The Unnamable (10 page)

exaggerate
my need of them. I accuse myself of inertia, and yet I move, at least I did, can
I by any chance have missed the tide? Let us consider the head. There something seems
to stir, from time to time, no reason therefore to despair of a fit of apoplexy. What
else? The organs of digestion and evacuation, though
sluggish, are not wholly inactive, as is shown by the attentions I receive. It’s encouraging.
While there’s life there’s hope. The flies, considered as traumatic agents, hardly
call for mention. I suppose they might bring me typhus. No, that’s rats. I have seen
a few, but they are not yet reduced to me. A lowly tapeworm? Not interesting. It is
clear in any case that I have lost heart too lightly, it is quite possible I have
all that is required to give them satisfaction. But already I’m beginning to be there
no more, in that calamitous street they made so clear to me. I could describe it,
I could have, a moment ago, as if I had been there, in the form they chose for me,
diminished certainly, not the man I was, not much longer for this world, but the eyes
still open to impressions, and one ear, sufficiently, and the head sufficiently obedient,
to provide me at least with a vague idea of the elements to be eliminated from the
setting in order for all to be empty and silent. That was always the way. Just at
the moment when the world is assembled at last, and it begins to dawn on me how I
can leave it, all fades and disappears. I shall never see this place again, where
my jar stands on its pedestal, with its garland of many-coloured lanterns, and me
inside it, I could not cling to it. Perhaps they will have me struck by lightning,
for a change, or poleaxed, one merry bank-holiday evening, then bundled in my shroud
and whisked away, out of sight and mind. Or removed alive, for a change, shifted and
deposited elsewhere, on the off chance. And at my next appearance, if I ever appear
again, all will be new, new and strange. But little by little I’ll get used to it,
admonished by them, used to the scene, used to me, and little by little the old problem
will raise its horrid head, how to live, with their kind of life, for a single second,
young or old, without aid and assistance. And thus reminded of other attempts, in
other circumstances, I shall start asking myself questions, prompted by them, like
those I have been asking, concerning me, and them, and these sudden shifts of time
and age, and how to succeed at last where I had always failed, so that they may be
pleased with me, and perhaps leave me in peace at last, and free to do what I have
to do, namely try and please the
other, if that is what I have to do, so that he may be pleased with me, and leave
me in peace at last, and give me quittance, and the right to rest, and silence, if
that is in his gift. It’s a lot to expect of one creature, it’s a lot to ask, that
he should first behave as if he were not, then as if he were, before being
admitted
to that peace where he neither is, nor is not, and where the language dies that permits
of such expressions. Two falsehoods, two trappings, to be borne to the end, before
I can be let loose, alone, in the unthinkable unspeakable, where I have not ceased
to be, where they will not let me be. It will perhaps be less restful than I appear
to think, alone there at last, and never importuned. No matter, rest is one of their
words, think is another. But here at last, it seems to me, is food for delirium. What
a shame if I should pitch on something and never notice it, another candle throw its
little light and I be none the wiser. Yes, I feel the moment has come for me to look
back, if I can, and take my bearings, if I am to go on. If only I knew what I have
been saying. Bah, no need to worry, it can only have been one thing, the same as ever.
I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them. I have only to go on, as
if there was something to be done, something begun, somewhere to go. It all boils
down to a question of words, I must not forget this, I have not forgotten it. But
I must have said this before, since I say it now. I have to speak in a certain way,
with warmth perhaps, all is possible, first of the creature I am not, as if I were
he, and then, as if I were he, of the creature I am. Before I can, etc. It’s a question
of voices, of voices to keep going, in the right manner, when they stop, on purpose,
to put me to the test, as now the one whose burden is roughly to the effect that I
am alive. Warmth, ease, conviction, the right manner, as if it were my own voice,
pronouncing my own words, words pronouncing me alive, since that’s how they want me
to be, I don’t know why, with their billions of quick, their trillions of dead, that’s
not enough for them, I too must contribute my little convulsion, mewl, howl, gasp
and rattle, loving my neighbour and blessed with reason. But what is the right manner,
I don’t know. It is
they who dictate this torrent of balls, they who stuffed me full of these groans that
choke me. And out it all pours unchanged, I have only to belch to be sure of hearing
them, the same old sour teachings I can’t change a tittle of. A parrot, that’s what
they’re up against, a parrot. If they had told me what I have to say, in order to
meet with their approval, I’d be bound to say it, sooner or later. But God forbid,
that would be too easy, my heart wouldn’t be in it, I have to puke my heart out too,
spew it up whole along with the rest of the vomit, it’s then at last I’ll look as
if I mean what I’m saying, it won’t be just idle words. Well, don’t lose hope, keep
your mouth open and your stomach turned, perhaps you’ll come out with it one of these
days. But the other voice, of him who does not share this passion for the animal kingdom,
who is waiting to hear from me, what is its burden? Nice point, too nice for me. For
on the subject of me properly so called, I know what I mean, so far as I know I have
received no information up to date. May one speak of a voice, in these conditions?
