The Unnamable (4 page)

Where now? Who now? When now? Unquestioning. I, say I. Unbelieving. Questions, hypotheses,
call them that. Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on. Can it be that
one day, off it goes on, that one day I simply stayed in, in where, instead of going
out, in the old way, out to spend day and night as far away as possible, it wasn’t
far. Perhaps that is how it began. You think you are simply resting, the better to
act when the time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever
to do anything again. No matter how it happened. It, say it, not knowing what. Perhaps
I simply assented at last to an old thing. But I did nothing. I seem to speak, it
is not I, about me, it is not about me. These few general remarks to begin with. What
am I to do, what shall I do, what should I do, in my situation, how proceed? By aporia
pure and simple? Or by affirmations and negations invalidated as uttered, or sooner
or later? Generally speaking. There must be other shifts. Otherwise it would be quite
hopeless. But it is quite hopeless. I should mention before going any further, any
further on, that I say aporia without knowing what it means. Can one be ephectic otherwise
than unawares? I don’t know. With the yesses and noes it is different, they will come
back to me as I go along and how, like a bird, to shit on them all without exception.
The fact would seem to be, if in my situation one may speak of facts, not only that
I shall have to speak of things of which I cannot speak, but also, which is even more
interesting, but also that I, which is if possible even more interesting, that I shall
have to, I forget, no matter. And at the same time I am obliged to speak. I shall
never be silent. Never.

I shall not be alone, in the beginning. I am of course alone. Alone. That is soon
said. Things have to be soon said. And how can one be sure, in such darkness? I shall
have company. In the
beginning. A few puppets. Then I’ll scatter them, to the winds, if I can. And things,
what is the correct attitude to adopt towards things? And, to begin with, are they
necessary? What a question. But I have few illusions, things are to be expected. The
best is not to decide anything, in this connection, in advance. If a thing turns up,
for some reason or another, take it into
consideration
. Where there are people, it is said, there are things. Does this mean that when you
admit the former you must also admit the latter? Time will tell. The thing to avoid,
I don’t know why, is the spirit of system. People with things, people without things,
things without people, what does it matter, I flatter myself it will not take me long
to scatter them, whenever I choose, to the winds. I don’t see how. The best would
be not to begin. But I have to begin. That is to say I have to go on. Perhaps in the
end I shall smother in a throng. Incessant comings and goings, the crush and bustle
of a bargain sale. No, no danger. Of that.

Malone is there. Of his mortal liveliness little trace remains. He passes before me
at doubtless regular intervals, unless it is I who pass before him. No, once and for
all, I do not move. He passes, motionless. But there will not be much on the subject
of Malone, from whom there is nothing further to be hoped. Personally I do not intend
to be bored. It was while watching him pass that I wondered if we cast a shadow. Impossible
to say. He passes close by me, a few feet away, slowly, always in the same direction.
I am almost sure it is he. The brimless hat seems to me conclusive. With his two hands
he props up his jaw. He passes without a word. Perhaps he does not see me. One of
these days I’ll challenge him. I’ll say, I don’t know, I’ll say
something
, I’ll think of something when the time comes. There are no days here, but I use the
expression. I see him from the waist up, he stops at the waist, as far as I am concerned.
The trunk is erect. But I do not know whether he is on his feet or on his knees. He
might also be seated. I see him in profile. Sometimes I wonder if it is not Molloy.
Perhaps it is Molloy, wearing Malone’s hat. But it is more reasonable to suppose it
is Malone, wearing his own hat. Oh look, there is the first thing, Malone’s
hat. I see no other clothes. Perhaps Molloy is not here at all. Could he be, without
my knowledge? The place is no doubt vast. Dim intermittent lights suggest a kind of
distance. To tell the truth I believe they are all here, at least from Murphy on,
I believe we are all here, but so far I have only seen Malone. Another hypothesis,
they were here, but are here no longer. I shall examine it after my fashion. Are there
other pits, deeper down? To which one accedes by mine? Stupid obsession with depth.
Are there other places set aside for us and this one where I am, with Malone, merely
their narthex? I thought I had done with preliminaries. No, no, we have all been here
forever, we shall all be here forever, I know it.

