Even if there were things, a thing somewhere, a scrap of nature, to talk about, you might be reconciled to having no one left, to being yourself the talker. If only there were a thing somewhere, to talk about (even though you couldn't see it, or know what it was, simply feel it there, with you), you might have the courage not to go silent.
No, it's to go silent that you need courage: for you'll be punished, punished for having gone silent. And yet you can't do otherwise than go silent (than be punished for having gone silent, than be punished for having been punished) since you begin again. The breath fails.
If only there were a thing! But there it is, there is not: they took away things when they departed, they took away nature. There was never anyone, anyone but me, anything but me, talking to me of me. Impossible to stop, impossible to go on. But I must go on - without anyone, without anything, but me, but my voice. That is to say I'll stop, I'll end. It's the end already (short-lived).
What is it? A little hole. You go down into it, into the silence (it's worse than the noise). You listen, it's worse than talking (no, not worse: no worse). You wait, in anguish. Have they forgotten me?
No?
Yes?
No. Someone calls me. I crawl out again.
What is it? A little hole, in the wilderness.
It's the end that is the worst. No, it's the beginning that is the worst - then the middle, then the end. In the end it's the end that is the worst, this voice that....I don't know. It's every second that is the worst, it's a chronicle. The seconds pass, one after another - jerkily, no flow. (They don't pass, they arrive, bang bang - they bang into you, bounce off, fall and never move again.) When you have nothing left to say you talk of time, seconds of time. There are some people add them together to make a life, I can't: each one is the first. (No, the second, or the third. I'm three seconds old!) Oh not every day of the week.
I've been away, done something, been in a hole. I've just crawled out. Perhaps I went silent.
No, I say that in order to say something, in order to go on a little more: you must go on a little more, you must go on a long time more, you must go on evermore. If I could remember something by heart I'd be saved: I have to keep on saying the same thing and each time it's an effort. The seconds must be alike and each one is infernal.
What am I saying now?
I'm saying I wish I knew.
And yet I have memories. I remember Worm (that is to say, I have retained the name). And the other (what is his name? what was his name?) in his jar. I can see him still, better than I can see me. I know how he lived, now I remember. I alone saw him. But no one sees me, nor him: I don't see him any more. (Mahood, he was called Mahood.) I don't see him any more, I don't know how he lived any more, he isn't there any more, he was never there, in his jar, I never saw him. And yet I remember. I remember having talked about him. (I must have talked about him. The same words recur and they are your memories.) It is I invented him (him and so many others, and the places where they passed, the places where they stayed), in order to speak (since I had to speak) without speaking of me. I couldn't speak of me, I was never told I had to speak of me. I invented my memories, not knowing what I was doing: not one is of me. It is they asked me to speak of them. They wanted to know what they were, how they lived. That suited me (I thought that would suit me), since I had nothing to say and had to say something.
I thought I was free to say any old thing, so long as I didn't go silent. Then I said to myself that after all perhaps it wasn't any old thing, the thing I was saying: that it might well be the thing demanded of me (assuming something was being demanded of me).
No, I didn't think anything and I didn't say anything to myself. I did what I could, a thing beyond my strength, and often for exhaustion I gave up doing it. And yet it went on being done, the voice being heard - the voice which could not be mine (since I had none left), and yet which could only be mine (since I could not go silent, and since I was alone, in a place where no voice could reach me). Yes, in my life (since we must call it so) there were three things: the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude. That's what I've had to make the best of.
Yes, now I can speak of my life: I'm too tired for niceties. But I don't know if I ever lived, I have really no opinion on the subject. However that may be I think I'll soon go silent for good, in spite of its being prohibited. Then (yes, phut! just like that, just like one of the living), then I'll be dead, I think I'll soon be dead. I hope I find it a change.
I should have liked to go silent first. There were moments I thought that would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly: to enter living into silence. So as to be able to enjoy it? No, I don't know why. So as to feel myself silent? One with all this quiet air shattered unceasingly by my voice alone? (No, it's not real air.) I can't say it. I can't say why I should have liked to be silent a little before being dead. So as in the end to be a little as I always was and never could be? Without fear of worse to come peacefully in the place where I always was and could never rest in peace? No, I don't know. It's simpler than that. I wanted myself, in my own land for a brief space. I didn't want to die a stranger in the midst of strangers (a stranger in my own midst), surrounded by invaders.
No, I don't know what I wanted, I don't know what I thought. I must have wanted so many things, imagined so many things, while I was talking, without knowing exactly what - enough to go blind, with longings and visions, mingling and merging in one another. I'd have been better employed minding what I was saying. But it didn't happen like that, it happened like this, the way it's happening now, that is to say..... I don't know: you mustn't believe what I'm saying. I'm doing as I always did, I'm going on as best I can. As to believing I shall go silent for good and all: I don't believe it particularly. I always believed it, as I always believed I would never go silent. You can't call that believing. (It's my walls.)
But has nothing really changed, all this time?
If instead of having something to say I had something to do, with my hands or feet - some little job! Sorting things out for example, or simply arranging things. Suppose for the sake of argument I had the job of moving things from one place to another. Then I'd know where I was, and how far I had got.
