Excerpt: The Unnammable

Author(s): Samuel Beckett

Source: Chicago Review, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer, 1958), pp. 82-86
Published by: Chicago Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25293464
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 SAMUELBECKETT

EXCERPT:THE UNNAMABLE
Translated by the author from the original French

The island, I'm on the island, I've never left the island, God
me. I was under the impression I spent my life in spirals
help
round the earth.
Wrong, it's on the island Iwind my endless ways.
The island, that's all the earth I know. I don't know it either,
never had the stomach to look at it.When I come to the
having
coast I turn back inland. And my course is not a I got that
spiral,
too, but a series of now and short
wrong irregular loops, sharp
as in the waltz, now of a sweep that embraces entire
parabolic
now between the two, somewhere or other, and invari
boglands,
in direction, that is to say subject to the panic
ably unpredictable
of the moment. But at the period I refer to now this active life is
I do not move and never shall again, unless it be
past and gone,
under the of a third party. For of the great traveller
impulsion
I had been, on my hands and knees in the later stages, then crawling
on my belly or rolling on the ground, only the trunk remains (in
we are already
sorry trim), surmounted by the head with which
familiar, this is the part of myself the description of which I have
best assimilated and retained. Stuck like a sheaf of flowers in a
on the side of a quiet
deep jar, its neck flush with my mouth,

82
street near the shambles,
my head, but my eyes,
the apostle of horse's meat,
fixed upon me. That makes
I am rest at last. If I turn, I shall not
say
free to roll at will, I can see the statue of
a bust. His
pupilless eyes of stone are
four, with those of my creator, omni

present, do not imagine I flatter myself I am privileged. Though

not in order I am tolerated the know I
exactly by police. They
am and
speechless consequently incapable of taking unfair
advan
of situation to stir the its
tage my up population against governors,
means of burning the rush hour or subversive
by oratory during
after nightfall, to belated the worse
slogans whispered, pedestrians
for drink. And since I have
lost all my members, with the
exception
of the onetime virile, they know also that I shall not be of
guilty
liable to be as to alms, a
any gestures interpreted inciting prison
able offence. The fact is I trouble nobody, except possibly that

category of hypersensitive persons for whom the least is

thing
an occasion for scandal and But even here the risk is
indignation.
negligible, such people avoiding the neighbourhood for fear of
overcome at the of the cattle, fat and fresh from their
being sight
pastures, towards the humane killer. From this
trooping point
of view the spot iswell chosen, from my of view. But even
point
those sufficiently unhinged to be affected by the spectacle I offer,
I mean upset and temporarily diminished in their capacity for
work and for happiness, have only to look at me a second
aptitude
time, those that can bring themselves to do it, to have
immediately
their minds made easy. For my face reflects but the satis
nothing
faction of one savouring a well-earned rest. It is true my mouth
was hidden, most of the time, and my
eyes closed. Ah yes, some
times it's in the past, sometimes in the present. And alone
perhaps
the state of my skull, covered with and bluebottles, these
pustules
in such a me from
naturally abounding neighbourhood, preserved
an of envy for many, and a source of discontent. I
being object
a fair a week I was
hope this gives picture of my situation. Once
taken out of my in order that it be
receptacle, might emptied.
This fell to the of the low across
duty proprietress eating-house
the street and she it and without
performed punctually complaint,

83
 an occasional reflection to the effect that
beyond good-humoured
I was a old for she had a kitchen
nasty pig, garden. Without
won her heart it was clear I did not leave
perhaps having exactly
her indifferent, and before me back she took
putting advantage
of the fact that my mouth was accessible to stick into it a chunk
of or a marrow-bone. And when snow fell she covered me
lights
with a still watertight in It was under its shelter,
tarpaulin places.
snug and that I became with the boon of tears,
dry, acquainted
while wondering to what I was indebted for it, not feeling
moved. Andthis 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 been thrown over me, and the pre
tarpaulin
steps of my benefactress died away, than the tears
cipitate began
to flow. Is this, was this to be as an effect of
interpreted gratitude?
But in that case should not I have felt grateful? Besides I realized
that if she took care of me thus, it was not out of
darkly solely
or else I had not understood the meaning of
goodness, rightly
when it was to me. It must not be
goodness, explained forgotten
that I for this woman an undeniable asset. For
quite
represented
from the services I rendered to her
lettuce, I constituted for
apart
her establishment a kind of landmark, not to say an advertise

