Three Novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable

by Samuel Beckett

  They want to bore me to sleep (at long range for fear I might defend myself). They want to catch me alive, so as to be able to kill me. Thus I shall have lived. They think I'm alive - what a business! (Were there but a cadaver it would smack of body-snatching.) Not in a womb either: the slut has yet to menstruate capable of whelping me. That should singularly narrow the field of research. A sperm dying (of cold) in the sheets, feebly wagging its little tail? Perhaps I'm a drying sperm, in the sheets of an innocent boy (even that takes time). No stone must be left unturned. One mustn't be afraid of making a howler: how can one know it is one before it's made? And one it most certainly is, now that it's irrevocable: for the good reason (here's another, here comes another, unless it escapes them in time - what a hope, the bright boy is here!) - for the excellent reason that counts as living too, counts as murder (it's notorious). Ah you can't deny it, some people are lucky: born of a wet dream and dead before morning. I must say I'm tempted. (No, the testis has yet to descend that would want any truck with me (it's mutual). Another gleam down the drain.)

  And now one last look at Mahood, at Worm. We'll never have another chance.

  Ah will they never learn sense? There's nothing to be got, there was never anything to be got from those stories. I have mine, somewhere. Let them tell it to me: they'll see there's nothing to be got from it either, nothing to be got from me. It will be the end, of this hell of stories. You'd think I was cursing them (always the same old trick, you'd be sorry for them). Perhaps I'll curse them yet: they'll know what it is to be a subject of conversation. I'll impute words to them you wouldn't throw to a dog. An ear, a mouth and in the middle a few rags of mind. I'll get my own back. (A few flitters of mind, they'll see what it's like.) I'll clap an eye at random in the thick of the mess, on the off chance something might stray in front of it. Then I'll let down my trousers and shit stories on them: stories, photographs, records, sites, lights, gods and fellow-creatures, the daily round and common task. Observing all the while: "Be born, dear friends, be born. Enter my arse. You'll just love my colic pains. It won't take long, I've the bloody flux." They'll see what it's like, that it's not so easy as it looks: that you must have a taste for it, that you must be born alive, that it's not something you can acquire. That will teach them perhaps, to keep their nose out of my business.

  Yes, if I could. But I can't (whatever it is). I can't any more. There was perhaps a time I could - in the days when I was bursting my guts (as per instructions) to bring back to the fold the dear lost lamb. (I'd been told he was dear: that he was dear to me, that I was dear to him, that we were dear to each other.) All my life I've pelted him with twaddle, the dear departed - wondering what he could possibly be like, wondering where we could possibly have met. "All my life?" Well, almost. (Damn the "almost": all my life, until I joined him.) And now it's I am dear to them, now it's they are dear to me (glad to hear it). They'll join us, one by one. (What a pity they are numberless! So are we.) Dear charnelhouse of renegades! (This evening decidedly everything is dear. No matter: the ancients hear nothing.)

  And my old quarry, there beside me? For him it's all over. (Beside me? How are you? Underneath me! We're piled up in heaps.) (No, that won't work either - no matter, it's a detail.) For him it's all over (him the second-last). And for me too (me the last) it will soon be all over. I'll hear nothing more. I've nothing to do, simply wait. It's a slow business. He'll come and lie on top of me, lie beside me, my dear tormentor: his turn to suffer what he made me suffer, mine to be at peace.

  How all comes right in the end to be sure! It's thanks to patience, thanks to time. It's thanks to the earth that revolves that the earth revolves no more, that time ends its meal and pain comes to an end. You have only to wait, without doing anything (it's no good doing anything) and without understanding (there's no help in understanding), and all comes right.

  Nothing comes right, nothing, nothing. This will never end, this voice will never stop. I'm alone here, the first and the last. I never made anyone suffer, I never stopped anyone's sufferings: no one will ever stop mine. They'll never depart, I'll never stir. I'll never know peace. Neither will they - but with this difference, that they don't want it. They say they don't want it, they say I don't want it.

  Don't want peace? After all perhaps they're right. How could I want it? What is it?