No more questions. Is not this rather the place where one finishes vanishing? Will
the day come when Malone will pass before me no more? Will the day come when Malone
will pass before the spot where I was? Will the day come when another will pass before
me, before the spot where I was? I have no opinion, on these matters.

Were I not devoid of feeling his beard would fill me with pity. It hangs down, on
either side of his chin, in two twists of unequal length. Was there a time when I
too revolved thus? No, I have always been sitting here, at this selfsame spot, my
hands on my knees, gazing before me like a great horn-owl in an aviary. The tears
stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? From time to
time. There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain. Past happiness
in any case has clean gone from my memory,
assuming
it was ever there. If I accomplish other natural functions it is unawares. Nothing
ever troubles me. And yet I am troubled. Nothing has ever changed since I have been
here. But I dare not infer from this that nothing ever will change. Let us try and
see where these considerations lead. I have been here, ever since I began to be, my
appearances elsewhere having been put in by other parties. All has proceeded, all
this time, in the utmost calm, the most perfect order, apart from one or two
manifestations
the meaning of which escapes me. No, it is not that their
meaning escapes me, my own escapes me just as much. Here all things, no, I shall not
say it, being unable to. I owe my existence to no one, these faint fires are not of
those that illuminate or burn. Going nowhere, coming from nowhere, Malone passes.
These notions of forbears, of houses where lamps are lit at night, and other such,
where do they come to me from? And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in
a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here
all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities.
Rhetoric. These lights for instance, which I do not require to mean anything, what
is there so strange about them, so wrong? Is it their irregularity, their instability,
their shining strong one minute and weak the next, but never beyond the power of one
or two candles? Malone appears and
disappears
with the punctuality of clockwork, always at the same remove, the same velocity,
in the same direction, the same attitude. But the play of the lights is truly unpredictable.
It is only fair to say that to eyes less knowing than mine they would probably pass
unseen. But even to mine do they not sometimes do so? They are perhaps unwavering
and fixed and my fitful perceiving the cause of their inconstancy. I hope I may have
occasion to revert to this question. But I shall remark without further delay, in
order to be sure of doing so, that I am relying on these lights, as indeed on all
other similar sources of credible perplexity, to help me continue and perhaps even
conclude. I resume, having no alternative. Where was I? Ah yes, from the unexceptionable
order which has prevailed here up to date may I infer that such will always be the
case? I may of course. But the mere fact of asking myself such a question gives me
to reflect. It is in vain I tell myself that its only purpose is to stimulate the
lagging discourse, this excellent explanation does not satisfy me. Can it be I am
the prey of a genuine preoccupation, of a need to know as one might say? I don’t know.
I’ll try it another way. If one day a change were to take place, resulting from a
principle
of disorder already present, or on its way, what then? That would seem to depend
on the nature of the change. No, here all
change would be fatal and land me back, there and then, in all the fun of the fair.
I’ll try it another way. Has nothing really changed since I have been here? No, frankly,
hand on heart, wait a second, no, nothing, to my knowledge. But, as I have said, the
place may well be vast, as it may well measure twelve feet in diameter. It comes to
the same thing, as far as discerning its limits is concerned. I like to think I occupy
the centre, but nothing is less certain. In a sense I would be better off at the circumference,
since my eyes are always fixed in the same
direction
. But I am certainly not at the circumference. For if I were it would follow that
Malone, wheeling about me as he does, would issue from the enceinte at every revolution,
which is manifestly impossible. But does he in fact wheel, does he not perhaps simply
pass before me in a straight line? No, he wheels, I feel it, and about me, like a
planet about its sun. And if he made a noise, as he goes, I would hear him all the
time, on my right hand, behind my back, on my left hand, before seeing him again.
But he makes none, for I am not deaf, of that I am convinced, that is to say half-convinced.
From centre to
circumference
in any case it is a far cry and I may well be situated somewhere between the two.
It is equally possible, I do not deny it, that I too am in perpetual motion, accompanied
by Malone, as the earth by its moon. In which case there would be no further grounds
for my complaining about the disorder of the lights, this being due simply to my insistence
on regarding them as always the same lights and viewed always from the same point.
All is possible, or almost. But the best is to think of myself as fixed and at the
centre of this place, whatever its shape and extent may be. This is also probably
the most pleasing to me. In a word, no change apparently since I have been here, disorder
of the lights perhaps an illusion, all change to be feared,
incomprehensible
uneasiness.

