lists, with images opposite. I must have forgottten them, I must have mixed them up - these nameless images I have, these imageless names. These windows I should perhaps rather call doors (at least by some other name). And this word "man" which is perhaps not the right one for the thing I see when I hear it? But an instant, an hour, and so on - how can they be represented? A life, how could that be made clear to me, here, in the dark? (I call that the dark, perhaps it's azure. ) Blank words. But I use them, they keep coming back - all those they showed me, all those I remember. I need them all, to be able to go on. (It's a lie: a score would be plenty, tried and trusty, unforgettable, nicely varied - that would be palette enough. I'd mix them, I'd vary them. That would be gamut enough. ) All the things I'd do if I could! If I wished (if I could wish)! No need to wish, that's how it will end: in heart-rending cries, inarticulate murmurs (to be invented, as I go along, improvised, as I groan along). I'll laugh - that's how it will end, in a chuckle. "Chuck chuck, ow, ha, pa. " (I'll practise). "Nyum, hoo, plop, psss. " (Nothing but emotion). "Bing bang! " (That's blows. ) "Ugh, pooh! " What else? "Oooh, aaah! " (That's love. ) Enough, it's tiring. "Hee hee! " (That's the Abderite - no, the other). In the end (it's the end, the ending end) it's the silence, a few gurgles on the silence, the real silence. Not the one (where I macerate up to the mouth, up to the ear) that covers me, uncovers me, breathes with me, like a cat with a mouse: that of the drowned. I've drowned, more than once (it wasn't I), suffocated, set fire to me, thumped on my head with wood and iron. It wasn't I. There was no head, no wood, no iron. I didn't do anything to me, I didn't do anything to anyone, no one did anything to me: there is no one (I've looked), no one but me. No, not me either (I've looked everywhere). There must be someone? The voice must belong to someone? I've no objection. What it wants I want. I am it. (I've said so, it says so: from time to time it says so, then it says not - I've no objection. ) I want it to go silent, it wants to go silent, it can't. It does for a second, then it starts again: that's not the real silence. What can be said of the real silence? I don't know. That I don't know what it is? That there is no such thing? That perhaps there is such a thing? Yes, that perhaps there is somewhere. I'll never know. But when it falters? And when it stops? But it falters every instant, it stops every instant! Yes, but when it stops for a good few moments, a good few moments (what are a good few moments? ) -
what then? Murmurs, then it must be murmurs. And listening, someone listening. No need of an ear, no need of a mouth: the voice listens, as when it speaks, listens to its silence - that makes a murmur, that makes a voice (a small voice - the same voice only small). It sticks in the throat (there's the throat again, there's the mouth again), it fills the ear (there's the ear again). Then I vomit, someone vomits, someone starts vomiting again. That must be how it happens. I have no explanations to offer, none to demand. The comma will come where I'll drown for good, then the silence. I believe it this evening. Still this evening! How it drags on! (I've no objection. ) Perhaps it's springtime: violets (no, that's autumn). There's a time for everything: for the things that pass, the things that end (they could never get me to understand that), the things that stir, depart, return, a light changing (they could never get me to see that). And death into the bargain: a voice dying. (That's a good one! ) Silence at last. Not a murmur, no air, no one listening (not for the likes of me). Amen. On we go. Enormous prison, like a hundred thousand cathedrals. Never anything else any more, from this time forth. And in it, somewhere, perhaps - riveted, tiny - the prisoner. How can he be found? (How false this space is! What falseness instantly, to want to draw that round you, to want to put a being there! A cell would be plenty. ) If I gave up! If only I could give up! Before beginning, before beginning again! (What breathlessness! That's right, ejaculations! That helps you on, that puts off the fatal hour. No? The reverse? I don't know. ) Start again?
In this immensity, this obscurity? Go through the motions of starting again. ? You who can't stir, you who never started? You the who? Go through the motions? What motions? You can't stir. You launch your voice, it dies away in the vault. (It calls that a vault - perhaps it's the abyss: those are words). It speaks of a prison (I've no objection) vast enough for a whole people, for me alone (or waiting for me). I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now. I can't stir. I'm there already! I must be there already! Perhaps I'm not alone: perhaps a whole people is here, and the voice its voice, coming to me fitfully. We would have lived, been free a moment. Now we talk about it, each one to himself (each one out loud for himself). And we listen. A whole people, talking and listening, all together! That would ex No, I'm alone (perhaps the first, or perhaps the last): talking alone, listening alone, alone alone. The others are gone, they have been stilled (their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-coming). Another will come? I won't be the last? I'll be with the others (I'll be as gone) in the silence? (It won't be I, it's not I. ) I'm not there yet. I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now. No use trying. I wait for my turn: my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone. (It's unending, it will be unending. ) Gone where? Where do you go
