Enormous prison, like a hundred thousand cathedrals. Never anything
else any more, from this time forth. And in it, somewhere, perhaps - riveted, tiny - the prisoner. How can he be
found?
How false this space is!
What falseness instantly, to want to draw that round you, to want
to put a being there! A cell would be plenty.
If I gave up! If only I could give up! Before beginning, before
beginning again! (What breathlessness! That's right, ejaculations! That
helps you on, that puts off the fatal hour. No? The reverse? I don't
know.) Start again, in this immensity, this obscurity: go through the
motions of starting again -
you who can't stir, you who never started. (You the who?) (Go through the
motions? What motions? You can't stir.)
You launch your voice, it dies away in the vault. (It calls that a
vault - perhaps it's the
abyss: those are words). It speaks of a prison (I've no objection), vast
enough for a whole people, for me alone (or waiting for me). I'll go there
now, I'll try and go there now.
I can't stir.
I'm there already! I must be there already! Perhaps I'm not alone:
perhaps a whole people is here, and the voice its voice, coming to me
fitfully. We would have lived, been free a moment. Now we talk about it,
each one to himself (each one out loud for himself). And we listen. A whole people, talking and
listening, all together! That
would ex .....
No,
I'm alone (perhaps the first,
or perhaps the last): talking
alone, listening alone, alone alone. The others are gone, they have been
stilled (their voices
stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-coming). Another
will come? I won't be the
last? I'll be with the others (I'll be as gone) in the silence? (It won't
be I, it's not I.)
I'm not there yet. I'll go there now, I'll try and go there
now.
No use trying. I wait for my turn: my turn to go there, my turn to
talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to
go, to be as gone. (It's unending, it will be unending.) Gone where? Where
do you go from there? You must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for
your turn to go again, and so on (a whole people, or I alone). And come
back? And begin again? No: go on, go on again. It's a circuit, a long
circuit. I know it well. (I
must know it well.)
Back to Top
It's a lie. I can't stir. I haven't stirred. (I launch the voice? I
hear a voice.) There is nowhere but here. There are not two places, there
are not two prisons. It's my parlour (it's a parlour!), where I wait for
nothing. I don't know where it is, I don't know what it's like, that's no business of mine. I
don't know if it's big, or if it's small, or if it's closed, if it's
open. (That's right,
reiterate: that helps you on.)
Open on what? There is nothing else, only it. Open on the void,
open on the nothing. (I've no objection: those are words.) Open on the
silence, looking out on the silence, straight out - why not? All this time
on the brink of silence, I
knew it! On a rock, lashed to
a rock, in the midst of silence. Its great swell rears towards me,
I'm streaming with it. (It's an image: those are words.) It's a body, it's
not I - I knew it wouldn't be
I. I'm not outside, I'm inside, I'm in something, I'm shut up: the silence is outside. Nothing
but this voice and the silence all round. No need of walls? Yes, we must
have walls: I need walls, good and thick. I need a prison (I was right),
for me alone. I'll go there now, I'll put me in
it.
I'm
there already: I'll start looking for me now, I'm there somewhere. It
won't be I - no matter, I'll say it's I. Perhaps it will be I. Perhaps
that's all they're waiting for (there they are again) to give me
quittance. Waiting for me to
say I'm someone, to say I'm somewhere, to put me out, into the silence.
I
see nothing. It's because
there is nothing. Or it's because I have no eyes. Or both. (That makes
three possibilities, to choose from.) But do I really see nothing? It's
not the moment to tell a lie.
But how can you not tell a lie? What an idea!
A
voice like this, who can check it?
It tries everything. It's blind, it seeks me blindly, in the dark.
It seeks a mouth, to enter into. Who can query it? There is no other.
You'd need a head? you'd need things? I don't know. I look too often as if
I knew. It's the voice does
that: it goes all knowing, to
make me think I know, to make me think it's mine.