That I am not stone deaf is shown by the sounds that reach me. For though the silence
here is almost unbroken, it is not completely so. I remember the first sound heard
in this place, I have often heard it since. For I am obliged to assign a beginning
to my residence here, if only for the sake of clarity. Hell itself, although eternal,
dates from the revolt of Lucifer. It is therefore permissible, in the light of this
distant analogy, to think of myself as being here forever, but not as having been
here forever. This will greatly help me in my relation. Memory notably, which I did
not think myself entitled to draw upon, will have its word to say, if necessary. This
represents at least a thousand words I was not counting on. I may well be glad of
them. So after a long period of immaculate silence a feeble cry was heard, by me.
I do not know if Malone heard it too. I was surprised, the word is not too strong.
After so long a silence a little cry, stifled outright. What kind of creature uttered
it and, if it is the same, still does, from time to time? Impossible to say. Not a
human one in any case, there are no human creatures here, or if there are they have
done with crying. Is Malone the culprit? Am I? Is it not perhaps a simple little fart,
they can be rending? Deplorable mania, when something happens, to inquire what. If
only I were not obliged to manifest. And why speak of a cry? Perhaps it is something
breaking, some two things colliding. There are sounds here, from time to time, let
that suffice. This cry to begin with, since it was the first. And others, rather different.
I am getting to know them. I do not know them all. A man may die at the age of seventy
without ever having had the possibility of seeing Halley’s comet.

It would help me, since to me too I must attribute a
beginning
, if I could relate it to that of my abode. Did I wait
somewhere
for this place to be ready to receive me? Or did it wait for me to come and people
it? By far the better of these hypotheses, from the point of view of usefulness, is
the former, and I shall often have occasion to fall back on it. But both are distasteful.
I shall say therefore that our beginnings
coincide
, that this place was made for me, and I for it, at the same instant. And the sounds
I do not yet know have not yet made themselves heard. But they will change nothing.
The cry changed nothing, even the first time. And my surprise? I must have been expecting
it.

It is no doubt time I gave a companion to Malone. But first I shall tell of an incident
that has only occurred once, so far. I await its recurrence without impatience. Two
shapes then, oblong like man, entered into collision before me. They fell and I saw
them no more. I naturally thought of the pseudocouple Mercier-Camier. The next time
they enter the field, moving slowly towards each other, I shall know they are going
to collide, fall and disappear, and this will perhaps enable me to observe them better.
Wrong. I continue to see Malone as darkly as the first time. My eyes being fixed always
in the same direction I can only see, I shall not say clearly, but as clearly as the
visibility permits, that which takes place immediately in front of me, that is to
say, in the case before us, the collision, followed by the fall and disappearance.
Of their approach I shall never obtain other than a confused glimpse, out of the corner
of the eye, and what an eye. For their path too must be a curve, two curves, and meeting
I need not say close beside me. For the visibility, unless it be the state of my eyesight,
only permits me to see what is close beside me. I may add that my seat would appear
to be somewhat elevated, in relation to the surrounding ground, if ground is what
it is. Perhaps it is water or some other liquid. With the result that, in order to
obtain the optimum view of what takes place in front of me, I should have to lower
my eyes a little. But I lower my eyes no more. In a word, I only see what appears
immediately in front of me, I only see what appears close beside me, what I best see
I see ill.