ment, far more effective than for example a chef in cardboard,

thin. That shewas fully
potbellied in profile and full face wafer
aware of this is shown the trouble she had taken my to festoon
by
with Chinese lanterns, of a very pretty effect in the twilight,
jar
and a fortiori at And the so that the
night. jar itself, passer-by
consult with ease the menu attached to it, had
might greater
been raised on a at her own expense. It is thus I learnt that
pedestal
her turnips in sauce are not so good as they used to be, but that
on the other hand her carrots, in sauce, are even better
equally
than formerly. The sauce has not varied. This is the kind of
I can almost understand, these the kind of clear and
language
on which it is possible for me to build, I ask for
simple notions
no other nourishment. A I know what
spiritual turnip, roughly
a is like, a carrot too, the Flakkee, or Colmar
turnip especially

84
Red. I seem to grasp at certain moments the nuance between bad
andworse. And if I do not always feel the full force of yesterday
and this does not detract at
today, very much from my
pleasure
having penetrated the of the matter. Of her salad, for
gist example,
I never heard but Yes, I represent for her a
anything praise. tidy
little capital and, if I should ever happen to die, I am convinced
she would be This should be a consolation.
genuinely annoyed.
I like to that when the fatal hour of comes, and
fancy reckoning
debt to nature is cleared off at last, she will do her best to
my
prevent the removal, from where it now stands, of the old vase
inwhich I shall have accomplished my vicissitudes. And perhaps
in the now head she will set a melon, or a
place occupied by my
or a with its little tuft, or better
vegetable-marrow, big pineapple
still, I don't know a swede, in of me. Then I shall
why, memory
not vanish as is so often the
quite, way with people when buried.
But it is not to speak of her that I have started lying again. De
nobis ipsis silemus, that should have been my motto.
decidedly
Yes, me some lessons in pigsty latin too, it looks well,
they gave
sprinkled through the perjury. It is perhaps worth noting that
snow alone, of course it is entitles me to the tar
provided heavy,
No other form of weather lets loose in her the
paulin. filthy
maternal instinct, in my favour. I have tried to make her under
stand, my head the neck of the that
dashing angrily against jar,
I should like to be veiled more often. At the same time I let

my spittle flow over, to show my In vain. I wonder

displeasure.
what she can have found to account for this behaviour.
explanation
She must have talked it over with her husband and
probably
been toldthat I was merely that is to say just the reverse
stifling,
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 of them.
reading
This to no to believe
story is purpose, I'm
beginning
almost it.
But let us see how it is to end, that will sober me. The
supposed
trouble is I forget how it goes on. But did I ever know? Perhaps
it stops there, it there, who knows,
perhaps they stopped saying,
There you are, you don't need
us
any
more. This in fact is one

85
of their favourite devices, to at the least sign of
stop suddenly
adhesion from me, leaving me high and dry, with nothing for my
renewal but the life they have imputed tome. And it is only when
they see I am stranded that they take up again the thread of my
misfortunes, judging me insufficiently vitalized to bring them to a
successful conclusion alone and unaided. But instead of making
the junction, I have often noticed this, Imean instead of resuming
me at the me up at amuch
point where Iwas left off, they pick
later stage,
perhaps hoping
to induce in me the delusion
thereby
that I had got through the interval all on my own, lived without
some time, and with no recollection
help of any kind for quite
of by what means or in what circumstances, or even died, all on
come back to earth of the
my own, and again, by way vagina,
like a real live baby, and reached a age, and even senility,
ripe
without the least assistance from them and thanks solely to the
indications they had given me. To saddle me with a lifetime is
not for them, I have to be a taste of two
probably enough given
or three But it is not certain. Perhaps
all they have
generations.
told me has reference to a existence, the confusion of
single
identities and due to my to
being merely apparent inaptitude
assume ever succeed in under my own steam, then
any. If I dying
a to decide whether I amworthy
they will be in better position
to adorn another or to try the same one with the benefit
age, again,
of my experience. I may therefore suppose that the
legitimately
one-armed, one-legged wayfarer of amoment ago and the wedge
headed trunk in which I am now marooned are two
simply phases
of the same carnal the soul being notoriously immune
envelope,
from deterioration and dismemberment. lost one
Having leg,
what indeed more likely than that I should mislay the other. And
for the arms. A natural transition in sum. But what then
similarly
of that other old age they bestowed upon me, if I remember
neither nor arms
right,
and that other middle age, when legs
were lacking, but simply the power to benefit by them? And of
that kind of youth inwhich they had to give me up for dead? If I
have a warm it is not in their hearts.
place,

86