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4 TRINITY NEWS June 7, 1956FROM AN ABANDONED WORKUp bright and early that day,I was young then, feelingawful, and out, mother hangingout of the window in hernightdress, ,weeping and waving.Nice fresh morning,bright too early as so often.Feeling really awful, veryviolent. The sky would darkenand rain fall and go on falling,all day, till evening. Thenblue and sun again a second,then night. Feeling all this,how violent and the kind ofday, I~turned, and back withbowed head on the look-out fora slug or worm.Great love in my heart, too,for all things still and rooted,bushes, boulders and the like,even the waving flowers of thefield, not for the world whenin my right mind would I evertouch one, to pluck it. Whereasa bird now, or a bat, flutteringabout getting in my way,all moving things, getting inmy path, a slug now, gettingunder my feet, no, no mercy.Not that I’d go out of my wayto get at them, no, at a distanceoften they seemed still, then amoment later they were uponmeḂirds with my piercing sightI have seen flying so high, sofar, that they seemed not tomove, then the next thing theywere all about me, crows havedone this. Nor will I go out ofmy way to avoid such thingswhen avoidable. No, I simplywill not go out of my way,though I have never in my lifebeen on my way anywhere, butsimply on my way. And in thisway I have gone through greatthickets, bleeding, and deep intobogs, water too, even the seaIn some moods, and beencarried out of my course, ordriven back, in order not todrown. And that is perhapshow I shall die at last if theydon’t catch me. I meandrowned, or in fire, yes, perhapsthat is how I shall do it atlast, walking furious headlonginto fire and dying, burnt tobits.Then I raised my eyes andsaw my mother, still in thewindow waving, waving meback or on I don’t know, or justwaving, in sad helpless love,and I, heard faintly her cries,just cries they were. Thewindow-frame was green, pale,the house-wall grey and mymother white and so thin Icould see past her (piercingsight I had then) into the darkof the room, and on all thatfull the not long risen sun; andall small because of the distance,very pretty really thewhole thing, I remember it, the01d grey and then the thingreen surround and the thinwhite against the dark, if onlyshe could have been still andlet me look at it all.No, for once I wanted, tostand and look at son, thing. Icouldn’t with her there, wavingand fluttering and swaying inand out of the window asthough she thought she weredoing exercises, and for all Iknow she may have been, notbothering about me at all. Notenacity of purpose, that wasanother thing I didn’t like inher. One week it would beexercises, .and the next prayersand Bible reading, and the nextgardening, and the next playmgthe piano and singing, thatwas awful, and then just lyingabout and resting, alwayschanging. Her death, I, don’tremember much about herdeath, all I remember is thefrying-pan coming down on herhead and the bacon and eggsleaping out like pancakes andgoing to waste.But let me get on with theday I have hit on to begin with,any other would have done aswell, yes, get it out of my wayand on to another, enough ofmy mother for the moment.Well then for a time all well,no trouble, no birds at me,nothing across my path exceptat a great distance a whitehorse followed by a boy, or itmight have been a small manor woman. This is the onlycompletely white horse I remember,what I believe theGermans call a Schimmel. Oh,I was very quick as a boy andpicked up a lot of hardknowledge. Schimmel, n i c eword, for an English speaker.The sun was full upon it, asshortly before on my mother,and it seemed to have a redband or stripe running down itsside, a bellyband I thought itmust be, perhaps it was goingsomewhere to be harnassed, toa trap or suchlike. It crossedmy path a long way off, thenvanished, behind foliage Isupposed, all I saw was thesudden appearance of the horse,then disappearance. It wasbright white, with the sun on it,not a blemish. White, I. mustsay, has always affected mestrongly, all white things,sheets, walls and so on; evenflowers, and then just white, thethought of white. But let meget on with this day .and get itover.All well then for a time, justthe violence and then this whitehorse, when suddenly I flew intoa most savage rage, reallyblinding. Now why this suddenrage I really don’t know; thesesudden rages, they made my lifea misery. Many other thingsdid this, my sore throat forexample, I have never knownwhat it is to be without a sorethroat, but the rages were theworst. Like a great windsuddenly rising