The Unnamable (9 page)

aptitude
for happiness, need only look at me a second time, those who can bring themselves
to do it, to have immediately their minds made easy. For my face reflects nothing
but the
satisfaction
of one savouring a well-earned rest. It is true my mouth was hidden, most of the
time, and my eyes closed. Ah yes,
sometimes
it’s in the past, sometimes in the present. And alone perhaps the state of my skull,
covered with pustules and
bluebottles
, these latter naturally abounding in such a
neighbourhood
, preserved me from being an object of envy for many, and a source of discontent.
I hope this gives a fair picture of my
situation
. Once a week I was taken out of my receptacle, so that it might be emptied. This
duty fell to the proprietress of the
chophouse
across the street and she performed it punctually and without complaint, beyond an
occasional good-natured
reflection
to the effect that I was a nasty old pig, for she had a kitchen-garden. Without perhaps
having exactly won her heart it was clear I did not leave her indifferent. And before
putting
me back she took advantage of the circumstance that my mouth was accessible to stick
into it a chunk of lights or a
marrowbone
. And when snow fell she covered me with a tarpaulin still watertight in places. It
was under its shelter, snug and dry, that I became acquainted with the boon of tears,
while wondering to what I was indebted for it, not feeling moved. And this not merely
once, but every time she covered me, that is to say twice or three times a year. Yes,
it was fatal, no sooner had the
tarpaulin
settled over me, and the precipitate steps of my benefactress died away, than the
tears began to flow. Is this, was this to be interpreted as an effect of gratitude?
But in that case should not I have felt grateful? Besides I realised darkly that if
she took care of me thus, it was not solely out of goodness, or else I had not rightly
understood the meaning of goodness, when it was explained to me. It must not be forgotten
that I represented for this woman an undeniable asset. For quite apart from the
services
I rendered to her lettuce, I constituted for her
establishment
a kind of landmark, not to say an advertisement, far more effective than for example
a chef in cardboard, pot-bellied in profile and full face wafer thin. That she was
well aware of this is shown by the trouble she had taken to festoon my jar with Chinese
lanterns, of a very pretty effect in the twilight, and a fortiori in the night. And
the jar itself, so that the passer-by might consult with greater ease the menu attached
to it, had been raised on a pedestal at her own expense. It is thus I learnt that
her turnips in gravy are not so good as they used to be, but that on the other hand
her carrots, equally in gravy, are even better than formerly. The gravy has not varied.
This is the kind of language I can almost understand, these the kind of clear and
simple notions on which it is possible for me to build, I ask for no other spiritual
nourishment. A turnip, I know roughly what a turnip is like, a carrot too, particularly
the Flakkee, or Colmar Red. I seem to grasp at certain moments the nuance that divides
bad from worse. And if I do not always feel the full force of yesterday and today,
this does not detract very much from the satisfaction I feel at having penetrated
the gist of the matter. Of
her salad, for example, I never heard anything but praise. Yes, I represent for her
a tidy little capital and, if I should ever happen to die, I am convinced she would
be genuinely annoyed. This should help me to live. I like to fancy that when the fatal
hour of reckoning comes, if it ever does, and my debt to nature is paid off at last,
she will do her best to prevent the removal, from where it now stands, of the old
vase in which I shall have
accomplished
my vicissitudes. And perhaps in the place now occupied by my head she will set a
melon, or a vegetable-marrow, or a big pineapple with its little tuft, or better still,
I don’t know why, a swede, in memory of me. Then I shall not vanish quite, as is so
often the way with people when buried. But it is not to speak of her that I have started
lying again.