It has no interest in eyes. It says I have none, or that they are
no use to me. Then it speaks of tears. Then it speaks of gleams. It is truly at a loss. Gleams?
Yes: far or near. (Distances:
you know, measurements.
Enough said?) Gleams,
as at dawn. Then dying, as at evening. Or flaring up - they do that
too: blaze up more dazzling
than snow, for a second (that's short!), then fizzle
out.
That's true enough? If
you like: one forgets, I forget. I say I see nothing, or I say it's all in my head (as
if I felt a head on me!).
That's all hypotheses, lies. These gleams too: they were to save
me, they were to devour me. That came to nothing. I see nothing (either
because of this or else on account of that). And these images at which
they watered me, like a camel, before the desert? I don't know. More lies,
just for the fun of it? (Fun! What fun we've had! What fun of it!) All lies? (That's
soon said - you must say
soon, it's the regulations.)
The place. I'll make it all the same. I'll make it in my head, I'll
draw it out of my memory, I'll gather it all about me. (I'll make myself a
head, I'll make myself a memory.) I have only to listen: the voice will
tell me everything (tell it to me again), everything I need - in dribs and
drabs, breathless.
It's
like a confession, a last confession. You think it's finished, then it
starts off again: there were so many sins, the memory is so bad. The words
don't come, the words fail, the breath fails.
No, it's something else.
It's an indictment, a dying voice accusing. (Accusing me: you must
accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable.) It speaks of my sins, it
speaks of my head. It says it's mine, it says that I repent, that I want
to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up (a
victim is essential). I have only to listen. It will show me my
hiding-place: what it's like,
where the door is (if there's a door), and whereabouts I am in it. And what lies between us,
how the land lies, what kind of country (whether it's sea, or whether it's
mountain). And the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give
myself up, come to the place where the axe falls (without further
ceremony) on all who come from here. (I'm not the first, I won't be the
first.) It will best me in the end (it has bested better than me). It will
tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with
despair. (That's how I reason, that's how I hear myself
reasoning.)
Back to Top
All lies: it's not me they're calling, not me they're talking
about. It's not yet my turn, it's someone else's turn. That's why I can't
stir, that's why I don't feel a body on me. I'm not suffering enough to be able to
stir, to have a body (complete with head, to be able to understand), to
have eyes to light the way. I merely hear, without understanding, without
being able to profit by it (by what I hear). To do what? To rise and go
and be done with hearing.
I
don't hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me:
it's not my turn. (The topographical and anatomical information in
particular is lost on me.) No, I hear everything (what difference does it make?),
the moment it's not my turn:
my turn to understand, my turn to live, my turn of the life-screw (it
calls that living!), the space of the way from here to the door. It's all
there, in what I hear, somewhere -
if all has been said, all this long time. All must have been said.
But it's not my turn to know what:
to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop being
it, to stop being there (that's coherent), so as to be another (no? the
same? I don't know), depart into life, travel the road, find the door,
find the axe (perhaps it's a cord) for the neck, for the throat, for the
cords. (Or fingers: I'll have eyes, I'll see fingers.)
It will be the silence.
(Perhaps it's a drop:
find the door, open the door, drop. Into the
silence.)
It won't be I. I'll stay here - or there (more likely there). It
will never be I, that's all I know. It's been done already, said and said
again: the departure, the
body that rises, the way (in colour), the arrival, the door that opens,
closes again. It was never I. I've never stirred, I've listened.
I
must have spoken?
Why
deny it? Why not admit it, after all? (I deny nothing, I admit nothing.) I
say what I hear? I hear what I say? I don't know. One or the other. Or
both. (That makes three possibilities: pick your
fancy.)
All these stories about travellers, these stories about paralytics:
all are mine. I must be extremely old (or it's memory playing tricks). If
only I knew if I've lived, if I live, if I'll live - that would simplify
everything! Impossible to find out, that's where you're buggered. I
haven't stirred, that's all I know. (No, I know something else: it's not I
- I always forget that.) I resume (you must resume): never stirred from here, never
stopped telling stories, to myself (hardly hearing them, hearing something
else, listening for something else), wondering now and then where I got
them from. Was I in the land of the living? Were they in mine? And where?
