Texts for Nothing and Other Shorter Prose 1950-1976

by Samuel Beckett

  IX

  If I said, There’s a way out there, there’s a way out somewhere, the rest would come. What am I waiting for then, to say it? To believe it? And what does that mean, the rest? Shall I answer, try to answer, or go on as though I had asked nothing? I don’t know, I can’t know beforehand, nor after, nor during, the future will tell, some future instant, soon, or late, I won’t hear, I won’t understand, all dies so fast, no sooner born. And the yeses and noes mean nothing in this mouth, no more than sighs it sighs in its toil, or answers to a question not understood, a question unspoken, in the eyes of a mute, an idiot, who doesn’t understand, never understood, who stares at himself in a glass, stares before him in the desert, sighing yes, sighing no, on and off. But there is reasoning somewhere, moments of reasoning, that is to say the same things recur, they drive one another out, they draw one another back, no need to know what things. It’s mechanical, like the great colds, the great heats, the long days, the long nights, of the moon, such is my conviction, for I have convictions, when their turn comes round, then stop having them, that’s how it goes, it must be supposed, at least it must be said, since I have just said it. The way out, this evening it’s the turn of the way out, isn’t it like a duo, or a trio, yes, there are moments when it’s like that, then they pass and it’s not like that any more, never was like that, is like nothing, no resemblance with anything, of no interest. What variety and at the same time what monotony, how varied it is and at the same time how, what’s the word, how monotonous. What agitation and at the same time what calm, what vicissitudes within what changelessness. Moments of hesitation not so much rare as frequent, if one had to choose, and soon overcome in favour of the old crux, on which at first all depends, then much, then little, then nothing. That’s right, wordshit, bury me, avalanche, and let there be no more talk of any creature, nor of a world to leave, nor of a world to reach, in order to have done, with worlds, with creatures, with words, with misery, misery. Which no sooner said, Ah, says I, punctually, if only I could say, There’s a way out of there, there’s a way out of somewhere, then all would be said, it would be the first step on the long travellable road, destination tomb, to be trod without a word, tramp tramp, little heavy irrevocable steps, down the long tunnels at first, then under the mortal skies, through the days and nights, faster and faster, no, slower and slower, for obvious reasons, and at the same time faster and faster, for other obvious reasons, or the same, obvious in a different way, or in the same way, but at a different moment of time, a moment earlier, a moment later, or at the same moment, there is no such thing, there would be no such thing, I recapitulate, impossible. Would I know where I came from, no, I’d have a mother, I’d have had a mother, and what I came out of, with what pain, no, I’d have forgotten, what is it makes me say that, what is it makes me say this, whatever it is makes me say all, and it’s not certain, not certain the way the mother would be certain, the way the tomb would be certain, if there was a way out, if I said there was a way out, make me say it, demons, no, I’ll ask for nothing. Yes, I’d have a mother, I’d have a tomb, I wouldn’t have come out of here, one doesn’t come out of here, here are my tomb and mother, it’s all here this evening, I’m dead and getting born, without having ended, helpless to begin, that’s my life. How reasonable it is and what am I complaining of? Is it because I’m no longer slinking to and fro before the graveyard, saying, God grant I’m buriable before the curtain drops, is that my grievance, it’s possible. I was well inspired to be anxious, wondering on what score, and I asked myself, as I came and went, on what score I could possibly be anxious, and found the answer and answered, saying, It’s not me, I haven’t yet appeared, I haven’t yet been noticed, and saying further, Oh yes it is, it’s me all right, and ceasing to be what is more, then quickening my step, so as to arrive before the next onslaught, as though it were on time I trod, and saying further, and so forth. I can scarcely have gone unperceived, all this time, and yet you wouldn’t have thought so, that I didn’t go unperceived. I don’t refer to the spoken salutation, I’d have been the first to be perturbed by that, almost as much as by the bow, kiss or handshake. But the other signs, irrepressible, with which the fellow-creature unwillingly betrays your presence, the shudders and wry faces, nothing of that nature either it would seem, except possibly on the part of certain hearse-horses, in spite of their blinkers and strict funereal training, but perhaps I flatter myself. Truly I can’t recall a single face, proof positive that I was not there, no, proof of nothing. But the fact that I was not molested, can I have remained insensible to that? Alas I fear they could have subjected me to the most gratifying brutalities, I won’t go so far as to say without my knowledge, but without being encouraged, as a result, to feel myself there rather than elsewhere. And I may well have spent one half of my life in the prisons of their Arcady, purging the delinquencies of the other half, all unaware of any break or lull in my problematic patrolling, unconstrained, before the gates of the graveyard. But what if weary of seeing me relieve myself, of seeing me resume, after each forced vacation, my beat before the gates of the graveyard, what if finally they had plucked up heart and slightly stressed their blows, just enough to confer death, without any mutilation of the corpse, there, at the gates of the graveyard, where that very morning I had reappeared, no sooner set at large, and resumed my old offence, to and fro, with step now slow and now precipitate, like that of the conspirator Catilina plotting the ruin of the fatherland, saying, It’s not me, yes, it’s me, and further, There’s a way out of there, no no, I’m getting mixed, I must be getting mixed, confusing here and there, now and then, just as I confused them then, the here of then, the then of there, with other spaces, other times, dimly discerned, but not more dimly than now, now that I’m here, if I’m here, and no longer there, coming and going before the graveyard, perplexed. Or did I end up by simply sitting down, with my back to the wall, all the long night before me when the dead lie waiting, on the beds where they died, shrouded or coffined, for the sun to rise? What am I doing now, I’m trying to see where I am, so as to be able to go elsewhere, should occasion arise, or else simply to say, You have merely to wait till they come and fetch you, that’s my impression at times. Then it goes and I see it’s not that, but something else, difficult to grasp, and which I don’t grasp, or which I do grasp, it depends, and it comes to the same, for it’s not that either, but something else, some other thing, or the first back again, or still the same, always the same thing proposing itself to my perplexity, then disappearing, then proposing itself again, to my perplexity still unsated, or momentarily dead, of starvation. The graveyard, yes, it’s there I’d return, this evening it’s there, borne by my words, if I could get out of here, that is to say if I could say, There’s a way out there, there’s a way out somewhere, to know exactly where would be a mere matter of time, and patience, and sequency of thought, and felicity of expression. But the body, to get there with, where’s the body? It’s a minor point, a minor point. And I have no doubts, I’d get there somehow, to the way out, sooner or later, if I could say, There’s a way out there, there’s a way out somewhere, the rest would come, the other words, sooner or later, and the power to get there, and the way to get there, and pass out, and see the beauties of the skies, and see the stars again.