Probably not. And yet I do. The fact is all this business about voices requires to
be revised, corrected and then abandoned. Hearing nothing I am none the less a prey
to communications. And I speak of voices! After all, why not, so long as one knows
it’s untrue. But there are limits, it appears. Let them come. So nothing about me.
That is to say no connected statement. Faint calls, at long intervals. Hear me! Be
yourself again! Someone has therefore something to say to me. But never the least
news concerning me, beyond the insinuation that I am not in a condition to receive
any, since I am not there, which I knew already. I have naturally remarked, in a moment
of exceptional receptivity, that these exhortations are conveyed to me by the same
channel as that used by Malone and Co. for their transports. That’s suspicious, or
rather would be if I still hoped to obtain, from these revelations to come, some truth
of more value than those I have been plastered with ever since they took it into their
heads I had better exist. But this fond hope, which buoyed me up as recently as a
moment ago, if I
remember
right, has now passed from me. Two labours then, to be
distinguished perhaps, as the mine from the quarry, on the plane of the effort required,
but identically deficient in charm and interest. I. Who might that be? The galley-man,
bound for the Pillars of Hercules, who drops his sweep under cover of night and crawls
between the thwarts, towards the rising sun, unseen by the guard, praying for storm.
Except that I’ve stopped praying for anything. No no, I’m still a suppliant. I’ll
get over it, between now and the last voyage, on this leaden sea. It’s like the other
madness, the mad wish to know, to remember, one’s transgressions. I won’t be caught
at that again, I’ll leave it to this year’s damned. And now let us think no more about
it, think no more about anything, think no more. He alone or they a many, all solicit
me in the same tongue, the only one they taught me. They told me there were others,
I don’t regret not knowing them. The moment the silence is broken in this way it can
only mean one thing. Orders, prayers, threats, praise, reproach, reasons. Praise,
yes, they gave me to understand I was making progress. Well done, sonny, that will
be all for today, run along now back to your dark and see you tomorrow. And there
I am, with my white beard, sitting among the children, babbling, cringing from the
rod. I’ll die in the lower third, bowed down with years and impositions, four foot
tall again, like when I had a future, bare-legged in my old black pinafore, wetting
my drawers. Pupil Mahood, for the twenty-five thousandth time, what is a mammal? And
I’ll fall down dead, worn out by the rudiments. But I’ll have made progress, they
told me so, only not enough, not enough. Ah! Where was I, in my lessons? That is what
has had a fatal effect on my development, my lack of memory, no doubt about it. Pupil
Mahood, repeat after me, Man is a higher mammal. I couldn’t. Always talking about
mammals, in this menagerie. Frankly, between ourselves, what the hell could it matter
to pupil Mahood, that man was this rather than that? Presumably nothing has been lost
in any case, since here it all comes slobbering out again, let loose by the nightmare.
I’ll have my bellyful of mammals, I can see that from here, before I wake. Quick,
give me a mother and let me suck
her white, pinching my tits. But it’s time I gave this solitary a name, nothing doing
without proper names. I therefore baptise him Worm. It was high time. Worm. I don’t
like it, but I haven’t much choice. It will be my name too, when the time comes, when
I needn’t be called Mahood any more, if that happy time ever comes. Before Mahood
there were others like him, of the same breed and creed, armed with the same prong.
But Worm is the first of his kind. That’s soon said. I must not forget I don’t know
him. Perhaps he too will weary, renounce the task of forming me and make way for another,
having laid the
foundations
. He has not yet been able to speak his mind, only murmur, I have not ceased to hear
his murmur, all the while the others discoursed. He has survived them all, Mahood
too, if Mahood is dead. I can hear him yet, faithful, begging me to still this dead
tongue of the living. I imagine that is what he says, in his unchanging tone. If I
could be silent I would better understand what he wants of me, wants me to be, wants
me to say. Why doesn’t he thunder it at me and get it over? Too easy, it is I who
must be silent, hold my breath. But there is something wrong here. For if Mahood were
silent, Worm would be silent too. That the impossible should be asked of me, good,
what else could be asked of me? But the absurd! Of me whom they have reduced to reason.