No, not necessarily (I can see it from here). They would contrive things in such a way that I couldn't suspect the two vessels (the one to be emptied and the one to be filled) of being in reality one and the same. It would be water. Water. With my thimble I'd go and draw it from one container, and then I'd go and pour it into another. Or there would be four (or a hundred), half of them to be filled, the other half to be emptied (numbered: the even to be emptied the uneven to be filled). No, it would be even more complicated, less symmetrical. No matter: to be emptied, and filled, in a certain way, a certain order, in accordance with certain homologies (the word is not too strong) - so that I'd have to think.Tanks, communicating (communicating!), connected by pipes under the floor (I can see it from here). Always showing the same level? No, that wouldn't work, too hopeless: they'd arrange for me to have little attacks of hope from time to time (yes, pipes and taps - I can see it from here), so that I might fool myself from time to time.
If I had that to do, instead of this! Some little job with fluids, filling and emptying (always the same vesssel). I'd be good at that, it would be a better life than this. (No, I mustn't start complaining.) I'd have a body. I wouldn't have to speak. I'd hear my steps, almost without ceasing, and the noise of the water, and the crying of the air trapped in the pipes. (I don't understand.) I'd have bouts of zeal. I'd say to myself: "The quicker I do it the quicker it will be done." (The things one has to listen to!) That's where hope would come in.
It wouldn't be dark? Impossible to do such work in the dark? That depends. Yes, I must say I see no window, from here. Whereas here that has no importance, that I see no window. Here I needn't come and go (fortunately: I couldn't). Nor be dextrous. For naturally the water would have great value and the least drop
spilt on the way (or in the act of drawing, or in the act of pouring) would cost me dear. And how could you tell in the dark, if a drop.....
What's this story?
It's a story! Now I've told another little story, about me - about the life that might have been mine for all the difference it would have made. Which was perhaps mine: perhaps I went through that before being deemed worthy of going through this. Who knows towards what high destiny I am heading? (Unless I am coming from it.) But once again the fable must be of another. I see him so well, coming and going among his casks, trying to stop his hand from trembling, dropping his thimble, listening to it bouncing and rolling on the floor, scraping round for it with his foot, going down on his knees, going down on his belly, crawling.
It stops there.
It must have been I. But I never saw myself, so it can't have been I. I don't know: how can I recognize myself who never made my acquaintance? It stops there, that's all I know. I don't see him any more, I'll never see him again..... Yes I will: now he's there with the others. (I won't name them again: you say that for something to say - you say anything for something to say.) Some do this, others do that. He does as I said (I don't remember). He'll come back, to keep me company. (Only the wicked are solitary.) I'll see him again. (It's his fault - his fault for wanting to know what he was like, and how he lived). Or he'll never come back: it's one or the other. They don't all come back. I mean there must be some I have only seen once. Up to now? Very true: it's only beginning. I feel the end at hand and the beginning likewise. (To every man his orbit, that's obvious.)
But (and here I return to the charge), but has nothing really changed, all this mortal time? (I'm speaking now of me: yes, henceforward I shall speak of none but me, that's decided, even though I should not succeed. There's no reason why I should succeed, so I need have no qualms.) Nothing changed? I must be ageing all the same. (Bah, I was always aged, always ageing, and ageing makes no difference. Not to mention that all this is not about me.)
Hell, I've contradicted myself! No matter, so long as one does not know what one is saying and can't stop to enquire, in tranquillity (fortunately, fortunately). One would like to stop, but unconditionally, (I resume), so long as..... let me see..... so long as one, so long as he.....
Ah fuck all that: so long as this, then that. Agreed? That's good enough. (I nearly got stuck.)
Help, help!
If I could only describe this place - I who am so good at describing places! Walls, ceiling, floors, they are my speciality. Doors! Windows! What haven't I imagined in the way of windows in the course of my career! Some opened on the sea - all you could see was sea and sky. If I could put myself in a room, that would be the end of the wordy-gurdy. Even doorless, even windowless - nothing but the four surfaces (the six surfaces). If I could shut myself up! It would be a mine, it could be black dark. I could be motionless and fixed. I'd find a way to explore it: I'd listen to the echo. I'd get to know it, I'd get to remember it. I'd be home. I'd say what it's like, in my home, instead of any old thing.
This place! If I could describe this place! Portray it!
I've tried. I feel no place, no place round me. There's no end to me. I don't know what it is: it isn't flesh, it doesn't end. It's like air, now I have it (you say that, to say something - you won't say it long): like gas. (Balls, balls.) The place, then we'll see. First the place, then I'll find me in it: a solid lump, in the middle (or in a corner, well propped upon three sides).
The place! If only I could feel a place for me! (I've tried. I'll try again.) None was ever mine. That sea under my window (higher than the window)! And the rowboat, do you remember? And the river, and the bay! (I knew I had memories - pity they are not of me.) And the stars, and the beacons, and the lights of the buoys, and the mountain burning! It was the time nothing was too good for me. (The others benefited by it, they died like flies.) Or the forest! (A roof is not indispensable, an interior.) If I could be in a forest, caught in a thicket - or wandering round in circles! It would be the end of this blither. I'd describe the leaves, one by one: at the moment of their growing, at the moment of their giving shade, at the moment of their falling.
