Breath, and Other Shorts Read online

  broods, gets to his feet, broods, takes a little bottle of pills

  from his shirt pocket, broods, swallows a pill, puts bottle

  back, broods, goes to clothes, broods, puts on clothes,

  c

  33

  broods, takes a large partly-eaten carrot from coat pocket,

  bites off a piece, chews an instant, spits it out with disgust,

  puts carrot back, broods, picks up two sacks, carries them

  bowed and staggering half-way to left wing, sets them

  down, broods, takes off clothes (except shirt), lets them

  fall in an untidy heap, broods, takes another pill, broods,

  kneels, prays, crawls into sack and lies still, sack A being

  now to left of sack B.

  Pause.

  Enter goad right on wheeled support (one wheel). The

  point stops a foot short of sack B. Pause. The point draws

  back, pauses, darts forward into sack, withdraws, recoils

  to a foot short of sack. Pause. The sack moves. Exit goad.

  B, wearing shirt, crawls out of sack, gets to his feet,

  takes from shirt pocket and consults a large watch, puts

  watch back, does exercises, consults watch, takes a tooth

  brush from shirt pocket and brushes teeth vigorously,

  puts brush back, rubs scalp vigorously, takes a comb from

  shirt pocket and combs hair, puts comb back, consults

  watch, goes to clothes, puts them on, consults watch, takes

  a brush from coat pocket and brushes clothes vigorously,

  brushes hair vigorously, puts brush back, takes a little

  mirror from coat pocket and inspects appearance, puts

  mirror back, takes carrot from coat pocket, bites off a

  piece, chews and swallows with appetite, puts carrot back,

  consults watch, takes a map from coat pocket and consults

  it, puts map back, consults watch, takes a compass from

  coat pocket and consults it, puts compass back, consults

  watch, picks up two sacks and carries them bowed and

  staggering to two yards short of left wing, sets them down,

  consults watch, takes off clothes (except shirt), folds them

  in a neat pile, consults watch, does exercises, consults

  watch, rubs scalp, combs hair, brushes teeth, consults and

  winds watch, crawls into sack and lies still, sack B being

  now to left of sack A as originally.

  34

  Pause.

  Enter goad right on wheeled support (two wheels). The

  point stops a foot short of sack A. Pause. The point draws

  back, pauses, darts forward into sack, withdraws, recoils

  to a foot short of sack. Pause. The sack does not move.

  The point draws back again, a little further than before,

  pauses, darts forward again into sack, withdraws, recoils

  to a foot short of sack. Pause. The sack moves. Exit goad.

  A crawls out of sack, halts, broods, prays.

  CURTAIN

  POSITION I

  POSITION II

  POSITION III

  c B A

  STAGBFRONT

  35

  From

  an Abandoned Work

  Up bright and early that day, I was young then, feeling

  awful, and out, mother hanging out of the window in her

  nightdress weeping and waving. Nice fresh morning, bright

  too early as so often. Feeling really awful, very violent. The

  sky would soon darken and rain fall and go on falling, all

  day, till evening. Then blue and sun again a second, then

  night. Feeling all this, how violent and the kind of day, I

  stopped and turned. So back with bowed head on the look

  out for a snail, slug or worm. Great love in my heart too

  for all things still and rooted, bushes, boulders and the

  like, too numerous to mention, even the flowers of the

  field, not for the world when in my right senses would I

  ever touch one, to pluck it. Whereas a bird now, or a

  butterfly, fluttering about and getting in my way, all moving things, getting in my path, a slug now, getting under my feet, no, no mercy. Not that I'd go out of my way to

  get at them, no, at a distance often they seemed still,

  then a moment later they were upon me. Birds with my

  piercing sight I have seen flying so high, so far, that they

  seemed at rest, then the next minute they were all about

  me, crows have done this. Ducks are perhaps the worst,

  to be suddenly stamping and stumbling in the midst Jf

  ducks, or hens, any class of poultry, few things are worse.