inside me, no,I can’t describe. It wasn’t theviolence getting worse in anycase, no connection. Some daysI would be feeling violent allday long and never have a rageand other days I would be feelingquite quiet for me and havefour or five rages. No, there’sno accounting for it, there’s noaccounting for anything withthe kind of mind I always had,~lways on the alert .against itself.There was a time I triedto get relief by beating by headagainst something, anything,but I gave it up. The best thingI found was to start running.Perhaps I should mention herethat I was a very slow walker.I didn’t dally or loiter in anyway, just walked slowly, littleshort steps and the feet veryslow through the air. WhereasI must have been one of thevery fastest runners the worldhas ever seen, over a short distance,ten or fifteen yards, in asecond I was there. But I couldnot go on at that speed, oh notfor breathlessness, it wasmental, all was always mental,figments. Now the jog trot, onthe other hand, I could no moredo that than I could fly. No,with me all was slow, and thenthese flashes, or gushes, ventthe pent, that was one of thosethings I used to say, over andover, as I went along, vent thepent, vent the pent.Fortunately, my father diedwhen I. was a boy, otherwise Iwould have been a professor, behad set his heart on it. A veryfair scholar I was too for atime, no thought, but greatmemory, I used, to tell him thethings as we went along, heliked that. One day I told himabout Milton’s cosmology, awayup in the mountains we were,resting against a huge rocklooking out to sea, that pleasedhim greatly. Love too, often inmy thoughts, when a boy, butnot a great deal compared toother boys, it kept me awake Ifound. Never loved anyone Ithink, I’d remember, except inmy dreams, .and there it wasmostly animals, dream .animals,nothing like what you see walkingabout the country, I couldn’tdescribe them, lovely creaturesthey were, white mostly. In away perhaps it’s a pity, a goodwoman might have been themaking of me, I might besprawling in the sun now, suckingmy pipe and patting thebottoms of the third and fourthgenerations, looked up to andrespected, wondering what therewas for dinner, instead ofstravaguing over the same oldroads in all weathers, I wasnever much of a one for newground. No, I. regret nothing,all I regret is having been born,dying in such a long, tiresomebusiness I always found.But let me get on now fromwhere I left off, the white horseand then the rage, no connectionI suppose. But why go on withall this, I don’t know, some dayI must end, why not now? Butthese are thoughts, not mine,no matter, shame upon me. NowI am old and weak, in pain andweakness murmur why andpause, .and the old thoughts wellup in me and over into myvoice, the old thoughts bornwith me and grown with me andkept under, there’s another. No,back to that far day, any farday, and from the dim grantedground to its things .and sky theeyes raised and back again,raised again a~d back againagain, .and the feet going nowhereonly somehow home, inthe morning out from home andin the evening back to homeagain, and the sound of myvoice all day long muttering thesame old things I don’t listen to,not even mine it was at the endof the day, like of a marmosetsitting on my neck with itsbushy tail, keeping me company.All this talking, veryBySamuel Beckettlow and hoarse, no wonder mythroat was sore. Perhaps Ishould mention here that I nevertalked to anyone, l: think myfather was the last one I talkedto. My mother was like thattoo, never talked, never"Foranswered, since my father died.thereI asked her for the money, Iof lecan’t go back on that now,wheth*those must have been my lastvoicewords to her. Sometimes shecarefucried out on me, or beseechedme, but never long, just a fewacrossgreatcries, then if I looked up, thetreatirpoor old thin lips pressed tightbeen i]together and the body turnednot g,away and just the corners ofthethis, i:eyes on me, but it was rare.ally aSometimes in the night I heardnot beher, talking to herself I suppose,or praying out loud, or skipping hundreds and even I would have to get up out of you cthousands of days in a way I::::::, :::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::my chair:!:~:and wind~!~!them!~:!up looked!~ !~!~!