Watt

by Samuel Beckett

  The name of this dog, when Watt entered Mr Knott’s service, was Kate. Kate was not at all a handsome dog. Even Watt, whom his fondness for rats prejudiced against dogs, had never seen a dog that he less liked the look of than Kate. It was not a large dog, and yet it could not be called a small dog. It was a medium-sized dog, of repulsive aspect. It was called Kate not as might be supposed after Jim’s Kate, so soon to be made a widow, but after quite a different Kate, a certain Katie Byrne, who was a kind of cousin of Joe’s wife May, so soon to be made a widow too, and this Katie Byrne was a great favourite with Art and Con, to whom she always brought a gift of tobacco twist, when she came on a visit, and Art and Con were great chewers of tobacco twist, and never had enough, never never had enough tobacco twist, for their liking.

  Kate died while Watt was still on the ground floor, and was replaced by a dog called Cis. Watt did not know whom this dog was called after. If he had enquired, if, coming out into the open, he had said, Con, or, Art, Kate I know was called after your relative, Katie Byrne, but after whom is Cis called?, then he might have learnt what he so desired to know. But there were limits to what Watt was prepared to do, in pursuit of information. There were times when he was half tempted to believe, as he observed the effect that this name had on Art and Con, notably when associated with certain injunctions, that it was the name of a friend of theirs, a near and dear friend, and that it was in honour of this near and dear friend that they had given the dog the name of Cis rather than some other name. But this was a mere conjecture, and at other times Watt was more inclined to believe that if the dog was called Cis, it was not on account of some living person’s being called Cis, no, but simply because the dog had to be called something, to distinguish it, for itself, and for others, from all the other dogs, and that Cis was as good a name as any other, and indeed prettier than many.

  Cis was still alive when Watt left the ground floor, for the first floor. What became of her later, and of the dwarfs, he had no idea. For once on the first floor Watt lost sight of the ground floor, and interest in the ground floor. This was indeed a merciful coincidence, was it not, that at the moment of Watt’s losing sight of the ground floor, he lost interest in it also.

  It was part of Watt’s duties to receive Art and Con, when they called in the evening, with the dog, and, when there was food for the dog, to witness the dog’s eating the food, until not an atom remained. But after the first few weeks Watt abruptly ceased, on his own responsibility, to discharge this office. From then on, when there was food for the dog, he put it outside the door, on the doorstep, in the dog’s dish, and he lit a light in the passage window, so that the doorstep should not be in darkness, even on the darkest night, and he contrived, for the dog’s dish, a little lid that could be fastened down, by means of clasps, of clasps that clasped tight the sides, of the dish. And Art and Con grew to know that when the dog’s dish was not on the doorstep, waiting for them, then there was no food for Kate, or Cis. They did not need to knock, and enquire, no, the bare doorstep was enough. And they even grew to know that when there was no light in the passage window, then there was no food, for the dog. And they learned also not to advance any further, in the evening, than the place whence they could see the passage window, and then to advance further only if there was a light, in the window, and always to go away, without advancing any further, if there was none. This was unfortunately of small practical assistance to Art and Con, for coming as one did, suddenly, round a corner of the bushes, on the backdoor, one did not see the passage window, which was beside the backdoor, until one was so close to the backdoor that one could have touched it with one’s stick, if one had wished. But Art and Con gradually learned to tell, from no less a distance than ten or fifteen paces, whether there was a light in the passage window, or not. For the light, though hidden by the corner, shone through the passage window and made a glow, in the air, a glow that could be seen, especially when the night was dark, from no less a distance than ten or fifteen paces. Thus all that Art and Con had to do, when the night was favourable, was to advance a little way along the avenue, until they reached the place whence the light, if it was burning, must be visible, as a glow, a feeble glow, in the air, and thence to go on, towards the backdoor, or to go back, towards the gate, as the case might be. In the height of summer to be sure, only the doorstep bare, or surmounted by the dog’s dish, could tell Art and Con and Kate, or Cis, whether there was food for the dog, or not. For in the height of summer Watt did not set a light, in the passage window, when there was food for the dog, no, for in the height of summer the doorstep was not dark until coming up to ten thirty, or eleven, at night, but burning with all the raging dying summer light, for it looked west, the backdoorstep. And to set a light in the passage window, under these conditions, would have been a mere waste of oil. But for more than three quarters of the year Art’s and Con’s task was greatly lightened as a result of Watt’s refusal to be present when the dog ate the food, and of the measures he was obliged to take, in consequence. Then Watt, if he had put out the plate, a little after eight, took it in again, a little before ten, and washed it up, in readiness for the morrow, before he locked up for the night and went up to his bed, holding the lamp high above his head, to guide his feet, on the stairs, the stairs that never seemed the same stairs, from one night to another, and now were steep, and now shallow, and now long, and now short, and now broad, and now narrow, and now dangerous, and now safe, and that he climbed, among the moving shadows, every night, shortly after ten o’clock.

