The Unnamable (20 page)

the same as ever, murmurous with muted lamentation, panting and exhaling of impossible
sorrow, like distant laughter, and brief spells of hush, as of one buried before his
time. Long or short, the same silence. Then I resurrect and begin again. That’s what
I’ll have got for all my pains. Unless this time it’s the real silence at last. Perhaps
I’ve said the thing that had to be said, that gives me the right to be done with speech,
done with
listening
, done with hearing, without my knowing it. I’m listening already, I’m going silent.
The next time I won’t go to such pains, I’ll tell one of Mahood’s old tales, no matter
which, they are all alike, they won’t tire me, I won’t bother any more about me, I’ll
know that no matter what I say the result is the same, that I’ll never be silent,
never at peace. Unless I try once more, just once more, one last time, to say what
has to be said, about me, I feel it’s about me, perhaps that’s the mistake I make,
perhaps that’s my sin, so as to have nothing more to say, nothing more to hear, till
I die. It’s coming back. I’m glad. I’ll try again, quick before it goes again. Try
what? I don’t know. To continue. Now there is no one left. That’s a good continuation.
No one left, it’s
embarrassing
, if I had a memory it might tell me that this is the sign of the end, this having
no one left, no one to talk to, no one to talk to you, so that you have to say, It’s
I who am doing this to me, I who am talking to me about me. Then the breath fails,
the end begins, you go silent, it’s the end, short-lived, you begin again, you had
forgotten, there’s someone there, someone talking to you, about you, about him, then
a second, then a third, then the second again, then all three together, these figures
just to give you an idea, talking to you, about you, about them, all I have to do
is listen, then they depart, one by one, and the voice goes on, it’s not theirs, they
were never there, there was never anyone but you, talking to you about you, the breath
fails, it’s nearly the end, the breath stops, it’s the end,
short-lived
, I hear someone calling me, it begins again, that must be how it goes, if I had a
memory. 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, I’ll 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 what I have said I could repeat it, if I could learn 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 don’t know 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 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 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 vessel,
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 recognise 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 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 inquire, in tranquillity,
fortunately, fortunately, one would like to stop, but unconditionally, I resume, so
long as, 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, ceilings, 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, I’ll put me in it, a solid
lump, in the middle, or in a corner, well propped up on 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 row-boat, 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