Endgame Act Without Words I (9 page)

Clov!

CLOV
[
turning towards Hamm, exasperated
] What is it?

HAMM
I was never there.

CLOV
Lucky for you.

[
He looks out of window.
]

HAMM
Absent, always. It all happened without me. I don’t know what’s happened.

[
Pause.
]

Do you know what’s happened?

[
Pause.
]

Clov!

CLOV
[
turning towards Hamm, exasperated
] Do you want me to look at this muckheap, yes or no?

HAMM
Answer me first.

CLOV
What?

HAMM
Do you know what’s happened?

CLOV
When? Where?

HAMM
[
violently
] When! What’s happened? Use your head, can’t you!

What has happened?

CLOV
What for Christ’s sake does it matter?

[
He looks out of window.
]

HAMM
I don’t know.

[
Pause. Clov turns towards Hamm.
]

CLOV
[
harshly
] When old Mother Pegg asked you for oil for her lamp
and you told her to get out to hell, you knew what was happening then, no?

[
Pause.
]

You know what she died of, Mother Pegg? Of darkness.

HAMM
[
feebly
] I hadn’t any.

CLOV
[
as before
] Yes, you had.

[
Pause.
]

HAMM
Have you the glass?

CLOV
No, it’s clear enough as it is.

HAMM
Go and get it.

[
Pause. Clov casts up his eyes, brandishes his fists. He loses balance, clutches on to the ladder. He starts to get down, halts.
]

CLOV
There’s one thing I’ll never understand.

[
He gets down.
]

Why I always obey you. Can you explain that to me?

HAMM
No. . . . Perhaps it’s compassion.

[
Pause.
]

A kind of great compassion.

[
Pause.
]

Oh you won’t find it easy, you won’t find it easy.

[
Pause. Clov begins to move about the room in search of the telescope.
]

CLOV
I’m tired of our goings on, very tired.

[
He searches.
]

You’re not sitting on it?

[
He moves the chair, looks at the place where it stood, resumes his search.
]

HAMM
[
anguished
] Don’t leave me there!

[
Angrily Clov restores the chair to its place.
]

Am I right in the center?

CLOV
You’d need a microscope to find this—

[
He sees the telescope.
]

Ah, about time.

[
He picks up the telescope, gets up on the ladder, turns the telescope on the without.
]

HAMM
Give me the dog.

CLOV
[
looking
] Quiet!

HAMM
[
angrily
] Give me the dog!

[
Clov drops the telescope, clasps his hands to his head. Pause. He gets down precipitately, looks for the dog, sees it, picks it up, hastens towards Hamm and strikes him violently on the head with the dog.
]

CLOV
There’s your dog for you!

[
The dog falls to the ground. Pause.
]

HAMM
He hit me!

CLOV
You drive me mad, I’m mad!

HAMM
If you must hit me, hit me with the axe.

[
Pause.
]

Or with the gaff, hit me with the gaff. Not with the dog. With the gaff. Or with the axe.

[
Clov picks up the dog and gives it to Hamm who takes it in his arms.
]

CLOV
[
imploringly
] Let’s stop playing!

HAMM
Never!

[
Pause.
]

Put me in my coffin.

CLOV
There are no more coffins.

HAMM
Then let it end!

[
Clov goes towards ladder.
]

With a bang!

[
Clov gets up on ladder, gets down again, looks for telescope, sees it, picks it up, gets up ladder, raises telescope.
]

Of darkness! And me? Did anyone ever have pity on me?

CLOV
[
lowering the telescope, turning towards Hamm
] What?

[
Pause.
]

Is it me you’re referring to?

HAMM
[
angrily
] An aside, ape! Did you never hear an aside before?

[
Pause.
]

I’m warming up for my last soliloquy.

CLOV
I warn you. I’m going to look at this filth since it’s an order.

But it’s the last time.

[
He turns the telescope on the without.
]

Let’s see.

[
He moves the telescope.
]

Nothing . . . nothing . . . good . . . good . . . nothing . . . goo—

[
He starts, lowers the telescope, examines it, turns it again on the without. Pause.
]

Bad luck to it!

HAMM
More complications!

[
Clov gets down.
]

Not an underplot, I trust.

[
Clov moves ladder nearer window, gets up on it, turns telescope on the without.
]

CLOV
[
dismayed
] Looks like a small boy!

HAMM
[
sarcastic
] A small . . . boy!

CLOV
I’ll go and see.

[
He gets down, drops the telescope, goes towards door, turns.
]

I’ll take the gaff.

[
He looks for the gaff, sees it, picks it up, hastens towards door.
]

HAMM
No!

[
Clov halts.
]

CLOV
No? A potential procreator?

