Three Novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable

by Samuel Beckett

  If only this voice would stop, for a second! (It would seem long to me.) A second of silence! I'd listen. I'd know if it was going to start again, or if it was stilled for ever. (What would I know it with? I'd know.) And I'd keep on listening, to try and advance in their good graces, keep my place in their favour, and be ready in case they judged fit to take me in hand again. Or I'd stop: stop listening. Is it possible that one day I shall stop listening? Without having to fear the worst, namely..... I don't know. What can be worse than this? (A woman's voice perhaps, I hadn't thought of that! They might engage a soprano!)

  But let us leave these dreams and try again. If only I knew what they want! They want me to be Worm. But I was, I was: what's wrong? I was, but ill: it must be that, it can only be that. What else can it be, but that? I didn't report in the light, the light of day, in their midst, to hear them say: "Didn't we tell you you were alive and kicking?" I have endured, that must be it: I shouldn't have endured. I didn't fly from it: I should have fled, Worm should have fled. But where? How? He's riveted! Worm should have dragged himself away, no matter where - towards them, towards the azure. But how could he? He can't stir. (It needn't be bonds. There are no bonds here.) It's as if he were rooted (that's bonds if you like). The earth would have to quake. (It isn't earth, one doesn't know what it is. It's like sargasso - no, it's like molasses - no. No matter.) An eruption is what's needed, to spew him into the light.

  But what calm! (Apart from the discourse.) Not a breath! It's suspicious. (The calm that precedes life? No no, not all this time.) It's like slime! Paradise, it would be paradise, but for this noise. It's life trying to get in (no, trying to get him out). Or little bubbles bursting all around. (No, there's no air here: air is to make you choke, light is to close your eyes.) That's where he must go, where it's never dark.

  But here it's never dark either?

  Yes, here it's dark. It's they who make this grey, with their lamps. When they go, when they go silent, it will be dark: not a sound, not a glimmer.

  But they'll never go.

  Yes, they'll go. They'll go silent perhaps and go (one day, one evening). Slowly, sadly, in Indian file, casting long shadows. Towards their master, who will punish them, or who will spare them. (What else is there, up above, for those who lose? Punishment? Pardon? So they say.)

  "What have you done with your material?" "We have left it behind." But commanded to say whether (yes or no) they filled up the holes ("Have you filled up the holes, yes or no?"), they will say "yes and no" (or some "yes", others "no", at the same time), not knowing what answer the master wants, to his question. But both are defendable, both "yes" and "no". For they filled up the holes, if you like, and if you don't like they didn't. For they didn't know what to do, on departing: whether to fill up the holes or (on the contrary) leave them gaping wide. So they fixed their lamps in the holes, their long lamps (to prevent them from closing of themselves, it's like potter's clay). (Their powerful lamps, lit and trained on the within.) To make him think they are still there, notwithstanding the silence. Or to make him think the grey is natural. Or to make him go on suffering. (For he does not suffer from the noise alone, he suffers from the grey too - from the light: he must, it's preferable.) Or to make it possible for them to come back, if the master commands them to (without his knowing they have gone - as if he could know!) Or for no other reason than their ignorance of what to do: whether to fill up the holes or let them fill up of themselves.

  It's like shit! There we have it at last, there it is at last! The right word! One has only to seek, seek in vain, to be sure of finding in the end. It's a question of elimination.

  Enough now about holes.

  The grey means nothing. The grey silence is not necessarily a mere lull, to be got through somehow. It may be final, or it may not. But the flames unattended will not burn on forever. On the contrary, they will go out, little by little, without attendants to charge them anew, and go silent, in the end. Then it will be black. But it is with black as it is with grey: the black proves nothing either, as to the nature of the silence which it inspissates (as it were). For they may come back, long after the lights are spent, having pleaded for years in vain before the master and failed to convince him there is nothing to be done (with Worm, for Worm). Then all will start over again, obviously. So it will never be known, Worm will never know. Let the silence be black or let it be grey, it can never be known, as long as it lasts, whether it is final, or whether it is a mere lull.