  X

  Give up, but it’s all given up, it’s nothing new, I’m nothing new. Ah so there was something once, I had something once. It may be thought there was, so long as it’s known there was not, never anything, but giving up. But let us suppose there was not, that is to say let us suppose there was, something once, in a head, in a heart, in a hand, before all opened, emptied, shut again and froze. This is most reassuring, after such a fright, and emboldens me to go on, once again. But there is not silence. No, there is utterance, somewhere someone is uttering. Inanities, agreed, but is that enough, is that enough, to make sense? I see what it is, the head has fallen behind, all the rest has gone on, the head and its anus the mouth, or else it has gone on alone, all al
one on its old prowls, slobbering its shit and lapping it back off the lips like in the days when it fancied itself. But the heart’s not in it any more, nor is the appetite what it was. So home to roost it comes among my other assets, home yet again, and no trickery involved, that old past ever new, ever ended, ever ending, with all its hidden treasures of promise for tomorrow, and of consolation for today. And I’m in good hands again, they hold my head from behind, intriguing detail, as at the hairdresser’s, the forefingers close my eyes, the middle fingers my nostrils, the thumbs stop up my ears, but imperfectly, to enable me to hear, but imperfectly, while the four remaining make merry with my jaws and tongue, to enable me to suffocate, but imperfectly, and to utter, for my good, what I must utter, for my future good, well-known ditty, and in particular to observe without delay, speaking of the passing moment, that worse have been known to pass, that it will pass in time, a mere moment of respite which but for this first aid might have proved fatal, and that one day I shall know again that I once was, and roughly who, and how to go on, and speak unaided, nicely, about number one and his pale imitations. And it is possible, just, for I must not be too affirmative at this stage, it would not be in my interest, that other fingers, quite a different gang, other tentacles, that’s more like it, other charitable suckers, waste no more time trying to get it right, will take down my declarations, so that at the close of the interminable delirium, should it ever resume, I may not be reproached with having faltered. This is awful, awful, at least there’s that to be thankful for. And perhaps beside me, and all around, other souls are being licked into shape, souls swooned away, or sick with over-use, or because no use could be found for them, but still fit for use, or fit only to be cast away, pale imitations of mine. Or has it knelled here at last for our committal to flesh, as the dead are committed to the ground, in the hour of their death at last, and at the place where they die, to keep the expenses down, or for our reassignment, souls of the stillborn, or dead before the body, or still young in the midst of the ruins, or never come to life through incapacity or for some other reason, or the immortal type, there must be a few of them too, whose bodies were always wrong, but patience there’s a true one in pickle, among the unborn hordes, the true sepulchral body, for the living have no room for a second. No, no souls, or bodies, or birth, or life, or death, you’ve got to go on without any of that junk, that’s all dead with words, with excess of words, they can say nothing else, they say there is nothing else, that here it’s that and nothing else, but they won’t say it eternally, they’ll find some other nonsense, no matter what, and I’ll be able to go on, no, I’ll be able to stop, or start, another guzzle of lies but piping hot, it will last my time, it will be my time and place, my voice and silence, a voice of silence, the voice of my silence. It’s with such prospects they exhort you to have patience, whereas you are patient, and calm, somehow somewhere calm, what calm here, ah that’s an idea, say how calm it is here, and how fine I feel, and how silent I am, I’ll start right away, I’ll say what calm and silence, which nothing has ever broken, nothing will ever break, which saying I don’t break, or saying I’ll be saying, yes, I’ll say all that tomorrow, yes, tomorrow evening, some other evening, not this evening, this evening it’s too late, too late to get things right, I’ll go to sleep, so that I may say, hear myself say, a little later, I’ve slept, he’s slept, but he won’t have slept, or else he’s sleeping now, he’ll have done nothing, nothing but go on, doing what, doing what he does, that is to say, I don’t know, giving up, that’s it, I’ll have gone on giving up, having had nothing, not being there.