  This refusal, by Knott, I beg your pardon, by Watt, to assist at the eating, by the dog, of Mr Knott’s remains, might have been supposed to have the gravest consequences, both for Watt and for Mr Knott’s establishment.

  Watt expected something of this kind. And yet he could not have done otherwise, than he did. It was in vain that he had no love for dogs, greatly preferring rats, he could not have done otherwise, believe it or not, than he did. As it was, nothing happened, but all went on, as before, apparently. No punishment fell on Watt, no thunderbolt, and Mr Knott’s establishment swam on, through the unruffled nights and days, with all its customary serenity. And this was a great source of wonder, to Watt, that he had infringed, with impunity, such a venerable tradition, or institution. But he was not so foolish as to found in this a principle of conduct, or a precedent of rebelliousness, ho no, for Watt was only too willing to do as he was told, and as custom required, at all times. And when he was forced to transgress, as in the matter of witnessing the dog’s meal, then he was at pains to transgress in such a way, and to surround his transgression with such precautions, such delicacies, that it was almost as though he had not transgressed at all. And perhaps this was counted to him for grace. And he stilled the wonder the trouble in his mind, by reflecting that if he went unpunished for the moment, he would not perhaps always go unpunished, and that if the hurt to Mr Knott’s establishment did not at once appear, it would perhaps one day appear, a little bruise at first, and then a bigger, and then a bigger still, until, growing, growing, it blackened the entire body.

  For reasons that remain obscure Watt was, for a time, greatly interested, and even fascinated, by this matter of the dog, the dog brought into the world, and maintained there, at considerable expense, for the sole purpose of eating Mr Knott’s food, on those days on which Mr Knott was not pleased to eat it himself, and he attached to this matter an importance, and even a significance, that seem hardly warranted. For otherwise would he have gone into the matter at such length? And would he have gone into the Lynch family at such length if, in thought, he had not been obliged to pass, from the dog, to the Lynches, as to one of the terms of the relation that the dog wove nightly, the other of course being Mr Knott’s remains. But much more than with the Lynches, or with Mr Knott’s remains, Watt’s concern, while it lasted, was with the dog. But it did not last long, this concern of Watt’s, not very long, as such concerns go. And yet it was a major concern, of that period, while it lasted. But once Watt h
ad grasped, in its complexity, the mechanism of this arrangement, how the food came to be left, and the dog to be available, and the two to be united, then it interested him no more, and he enjoyed a comparative peace of mind, in this connexion. Not that for a moment Watt supposed that he had penetrated the forces at play, in this particular instance, or even perceived the forms that they upheaved, or obtained the least useful information concerning himself, or Mr Knott, for he did not. But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for a head. Little by little, and not without labour. Kate eating from her dish, for example, with the dwarfs standing by, how he had laboured to know what that was, to know which the doer, and what the doer, and what the doing, and which the sufferer, and what the sufferer, and what the suffering, and what those shapes, that were not rooted to the ground, like the veronica, but melted away, into the dark, after a while.