HAMM
If he exists he’ll die there or he’ll come here. And if he doesn’t . . .

[
Pause.
]

CLOV
You don’t believe me? You think I’m inventing?

[
Pause.
]

HAMM
It’s the end, Clov, we’ve come to the end. I don’t need you any more.

[
Pause.
]

CLOV
Lucky for you.

[
He goes towards door.
]

HAMM
Leave me the gaff.

[
Clov gives him the gaff, goes towards door, halts, looks at alarm-clock, takes it down, looks round for a better place to put it, goes to bins, puts it on lid of Nagg’s bin. Pause.
]

CLOV
I’ll leave you.

[
He goes towards door.
]

HAMM
Before you go . . .

[
Clov halts near door.
]

. . . say something.

CLOV
There is nothing to say.

HAMM
A few words . . . to ponder . . . in my heart.

CLOV
Your heart!

HAMM
Yes.

[
Pause. Forcibly.
]

Yes!

[
Pause.
]

With the rest, in the end, the shadows, the murmurs, all the trouble, to end up with.

[
Pause.
]

Clov. . . . He never spoke to me. Then, in the end, before he went, without my having asked him, he spoke to me. He said . . .

CLOV
[
despairingly
] Ah . . . !

HAMM
Something . . . from your heart.

CLOV
My heart!

HAMM
A few words . . . from your heart.

[
Pause.
]

CLOV
[
fixed gaze, tonelessly, towards auditorium
] They said to me, That’s love, yes, yes, not a doubt, now you see how—

HAMM
Articulate!

CLOV
[
as before
] How easy it is. They said to me, That’s friendship, yes, yes, no question, you’ve found it. They said to me, Here’s the place, stop, raise your head and look at all that beauty. That order! They said to me, Come now, you’re not a brute beast, think upon these things and you’ll see how all becomes clear. And simple! They said to me, What skilled attention they get, all these dying of their wounds.

HAMM
Enough!

CLOV
[
as before
] I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you—one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be there better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it’ll never end, I’ll never go.

[
Pause.
]

Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don’t understand, it dies, or it’s me, I don’t understand, that either. I ask the words that remain—sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.

[
Pause.
]

I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.

[
Pause.
]

It’s easy going.

[
Pause.
]

When I fall I’ll weep for happiness.

[
Pause. He goes towards door.
]

HAMM
Clov!

[
Clov halts, without turning.
]

Nothing.

[
Clov moves on.
]

Clov!

[
Clov halts, without turning.
]

CLOV
This is what we call making an exit.

HAMM
I’m obliged to you, Clov. For your services.

CLOV
[
turning, sharply
] Ah pardon, it’s I am obliged to you.

HAMM
It’s we are obliged to each other.

[
Pause. Clov goes towards door.
]

One thing more.

[
Clov halts.
]

A last favor.

[
Exit Clov.
]

Cover me with the sheet.

[
Long pause.
]

No? Good.

[
Pause.
]

Me to play.

[
Pause. Wearily.
]

Old endgame lost of old, play and lose and have done with losing.

[
Pause. More animated.
]

Let me see.

[
Pause.
]

Ah yes!

[
He tries to move the chair, using the gaff as before. Enter Clov, dressed for the road. Panama hat, tweed coat, raincoat over his arm, umbrella, bag. He halts by the door and stands there, impassive and motionless, his eyes fixed on Hamm, till the end. Hamm gives up.
]

Good.

[
Pause.
]

Discard.

[
He throws away the gaff, makes to throw away the dog, thinks better of it.
]

Take it easy.

[
Pause.
]

And now?

[
Pause.
]

Raise hat.

[
He raises his toque.
]

Peace to our . . . arses.

[
Pause.
]

And put on again.

[
He puts on his toque.
]

Deuce.

[
Pause. He takes off his glasses.
]

Wipe.

[
He takes out his handkerchief and, without unfolding it, wipes his glasses
.]

And put on again.

[
He puts on his glasses, puts back the handkerchief in his pocket.
]

We’re coming. A few more squirms like that and I’ll call.

[
Pause.
]

A little poetry.

[
Pause.
]

You prayed—

[
Pause. He corrects himself.
]

You CRIED for night; it comes—

[
Pause. He corrects himself.
]

It FALLS: now cry in darkness.

[
He repeats, chanting.
]

You cried for night; it falls: now cry in darkness.

[
Pause.
]

Nicely put, that.

[
Pause.
]

And now?

[
Pause.
]

Moments for nothing, now as always, time was never and time is over, reckoning closed and story ended.

[
Pause. Narrative tone.
]

If he could have his child with him. . . .

[
Pause.
]

It was the moment I was waiting for.