  XI

  When I think, no, that won’t work, when come those who knew me, perhaps even know me still, by sight of course, or by smell, it’s as though, it’s as if, come on, I don’t know, I shouldn’t have begun. If I began again, setting my mind to it, that sometimes gives good results, it’s worth trying, I’ll try it, one of these days, one of these evenings, or this evening, why not this evening, before I disappear, from up there, from down here, scattered by the everlasting words. What am I saying, scattered, isn’t that just what I’m not, just what I’m not, I was wandering, my mind was wandering, just the very thing I’m not. And it’s still the same old road I’m trudging, up yes and down no, towards one yet to be named, so that he may leave me in peace, be in peace, be no more, have never been. Name, no, nothing is namable, tell, no, nothing can be told, what then, I don’t know, I shouldn’t have begun. Add him to the repertory, there we have it, and execute him, as I execute me, one dead bar after another, evening after evening, and night after night, and all through the days, but it’s always evening, why is that, why is it always evening, I’ll say why, so as to have said it, have it behind me, an instant. It’s time that can’t go on at the hour of the serenade, unless it’s dawn, no, I’m not in the open, I’m under the ground, or in my body somewhere, or in another body, and time devours on, but not me, there we have it, that’s why it’s always evening, to let me have the best to look forward to, the long black night to sleep in, there, I’ve answered, I’ve answered something. Or it’s in the head, like a minute time switch, a second time switch, or it’s like a patch of sea, under the passing lighthouse beam, a passing patch of sea under the passing beam. Vile words to make me believe I’m here, and that I have a head, and a voice, a head believing this, then that, then nothing more, neither in itself, nor in anything else, but a head with a voice belonging to it, or to others, other heads, as if there were two heads, as if there were one head, or headless, a headless voice, but a voice. But I’m not deceived, for the moment I’m not deceived, for the moment I’m not there, nor anywhere else what is more, neither as head, nor as voice, nor as testicle, or as cunt, those areas, a female pubic hair, it sees great sights, peeping down, well, there it is, can’t be helped, that’s how it is. And I let them say their say, my words not said by me, me that word, that word they say, but say in vain. We’re getting on, getting on, and when come those who knew me, quick quick, it’s as though, no, premature. But peekaboo here I come again, just when most needed, like the square root of minus one, having terminated my humanities, this should be worth seeing, the livid face stained with ink and jam, caput mortuum of a studious youth, ears akimbo, eyes back to front, the odd stray hair, foaming at the mouth, and chewing, what is it chewing, a gob, a prayer, a lesson, a little of each, a prayer got by rote in case of emergency before the soul resigns and bubbling up all arsy-versy in the old mouth bereft of words, in the old head done with listening, there I am old, it doesn’t take long, a snotty old nipper, having terminated his humanities, in the two-stander urinal on the corner of the Rue d’Assas was it, with the leak making the same gurgle as sixty years ago, my favourite because of the encouragement like mother hissing to baby on pot, my brow glued to the partition among the graffiti, straining against the prostate, belching up Hail Marys, buttoned as to the fly, I invent nothing, through absent-mindedness, or exhaustion, or insouciance, or on purpose, to promote priming, I know what I mean, or one-armed, better still, no arms, no hands, better by far, as old as the world and no less hideous, amputated on all sides, erect on my trusty stumps, bursting with old piss, old prayers, old lessons, soul, mind and carcass finishing neck and neck, not to mention the gobchucks, too painful to mention, sobs made mucus, hawked up from the