Samuel Beckett
Digital Manuscript Project
L'Innommable / The Unnamable

MS-HRC-SB-5-10

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[1671] If only they[p. 73r] would stop talking for nothing, pending their stopping everything. [1672] Noything? [1673] That's an easy thing to say soon said. [1674] It is not for me to judge. [1675] What would I judge with? [1676] It's more provocation. [1677] They want me to lose patience and rush, suudenly beside myself, to their rescue. [1678] How transparent that all is. [1679] Sometimes I say to lmyself, they say to me, Worm says to me, the subject matters little, that my purveyors are more than one, four or five. [1680] And yet there is not harmony, no overlapping. [1681] It's more likely the same foul brute all the time, amusing himself pretending to be a many, varying his register, his tone, his accent and his tomfoolery. [1682] Unless it comes natural to him. [1683] A bare and rusty hook might be acceptable I might accept. [1684] But all these titbits.! [1685] But there are long silences too, at long intervals, during which, hearing nothing, I say nothing. [1686] That is to say I hear a murmuring, if I listen hard enough, [1687] but it's not for me, it's for them alone, they are putting their heads together again. [1688] I don't hear what they say, all I know is they are st that they are still there, that they haven't done, with me. [1689] They have moved a little aside. [1690] Secrets. [1691] Or if there is only one, it is he alone, taking counsel with himself, muttering and chewing his moustache, getting ready for a fresh flow of inanities. [1692] To think of me eavesdropping, me, as soon as silence falls! [1693] Ah a nice state they have me in. [1694] But it's with the hope there is no one left. [1695] But this is not the time to speak of that. [1696] Good. [1697] Of what is it the time to speak? [1698] Of Worm, at last. [1699] Good. [1700] We must first, to begin with, go back to his beginnings, and then, to go on with, follow him patiently throuhg the various stages, taking care to show their fatal concatenation, which have made him what I am. [1701] To be tossed off with bravura. [1702] Then notes from day to day, until I capitulate. [1703] And to wind up with song and dance of thanksgiving by victim, to celebrate his nativity. [1704] Please God nothing goes wrong. [1705] Mahood I cxouldn't die. [1706] Worm will I ever get born? [1707] It's the same problem. [1708] But perhaps not the same personage after all. [1709] Time will tell Father Time will tell, he's not particular. it's all one to him. [1710] [p. 74r] But let us go back as planned;, afterwards we'll fall forward as projected. [1711] The reverse would be nearer the mark more correct. [1712] But not by much. [1713] Upstream, downstream, no matter, I begin by the ear, that's the way to talk. [1714] Before that it is the night of time. [1715] Whereas since, what light! [1716] Now at least I know where I am, as far as my origins go, I mean my origins considered as a subject of conversation, that is what counts. [1717] The moment one can say, Someone is on his way, all is well. [1718] Perhaps I have still a thousand years to go. [1719] No matter. [1720] He is on his way. [1721] I begin to be familiar with the premises. [1722] I wonder if I couldn't sneak out by the fundament, one morning, with the French breakfast. [1723] No, I can't move, not yet. [1724] One day in a skull and the next in a belly, strange, and the next nowhere in particular. [1725] Perhaps it's Botal's Hole, when all about me palpitates and labours. [1726] Bait, bait. [1727] Can it be I have a friend among them, shaking his head in sorrow and saying nothing or only, from time to time, Enough, enough? [1728] One can be before beginning, they have set their hearts on that. [1729] They want me roots and all. [1730] This onward rushing time is the same which used to sleep. [1731] And this silence they yelp against in vain and which one day will be restored, the same as int in the past. [1732] Perhaps a little the worse for wear. [1733] Agreed, agreed, I who am on my way, words bellying out my sails, am also that unthinkable ancestor of whom nothing can be said. [1734] But perhaps I shall speak of him some day, and of that impenetrable age when I was he, some day when they have fallen silent silent, convinced at last that I shall never get born, having failed to be conceived. [1735] Yes, perhaps I shall speak of him, for an instant, like the echo that mocks, before being retsstored to him, the one they could not part me from. [1736] And indeed they are weakening already, it's perceptible. [1737] But it's a feint, to have me rejoice unduly without reason cause, after their fashion, and accept their terms, for the sake of peace at any price. [1738] But I can do nothing, that its what they seem to forget at each instant. [1739] I can't rejoice and I can't grieve, it's in vain they have explained to[p. 75r] me how it's done, I never understood. [1740] And what terms? [1741] I don't know what it is they want. [1742] I say what it is, but I don't know. [1743] I emit sounds, better and better it seems to me. [1744] If that's not enough for them I can't help it. [1745] If I speak of a head, referring to me, it's because I hera it being spoken of. [1746] But why keep on saying the same thing? [1747] They hope that things will change one day, it's natural. [1748] That one day on my windpipe, or some other section of the channel, a nice little abscess willf form, with an idea inside, point of departure for a general infection. [1749] This would enable me to jubilate like a normal person, knowing why. [1750] And I'd soon be a network of fistulae, bubbling with the blessed pus of reason. [1751] Ah if I were in flesh and blood, as they are kind enogh to enough to posit, I wouldn't say no, there might be something in their little idea. [1752] They say I suffer like true thinking flesh, but I feel nothing. [1753] Mahood I felt a little, now and then, but what good did that do them? [1754] No, they would be better aedvised to try something else. [1755] I felt the pillory collar, the flies, the sawdust under my stumps, the tarpaulin on my skull, when they were mentioned to me. [1756] But can that be called a life, which vanishes when the subject is changed? [1757] I