Those are good moments, for one who has not to say "But it's not I, it's not I. Where am I, what am I doing?" all the time (as if that mattered). But there it is, that takes the heart out of you, your heart isn't in it any more (your heart that was, among the brambles, cradled by the shadows). You try the sea, you try the town. You look for yourself in the mountains and the plains - it's only natural. You want yourself, you want yourself in your own little corner. It's not love, not curiosity: it's because you're tired. You want to stop, travel no more, seek no more, lie no more, speak no more, close your eyes (but your own): in a word lay hands on yourself. After that you'll make short work of it.
I notice one thing: the others have vanished, completely. I don't like it. (Notice? I notice nothing.)
I go on as best I can. (If it begins to mean something I can't help it.)
I have passed by here (this has passed me by) thousands of times: its turn has come again. It will pass on and something else will be there, another instant of my old instant. (There it is: the old meaning that I'll give myself, that I won't be able to give myself.)
There's a god for the damned, as on the first day: today is the first day, it begins. I know it well. (I'll remember it as I go along.) All adown it I'll be born and born, births for nothing - and come to night without having been.
Look at this Tunis pink! It's dawn!
If I could only shut myself up! Quick, I'll shut myself up (it won't be I). Quick, I'll make a place. It won't be mine, it doesn't matter. (I don't feel any place for me, perhaps that will come.) I'll make it mine. I'll put myself in it. I'll put someone in it. I'll find someone in it, I'll put myself in him, I'll say he's I. Perhaps he'll keep me. Perhaps the place will keep us: me inside the other, the place all round us. It will be over, all over. I won't have to try and move any more. I'll close my eyes. All I'll have to do is talk. That will be easy: I'll have things to say, about me, about my life (I'll make it a good one). I'll know who's talking, and about what. I'll know where I am.
Perhaps I'll be able to go silent. Perhaps that's all they're waiting for (there they are again), to pardon me - waiting for me to reach home, to pardon me. (It's the lie they refuse to stop.) I'll close my eyes, be happy at last: that's the way it is this morning. Morning, I call that morning? That's right (shilly-shally a little longer), I call that morning: I haven't many words. I haven't much choice, I don't choose: the word came. (I should have avoided this bright stain.) It's the dayspring - but it doesn't last, I know it. (I call that the dayspring! If you could only see it!)
I'm off! (You wouldn't think so.) Perhaps it's my last gallop. I smell the stable. (I always smelt the stable, it's I smell of the stable: there's no stable but me, for me.)
No, I won't do it.
What won't I do? (As if that depended on me!)
I won't seek my home any more. (I don't know what I'll do.) It would be occupied already: there would be someone there already, someone far gone. He wouldn't want me (I can understand him). I'd disturb him.
What am I going to say now? I'm going to ask myself, I'm going to ask questions: that's a good stop-gap. (Not that I'm in any danger of stopping. Then why all this fuss?) That's right, questions: I know millions, I must know millions. And then there are plans. When questions fail there are always plans: you say what you'll say and what you won't say (that doesn't commit you to anything), and the evil moment passes, it stops stone dead. Suddenly you hear yourself talking about God knows what as if you had done nothing else all your life (and neither have you). You come back from a far place, back to life. That's where you should be, where you are: far from here, far from everything.
If only I could go there! If only I could describe it! (I who am so good at topography.) That's right, aspirations: when plans fail there are always aspirations. It's a knack, you must say it slowly: "If only
this, if only that." That gives you time, time for a cud of longing to rise up in the back of your gullet. Nothing remains but to look as if you enjoyed chewing it.
There's no knowing where that may lead you, on tracks as beaten as the day is long. Often you pass yourself by (someone passes himself by). If only you knew! (That's right, aspirations!) You turn and look behind you, so does the other. You weep for him, he weeps for you - it's screamingly sad. (Anything rather than laughter.) What else? Opinions? Comparisons? (Anything rather than laughter.) All helps, can't help helping, to get you over the pretty pass. (The things you have to listen to! What pretty pass?)
It's not I speaking, it's not I hearing: let us not go into that. Let us go on as if I were the only one in the world (whereas I'm the only one absent from it). Or with others: what difference does it make - others present, others absent? They are not obliged to make themselves manifest. All that is needed is to wander and let wander, be this slow boundless whirlwind and every particle of its dust. (It's impossible.)
Someone speaks, someone hears: no need to go any further. It is not he, it's I. (Or another, or others - what does it matter?) The case is clear: it is not he, he who I know I am (that's all I know), who I cannot say I am. (I can't say anything - I've tried, I'm trying.) He knows nothing, knows of nothing: neither what it is to speak, nor what it is to hear.
To know nothing, to be capable of nothing, and to have to try! You don't try any more, no need to try: it goes on by itself, it drags on by itself, from word to word, a labouring whirl. You are in it somewhere, everywhere. Not he.
If only I could forget him! Have one second of this noise that carries me away, without having to say (I don't, I haven't time): "It's not I. I am he."
Three Novels: Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable Page 27
