Digital Manuscript ProjectL'Innommable / The Unnamable

[1496] Having won, shall I be left in peace.[1497] It doesn't look like [⁁] it,
I seem to be going on talking.[1498] In any case all these suppositions
are probably erroneous.[1499] I shall perhaps be launched again, girt
with better arms, against the fortress of mortality.[1500] What is more
important is that I should know what is going on now, in order to
announce it, as my function requires.[1501] It must not be forgotten,
sometimes I forget, that all is a question of voices.
[1503] I say what
I am told to say, in the hope that some day they will weary of
talking at me.[1504] The trouble is I say it wrong, having no ear, no
head, no memory.[1505] Now I hear them say it is Worm's voice be-
ginning, I pass on the news, for what it is worth.[1506] Do they believe
I believe it is I who am talking?[1507] That's theirs too.[1508] To make
me think I have an ego of my own and can speak of it, as they of
theirs.
[1509] Another trap, so that I may suddenly find myself caught among the living.[1510] It's how to fall into it that they can't
have explained to me properly.[1511] They'll never get the better of
my stupidity.[1512] Why do they speak to me thus?[1513] It is possible certain
things change on their [⁁] passage through me, in a way they can't prevent?
[1514] Do they believe I believe it is I who am
asking these questions?[1515] That's theirs too,[1516] a little distorted
perhaps.[1517] I don't say it's not the right method.
[1518] I don't say they
won't get me in the end.[1519] I wish they would, to be thrown away.
[1520] It'sthis hunt that is tiring, this unending being at bay.[1521] Images,
they imagine that by piling on the images they'll [⁁] smother me in the
end.[1522] Like the mother that whistles to prevent baby's bladder from
bursting, there's another.[1523] They, yes, they, now they're all in the same
boat.[1524] Worm to play, his lead, I wish him a happy time.[1525] To think I
thought he was against what they were trying to do with me.
[1526] To
think I saw in him, if not exactly me, a step towards me.[1527] To get
me to be he, the anti-Mahood, and then say, But what am I doing
but living, in a kind of way, in the only possible way?[1528] That's
the combination.[1529] Or by the absurd prove to me that I am, the ab-
surd of not being able.[1530] Unfortunately it is no help my being
forewarned, I never remain so for long.In any case I wish him
[1531] In any case I wish him
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L'Innommable / The Unnamable © 2013 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Shane Weller and Vincent Neyt