  They say I suffer (perhaps they're right) and that I'd feel better if I did this, said that: if my body stirred, if my head understood, if they went silent and departed. Perhaps they're right. How would I know about these things? How would I understand what they're talking about? I'll never stir, never speak. They'll never go silent, never depart. They'll never catch me, never stop trying. That's that.

  I'm listening. Well I prefer that, I must say I prefer that.

  That what?

  Oh you know!

  Who you? Oh I suppose the audience. Well well, so there's an audience - it's a public show! You buy your seat and you wait. (Perhaps it's free, a free show.) You take your seat and you wait for it to begin. (Or perhaps it's compulsory, a compulsory show: you wait for the compulsory show to begin.) It takes time.

  You hear a voice, perhaps it's a recitation. That's the show, someone reciting: selected passages, old favourites - a poetry matinee. Or someone improvising (you can hardly hear him). That's the show. You can't leave, you're afraid to leave, it might be worse elsewhere. You make the best of it, you try and be reasonable: you came too early (here we'd need Latin), it's only beginning.

  It hasn't begun! He's only preluding, clearing his throat, alone in his dressing-room. He'll appear any moment, he'll begin any moment. Or it's the stage-manager, giving his instructions, his last recommendations, before the curtain rises. That's the show: waiting for the show (to the sound of a murmur). You try and be reasonable: perhaps it's not a voice at all. Perhaps it's the air - ascending, descending, flowing, eddying, seeking exit, finding none.

  And the spectators? Where are they?

  You didn't notice, in the anguish of waiting, never noticed you were waiting alone. That's the show: waiting alone, in the restless air, for it to begin, for something to begin, for there to be something else but you. For the power to rise, the courage to leave. You try and be reasonable: perhaps you are blind, probably deaf. The show is over, all is over? But where then is the hand, the helping hand? (Or merely charitable? Or the hired hand?) It's a long time coming, to take yours and draw you away. That's the show (free, gratis and for nothing): waiting alone, blind, deaf. You don't know where, you don't know for what: for a hand to come and draw you away, somewhere else (where perhaps it's worse).

  And now for the it: I prefer that, I must say I prefer that. (What a memory, real fly-paper!) I don't know - I don't prefer it any more, that's all I know. So why bother about it, a thing you don't prefer? Just think of that, bothering about that! Perish the thought! One must wait, discover a preference, within one's bosom. Then it will be time enough to institute an inquiry.

  Moreover (that's right, link, link, you never know), moreover their attitude toward me has not changed. I am deceived, they are deceived. They have tried to deceive me, saying their attitude towards me had changed. But they haven't deceived me: I didn't understand what they were trying to do to me. I say what I'm told to say, that's all there is to it.

  And yet I wonder..... I don't know. I don't feel a mouth on me, I don't feel the jostle of words in my mouth. And when you say a poem you like (if you happen to like poetry) - in the underground, or in bed, for yourself - the words are there, somewhere, without the least sound. I don't feel that either. Words falling, you don't know where, you don't know whence? Drops of silence through the silence? I don't feel it. I don't feel a mouth on me, nor a head.

  Do I feel an ear? Frankly now, do I feel an ear?

  Well frankly now I don't. So much the worse: I don't feel an ear either.

  This is awful. Make an effort: I must feel something.

  Yes, I feel something (they say I feel something). I don't kn
ow what it is, I don't know what I feel. "Tell me what I feel and I'll tell you who I am." They'll tell me who I am, and I'll have heard (without an ear I'll have heard). And I'll have said it (without a mouth I'll have said it). I'll have said it inside me, then in the same breath outside me. Perhaps that's what I feel: an outside and an inside and me in the middle. Perhaps that's what I am: the thing that divides the world in two - on the one side the outside, on the other the inside. (That can be as thin as foil.) I'm neither one side nor the other, I'm in the middle. I'm the partition. I've two surfaces and no thickness. Perhaps that's what I feel: myself vibrating. I'm the tympanum. On the one hand the mind, on the other the world: I don't belong to either. It's not to me they're talking, it's not of me they're talking.

