The Unnamable (23 page)

say soon, it’s the regulations. The place, I’ll make it all the same, I’ll make it
in my head, I’ll draw it out of my memory, I’ll gather it all about me, I’ll make
myself a head, I’ll make myself a memory, I have only to listen, the voice will tell
me everything, tell it to me again, everything I need, in dribs and drabs,
breathless
, it’s like a confession, a last confession, you think it’s finished, then it starts
off again, there were so many sins, the memory is so bad, the words don’t come, the
words fail, the breath fails, no, it’s something else, it’s an indictment, a dying
voice accusing, accusing me, you must accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable,
it speaks of my sins, it speaks of my head, it says it’s mine, it says that I repent,
that I want to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up, a
victim is essential, I have only to listen, it will show me my hiding-place, what
it’s like, where the door is, if there’s a door, and whereabouts I am in it, and what
lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country, whether it’s sea, or whether
it’s mountain, and the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself
up, come to the place where the axe falls, without further ceremony, on all who come
from here, I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it
has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act
like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning,
all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet
my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel
a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough
to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand,
to have eyes to light the way, I merely hear, without understanding, without being
able to profit by it, by what I hear, to do what, to rise and go and be done with
hearing, I don’t hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me,
it’s not my turn, the
topographical
and anatomical information in particular is lost on me, no, I hear everything, what
difference does it make, the moment it’s not my turn, my turn to understand, my turn
to
live, my turn of the life-screw, it calls that living, the space of the way from here
to the door, it’s all there, in what I hear,
somewhere
, if all has been said, all this long time, all must have been said, but it’s not
my turn to know what, to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop
being it, to stop being there, that’s coherent, so as to be another, no, the same,
I don’t know, depart into life, travel the road, find the door, find the axe, perhaps
it’s a cord, for the neck, for the throat, for the cords, or fingers, I’ll have eyes,
I’ll see fingers, it will be the silence, perhaps it’s a drop, find the door, open
the door, drop, into the silence, it won’t be I, I’ll stay here, or there, more likely
there, it will never be I, that’s all I know, it’s all been done already, said and
said again, the departure, the body that rises, the way, in colour, the arrival, the
door that opens, closes again, it was never I, I’ve never stirred, I’ve listened,
I must have spoken, why deny it, why not admit it, after all, I deny nothing, I admit
nothing, I say what I hear, I hear what I say, I don’t know, one or the other, or
both, that makes three possibilities, pick your fancy, all these stories about travellers,
these stories about paralytics, all are mine, I must be extremely old, or it’s memory
playing tricks, if only I knew if I’ve lived, if I live, if I’ll live, that would
simplify everything, impossible to find out, that’s where you’re buggered, I haven’t
stirred, that’s all I know, no, I know something else, it’s not I, I always forget
that, I resume, you must resume, never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories,
to myself, hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else,
wondering now and then where I got them from, was I in the land of the living, were
they in mine, and where, where do I store them, in my head, I don’t feel a head on
me, and what do I tell them with, with my mouth, same remark, and what do I hear them
with, and so on, the old rigmarole, it can’t be I, or it’s because I pay no heed,
it’s such an old habit, I do it without heeding, or as if I were somewhere else, there
I am far again, there I am the absentee again, it’s his turn again now, he who neither
speaks nor listens, who has neither body nor soul, it’s something else he
has, he must have something, he must be somewhere, he is made of silence, there’s
a pretty analysis, he’s in the silence, he’s the one to be sought, the one to be,
the one to be spoken of, the one to speak, but he can’t speak, then I could stop,
I’d be he, I’d be the silence, I’d be back in the silence, we’d be reunited, his story
the story to be told, but he has no story, he hasn’t been in story, it’s not certain,
he’s in his own story, unimaginable, unspeakable, that doesn’t matter, the attempt
must be made, in the old stories incomprehensibly mine, to find his, it must be there
somewhere, it must have been mine, before being his, I’ll recognise it, in the end
I’ll recognise it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never
have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he,
it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning
again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them,
the words fail, the voice fails, so be it, I know that well, it will be the silence,
full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual silence, spent listening, spent waiting,
waiting for the voice, the cries abate, like all cries, that is to say they stop,
the murmurs cease, they give up, the voice begins again, it begins trying again, quick
now before there is none left, no voice left, nothing left but the core of murmurs,
distant cries, quick now and try again, with the words that remain, try what, I don’t
know, I’ve forgotten, it doesn’t matter, I never knew, to have them carry me into
my story, the words that remain, my old story, which I’ve forgotten, far from here,
through the noise, through the door, into the silence, that must be it, it’s too late,
perhaps it’s too late, perhaps they have, how would I know, in the silence you don’t
know, perhaps it’s the door, perhaps I’m at the door, that would surprise me, perhaps
it’s I, perhaps
somewhere
or other it was I, I can depart, all this time I’ve journeyed without knowing it,
it’s I now at the door, what door, what’s a door doing here, it’s the last words,
the true last, or it’s the murmurs, the murmurs are coming, I know that well, no,
not even that, you talk of murmurs, distant cries, as long as you can talk, you talk
of them before and you talk of them after, more
lies, it will be the silence, the one that doesn’t last, spent
listening
, spent waiting, for it to be broken, for the voice to break it, perhaps there’s no
other, I don’t know, it’s not worth having, that’s all I know, it’s not I, that’s
all I know, it’s not mine, it’s the only one I ever had, that’s a lie, I must have
had the other, the one that lasts, but it didn’t last, I don’t understand, that is
to say it did, it still lasts, I’m still in it, I left myself behind in it, I’m waiting
for me there, no, there you don’t wait, you don’t listen, I don’t know, perhaps it’s
a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I’ll wake, in the silence, and never
sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence,
full of murmurs, I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing
else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well,
I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment,
a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still
lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you
must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange
pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said
me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the
door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it
will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you
don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School
and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut
in 1930 with
Whoroscope
and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of
his most famous plays,
Waiting for Godot
, in 1949 but it wasn’t published in English until 1954.
Waiting for
Godot
brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure
in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.
Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death
in 1989.

Steven Connor is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College London
and the author of
Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text
and numerous essays and articles on Beckett.

ENDGAME

Preface by Rónán McDonald

COMPANY/ILL SEEN ILL SAID/WORSTWARD HO/STRINGS STILL

Edited by Dirk Van Hulle

KRAPP’ LAST TAPE AND OTHER SHORTER PLAYS

Preface by S. E. Gontarski

MURPHY

Edited by J. C. C. Mays

WATT

Edited by C. J. Ackerley

ALL THAT FALL AND OTHER PLAYS FOR RADIO AND SCREEN

Preface and Notes by Everett Frost

MOLLOY

Edited by Shane Weller

HOW IT IS

Edited by Édouard Magessa O’Reilly

THE EXPELLED/THE CALMATIVE/THE END & FIRST LOVE

Edited by Christopher Ricks

SELECTED POEMS
, 1930–1989

Edited by David Wheatley

WAITING FOR GODOT

Preface by Mary Bryden

MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS

Edited by Cassandra Nelson

malone dies

Edited by Peter Boxall

THE UNNAMABLE

Edited by Steven Connor

HAPPY DAYS

Preface by James Knowlson

TEXTS FOR NOTHING
and Other Shorter Prose, 1950–1976

Edited by Mark Nixon

MERCIER AND CAMIER

Edited by Seán Kennedy