It is true poor Worm is not to blame for this. That’s soon said. But let me complete
my views, before I shit on them. For if I am Mahood, I am Worm too, plop. Or if I
am not yet Worm, I shall be when I cease to be Mahood, plop. On now to serious matters.
No, not yet. Another of Mahood’s yarns perhaps, to perfect my besotment. No, not worth
the trouble, it will come at its appointed hour, the record is in position from time
immemorial. Yes, the big words must out too, all be taken as it comes. The problem
of liberty too, as sure as fate, will come up for my consideration at the pre-established
moment. But perhaps I have been too hasty in opposing these two fomenters of fiasco.
Is it not the fault of one that I cannot be the other? Accomplices therefore. That’s
the way to reason, warmly. Or is one to postulate a tertius gaudens, meaning myself,
responsible
for the double failure? Shall I come upon my true countenance at last, bathing in
a smile? I have the feeling I shall be spared this spectacle. At no moment do I know
what I’m talking about, nor of whom, nor of where, nor how, nor why, but I could employ
fifty wretches for this sinister operation and still be short of a fifty-first, to
close the circuit, that I know, without knowing what it means. The essential is never
to arrive anywhere, never to be anywhere, neither where Mahood is, nor where Worm
is, nor where I am, it little matters thanks to what dispensation. The essential is
to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and
banks and ravening in heaven a sporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen
shits. I’ve swallowed three hooks and am still hungry. Hence the howls. What a joy
to know where one is, and where one will stay, without being there. Nothing to do
but stretch out comfortably on the rack, in the blissful knowledge you are nobody
for all eternity. A pity I should have to give tongue at the same time, it prevents
it from bleeding in peace, licking the lips. Well I suppose one can’t have everything,
so late in the proceedings. They’ll surely bring me to the surface one day or another
and all then sink their differences and agree it was not worth while going to so much
trouble for such a paltry kill, for such paltry killers. What silence then! And now
let’s see what news there is of Worm, just to please the old bastard. I’ll soon know
if the other is still after me. But even if he isn’t nothing will come of it, he won’t
catch me, I won’t be delivered from him, I mean Worm, I swear it, the other never
caught me, I was never
delivered
from him, it’s past history, up to the present. I am he who will never be caught,
never delivered, who crawls between the thwarts, towards the new day that promises
to be glorious, festooned with lifebelts, praying for rack and ruin. The third line
falls plumb from the skies, it’s for her majesty my soul, I’d have hooked her on it
long ago if I knew where to find her. That brings us up to four, gathered together.
I knew it, there might be a hundred of us and still we’d lack the hundred and first,
we’ll always be short of me. Worm, I nearly said Watt, Worm,
what can I say of Worm, who hasn’t the wit to make himself plain, what to still this
gnawing of termites in my Punch and Judy box, what that might not just as well be
said of the other? Perhaps it’s by trying to be Worm that I’ll finally succeed in
being Mahood, I hadn’t thought of that. Then all I’ll have to do is be Worm. Which
no doubt I shall achieve by trying to be Jones. Then all I’ll have to do is be Jones.
Stop, perhaps he’ll spare me that, have compassion and let me stop. The dawn will
not be always rosy. Worm, Worm, it’s between the three of us now, and the devil take
the hindmost. It seems to me besides that I must have already made, contrary to what
it seems to me I must have already said, some efforts in this direction. I should
have noted them, if only in my head. But Worm cannot note. There at least is a first
affirmation, I mean negation, on which to build. Worm cannot note. Can Mahood note?
That’s it, weave, weave. Yes, it is the characteristic, among others, of Mahood to
note, even if he does not always succeed in doing so, certain things, perhaps I should
say all things, so as to turn them to account, for his governance. And indeed we have
seen him do so, in the yard, in his jar, in a sense. I knew I had only to try and
talk of Worm to begin talking of Mahood, with more felicity and understanding than
ever. How close to me he suddenly seems, squinting up at the medals of the hippophagist
Ducroix. It is the hour of the apéritif, already people pause, to read the menu. Charming
hour of the day, particularly when, as