  And what a lull! When he must listen, strain his ears for the murmurs of olden silences, hold himself ready for the next instalment, under pain of supplementary thunderbolts. (But Worm must not be confused with another.) Though this has no importance, as it happens. For he who has once had to listen will listen always - whether he knows he will never hear anything again, or whether he does not. In other words (they like other words, no doubt about it), silence once broken will never again be whole.

  Is there then no hope? Good gracious, no! Heavens, what an idea! (Just a faint one perhaps, but which will never serve. But one forgets.)

  And if there is only one he will depart alone, towards his master, and his long shadow will follow him, across the desert. (It's a desert, that's news!) Worm will see the light in a desert (the light of day, the desert day) the day they catch him. It's the same as everywhere else. (They say not: they say it's purer, clearer. Fat lot of difference that will make!) Oh it is not necessarily the Sahara, or Gobi: there are others. It's the ozone that matters, in the beginning. (Yes indeed: in the end too.) It sterilizes.

  But this livid eye? What use is it to him? To see the light (they call that seeing, no objection), since it causes him suffering (they call that suffering). They know how to cause suffering. The master explained to them: "Do this, do that, you'll see him squirm, you'll hear him weep." He weeps, it's a fact. (Oh not a very firm one - to be made the most of quick.) As for the squirming, nothing doing. But there is always this to be said: things are only beginning (though long since begun). They will not lose heart. They'll remember the motto of William the Silent and keep on talking. That's what they're paid for, not for results.

  Enough about them. They can speak of nothing else. All is theirs: but for them there would be nothing, not even Worm. (He's an idea they have, a word they use, when speaking of them.)

  Enough about them. But this grey? This light? If he could escape from this light, which makes him suffer, is it not obvious it would make him suffer more and more (in whatever direction he went, since he is at the centre), and drive him back there - after forty or fifty vain excursions? No, that is not obvious. For it is obvious the light would lessen as he went towards it (they would see to that), to make him think he was on the right road and so bring him to the wall. Then the blaze, the capture and the paean. As long as he suffers there's hope (even though they need none, to make him suffer).

  But how can they know he suffers? Do they see him? They say they do. But it's impossible. Hear him? Certainly not: he makes no noise (a little with his whining perhaps). In any case they are easy (rightly or wrongly) in their minds: he suffers, and thanks to them. Oh not yet sufficiently - but gently does it. An excess of severity at this stage might darken his understanding for ever.

  Another thing. (The problem is delicate.) The dulling effect of habit, how do they deal with that? They can combat it of course: raising the voice, increasing the light. But suppose, instead of suffering less, as time flies, he continues to suffer as much, precisely, as the first day? (That must be possible.) And but suppose, instead of suffering less than the first day (or no less), he suffers more and more, as time flies? And the metamorphosis is accomplished, of unchanging future into unchanging past.

  Eh?

  Another thing, but of a different order. (The affair is thorny.) Is not a uniform suffering preferable to one which, by its ups and downs, is liable at certain moments to encourage the view that perhaps after all it is not eternal? That must depend on the object pursued. Namely?


  A little fit of impatience, on the part of the patient.

  Thank you. That is the immediate object. Afterwards there will be others. Afterwards he'll be given lessons in keeping quiet. But for the moment let him toss and turn at least, roll on the ground, damn it all - since there's no other remedy. Anything at all, to relieve the monotony, damn it all. Look at the burnt alive: they don't have to be told (when not lashed to the stake) to rush about in every direction, without method, crackling, in search of a little cool. There are even those whose sang-froid is such that they throw themselves out of the window. No one asks him to go to those lengths - but simply to discover (without further assistance from without) the alleviations of flight from self. (That's all: he won't go far, he needn't go far.) Simply to find within himself a palliative for what he is (through no fault of his own). Simply to imitate the hussar who gets up on a chair the better to adjust the plume of his busby. It's the least he might do. No one asks him to think, simply to suffer - always in the same way, without hope of diminution, without hope of dissolution. It's no more complicated than that: no need to think in order to despair.