from there? You must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again, and so on (a whole people, or I alone). And come back? And begin again? No: go on, go on again. It's a circuit, a long circuit. I know it well. (I must know it well. ) It's a lie. I can't stir. I haven't stirred. (I launch the voice? I hear a voice. ) There is nowhere but here. There are not two places, there are not two prisons. It's my parlour (it's a parlour! ), where I wait for nothing. I don't know where it is, I don't know what it's like, that's no business of mine. I don't know if it's big, or if it's small, or if it's closed, if it's open. (That's right, reiterate: that helps you on. ) Open on what? There is nothing else, only it. Open on the void, open on the nothing. (I've no objection: those are words. ) Open on the silence, looking out on the silence, straight out - why not? All this time on the brink of silence, I knew it! On a rock, lashed to a rock, in the midst of silence. Its great swell rears towards me, I'm streaming with it. (It's an image: those are words. ) It's a body, it's not I - I knew it wouldn't be I. I'm not outside, I'm inside, I'm in something, I'm shut up: the silence is outside. Nothing but this voice and the silence all round. No need of walls? Yes, we must have walls: I need walls, good and thick. I need a prison (I was right), for me alone. I'll go there now, I'll put me in it. I'm there already: I'll start looking for me now, I'm there somewhere. It won't be I - no matter, I'll say it's I. Perhaps it will be I. Perhaps that's all they're waiting for (there they are again) to give me quittance. Waiting for me to say I'm someone, to say I'm somewhere, to put me out, into the silence. I see nothing. It's because there is nothing. Or it's because I have no eyes. Or both. (That makes three possibilities, to choose from. ) But do I really see nothing? It's not the moment to tell a lie. But how can you not tell a lie? What an idea! A voice like this, who can check it? It tries everything. It's blind, it seeks me blindly, in the dark. It seeks a mouth, to enter into. Who can query it? There is no other. (You'd need a head? you'd need things? I don't know. I look too often as if I knew. It's the voice does that: it goes all knowing, to make me think I know, to make me think it's mine. ) It has no interest in eyes. It says I have none, or that they are no use to me. Then it speaks of tears. Then it speaks of gleams. It is truly at a loss. Gleams? Yes: far or near. (Distances: you know, measurements. Enough said? ) Gleams, as at dawn. Then dying, as at evening. Or flaring up - they do that too: blaze up more dazzling than snow, for a second (that's short! ), then fizzle out. That's true enough? If you like: one forgets, I forget. I say I see nothing, or I say it's all in my head (as if I felt a head on me! ). That's all hypotheses, lies. These gleams too: they were to save me, they were to devour me. That came to nothing. I see nothing (either because of this or else on account of that). And these images at which they watered me, like a camel, before the desert? I don't know. More lies, just for the fun of
it? (Fun! What fun we've had! What fun of it! ) All lies? (That's soon said - you must say soon, it's the regulations. ) The place. I'll make it all the same. I'll make it in my head, I'll draw it out of my memory, I'll gather it all about me. (I'll make myself a head, I'll make myself a memory. ) I have only to listen: the voice will tell me everything (tell it to me again), everything I need - in dribs and drabs, breathless. It's like a confession, a last confession. You think it's finished, then it starts off again: there were so many sins, the memory is so bad. The words don't come, the words fail, the breath fails. No, it's something else. It's an indictment, a dying voice accusing. (Accusing me: you must accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable. ) It speaks of my sins, it speaks of my head. It says it's mine, it says that I repent, that I want to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up (a victim is essential). I have only to listen. It will show me my hiding-place: what it's like, where the door is (if there's a door), and whereabouts I am in it. And what lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country (whether it's sea, or whether it's mountain). And the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself up, come to the place where the axe falls (without further ceremony) on all who come from here. (I'm not the first, I won't be the first. ) It will best me in the end (it has bested better than me). It will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair. (That's how I reason, that's how I hear myself reasoning. ) All lies: it's not me they're calling, not me they're talking about. It's not yet my turn, it's someone else's turn. That's why I can't stir, that's why I don't feel a body on me. I'm not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body (complete with head, to be able to understand), to have eyes to light the way. I merely hear, without understanding, without being able to profit by it (by what I hear). To do what? To rise and go and be done with hearing. I don't hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me: it's not my turn. (The topographical and anatomical information in particular is lost on me. ) No, I hear everything (what difference does it make? ), the moment it's not my turn: my turn to understand, my turn to live, my turn of the life-screw (it calls that living! ), the space of the way from here to the door. It's all there, in what I hear, somewhere - if all has been said, all this long time. All must have been said. But it's not my turn to know what: to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop being it, to stop being there (that's coherent), so as to be another (no? the same? I don't know), depart into life, travel the road, find the door, find the axe (perhaps it's a cord) for the neck, for the throat, for the cords. (Or fingers: I'll have eyes, I'll see fingers. ) It will be the silence. (Perhaps it's a drop: find the door, open the door, drop. Into the silence. ) It won't be I. I'll stay here - or there (more likely there). It will never be I, that's all I know. It's been done
already, said and said again: the departure, the body that rises, the way (in colour), the arrival, the door that opens, closes again. It was never I. I've never stirred, I've listened. I must have spoken? Why deny it? Why not admit it, after all? (I deny nothing, I admit nothing. ) I say what I hear? I hear what I say? I don't know. One or the other. Or both. (That makes three possibilities: pick your fancy. ) All these stories about travellers, these stories about paralytics: all are mine. I must be extremely old (or it's memory playing tricks). If only I knew if I've lived, if I live, if I'll live - that would simplify everything! Impossible to find out, that's where you're buggered. I haven't stirred, that's all I know. (No, I know something else: it's not I - I always forget that. ) I resume (you must resume): never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories, to myself (hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else), wondering now and then where I got them from. Was I in the land of the living? Were they in mine? And where? Where do I store them? (In my head? I don't feel a head on me. ) And what do I tell them with? With my mouth? (Same remark. ) And what do I hear them with? And so on, the old rigmarole. It can't be I. Or it's because I pay no heed: it's such an old habit, I do it without heeding. Or as if I were somewhere else.
