thanks to you I’ll be myself, in the end. Nothing will remain of all the lies
they have glutted me with. And I’ll be myself at last, as a starveling belches his
odourless wind, before the bliss of coma. But who, they? Is it really worth while inquiring ? With my cogged means? No, but that’s no reason not to. On their own ground, with
their own arms, I’ll scatter them, and their miscreated puppets. Perhaps I’ll find
traces of myself by the same occasion. That’s decided then. What is strange is that
they haven’t been pestering me for some time past, yes, they’ve inflicted the notion
of time on me too. What conclusion, using their methods, am I to draw from this? Mahood
is silent, that is to say his voice continues, but is no longer renewed. Do they consider
me so plastered with their rubbish that I can never extricate myself, never make a
gesture but their cast must come to life? But within, motionless, I can live, and
utter me, for no ears but my own. They loaded me down with their trappings and stoned
me through the carnival. I’ll sham dead now, whom they couldn’t bring to life, and
my monster’s carapace will rot off me. But it’s entirely a matter of voices, no other
metaphor is appropriate. They’ve blown me up with their voices, like a balloon, and
even as I collapse it’s them I hear. Who, them? And why nothing more from them lately?
Can it be they have abandoned me, saying, Very well, there’s nothing to be done with him, let’s leave it at that,
he’s not dangerous. Ah but the littlemurmur of unconsenting man, to murmur what it is their humanity stifles, the little
gasp of the condemned to life, rotting in his dungeon garrotted and racked, to gasp
what it is to have to celebrate banishment, beware. No, they have nothing to fear,
I am walled round with their vociferations, none will ever know what I am, none will
ever hear me say it, I won’t say it, I can’t say it, I have no language but theirs,
no, perhaps I’ll say it, even with their language, for me alone, so as not to have
not lived in vain, and so as to go silent, if that is what confers the right to silence,
and it’s unlikely, it’s they who have silence in their gift, they who decide, the
same old gang, among themselves, no matter, to hell with silence, I’ll say what I
am, so as not to have not been born for nothing, I’ll fix their jargon for them, then
any old thing, no matter what, whatever they want, with a will, till time is done,
at least with a good grace. First I’ll say what I’m not, that’s how they taught me
to proceed, then what I am, it’s already under way, I have only to resume at the point
where I let myself be cowed. I am neither, I needn’t say, Murphy, nor Watt, nor Mercier,
nor – no, I can’t even bring myself to name them, nor any of the others whose very
names I forget, who told me I was they, who I must have tried to be, under duress,
or through fear, or to avoid acknowledging me, not the slightest connection. I never
desired, never sought, never suffered, never partook in any of that, never knew what
it was to have, things, adversaries, mind, senses. But enough of this. There is no
use denying, no use harping on the same old thing I know so well, and so easy to say,
and which simply amounts in the end to speaking yet again in the way they intend me
to speak, that is to say about them, even with execration and disbelief. Perhaps they
exist in the way they have decreed will be mine, it’s possible , I don’t know and I’m not interested. If they had taught me how to wish I’d wish
they did. There’s no getting rid of them without naming them and their contraptions,
that’s the thing to keep in mind. I might as well tell another of Mahood’s stories
and no more about it, to be understood in the way I was given to understand it, namely
as being about me. That’s an idea. Toheighten my disgust. I’ll recite
they have glutted me with. And I’ll be myself at last, as a starveling belches his
odourless wind, before the bliss of coma. But who, they? Is it really worth while inquiring ? With my cogged means? No, but that’s no reason not to. On their own ground, with
their own arms, I’ll scatter them, and their miscreated puppets. Perhaps I’ll find
traces of myself by the same occasion. That’s decided then. What is strange is that
they haven’t been pestering me for some time past, yes, they’ve inflicted the notion
of time on me too. What conclusion, using their methods, am I to draw from this? Mahood
is silent, that is to say his voice continues, but is no longer renewed. Do they consider
me so plastered with their rubbish that I can never extricate myself, never make a
gesture but their cast must come to life? But within, motionless, I can live, and
utter me, for no ears but my own. They loaded me down with their trappings and stoned
me through the carnival. I’ll sham dead now, whom they couldn’t bring to life, and
my monster’s carapace will rot off me. But it’s entirely a matter of voices, no other
metaphor is appropriate. They’ve blown me up with their voices, like a balloon, and
even as I collapse it’s them I hear. Who, them? And why nothing more from them lately?
Can it be they have abandoned me, saying, Very well, there’s nothing to be done with him, let’s leave it at that,
he’s not dangerous. Ah but the littlemurmur of unconsenting man, to murmur what it is their humanity stifles, the little
gasp of the condemned to life, rotting in his dungeon garrotted and racked, to gasp
what it is to have to celebrate banishment, beware. No, they have nothing to fear,
I am walled round with their vociferations, none will ever know what I am, none will
ever hear me say it, I won’t say it, I can’t say it, I have no language but theirs,
no, perhaps I’ll say it, even with their language, for me alone, so as not to have
not lived in vain, and so as to go silent, if that is what confers the right to silence,
and it’s unlikely, it’s they who have silence in their gift, they who decide, the
same old gang, among themselves, no matter, to hell with silence, I’ll say what I
am, so as not to have not been born for nothing, I’ll fix their jargon for them, then
any old thing, no matter what, whatever they want, with a will, till time is done,
at least with a good grace. First I’ll say what I’m not, that’s how they taught me
to proceed, then what I am, it’s already under way, I have only to resume at the point
where I let myself be cowed. I am neither, I needn’t say, Murphy, nor Watt, nor Mercier,
nor – no, I can’t even bring myself to name them, nor any of the others whose very
names I forget, who told me I was they, who I must have tried to be, under duress,
or through fear, or to avoid acknowledging me, not the slightest connection. I never
desired, never sought, never suffered, never partook in any of that, never knew what
it was to have, things, adversaries, mind, senses. But enough of this. There is no
use denying, no use harping on the same old thing I know so well, and so easy to say,
and which simply amounts in the end to speaking yet again in the way they intend me
to speak, that is to say about them, even with execration and disbelief. Perhaps they
exist in the way they have decreed will be mine, it’s possible , I don’t know and I’m not interested. If they had taught me how to wish I’d wish
they did. There’s no getting rid of them without naming them and their contraptions,
that’s the thing to keep in mind. I might as well tell another of Mahood’s stories
and no more about it, to be understood in the way I was given to understand it, namely
as being about me. That’s an idea. Toheighten my disgust. I’ll recite
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