don't see why not. [1758] But they must have decided not it can't cannot. [1759] They are too hard to please, they expect too much. [1760] They want me to have a pain in the neck, indubitable proof of animation, while listening to talk of the heavens. [1761] They want me to have a mind where it is know[]n, once and fo all for all, that I have a pain in the neck, and that flies are devouring me and that the heavens can do nothing to help. [1762] Let them scourge me without ceasing and forever, more and more lustily (to overcome in view of the habit forming factor), in the end I'd I might begin to look as if I had grasped the meaning of life. [1763] They might even take a breather fromt time to time, without my ceasing to howl. [1764] For they would have warned me, before they started, You must howl, do you hear, otherwise it proves nothing. [1765] And worn out at last, or feeble with old age, and my cries having ceased for[p. 76r] want of nourishment, they could pronounce me dead with every appearance of veracity. [1766] And without ever having had to move I would have gained my rest and heard them say, striking gently softly together their dry old hands as if to shake off the dust, He'll never move again. [1767] That would be too simple. [1768] We must have the heavens and God knows what else, lights, luminaries, the three-monthly ray of hope and the joys gleams of consolation. [1769] But let us close this parenthesis an,d open, with a light heart, open the next. [1770] The noise. [1771] How long fdifd I remaoin a pure ear? [1772] Up to the moment when when it this could not go on any no longer, being too good to last, tcompared to what was soming . [1773] These millions of different sounds, always the same, recurring without pause, are tall one requires to put forth a head, srpout a head sprout a head, a bud to begin with, finally huge, its function first to silence, then to extinguish when the eye joins in, and worse than the evil, its treasure-house. [1774] But no dwelling lingering on this thin ice. [1775] The mechanism matters little, provided I succeed in saying, before I go deaf, It's a voice, and it speaks to me. [1776] In enquiring, boldly, if it is not mine. [1777] In deciding, it doesn't matter how, that I have none. [1778] In blowing darkly hot and cold, boiling and frozren, with attendant similar sensations. [1779] It's a starting-point, he's off, they don't see me, but they hear me, panting, riveted, they don't know I'm riveted. [1780] He knows they are words, he is not sure they are not his, that's how it begins, with such a start no one ever looked back, one day he'll maket make them his, when he thinks he is alone, far from all men, out of range of every voice, and come to the light of day they keep telling him of. [1781] Yes, I know they are words, there was a time I didn't, as I still don't know if they are mine. [1782] Their hopes are therefore justified. [1783] In their shoes I'd be content with my knowing what I know, I'd demand no more of me than to know that what I hear is not the innocent and necessary sound of dumb things in their need to endure, but the terror-stricken babble of the condemned to silence. [1784] I[p. 77r] would have pity, give me quittance, not harry me into appearing my lown destroyer. [1785] But they are severe, greedy, no less, perhaps more, than when I was acting Mahood. [1786] Instead of piping down drawing in their horns! [1787] It's true I have not spoken yet. [1788] In at one ear and incontinent out through the moeh mouth, or the other ear, that's possible too. [1789] No sense in multiplying the occasions of error. [1790] Two holes and me in the middle, slightly choked. [1791] Or a single one, entrance and exit, where the words swarm and jostle like ants, hasty, indifferent, bringing nothing, taking nothing away, too light to leave a mark. [1792] I shall not say I again, ever again, it's too ridiculous. [1793] I shall put in its place, whenever I hear it, the the third person, if I think of it. [1794] Anything to please them. [1795] It will make no difference. [1796] Where I am there is no one but me, who am not. [1797] So much for that. [1798] Words, he says he knows they are words. [1799] But how can he know, who has never heard anything else? [1802] True. [1803] Not to mention other things, many others, to which the abundance of matter has unfortunately up to now prohibited the least allusion. [1804] For example, to begin with, the breathing of the party concerned. [1805] There he is now, with breath in his nostruils, it only remains for him to suffocate. [1806] The chest thorax rises and falls, the wear and tear are in full swing, the rot spreads downward, soon he'll have legs, the possibility of crawling. [1807] More lies, he doen't breathe yet, he'll never breathe. [1808] Then what is this faint noise, as of air stealthily stirred, recalling the breath of lofe life, to those whom it corrodes? [1809] It's a bad example. [1810] But these liesghts that go out hissing? [1811] It's more likely a great blaze fizzle crackle of laughter, at the sight of his terror and distress. [1812] To see him flooded with light, then suddenly plunged back in darkness, must strike them as irresistibly funny. [1813] Butxt But they have been there so long now, on every side, that hmay have made a hole in the wall, a little hole, to glue their eyes to, turn about. [1814] And these lights are perhaps those they shine upon him, from time to time, in order to observe the progress he is making. [1815] But this question of lights deserves separate treatment, to be treated separately in a section apart, it is so intriguing, and at eln lenth length, composedly, and so it will be, at the first opportunity, when time[p. 78r] is not so short, and the mind more composed.

MS. Pages: 1pp. 01r - 06r 2pp. 06r(2) - 10r 3pp. 11r - 15r 4pp. 16r - 20r 5pp. 21r - 25r 6pp. 26r - 30r 7pp. 31r - 35r 8pp. 36r - 40r 9pp. 41r - EXTRACT1-01r 10pp. EXTRACT1-02r - EXTRACT1-06r 11pp. 48r - 52r 12pp. 53r - 57r 13pp. 58r - 62r 14pp. 63r - 67r 15pp. 68r - 72r 16pp. 73r - 77r 17pp. 78r - 82r 18pp. 83r - 87r 19pp. 88r - 92r 20pp. 93r - 97r 21pp. 98r - 103r 22pp. 104r - 108r 23pp. 109r - 113r 24pp. 114r - 118r 25pp. 119r - 123r 26pp. 124r - 128r 27pp. EXTRACT2-01r - 133r 28pp. 134r - 138r 29pp. 139r - 143r 30pp. 144r - 146r