Digital Manuscript ProjectL'Innommable / The Unnamable

[2124] What can uyou expect, they don't know who they are either,
nor where they are, nor what they're doing, nor why everything
is going so badly, so abominably badly, that must be it.[2125] So
So they build up hypotheses that collapse on top of one another,
it's hiuman, a lobster couldn't do it.[2126] We're in a nice mess, [↑] Ah a nice mess we're in, the
whole lot of us, is it possible we're all in the same boat, no,
we're in a nice mess each one in his particular own peculiar way.
[2127] I myself
have been scandalously bungled, they must be beginning to realize
it, I upon whom all depends dangles (?), better still, about wjhom, much
better, all turns, giddily dizzily, yes yes, don't protest, all whirls spins,
it's a head, I'm in a head, what an illumination, ssst, pissed
on out of hand.
[2128] Ah this blind voice, and these moments of held
breath when everybody all listens wildly, and the voice that begins
to fumble again, without knowing what it's looking for, and
again the tiny silence, and the listening again, for what, no-
body knows, a sign of life perhaps, that must be it, a sign of
life escaping somebody, and bound to be denied if it came, that's
it surely, if all that could only stop, there'd be peace, no, [⁁] too good to be true,
peace would be unbleievable, it wouldn't be beli it wouldn't be believed, the listening would go on, for
[2128] the voice to begin again, for as a sign of life, for somebody
to betray himself, or for something else, anything, what else
can there be but signs of life, the fall of a pin, the stirring
of a leaf, or the little cry that frogs give when the scythe cuts slices
them in two half, or when they are spiked, in the water their pools, with a spear,
one could multiply the examples, but there it is, one can't.
it would evebn be an excellent idea, but there it is, one can't.
[2129] Perhaps it would be better to beb blind, the blind hear better,
lot of general knowledge knocking about wide information we
have, full of information general knowledge we are this evening, we have piano tuners
up our sleeve, they strike A and hear G, two minutes later,
there's nothing to be seen in any case, this eye is an oversight.
[2130] But this isn't Worm speaking.[2131] True, so far, who denies it, it
would be premature.[2132] Nor I, for that matter,[2133] and Mahhood is notor-
iously aphonic.But the question is not there, for the moment,
[2134] But the question is not there, for the moment,
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- Marginal Additions
L'Innommable / The Unnamable © 2013 Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Editors: Dirk Van Hulle, Shane Weller and Vincent Neyt