  Erskine was for ever running up the stairs and down them again. Not so Watt, who came down only once a day, when he got up, to begin his day, and only once a day went up, when he lay down, to begin his night. Unless when, in his bedroom, in the morning, or in the kitchen, in the evening, he left something behind, that he could not do without. Then of course he went back, up, or down, to fetch this thing, whatever it was. But this was very rare. For what could Watt leave behind, that he could not do without, for a day, for a night? His handkerchief perhaps. But Watt never used a handkerchief. His slopbag. No, he would not have gone back down all the way expressly for his slopbag. No, there was so to speak nothing that Watt could forget, that he could not do without, for the fourteen or fifteen hours that his day lasted, for the ten or nine hours that his night lasted. And yet every now and then he did forget something, some tiny little thing, so that he was obliged to return and fetch it, for he could not have got on, through his day, through his night, without it. But this was very rare. And otherwise he stayed quietly where he was, on the second floor in his little bedroom by night, and by day on the ground floor in the kitchen mostly, or wherever else his duties might take him, or in the pleasure garden up and down, or in a tree, or sitting on the ground against a tree or bush, or on a rustic seat. For to the first floor his duties never took him, at this period, nor to the second, once he had made his bed, and swept clean his little room, which he did every morning the first thing, before coming down, on an empty stomach. Whereas Erskine never did a tap on the ground floor, but all his duties were on the first floor. Now Watt did not know, nor care to ask, in what exactly these duties consisted. But whereas Watt’s ground floor duties kept him quietly on the ground floor, Erskine’s first floor duties did not keep Erskine quietly on the first floor, but for ever he was flying up the stairs from the first floor to the second floor and down them again from the second floor to the first floor and down the stairs from the first floor to the ground floor and up them again from the ground floor to the first floor, for no reason that Watt could see, though to be sure this was a matter in which Watt could not be expected to see very far, because he did not know, and did not care to ask, in what exactly Erskine’s duties on the first floor consisted. Now this is not to say that Erskine did not spend a great deal of his time quietly on the first floor, for he did, but only that the number of times in the day that he went flying up and down again and down and up again seemed to Watt extraordinary. And what further seemed to Watt extraordinary was the shortness of time that Erskine spent up, when he flew up, before flying down again, and the shortness of time that he spent down, when he flew down, before flying up again, and of course the rapidity of his flight, as though he were always in a hurry to get back. And if it were asked how Watt, who was never on the second floor from morning to night, could know how long Erskine spent on the second floor, when he went there in this way, the answer to that would perhaps be this, that Watt, from where he sat in the bottom of the house, could hear Erskine hasten up the stairs to the top of the house, and then hasten down them again to the middle of the house, almost without pause. And the reason for that was perhaps this, that the sound came down the kitchen chimney.

  Watt did not care to enquire in so many words into the meaning of all this, for he said, All this will be revealed to Watt, in due time, meaning of course when Erskine went, and another came. But he was not easy until he had said, in short and isolated phrases, or fragments of phrases, separated by considerable periods of time from one another, Perhaps Mr Knott sends him now upstairs, and now downstairs, on this errand and on that, saying, But hasten back to me, Erskine, don’t delay, but hasten back to me. But what kind of errand? Perhaps to fetch him something that he has forgotten, and that suddenly he feels the need of, such as a nice book, or piece of cotton wool or tissue paper. Or perhaps to look out of a top window, to make sure that nobody is coming, or to have a quick look round below stairs, to make sure that no danger threatens the foundations. But am I not here, below stairs, somewhere about, on the alert? But it may be that Mr Knott has more confidence in Erskine, who has been here longer than I, than in me, who have not been here so long as Erskine. And yet that does not seem like Mr Knott, to be ever wanting this or that and sending Erskine flying to see to it. But what do I know of Mr Knott? Nothing. And what to me may seem most unlike him, and what to me may seem most like him, may in reality be most like him, most unlike him, for all I can tell. Or perhaps Mr Knott sends Erskine flying up and down in this way, simply in order to be rid of him if only for a few moments. Or perhaps Erskine, finding the first floor trying, is obliged to run upstairs every now and then for a breath of the second floor, and then every now and then downstairs for a breath of the ground floor, or even garden, just as in certain waters certain fish, in order to support the middle depths, are forced to rise and fall, now to the surface of the waves and now to the ocean bed. But do such fish exist? Yes, such fish exist, now. But trying in what way? Perhaps who knows Mr Knott propagates a kind of waves, of depression, or oppression, or perhaps now these, now those, in a way that it is impossible to grasp. But that does not at all agree with my conception of Mr Knott. But what conception have I of Mr Knott? None.

