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THE UNNAMABLE
1st revision up to p. 25
[p. 01r] [0001] Where now? [0002] When now? [0003] Who now? [0004] Unquestioning.[Stet]
[0005] I, say I. [0006] Unbelieving. [0007] Questions, hypotheses, call them that. [0008] Keep going,
going on, call that going, call that on. [0009] 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. [0010] Perhaps that is how it
began. [0011] No more questions. [0012] 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. [0013] No matter
how it happened. [0014] It, say it, not knowing what. [0015] Perhaps I simply
assented at last to an old thing.[Stet]
[0016] But I did nothing. [0017] I seem to
speak, it is not I, about me, it is not about me. [0018] These few
general remarks to begin with. [0019] What am I to do, what shall I do,
what should I do, in my situation, how proceed? [0020] By aporia pure
and simple or by affirmations and negations invalidated as uttered,
or sooner or later? [0021] Generally speaking. [0022] There must be other
shifts. [0023] Otherwise it would be quite hopeless. [0024] But it is quite hopeless. [0025] I should mention before going any further, any further on,
that I say aporia without knowing what it means. [0026] Can one be an
Ephectic otherwise than unawares? DOODLE 1 [0027] I don't know. [0028] With the yesses
and noes it is different, they will come back to me as I go along,
and how to shit on them, sooner or later, like a bird, without
exception. [0029] That is an easy thing to saysoon said. [0030] 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 even more interesting, that I shall have to, I forget, no matter. [0031] And yet I am
obliged to speak. [0032] I shall never be silent. [0033] Never.
[0034] I shall not be alone, at the outset in the beginning. [0035] [⁁]I am of course alone. [0036] Alone. [p. 02r] [0037] That is an easy thing to say soon said. [0038] Things have to be easy to say soon said. [0039] And
how can one be sure, in such darkness? [0040] I shall have company. [0041] In
the beginning. [0042] A few puppets. [0043] Then I'll scatter them, to the winds, [0044] If I can. [0045] And
things, what is the right correct attitude towards things? [0046] And, to begin
with, are they necessary? [0047] What a question. [0048] But I have no illusions,
things are to be expected. [0049] The best is not to decide anything, in
this connexion, in advance. [0050] If a thing turns up, for some reason
or another, take it into consideration. [0051] Where there are people, it is
said, there are things. [0052] Does this mean that when you admit the
former you must admit the latter? [0053] Time will tell. [0054] The thing
to avoid, I don't know why, is the spirit of system. [0055] People with
things, people without things, things without people, what does
it matter, I'm confident I can scatter them when I choose, to the winds. [0056] I don't see
how. [0057] The best would be not to begin. [0058] But I have to begin. [0059] That is
to say I have to go on. [0060] Perhaps in the end I'll smother in
a throng. [0061] Incessant comings and goings, the crush & bustle of a bargain sale. [0062] No, no danger. Of that.
[0063] Malone is there. [0064] Of his mortal liveliness little trace remains. [0065] He passes before me at doubtless regular intervals, unless it is
I who pass before him. [0066] No, once and for all, I do not move. [0067] He
passes, motionless. [0068] But there will not be much on the subject of Malone, from
whom there is nothing more to be expected. [0069] Personally I do not intend
to be bored. [0070] It was while watching him pass that I wondered if we cast
a shadow. [0071] Impossible to say. [0072] He passes close to me, a few feet
away, slowly, always in the same direction. [0073] I am almost sure it
is he. [0074] The brimless hat seems conclusive. [0075] With his two hands
he props up his jaw. [0076] He passes without a word. [0077] Perhaps he does
not see me. [0078] One of these days I'll challenge him. I'll say,
I don't know, I'll think of something when the time comes. [0079] There are no days here, but I use the expression. [0080] I see him from
the waist up, [0081] he stops at the waist, as far as I'm concerned. [0082] The trunk is erect. [0083] But
I do not know whether he is standing or kneeling [0084] He might also
also be sitting. [0085] I see him in profile. [0086] Sometimes I wonder if it is not
[p. 03r] Molloy. [0087] Perhaps it is Molloy, wearing Malone's hat. [0088] But it is more
reasonable to assume it is Malone, wearing his own hat. [0089] Oh look,
there is the first thing, Malone's hat. [0090] I see no other clothes. [0091] Perhaps Molloy is not here at all. [0092] Could he be, without my knowledge? [0093] The place is no doubt vast. [0094] Dim intermittent lights suggest
a kind of distance. [0095] 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. [0096] Another hypothesis, they were here,
but are here no longer. [0097] I shall examine it after my fashion. [0098] Are
there other pits, deeper down? [0099] To which one accedes by this one? [0100] Stupid obsession with depth. [0101] Are there other places set aside for
us and this one where I am, with Malone, merely their narthex? [0102] I thought I had done with phases. [0103] No, no, we have all been
here for ever, we shall all be here for ever, I know it.