Where do I store them? (In my head? I don't feel a head on me.) And what
do I tell them with? With my mouth? (Same remark.) And what do I hear them
with?
And
so on, the old rigmarole. It can't be I. Or it's because I pay no
heed: it's such an old habit,
I do it without heeding. Or as if I were somewhere
else.
There I am far again, there I am absentee again: it's his turn now,
he who neither speaks nor listens, who has neither body nor soul. It's
something else he has: he
must have something, he must be somewhere. He is made of silence (there's
a pretty analysis), he's in the silence. He's the one to be sought, the
one to be, the one to be spoken of, the one to speak. But he can't speak:
then I could stop, I'd be he, I'd be the silence, I'd be back in the
silence, we'd be reunited, his story the story to be
told.
But he has no story, he hasn't been in story? It's not
certain: he's in his own
story, unimaginable, unspeakable. That doesn't matter: the attempt must be
made, in the old stories incomprehensibly mine, to find his. It must be there somewhere. It
must have been mine, before being his. I'll recognize it, in the end I'll
recognize it: the story of
the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may
never find again, that I may find again. Then it will be he, it will be I,
it will be the place: the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning
again - how can I say it? That's all words, they're all I have - and not
many of them: the words fail, the voice fails. So be it. I know that well.
It will be the silence, full of murmurs, distant cries. The usual silence, spent
listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice.
The cries abate, like all cries. (That is to say they stop.) The
murmurs cease, they give up. The voice begins again (it begins trying
again). Quick now before there is none left, no voice left, nothing left
but the core of murmurs, distant cries: quick now and try again, with the
words that remain. Try what? (I don't know, I've forgotten, it doesn't
matter, I never knew.) To have them carry me into my story, the words that
remain? (My old story, which
I've forgotten, far from here.) Through the noise, through the door.
Perhaps I'm at the door! (That would surprise me.) Perhaps it's I! Perhaps
somewhere or other it was I! I can depart! All this time I've journeyed
without knowing it: it's I now at the door. (What door? What's a door
doing here?)
It's
the last words, the true last.
Or it's the murmurs: the
murmurs are coming, I know that well. No, not even that. You talk
of murmurs, distant cries, as long as you can talk. You talk of them
before and you talk of them after. More lies: it will be the silence (the
one that doesn't last) spent listening, spent waiting (for it to be
broken, for the voice to break it). Perhaps there's no other, I don't
know. It's not worth having, that's all I know. (It's not I, that's all I
know.) It's not mine. It's the only one I ever had? That's a lie: I must
have had the other, the one that lasts - but it didn't last. (I don't
understand.) That is to say it did: it still lasts. I'm still in it. I
left myself behind in it. I'm waiting for me there. (No, there you don't
wait, you don't listen.)
I
don't know: perhaps it's a dream, all a dream. (That would surprise me.)
I'll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again. (It will be I?) Or dream
(dream again), dream of a silence,
a dream silence, full of murmurs (I don't know, that's all
words), never wake (all
words, there's nothing else).
You must go on, that's all I know.
They're going to stop, I know that well: I can feel it. They're going to abandon me. It
will be the silence, for a moment (a good few moments). Or it will be
mine? The lasting one, that didn't last, that still lasts? It will be
I?
You must go on.
I can't go on.
You must go on.
I'll go on. You must say words, as long as there are any - until
they find me, until they say me. (Strange pain, strange sin!) You must go
on. Perhaps it's done already. Perhaps they have said me already. Perhaps
they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that
opens on my story. (That would surprise me, if it
opens.)
It will be I? It will be the silence, where I am? I don't know,
I'll never know: in the silence you don't know.
You must go on.
I can't go on.
I'll go
on.
