The Farce of the Absurd, The Play of the Surfaces: Beckett's Endgame

References in Beckett's Endgame to "the end" or "the finish"

CLOV: Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished.

(Pause.)

Grain upon grain, one by one, and one day, suddenly, there's a heap, a little heap, the impossible heap.

(Pause.)

I can't be punished any more.

HAMM: Have you not finished? Will you never finish?

(With sudden fury.)

Will this never finish?

(Nagg disappears into his bin, closes the lid behind him. Nell does not move. Frenziedly.)

My kingdom for a nightman!

(He whistles. Enter Clov.)

Clear away this muck! Chuck it in the sea!

(Clov goes to bins, halts.)

 

HAMM: You've forgotten the sex.

CLOV (vexed):

But he isn't finished. The sex goes on at the end.

(Pause.)

HAMM:

You haven't put on his ribbon.

CLOV (angrily):

But he isn't finished, I tell you! First you finish your dog and then you put on his ribbon!

(Pause.)

 

HAMM:

One! Silence!

(Pause.)

Where was I?

(Pause. Gloomily.)

It's finished, we're finished.

(Pause.)

Nearly finished.

(Pause.)

There'll be no more speech.

(Pause.)

Something dripping in my head, ever since the fontanelles.

(Stifled hilarity of Nagg.)

Splash, splash, always on the same spot.

(Pause.)

Perhaps it's a little vein.

 

HAMM: I'll soon have finished with this story.

(Pause.)

Unless I bring in other characters.

(Pause.)

But where would I find them?

(Pause.)

Where would I look for them?

(Pause. He whistles. Enter Clov.)

Let us pray to God.

 

HAMM: What dreams! Those forests!

(Pause.)

Enough, it's time it ended, in the shelter, too.

(Pause.)

And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to... to end. Yes, there it is, it's time it ended and yet I hesitate to---

(He yawns.)

---to end.

(Yawns.)

God, I'm tired, I'd be better off in bed.

(He whistles. Enter Clov immediately. He halts beside the chair.)

You pollute the air!

CLOV:

It may end.

(Pause.)

All life long the same questions, the same answers

 

HAMM:

This is not much fun.

(Pause.)

But that's always the way at the end of the day, isn't it, Clov?

CLOV:

Always.

HAMM:

It's the end of the day like any other day, isn't it, Clov?

CLOV:

Looks like it.

(Pause.)

HAMM (anguished):

What's happening, what's happening?

CLOV:

Something is taking its course.

(Pause.)

HAMM:

All right, be off.

(He leans back in his chair, remains motionless. Clov does not move, heaves a great groaning sigh. Hamm sits up.)

HAMM:

I once knew a madman who thought the end of the world had come. He was a painter---and engraver. I had a great fondness for him. I used to go and see him, in the asylum. I'd take him by the hand and drag him to the window. Look! There! All that rising corn! And there! Look! The sails of the herring fleet! All that loveliness!

(Pause.)

He'd snatch away his hand and go back into his corner. Appalled. All he had seen was ashes.

(Pause.)

He alone had been spared.

(Pause.)

Forgotten.

(Pause.)

It appears the case is... was not so... so unusual

CLOV:

The end is terrific!

HAMM:

I prefer the middle.

(Pause.)

Is it not time for my pain-killer?

CLOV:

No!

(He goes to door, turns.)

I'll leave you.

CLOV:

Do you see how it goes on?

HAMM:

More or less.

CLOV:

Will it not soon be the end?

HAMM:

I'm afraid it will.

CLOV:

Pah! You'll make up another.

HAMM:

I don't know.

(Pause.)

I feel rather drained.

(Pause.)

The prolonged creative effort.

(Pause.)

If I could drag myself down to the sea! I'd make a pillow of sand for my head and the tide would come.

CLOV:

There's no more tide.

(Pause.)

 

HAMM:The end is in the beginning and yet you go on. (Pause.)

Perhaps I could go on with my story, end it and begin another.

(Pause.)

Perhaps I could throw myself out on the floor.

(He pushes himself painfully off his seat, falls back again.)

Dig my nails into the cracks and drag myself forward with my fingers.

(Pause.)

It will be the end and there I'll be, wondering what can have brought it on and wondering what can have...

(he hesitates)

...why it was so long coming.

(Pause.)

There I'll be, in the old shelter, alone against the silence and...

(he hesitates)

...the stillness. If I can hold my peace, and sit quiet, it will be all over with sound, and motion, all over and done with.

(Pause.)

 

HAMM:

Don't sing.

CLOV (turning towards Hamm):

One hasn't the right to sing any more?

HAMM:

No.

CLOV:

Then how can it end?

HAMM:

You want it to end?