[0104] No more questions. [0105] Is not this rather the place where one
finishes vanishing?[Stet] [0106] Will the day come when Malone will pass before
me no longer? [0107] Will the day come when Malone will pass before the
spot where I was? [0108] Will the day come when another will pass before me,
[⁁] before the spot where I was. [0109] I have no opinion, on these matters.
[0110] If I were not without feeling his beard would fill me with pity. [0111] It hangs down, on either side of his chin, in two twists of unequal
length. [0112] Was there a time when I too revolved thus? [0113] No, I have always
been sitting here, at this self[⁁]same spot, my hands on my knees, gazing
before me like a great horned owl in an aviary. [0114] The tears stream
down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. [0115] What makes me weep so? [0116] From time to time. [0117] There [/]is nothing saddening here. [0118] Perhaps it is
liquefied brain. [0119] Past happiness in any case has clean gone from
my memory, assuming it was ever there. [0120] If I accomplish other natural
functions, it is unawares. [0121] Nothing ever troubles me. [0122] And yet I am
troubled. [0123] Nothing has ever changed since I have been here. But I
dare not conclude from this that nothing will ever change. [0124] Let us
[p. 04r] try and see where these considerations lead. [0125] I have been here, ever[⁁] since
I began to be, my appearances elsewhere being due to other
parties. [0126] All has proceeded, all this time, in the utmost
calm, the most perfect order, apart from a few manifestations the
meaning of which escapes me. [0127] No, it is not that their meaning escapes me, my own escapes me just as much. [0128] Here all things — no, I
shall not say it, being unable to. [0129] I owe my existence to nobody,
these faint fires are not of those that illuminate or burn. [0130] Going nowhere, coming from nowhere, Malone passes. [0131] These notions
of forbears, of houses where lamps are lit at night, and other
such, where do they come to me from? [0133] And all these questions I ask myself. [0134] It is not in a spirit of curiosity. [0135] I
cannot be silent. [0136] About myself I need to know nothing. [0137] Here all is clear. [0138] No, all is not clear. [0139] But the discourse must
go on. [0140] So one invents obscurities. [0141] Rhetoric. [0142] These lights
for example, which I do not ask to mean anything, what is there so strange
about them, so wrong? [0143] Is it their irregularity, their
instability, is it their shining strong one minute and weak the next,
but never beyond the power of one or two candles? DOODLE 2 [0144] Malone appears
and disappears with the punctuality of clockwork, always at the
same distance, the same velocity, in the same direction,
the same attitude. [0145] But the play of the lights is truly unpredictable. [0146] It is only fair to say that to eyes less knowing than
mine they would probably pass unseen. [0147] But even to mine
do they not sometimes do so? [0148] They are perhaps unwavering and
fixed and my fitful perceiving the cause of their inconstancy. [0149] I hope I may have occasion to come back to this question. [0150] 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. [0151] I resume, I have to. [0152]
Yes, where was I, from the unexceptionable order that has prevailed
here up to date may I infer that such will always be the case? [0153] I may
[p. 05r] of course. [0154] But the mere fact of asking myself such a question gives me to reflect. [0155] It is in vain I tell myslef
that its only purpose
is to stimulate the lagging discourse, this excellent explanation
does not satisfy me. [0156] Can it be I am the prey of a genuine preoccupation, of a need to know as one might say? [0157] I don't know. [0158] I'll try something
else. [0159] If one day a change were to take place, resulting from a principle
of disorder already present, or on its way, what then? [0160] That would seem
to [⁁] depend on the nature of the change. [0161] No, here all change
would be fatal and land me back, there and then
. [0162] I'll try something else. [0163] Has nothing really changed since I
have been here? [0164] No,[⁁] frankly, hand on heart, wait a second, no, nothing,
to my knowledge. [0165] But, as I have said, the place may well be vast,
as it may really measure twelve feet in diameter. [0166] As far as discerning its limits is concerend,
it comes to the same thing. [0167] I like
to think I occupy the centre, but nothing is less certain. [0168] In
a sense I would be better off at the circumference, since my eyes are always
fixed in the same direction. [0169] But I am certainly not at the circumference. [0170] For
if I were then Malone, wheeling about me as he does, would issue
from the enceinte at every revolution, which is manifestly
impossible. [0171] But does he in fact wheel, does he not perhaps simply
pass before me in a straight line? [0172] No, he wheels, I feel it, and
about me, like a planet about its sun. [0173] And if he made a noise,[⁁] as he goes, I
would hear him all the time, on my right hand, at my back, on my
left hand, before seeing him again. [0174] But he makes none, for I am
not deaf, of that I am convinced, that is to say half convinced. [0175] In any case from centre to circumference it is a far cry and I may well be
situated somewhere between the two. [0176] 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. [0177] In which case there would be no
further grounds for my complaining about the disorder of
the lights,
due simply to my insistence on regarding them as always the same
lights and viewed always from the same point. [0178] All is possible, or
almost. [0179] But the best is to think of myself as fixed and at
the centre of this place, whatever its shape and extent. [0180] This is
[p. 06r] also probably the most pleasing to me. [0181] 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.
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