  No, that's not it, I feel nothing of all that. Try something else, herd of shites! Say something else, for me to hear (I don't know how), for me to say (I don't know how). What clowns they are, to keep on saying the same thing when they know it's not the right one! No, they know nothing either. They forget. They think they change and they never change. They'll be there saying the same thing till they die. Then perhaps a little silence, till the next gang arrives on the site. (I alone am immortal. What can you expect? I can't get born.)

  Perhaps that's their big idea: to keep on saying the same old thing, generation after generation, till I go mad and begin to scream. Then they'll say: "He's mewled, he'll rattle - it's mathematical. Let's get out to hell out of here, no point in waiting for that. Others need us. For him it's over, his troubles will be over. He's saved, we've saved him. They're all the same - they all let themselves be saved, they all let themselves be born. He was a tough nut. He'll have a good time, a brilliant career - in fury and remorse. He'll never forgive himself."

  And so depart, thus communing (in Indian file, or two by two), along the seashore (now it's the seashore), on the shingle, along the sands, in the evening air (it's evening). That's all I know: evening, shadows. Somewhere, anywhere. On the earth.

  Go mad?

  Yes, but there it is. (What would I go mad with?)

  And evening isn't sure either, it needn't be evening. Dawn too bestows long shadows (on all that is still standing). That's all that matters: only the shadows matter, with no life of their own, no shape and no respite. Perhaps it's dawn, evening of night. It doesn't matter.

  And so depart, towards my brethren (no, none of that, no brethren: that's right, take it back, they don't know). They depart, not knowing whither, towards their master (it's possible, make a note of that, it's just possible), to sue for their freedom. For them it's the end, for me the beginning: my end begins. They stop to listen to my screams. (They'll never stop again? Yes, they'll stop: my screams will stop, from time to time. I'll stop screaming, to listen and hear if anyone is answering, to look and see if anyone is coming. Then go, close my eyes and go, screaming, to scream elsewhere.)

  Yes: my mouth. But there it is. I won't open it.

  I have no mouth? And what about it? I'll grow one. A little hole at first, then wider and wider, deeper and deeper. The air will gush into me (and out a second later, howling). But is it not rather too much to ask, to ask so much, of so little? Is it really politic? And would it not suffice (without any change in the structure of the thing as it now stands, as it always stood, without a mouth being opened at the place which even pain could never line) - would it not to suffice to....

  To what?

  The thread is lost. No matter, here's another: would not a little stir suffice, some tiny subsidence or upheaval, that would start things off? The whole fabric would be infected, the ball would start a-rolling, the disturbance would spread to every part. Locomotion itself would soon appear, trips properly so called: business trips, pleasure trips, research expeditions, sabbatical leaves, jaunts and rambles, honeymoons at home and abroad and long sad solitary tramps in the rain (I indicate the main trends), athletics, tossing in bed, physical jerks, locomotor ataxy, death throes, rigor and rigor mortis, emergal of the bony structure. (That should suffice.)

  Unfortunately it's a question of words, of voices (one must not forget that, one must try and not forget that completely), of a statement to be made (by them, by me).

  Some slight obscurity there.

  It might sometimes almost be wondered if all their ballocks about life and death is not as foreign to their nature as it is to mine. The fact is they no longer know where they've got to in their affair, where they've got me to. (I never knew, I'm where I always was, wherever that is.) And "their affair"? I don't know what is meant by that: some process no doubt, that I've got stuck in, or haven't yet come to. I've got nowhere, in their affair, that's what galls them: they want me there somewhere, anywhere.

  If only they'd stop committing reason (on them, on me, on the purpose to be achieved), and simply go on - with no illusion about having begun one day or ever being able to conclude. But it's too difficult, too difficult, for one bereft of purpose, not to look forward to his end, and (bereft of all reason to exist) back to a time he did not. Difficult too not to forget, in your thirst for something to do (in order to be done with it, and have that much less to do), that there is nothing to be done: nothing special to be done, nothing doable to be done. No point either, in your thirst, your hunger. (No, no need of hunger, thirst is enough.) No point in telling yourself stories, to pass the time: stories don't pass the time, nothing passes the time. (That doesn't matter, that's how it is.) You tell yourself stories, then any old thing, saying: "No more stories from this day forth." And the stories go on: it's stories still.