  Watt wondered if Arsene, Walter, Vincent and the others had passed through the same phase as that through which Erskine then was passing, and he wondered if he Watt would pass through it too, when his time came. Watt could not easily imagine Arsene ever behaving in such a way, nor himself either for that matter. But there were many things that Watt could not easily imagine.

  Sometimes in the night Mr Knott pressed a bell that sounded in Erskine’s room, and then Erskine got up and went down. This Watt knew, for from his bed where he lay not far away he would hear the bell sound ting! and Erskine get up and go down. He would hear the sound of the bell because he was not asleep, or only half asleep, or sleeping only lightly. For it is rare that the sound of a bell not far away is not heard by the only half asleep, the only lightly sleeping. Or he would hear, not the sound of the bell, but the sound of Erskine getting up and going down, which came to the same thing. For would Erskine have got up and gone down if the bell had not sounded? No. He might have got up, without the bell’s sounding, to do his number one, or number two, in his great big white chamber pot. But get up and go down, without the bell’s sounding, no. At other times, when Watt was sleeping deeply, or plunged in meditation, or otherwise engrossed, then of course the bell might sound and sound and Erskine get up and get up and go down and go down and Watt be not a whit the wiser. But that did not matter. For Watt had heard the bell sound, and Erskine get up and go down, often enough to know that sometimes in the night Mr Knott pressed a bell and that then Erskine, doubtless in obedience to the summons, got up and went down. For were there other fingers in the house, and other thumbs, than Mr Knott’s and Erskine’s and Watt’s, that might have pressed the bell? For by what but by a finger, or by a thumb, could the bell have been pressed? By a nose? A toe? A heel? A projecting tooth? A knee? An elbow? Or some other prominent bony or fleshy process? No doubt. But whose, if not Mr Knott’s? W
att had not pressed a bell with any part of him, of that he was morally certain, for there was no bell in his room that he could have pressed. And if he had got up and gone down, to where the bell was, and he did not know where the bell was, and pressed it there, could he have got back into his room, and into his bed, and sometimes even fallen into a light sleep, in time to hear, from where he lay, in his bed, the bell sound? The fact was that Watt had never seen a bell, in any part of Mr Knott’s house, or heard one, under any other circumstances than those that so perplexed him. On the ground floor there was no bell of any kind, he could vouch for that, or so cunningly dissembled that no trace appeared, on the walls, or the doorposts. There was the telephone, to be sure, in a passage. But what sounded in Erskine’s room, in the night, was not a telephone, Watt was sure of that, but a bell, a simple bell, a simple little probably white electric bell, of the kind that one presses until it sounds ting! and then lets spring back, to the position of silence. Similarly Erskine, if he had pressed the bell, must have pressed it in his own room, and indeed from where he lay, in his bed, as was manifest from the noise that Erskine made in getting out of bed, immediately the bell rang. But was it likely that there was a bell in Erskine’s room, that he could press, from his bed, when there was no bell of any kind in any part of Watt’s room? And even if there was a bell in Erskine’s room, that he could press without leaving his bed, what interest could Erskine have in pressing it, when he knew that at the sound of the bell he must leave his warm bed and go downstairs, inadequately clothed? If Erskine wished to leave his snug bed and go downstairs, half naked, could he not have done so without pressing a bell beforehand? Or was Erskine out of his mind? And he himself Watt was he not perhaps slightly deranged? And Mr Knott himself, was he quite right in his head? Were they not all three perhaps a little off the hooks?