De nobis ipsis silemus
,
decidedly
that should have been my motto. Yes, they gave me some lessons in pigsty Latin too,
it looks well, sprinkled through the perjury. It is perhaps worth noting that snow
alone, provided of course it is heavy, entitles me to the tarpaulin. No other form
of filthy weather lets loose in her the maternal instinct, in my favour. I have tried
to make her understand, dashing my head angrily against the neck of the jar, that
I should like to be shrouded more often. At the same time I let my spittle flow over,
in an attempt to show my displeasure. In vain. I wonder what explanation she can have
found to account for this
behaviour
. She must have talked it over with her husband and
probably
been told that I was merely stifling, that is just the reverse of the truth. But
credit where credit is due, we made a balls of it between us, I with my signs and
she with her reading of them. This story is no good, I’m beginning almost to believe
it. But let us see how it is supposed to end, that will sober me. The trouble is I
forget how it goes on. But did I ever know? Perhaps it stops there, perhaps they stopped
it there, saying, who knows, There you are now, you don’t need us any more. This in
fact is one of their favourite devices, to stop suddenly at the least sign of adhesion
from me, leaving me high and dry, with nothing for my renewal but the life they have
imputed to me. And it is only when they see me stranded that they take up again the
thread of
my misfortunes, judging me still insufficiently vitalised to bring them to a successful
conclusion alone. But instead of making the junction, I have often noticed this, I
mean instead of
resuming
me at the point where I was left off, they pick me up at a much later stage, perhaps
thereby hoping to induce in me the illusion that I had got through the interval all
on my own, lived without help of any kind for quite some time, and with no
recollection
of by what means or in what circumstances, or even died, all on my own, and come
back to earth again, by way of the vagina like a real live baby, and reached a ripe
age, and even senility, without the least assistance from them and thanks solely to
the hints they had given me. To saddle me with a
lifetime
is probably not enough for them, I have to be given a taste of two or three generations.
But it’s not certain. Perhaps all they have told me has reference to a single existence,
the confusion of identities being merely apparent and due to my inaptitude to assume
any. If I ever succeed in dying under my own steam, then they will be in a better
position to decide if I am worthy to adorn another age, or to try the same one again,
with the benefit of my experience. I may therefore perhaps legitimately suppose that
the one-armed one-legged wayfarer of a moment ago and the wedge-headed trunk in which
I am now marooned are simply two phases of the same carnal envelope, the soul being
notoriously immune from deterioration and dismemberment. Having lost one leg, what
indeed more likely than that I should mislay the other? And similarly for the arms.
A natural
transition
in sum. But what then of that other old age they bestowed upon me, if I remember
right, and that other middle age, when neither legs nor arms were lacking, but simply
the power to profit by them? And of that kind of youth in which they had to give me
up for dead? If I have a warm place, it is not in their hearts. Oh I don’t say they
haven’t done all they could to be agreeable to me, to get me out of here, on no matter
what pretext, in no matter what disguise. All I reproach them with is their insistence.
For beyond them is that other who will not give me quittance until they have abandoned
me as inutilisable and
restored me to myself. Then at last I can set about saying what I was, and where,
during all this long lost time. But who is he, if my guess is right, who is waiting
for that, from me? And who these others whose designs are so different? And into whose
hands I play when I ask myself such questions? But do I, do I? In the jar did I ask
myself questions? And in the arena? I have dwindled, I dwindle. Not so long ago, with
a kind of shrink of my head and shoulders, as when one is scolded, I could
disappear.
Soon, at my present rate of decrease, I may spare myself this effort. And spare myself
the trouble of closing my eyes, so as not to see the day, for they are blinded by
the jar a few inches away. And I have only to let my head fall forward against the
wall to be sure that the light from above, which at night is that of the moon, will
not be reflected there either, in those little blue mirrors, I used to look at myself
in them, to try and brighten them. Wrong again, wrong again, this effort and this
trouble will not be spared me. For the woman, displeased at seeing me sink lower and
lower, has raised me up by filling the bottom of my jar with sawdust which she changes
every week, when she makes my toilet. It is softer than the stone, but less hygienic.
And I had got used to the stone. Now I’m getting used to the sawdust. It’s an occupation.
I could never bear to be idle, it saps one’s energy. And I open and close my eyes,
open and close, as in the past. And I move my head in and out, in and out, as heretofore.