  Nor will I go out of my way to avoid such things, when

  avoidable, no, I simply will not go out of my way, though

  I have never in my life been on my way anywhere, but

  39

  simply on my way. And in this way I have gone through

  great thickets, bleeding, and deep into bogs, water too,

  even the sea in some moods and been carried out of my

  course, or driven back, so as not to drown. And that is

  perhaps how I shall die at last if they don't catch me, I

  mean drowned, or in fire, yes, perhaps that is how I shall

  do it at last, walking furious headlong into fire and dying

  burnt to bits. Then I raised my eyes and saw my mother

  still in the window waving, waving me back or on I don't

  know, or just waving, in sad helpless love, and I heard

  faintly her cries. The window-frame was green, pale, the

  house-wall grey and my mother white and so thin I could

  see past her (piercing sight I had then) into the dark of the

  room, and on all that full the not long risen sun, and all

  small because of the distance, very pretty really the whole

  thing, I remember it, the old grey and then the thin green

  surround and the thin white against the dark, if only she

  could have been still and let me look at it all. No, for

  once I wanted to stand and look at something I couldn't

  with her there waving and fluttering and swaying in and

  out of the window as though she were doing exercises, and

  for all I know she may have been, not bothering about me

  at all. No tenacity of purpose, that was another thing I

  didn't like in her. One week it would be exercises, and the

  next prayers and Bible reading, and the next gardening,

  and the next playing the piano and singing, that was awful,

  and then just lying about and resting, always changing.

  Not that it mattered to me, I was always out. But let me

  get on now with the day I have hit on to begin with, any

  other would have done as well, yes, on with it and out of

  my way and on to another, enough of my mother for the

  moment. Well then for a time all well, no trouble, no

  birds at me, nothing across my path except at a great

  distance a white horse followed by a boy, or it might have

  been a small man or woman. This is the only completely

  40

  white horse I remember, what I believe the Germans call

  a Schimmel, oh I was very quick as a boy and picked up

  a lot of hard knowledge, Schimmel, nice word, for an

  English speaker. The sun was full upon it, as shortly

  before on my mother, and it seemed to have a red band

  or stripe running down its side, I thought perhaps a bellyband, perhaps the horse was going somewhere to be harnessed, to a trap or suchlike. It crossed my path a long

  way off, then vanis
hed, behind greenery I suppose, all I

  noticed was the sudden appearance of the horse, then disappearance. It was bright white, with the sun on it, I had never seen such a horse, though often heard of them, and

  never saw another. White I must say has always affected me

  strongly, all white things, sheets, walls and so on, even

  flowers, and then just white, the thought of white, without

  more. But let me get on with this day and get it over. All

  well then for a time, just the violence and then this white

  horse, when suddenly I flew into a most savage rage, really

  blinding. Now why this sudden rage I really don't know,

  these sudden rages, they made my life a misery. Many

  other things too did this, my sore throat for example, I

  have never known what it is to be without a sore throat,

  but the rages were the worst, like a great wind suddenly

  rising in me, no, I can't describe. It wasn't the violence

  getting worse in any case, nothing to do with that, some

  days I would be feeling violent all day and never have a

  rage, other days quite quiet for me and have four or five.

  No, there's no accounting for it, there's no accounting for

  anything, with a mind like the one I always had, always on

  the alert against itself, I'll come back on this perhaps when

  I feel less weak. There was a time I tried to get relief by

  beating my head against something, but I gave it up. The

  best thing I found was to start running. Perhaps I should

  mention here I was a very slow walker. I didn't dally or

  loiter in any way, just walked very slowly, little short steps

  41

  and the feet very slow through the air. On the other hand I

  must have been quite one of the fastest runners the world

  has ever seen, over a short distance, five or ten yards, in a

  second I was there. But I could not go on at that speed, not

  for breathlessness, it was mental, all is mental, figments.