  Or it was never stories: always any old thing, for as long as you can remember (no, longer than that). Any old thing, the same old thing, to pass the time (then, as time didn't pass, for no reason at all), in your thirst. Trying to cease and never ceasing, seeking the cause (the cause of talking and never ceasing). Finding the cause, losing it again, finding it again, not finding it again. Seeking no longer, seeking again, finding again, losing again. Talking without ceasing, thirstier than ever. Seeking as usual, losing as usual. Blathering away. Wondering what it's all about. Seeking what it can be you are seeking. Exclaiming "Ah yes!", sighing "No no!", crying "Enough!", ejaculating "Not yet!" Talking incessantly (any old thing). Seeking once more (any old thing). Thirsting away, you don't know what for. Ah yes: something to do! (No, no: nothing to be done.)

  And now enough of that. Unless perhaps (that's an idea!)..... let's seek over there! One last little effort!

  Seek what?

  Pertinent objection: let us try and determine, before we seek, what it can be, before we seek over there. (Over where?)

  Talking unceasingly, seeking incessantly. In yourself, outside yourself. Cursing man, cursing God. Stopping cursing. Past bearing it, going on bearing it. Seeking indefatigably (in the world of nature, the world of man). Where is nature? Where is man? Where are you? What are you seeking? Who is seeking? Seeking who you are (supreme aberration), where you are, what you're doing, what you've done to them, what they've done to you. Prattling along: "Where are the others?" "Who is talking? Not I." "Where am I? Where is the place where I've always been?"

  Where are the others? It's they are talking, talking to me. I hear them, I'm mute. What do they want? What have I done to them? What have I done to God? What have they done to God? What has God done to us? Nothing. And we've done nothing to him. You can't do anything to him, he can't do anything to us. We're innocent, he's innocent, it's nobody's fault. (What's nobody's fault? This state of affairs. What state of affairs?) So it is, so be it (don't fret), so it will be. (How so?) Rattling on, dying of thirst, seeking determinedly what they want.

  They want me to be, this, that: to howl, stir, crawl out of here, be born, die, listen.

  I'm listening.

  It's not enough. I must understand.

  I stop doing my best, I can't do my best. I can't go on, poor devil. Neither can they. Let them say what they want: give me something to do, something doable to do, poor devils. They can't, t
hey don't know. They're like me, more and more. No more need of them, no more need of anyone. No one can do anything. It's I am talking, thirsting, starving (let it stand), in the ice and in the furnace.

  You feel nothing? Strange! You don't feel a mouth on you? You don't feel your mouth any more?

  No need of a mouth: the words are everywhere, inside me, outside me. (Well, well! A minute ago I had no thickness!) I hear them? No need to hear them, no need of a head. Impossible to stop them, impossible to stop. I'm in words, made of words, others' words. (What others?) The place too - the air, the walls, the floor, the ceiling: all words. The whole world is here with me. I'm the air, the walls, the walled-in one. Everything yields, opens, ebbs, flows. Like flakes. I'm all these flakes, meeting, mingling, falling asunder. Wherever I go I find me, leave me, go towards me, come from me: nothing ever but me, a particle of me, retrieved, lost, gone astray. I'm all these words, all these strangers: this dust of words (with no ground for their settling, no sky for their dispersing) coming together to say (fleeing one another to say) that I am they, all of them: those that merge, those that part, those that never meet. And nothing else.

  Yes, something else: that I'm something quite different, a quite different thing. A wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks. And that I listen, and that I seek. Like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born in a cage and dead in a cage, born and then dead, born in a cage and then dead in a cage. In a word like a beast (in one of their words), like such a beast. And that I seek, like such a beast, with my little strength: such a beast, with nothing of its species left but fear and fury.