heart, now I have a heart, now I’m complete, apart from a few extremities, having terminated their humanities, then their career, and with that not in the least pretentious, making no demands, rent with ejaculations, Jesus, Jesus. Evenings, evenings, what evening they were then, made of what, and when was that, I don’t know, made of friendly shadows, friendly skies, of time cloyed, resting from devouring, until its midnight meats, I don’t know, any more than then, when I used to say, from within, or from without, from the coming night or from under the ground, Where am I, to mention only space, and in what semblance, and since when, to mention also time, and till when, and who is this clot who doesn’t know where to go, who can’t stop, who takes himself for me
and for whom I take myself, anything at all, the old jangle. Those evenings then, but what is this evening made of, this evening now, that never ends, in whose shadows I’m alone, that’s where I am, where I was then, where I’ve always been, it’s from them I spoke to myself, spoke to him, where has he vanished, the one I saw then, is he still in the street, it’s probable, it’s possible, with no voice speaking to him, I don’t speak to him any more, I don’t speak to me any more, I have no one left to speak to, and I speak, a voice speaks that can be none but mine, since there is none but me. Yes, I have lost him and he has lost me, lost from view, lost from hearing, that’s what I wanted, is it possible, that I wanted that, wanted this, and he, what did he want, he wanted to stop, perhaps he has stopped, I have stopped, but I never stirred, perhaps he is dead, I am dead, but I never lived. But he moved, proof of animation, through those evenings, moving too, evenings with an end, evenings with a night, never saying a word, unable to say a word, not knowing where to go, unable to stop, listening to my cries, hearing a voice crying that it was no kind of life, as if he didn’t know, as if the allusion was to his, which was a kind of one, there’s the difference, those were the days, I didn’t know where I was, nor in what semblance, nor since when, nor till when, whereas now, there’s the difference, now I know, it’s not true, but I say it just the same, there’s the difference, I’m saying it now, I’ll say it soon, I’ll say it in the end, then end, I’ll be free to end, I won’t be any more, it won’t be worth it any more, it won’t be necessary any more, it won’t be possible any more, but it’s not worth it now, it’s not necessary now, it’s not possible now, that’s how the reasoning runs. No, something better must be found, a better reason, for this to stop, another word, a better idea, to put in the negative, a new no, to cancel all the others, all the old noes that buried me down here, deep in this place which is not one, which is merely a moment for the time being eternal, which is called here, and in this being which is called me and is not one, and in this impossible voice, all the old noes dangling in the dark and swaying like a ladder of smoke, yes, a new no, that none says twice, whose drop will fall and let me down, shadow and babble, to an absence less vain than inexistence. Oh I know it won’t happen like that, I know that nothing will happen, that nothing has happened and that I’m still, and particularly since the day I could no longer believe it, what is called flesh and blood somewhere above in their gonorrhoeal light, cursing myself heartily. And that is why, when comes the hour of those who knew me, this time it’s going to work, when comes the hour of those who knew me, it’s as though I were among them, that is what I had to say, among them watching me approach, then watching me recede, shaking my head and saying, Is it really he, can it possibly be he, then moving on in their company along a road that is not mine and with every step takes me further from that other not mine either, or remaining alone where I am, between two parting dreams, knowing none, known of none, that finally is what I had to say, that is all I can have had to say, this evening.