  Agreed then on monotony: it's more stimulating. But how can it be ensured? No matter, no matter how. They are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal: a voice, a little light. (Poor devils, that's what they're paid for.) They say: "No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say. No matter, it's a good average - we have only to continue. One day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill: the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us."

  To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes: that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs. "He is there," says the master, "somewhere. Do as I tell you, bring him before me: he's lacking to my glory."

  But one last effort, one more. (That's the spirit, that's the way - each time as if it were the last: the only way not to lose ground.) A great gulp of stinking air and off we go (we'll be back in a second). Forward! (That's soon said.) But where is forward? And why?

  The dirty pack of fake maniacs! They know I don't know. They know I forget all they say as fast as they say it.

  These little pauses are a poor trick too. When they go silent, so do I a second later (I'm a second behind them). I remember a second, for the space of a second - that is to say long enough to blurt it out, as received, while receiving the next (which is none of my business either). Not an instant I can call my own and they want me to know where next to turn! Ah I know what I'd know, and where I'd turn, if I had a head that worked! Let them tell me again what I'm doing, if they want me to look as if I were doing it.

  This tone, these words! To make me think they come from me! Always the same old dodges, ever since they took it into their heads that my existence is only a question of time.

  I think I must have blackouts: whole sentences lost. (No, not whole.) Perhaps I've missed the key-word to the whole business. I wouldn't have understood it, but I would have said it - that's all that's required. It would have spoken in my favour, next time they judge me. (Well well, so they judge me from time to time! They neglect nothing! Perhaps one day I'll know (say?) what I'm guilty of.)

  How many of us are there altogether, finally? And who is holding forth at the moment? And to whom? And about what? These are futile teasers. Let them put into my mouth at last the words that will save me, damn me - and no more talk about it, no more talk about anything. But this is my punishment, that's what they judge me for. I expiate vilely, like a pig: dumb, uncomprehending, possessed of no utterance but theirs.

  They'll clap me in a dungeon. I'm in a dungeon, I've always been in a dungeon. I hear everything, every word they say. It's the only sound (as if I were speaking, to myself, out loud). In the end you don't know any more (a voice that never stops) where it's coming from. Perhaps there are others here, with me. (It's dark, very properly: it is not necessarily an oubliette for one.) Or one other. Perhaps I have a companion in misfortune, given to talking (or condemned to talk): you know, any old thing, out loud, without ceasing. But I think not. What do I think not? That I have a companion in misfortune, that's it. That would surprise me.

  I must doze off from time to time, with open eyes. And yet nothing changes, ever. Gaps, there have always been gaps. It's the voice stopping? It's the voice failing to carry me? What can it matter? (Perhaps it's important? The result is the same - one perhaps that doesn't count, exceptionally.)

  They shut me up here, now they're trying to get me out, to shut me up somewhere else - or to let me go. (They are capable of putting me out just to see what I'd do.) Standing with their backs to the door, their arms folded, their legs crossed, they would observe me. Or all they did was to find me here, on their arrival (or long afterwards). They are not interested in me, only in the place. They want the place for one of their own. (What can one do but speculate, speculate? Until one hits on the happy speculation.)

  When all goes silent, and comes to an end, it will be because the words have been said, those it behoved to say. (No need to know which, no means of knowing which.) They'll be there somewhere, in the heap, in the torrent (not necessarily the last). They have to be ratified by the proper authority: that takes time, he's far from here. They bring him the verbatim report of the proceedings, once in a way. (He knows the words that count: it's he who chose them.) In the meantime the voice continues (while the messenger goes towards the master, and while the master examines the report, and while the messenger comes back with the verdict). The words continue (the wrong words) until the order arrives (to stop everything or to continue everything). (No, superfluous: everything will continue automatically, until the order arrives, to stop everything.) Perhaps they are somewhere there, the words that count, in what has just been said: the words it behoved to say. (They need not be more than a few.)