  Now the jog trot on the other hand, I could no more do

  that than I could fly. No, with me all was slow, and then

  these flashes, or gushes, vent the pent, that was one of those

  things I used to say, over and over, as I went along, vent the

  pent, vent the pent. Fortunately my father died when I was

  a boy, otherwise I might have been a professor, he had set

  his heart on it. A very fair scholar I was too, no thought,

  but a great memory. One day I told him about Milton's

  cosmology, away up in the mountains we were, resting

  against a huge rock looking out to sea, that impressed him

  greatly. Love too, often in my thoughts, when a boy, but

  not a great deal compared to other boys, it kept me awake I

  found. Never loved anyone I think, I'd remember. Except

  in my dreams, and there it was animals, dream animals,

  nothing like wha.t you see walking about the country, I

  couldn't describe them, lovely creatures they were, white

  mostly. In a way perhaps it's a pity, a good woman might

  have been the making of me, I might be sprawling in the

  sun now sucking my pipe and patting the bottoms of the

  third generation, looked up to and respected, wondering

  what there was for dinner, instead of stravaging the same

  old roads in all weathers, I was never much of a one for

  new ground. No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been

  born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

  But let me get on now from where I left off, the white horse

  and then the rage, no connection I suppose. But why go on

  with all this, I don't know, some day I must end, why not

  now. But these are thoughts, not mine, no matter, shame

  upon me. Now I am old and weak, in pain and weakness

  murmur why and pause, and the old thoughts well up in me

  42

  and over into my voice, the old thoughts born with me and

  grown with me and kept under, there's another. No, back

  to that far day, any far day, and from the dim granted

  ground to its things and sky the eyes raised and back again,

  raised again and back again again, and the feet going

  nowhere only somehow home, in the morning out from

  home and in the evening back home again, and the sound

  of my voice all day long muttering the same old things I

  don't listen to, not even mine it was at the end of the day,

  like a marmoset sitting on my shoulder with its bushy tail,

  keeping me company. All this talking, very low and hoarse,

  no wonder I had a sore throat. Perhaps I should mention

  here that I never talked to anyone, I think my father was

  the last one I talked to. My mother was the same, never

  talked, never answered, since my father died. I asked her

  for the money, I can't go back on that now, those must

  have been my last words to her. Sometimes she cried out on

  me, or implored, but never long, just a few cries, then if I

  looked up the poor old thin lips pressed tight together and

  the body turned away and just the corners of the eyes on me,

  but it was rare. Sometimes in the night I heard her, talking

  to herself I suppose, or praying out loud, or reading out

  loud, or reciting her hymns, poor woman. Well after the

  horse and rage I don't know, just on, then I suppose the

  slow turn, wheeling more and more to the one or other hand,

  till facing home, then home. Ah my father and mother, to

  think they are probably in paradise, they were so good. Let

  me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there,

  and them look down and hear me, that might take some of

  the shine off their bliss. Yes, I believe all their blather about

  the life to come, it cheers me up, and unhappiness like mine,

  there's no annihilating that. I was mad of course and still

  am, but harmless, I passed for harmless, that's a good one.

  Not of course that I was really mad, just strange, a little

  strange, and with every passing year a little stranger, there

  43

  can be few stranger creatures going about than me at the

  present day. My father, did I kill him too as well as my

  mother, perhaps in a way I did, but I can't go into that

  now, much too old and weak. The questions float up as I

  go along and leave me very confused, breaking up I am.

  Suddenly they are there, no, they float up, out of an old

  depth, and hover and linger before they die away, questions

  that when I was in my right mind would not have survived one second, no, but atomized they would have been, before as much as formed, atomized. In twos often they

  came, one hard on the other, thus, How shall I go on

  another day? and then, How did I ever go on another day?

  Or, Did I kill my father? and then, Did I ever kill anyone?

  That kind of way, to the general from the particular I suppose you might say, question and answer too in a way, very addling. I strive with them as best I can, quickening

  my step when they come on, tossing my head from side to

  side and up and down, staring agonizedly at this and that,

  increasing my murmur to a scream, these are helps. But

  they should not be necessary, something is wrong here, if it

  was the end I would not so much mind, but how often I />
  have said, in my life, before some new awful thing, It is the

  end, and it was not the end, and yet the end cannot be far off

  now, I shall fall as I go along and stay down or curl up for

  the night as usual among the rocks and before morning be

  gone. Oh I know I too shall cease and be as when I was not

  yet, only all over instead of in store, that makes me happy,

  often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon

  be mine. Just under the surface I shall be, all together at

  first, then separate and drift, through all the earth and perhaps in the end through a cliff into the sea, something of me.

  A ton of worms in an acre, that is a wonderful thought, a

  ton of worms, I believe it. Where did I get it, from a dream,

  44

  or a book read in a nook when a boy, or a word overheard

  as I went along, or in me all along and kept under till it

  could give me joy, these are the kind of horrid thoughts I

  have to contend with in the way I have said. Now is there

  nothing to add to this day with the white horse and white

  mother in the window, please read again my descriptions of

  these, before I get on to some other day at a later time,

  nothing to add before I move on in time skipping hundreds

  and even thousands of days in a way I could not at the time,

  but had to get through somehow until I came to the one I

  am coming to now, no, nothing, all has gone but mother

  in the window, the violence, rage and rain. So on to this

  second day and get it over and out of the way and on to the

  next. What happens now is I was set on and pursued by a

  family or tribe, I do not know, of stoats, a most extraordinary thing, I think they were stoats. Indeed if I may say so I think I was fortunate to get off with my life, strange

  expression, it does not sound right somehow. Anyone else

  would have been bitten and bled to death, perhaps sucked

  white, like a rabbit, there is that word white again. I know

  I could never think, but if I could have, and then had, I

  would just have lain down and let myself be destroyed, as

  the rabbit does. But let me start as always with the morning

  and the getting out. When a day comes back, whatever the

  reason, then its morning and its evening too are there,

  though in themselves quite unremarkable, the going out