~il:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::SAMUEL BECKETTreading out loud, or reciting herhymns, poor woman. Wellafter the horse and the rage Idon’t know, just on, then I supposethe slow turn, wheelingmore and more to the one orvther hand, till facing home,then back.Ah, my father and mother, tothink they are probably inparadise, they were so good.May I go to hell, that’s all Iask, and go on cursing themthere, and they look down andhear me, that might take someof the shine Off their bliss. Yes,I. believe all their blather aboutthe life to come, it cheers meup, and unhappiness like mine,there’s no annihilating that. Iwas mad, of course, and stillam, but harmless, I passed forharmless, that’s a good one. Ohnot really mad, just strange, alittle strange, and with everypassing year a little stranger,there must be few strangercreatures going about than meat the present day. My fathertoo, did I kill him too ? Perhapsin a way I did, I can’t go intothat now, much too weak andold. The questions float up asI go along and leave me veryconfused, breaking up I am.Suddenly they are there, no,they float up, out of an olddepth, and hover and lingerbefore they die away, questionsthat when I was in my rightmind would not have survivedone second, no, but atomizedthey would have been, before asmuch as formed, atomized. Intwos often they come, one hardon the other, thus, how shall Igo on another day? And then,how did I. ever go on anotherday ? Or, Did I kill my father ?And then, Did i ever kill anyone?That kind of way, to thegeneral from the particular Isuppose you might say, questionand answer too in a way, veryaddling. I strive with them .asbest I can, quickening my stepwhen they come on, tossing myhead from side to side and upand down, staring agonisedlyat this and that, increasing mymurmur to a roar, these arehelps. But they should not benecessary, something is wronghere, if it was the end I wouldnot so much mind, but how oftenhave I said in my life beforesome new awful thing?This is the end, and it was notthe end. And yet the end cannotbe far off now, I shall fallas I go along, and stay down,or curl up for the night as usualamong the rocks and beforemorning be g~ne, oh I know tooI. shall cease and be as before Iwas, only all over instead of instore, that makes me happy,often now my murmur faltersand dies and I whinge forhappiness as I go along and forlove of this old earth that hascarried me so long and whoseuncomplainingness will soon bemine. Just under the surface Ishall be, all together at first,then separate and drift, throughall the earth .and perhaps in theend through a cliff into the sea,something of me.A ton of worms in an acre,that is a wonderful thought; aton of worms; I believe it.Where did I get it, from adream, or a book read in a nookwhen a boy, or a word overheardas I went along? Theseare the kind of horrid questionsI have to contend with in theway I. have said.Now is there nothing to addto this day with the white horseand white mother in thewindow? Please read again mydescriptions of these, before Iget on to some other day at alater time, nothing really to addbefore I move on thus in time,could not at the time, but hadto get through somehow till Icame at last to the one I amcoming to now, no, I see nothing,all has gone but what Ihave said. So let me get onto this second day and get itover and out of my way and onto the next.Now the chief event of thissecond day is that I. was set onand pursued by a family ortribe, I do not know, of stoats,I think they Were stoats. Indeedif I may say so I was fortunateto get off with my life,strange expression, it doesn’tsound right somehow. Anotherman would have been bitten andbled to death, perhaps suckedwhite, like a rabbit, but if Icould have, and then had, I thinkI would have just lain down andlet myself be destroyed, as therabbit does. But let me startas always with the morning .andthe getting out, clear of thehouse. When a day comesback, whatever the reason, thenits morning and its evening tooare there, though in themselvesquite unremarkable, the goingout and coming home, that is aremarkable thing I find. Whattime of year, I really do notknow, does it matter ? Not wetreally, but dripping, everythingdripping, the day might rise.Did it ? No. Drip, drip all daylong; no sun, no change oflight, dim all day, and still, nota breath, till night, then black,and a little wind. I. saw somestars, as I neared home. Mystick of course, by a mercifulprovidence, I shall not say thisagain, when not mentioned mystick is in my hand, as I goalong. But not my long coat,just my jacket, I could neverendure the long coat, flappingand flailing about my legs, orrather one day suddenly Iturned against it, a suddenstrong dislike. And often whendressed to go out I would takeit out and put it on, then standin the middle of the room unableto move, until at last Icould take it off and put it backon its hanger, in the wardrobe.But I was hardly down thestairs and out of the door