  They say "they" (speaking of them) to make me think it is I who am speaking. Or I say "they" (speaking of God knows what) to make me think it is not I who am speaking. Or rather there is silence, from the moment the messenger departs until he returns with his orders. (Namely: "Continue.") For there are long silences from time to time, truces. And then I hear them whispering (some perhaps whispering): "It's over, this time we've hit the mark." And others: "We'll have to go through it all again, in other words (or in the same words, arranged differently)."

  Respite then, once in a way (if one can call that respite), when one waits to know one's fate, saying "Perhaps it's not that at all", and saying "Where do these words come from that pour out of my mouth, and what do they mean?" No: saying nothing - for the words don't carry any more. (If one can call that waiting, when there's no reason for it.) And one listens (that stet) without reason, as one has always listened - because one day listening began, because it cannot stop. (That's not a reason.)

  If one can call that respite.

  But what's all this about not being able to die, live, be born? That must have some bearing. All this about staying where you are, dying, living, being born, unable to go forwards or back, not knowing where you came from, or where you are, or where you're going, or that it's possible to be elsewhere, to be otherwise? Supposing nothing, asking yourself nothing? You can't, you're there. (You don't know who, you don't know where.) The thing stays where it is, nothing changes (within it, outside it), apparently. (Apparently!) And there is nothing for it but to wait for the end, nothing but for the end to come. And at the end all will be the same, at the end at last perhaps all the same as before - as all that livelong time when there was nothing for it but to get to the end, or fly from it, or await for it (trembling or not, resigned or not): the nuisance of doing over, and of being. (Same thing, for one who could never do, never be.)

  Ah if only this voice could stop! This meaningless voice which prevents you from being nothing, just barely prevents you from being nothing and nowhere - just enough to keep alight this little yellow flame feebly darting from side to side, panting, as if straining to tear itself
from its wick. It should never have been fed, or it should have been put out. (Put out? it should have been let go out.) Regretting: that's what helps you on, that's what gets you on towards the end of the world. Regretting what is, regretting what was. (It's not the same thing? Yes, it's the same.) You don't know, what's happening, what's happened. (Perhaps it's the same, the same regrets.) That's what transports you, towards the end of regretting.

  But a little animation now for pity's sake! (It's now or never.) A little spirit! It won't produce anything? Not a budge? That doesn't matter: we are not tradesmen. And one never knows, does one? No. Perhaps Mahood will emerge from his urn and make his way towards Montmartre, on his belly, singing "I come, I come, my heart's delight". Or Worm, good old Worm! Perhaps he won't be able to bear any more, of not being able, of not being able to bear any more (it would be a pity to miss that). If I were they I'd set the rats on him (water-rats, sewer-rats, they're the best). (Oh not too many - a dozen to a dozen and a half.) That might help him make up his mind, to get going. And what an introduction, to his future attributes! (No, it would be in vain. A rat wouldn't survive there, not one second.)

  But let's have another squint at his eye, that's the place to look. A little raw perhaps, the white, with all the pissing. There's a gleam at last (one hesitates to say of intelligence). Apart from that the same as ever. A trifle more prominent perhaps, more paraphimotically globose. It seems to listen. It's weakening (that's unavoidable), glazing: it's high time to offer it something to bring it clean out of its socket. (In ten years it will be too late.)

  The mistake they make of course is to speak of him as if he really existed, in a specific place - whereas the whole thing is no more than a project for the moment. But let them blunder on to the end of their folly, then they can go into the question again (taking care not to compromise themselves by the use of terms, if not of notions, accessible to the understanding). In the same way the case of Mahood has been insufficiently studied. One may experience the need of such creatures (assuming they are twain) - and even the presentiment of their possible reality - without all these blind and surly disquisitions. A little more reflection would have shown them that the hour to speak, far from having struck, might never strike. But they are compelled to speak. It is forbidden them to stop.