And often at dawn, having left it out all night, I bring it in, to mock the woman
and lead her astray. For in the morning, when she has rattled up her shutters, the
first look of her eyes still moist with fornication is for the jar. And when she does
not see my head she comes running to find out what has happened. For either I have
escaped during the night or else I have shrunk again. But just before she reaches
me I up with it like a jack-
in-the
-box, the old eyes glaring up at her. I mentioned I cannot turn my head, and this
is true, my neck having stiffened
prematurely
. But this does not mean it is always facing in the same direction. For with a kind
of tossing and writhing I succeed in imparting to my trunk the degree of rotation
required, and not
merely in one direction, but in the other also. My little game, which I should have
thought inoffensive, has cost me dear, and yet I could have sworn I was insolvable.
It is true one does not know one’s riches until they are lost and I probably have
others still that only await the thief to be brought to my notice. And today, if I
can still open and close my eyes, as in the past, I can no longer, because of my roguish
character, move my head in and out, as in the good old days. For a collar, fixed to
the mouth of the jar, now encircles my neck, just below the chin. And my lips which
used to be hidden, and which I sometimes pressed against the freshness of the stone,
can now be seen by all and sundry. Did I say I catch flies? I snap them up, clack!
Does this mean I still have my teeth? To have lost one’s limbs and preserved one’s
dentition, what a mockery! But to revert now to the gloomy side of this affair, I
may say that this collar, or ring, of cement, makes it very awkward for me to turn,
in the way I have said. I take advantage of this to learn to stay quiet. To have forever
before my eyes, when I open them, approximately the same set of hallucinations exactly,
is a joy I might never have known, but for my cang. There is really only one thing
that worries me, and that is the prospect of being throttled if I should ever happen
to shorten further. Asphyxia! I who was always the respiratory type, witness this
thorax still mine, together with the abdomen. I who murmured, each time I breathed
in, Here comes more oxygen, and each time I breathed out, There go the impurities,
the blood is bright red again. The blue face! The obscene protrusion of the tongue!
The
tumefaction
of the penis! The penis, well now, that’s a nice surprise, I’d forgotten I had one.
What a pity I have no arms, there might still be something to be wrung from it. No,
’tis better thus. At my age, to start manstuprating again, it would be indecent. And
fruitless. And yet one can never tell. With a yo heave ho,
concentrating
with all my might on a horse’s rump, at the moment when the tail rises, who knows,
I might not go altogether
empty-handed
away. Heaven, I almost felt it flutter! Does this mean they did not geld me? I could
have sworn they had gelt me. But
perhaps I am getting mixed up with other scrota. Not another stir out of it in any
case. I’ll concentrate again. A Clydesdale. A Suffolk stallion. Come come, a little
cooperation please, finish dying, it’s the least you might do, after all the trouble
they’ve taken to bring you to life. The worst is over. You’ve been
sufficiently
assassinated, sufficiently suicided, to be able now to stand on your own feet, like
a big boy. That’s what I keep telling myself. And I add, quite carried away, Slough
off this mortal inertia, it is out of place, in this society. They can’t do
everything
. They have put you on the right road, led you by the hand to the very brink of the
precipice, now it’s up to you, with an unassisted last step, to show them your gratitude.
I like this colourful language, these bold metaphors and apostrophes. Through the
splendours of nature they dragged a paralytic and now there’s nothing more to admire
it’s my duty to jump, that it may be said, There goes another who has lived. It does
not seem to occur to them that I was never there, that this glassy eye, this fallen
chap and the foam at the mouth owe nothing to the Bay of Naples, or Aubervilliers.
The last step! I who could never manage the first. But perhaps they would consider
themselves
sufficiently rewarded if I simply waited for the wind to blow me over. That by all
means, it’s in my repertory. The trouble is there is no wind equal to it. The cliff
would have to cave in under me. If only I were alive inside one might look forward
to heart-failure, or to a nice little infarctus somewhere or other. It’s usually with
sticks they put me out of their agony, the idea being to demonstrate, to the backers,
and bystanders, that I had a beginning, and an end. Then planting the foot on my chest,
where all is as usual, to the assembly, Ah if you had seen him fifty years ago, what
push, what go! Knowing perfectly well they have to begin me all over again. But perhaps
I