intothe air when the stick fell frommy hand and I just sank to myknees to the ground and thenforward on my face, a mostextraordinary thing to happen,and then after a little over onmy back, I could never lie onmy face for any length of time,much as I, loved to do so, itmade me feel sick. And thereI lay, half an hour perhaps, justlooking up at the sky, my armsalong my sides and thepalms of my hands against thewet pebbles and my eyes wideopen, straying over the sky.Now w.as this ’my first experienceof this kind? That isthe question that immediatelyassails one. Falls I had had inplenty, of the kind after whichunless a leg broken you angrilypick "yourself up and go on,cursing God and man, verydifferent from this. With somuch life gone from knowledgehow know when all began, allthe variants of the one that oneby one their venom stallingfollow one another, all life long,till you succumb. So in someway even olden things each timeare first things, all a going overand over and all once and nevermore.But let me get up and go onand get this awful day over andon to the next. But what is thesense of going on with all this ?There is none. Day after unrememberedday until mymother’s end, then again in anew place soon old until myown. And when I come to thisnight here among the rocks withwith my two books and the strongstarlight it will have passedfrom me and the day that wentbefore, all past and gone orperhaps just moments here andthere still, this little soundperhaps now that I don’t understandso that I gather up mythings and go back into :myhole, all so bygone it can betold. Over, over, there is a softplace in my heart for all thatis over, no, for the being over,I love the word. And often asI went along I have said it,with each step, or with everytwo steps, that is one syllablefor each step, and in the end Iwould be saying vero, vero. Ohbut for these awful fidgets Iwould have lived my life in abig empty echoing room witha big old pendulum clock, listeningand dozing, and the caseopen so that I could watch theswinging, moving my eyes toand fro, and the lead weightsdangling lower and lower untilagain, once a week.The third day was the look Igot from the roadman, suddenlyI see that now, the ragged oldbrute bent double down in theditch leaning on his spade orwhatever it was, leering roundand uP at me from under thebrim of his slouch, the redmouth, how was it I wonder Isaw him at all, that is more likeit, the day I saw the look I gotfrom Balfe, I went in terror ofhim as a child. Burbler us getaway from those old scenesand come to these, and myreward. Then it will be not asnow, I. see that suddenly now,day after day, out, on, round,back, in, like leaves turning, ortorn out and thrown crumpledaway, but a long unbroken timewithout before or after, light ordark, from or towards or at, theold half-knowledge of when andwhere gone, and of what, butkinds of things still, all at once,all going, till nothing, therewas never anything, never canbe, life and death all nothing,that kind of thing, only a voicedreaming and droning on allround, that is something, thevoice that once was in yourmouth. Well in any case onceput on the road and clear of theproperty what then, I rea31y donot know, the next thing I wasup in the bracken lashing aboutwith my stick making the dropsfly and cursing, filthy language,the same words over and over,I hope nobody heard me. Throatvery bad, to swallow wastorment, and something wrongwith an ear, I kept poking atit without relief, old wax perhapspressing on the drum.Extraordinary still over all theland, .and in me too all quitestill, a coincidence, why thecurses were pouring out of meI do not know, no, that is afoolish thing to say, and thelashing about with the stick,what possessed me, mild andweak to be doing that as Istruggled along, awful Englishthis. It is the stoats now, no,first I just sink down and vanishin the ferns, up to my waistthey were as I went along.Harsh things these great ferns,like starched, very woody,terrible stalks, take the skin offyour legs through your trousers,and then the holes they hide,break your leg if you’re notcareful, fall and vanish fromview, you could lie there forweeks and no one hear you, Ioften thought of that up in themountains, no, that is a foolishthing to say, just went on, mybody doing its best without me.BRINDLEYSLIMITEDPrinters ~r Stationer~"BookbindersAccount Book -ManufacturersFactory :Eustace StreetDublinStationery :22 Nassau StreetDublinJuneHasUiststandi]similmvailsAndand (Godot.tion t(Onlyberrie~’Wednecirclescomereadytoyo~possibweleorinveigcalledlags)activesider :doubtrespectheles:you li:S.C.MGF~