CLOV:

I want to sing.

HAMM:

I can't prevent you.

(Pause. Clov turns towards window right.)

 

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 on 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:

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

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 (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 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.

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.

Beckett's Endgame -- Some Parodies of Christian Language

HAMM:

This is slow work.

(Pause.)

Is it not time for my pain-killer?

CLOV:

No.

(Pause.)

I'll leave you, I have things to do.

HAMM:

In your kitchen?

CLOV:

Yes.

HAMM:

What, I'd like to know.

CLOV:

I look at the wall.

HAMM:

The wall! And what do you see on your wall? Mene, mene? Naked bodies?

CLOV:

I see my light dying.

HAMM:

Your light dying! Listen to that! Well, it can die just as well here, your light. Take a look at me and then come back and tell me what you think of your light.

(Pause.)

CLOV:

You shouldn't speak to me like that.

(Pause.)

HAMM (coldly):

Forgive me.

(Pause. Louder.)

I said, Forgive me.

CLOV:

I heard you.

(The lid of Nagg's bin lifts. His hands appear, gripping the rim. Then his head emerges. In his mouth the biscuit. He listens.)

 

NAGG:

Let me tell it again.

(Raconteur's voice.)

An Englishman, needing a pair of striped trousers in a hurry for the New Year festivities, goes to his tailor who takes his measurements.

(Tailor's voice.)

"That's the lot, come back in four days, I'll have it ready." Good. Four days later.

(Tailor's voice.)

"So sorry, come back in a week, I've made a mess of the seat." Good, that's all right, a neat seat can be very ticklish. A week later.

(Tailor's voice.)

"Frightfully sorry, come back in ten days, I've made a hash of the crotch." Good, can't be helped, a snug crotch is always a teaser. Ten days later.

(Tailor's voice.)

"Dreadfully sorry, come back in a fortnight, I've made a balls of the fly." Good, at a pinch, a smart fly is a stiff proposition.

(Pause. Normal voice.)

I never told it worse.

(Pause. Gloomy.)

I tell this story worse and worse.

(Pause. Raconteur's voice.)

Well, to make it short, the bluebells are blowing and he ballockses the buttonholes.

(Customer's voice.)

"God damn you to hell, Sir, no, it's indecent, there are limits! In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!"

(Tailor's voice, scandalized.)

"But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look---

(disdainful gesture, disgustedly)

---at the world---

(Pause.)

and look---

(loving gesture, proudly)

---at my TROUSERS!"

(Pause. He looks at Nell who has remained impassive, her eyes unseeing. He breaks into a high forced laugh, cuts it short, pokes his head towards Nell, launches his laugh again.)

HAMM:

Silence!

(Nagg starts, cuts short his laugh.)

 

HAMM:

In my house.

(Pause. With prophetic relish.)

One day you'll be blind like me. You'll be sitting here, a speck in the void, in the dark, forever, like me.

(Pause.)

One day you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down. Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up and you won't get anything to eat.

(Pause.)

You'll look at the wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you open them again there'll be no wall any more.

(Pause.)

Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.

(Pause.)

Yes, one day you'll know what it is, you'll be like me, except that you won't have anyone with you, because you won't have had pity on anyone and because there won't be anyone left to have pity on you.

(Pause.)

CLOV:

It's not certain.

(Pause.)

And there's one thing you forgot.

HAMM:

Ah?

CLOV:

I can't sit down.

 

HAMM: But what in God's name do you imagine? That the earth will awake in the spring? That the rivers and seas will run with fish again? That there's manna in heaven still for imbeciles like you?

(Pause.)

Gradually I cooled down, sufficiently at least to ask him how long he had taken on the way. Three whole days. Good. In what condition he had left the child. Deep in sleep.

(Forcibly.)

But deep in what sleep, deep in what sleep already?

(Pause.)

Well to make it short I finally offered to take him into my service. He had touched a chord. And then I imagined already that I wasn't much longer for this world.

(He laughs. Pause.)

Well?

(Pause.)

Well? Here if you were careful you might die a nice natural death, in peace and comfort.

(Pause.)

Well?

(Pause.)

In the end he asked me would I consent to take in the child as well---if he were still alive.

(Pause.)

It was the moment I was waiting for.

(Pause.)

Would I consent to take in the child...

(Pause.)

I can see him still, down on his knees, his hands flat on the ground, glaring at me with his mad eyes, in defiance of my wishes.

(Pause. Normal tone.)

I'll soon have finished with this story.

(Pause.)

Unless I bring in other characters.

(Pause.)

But where would I find them?

(Pause.)

Where would I look for them?

(Pause. He whistles. Enter Clov.)

Let us pray to God.

 

HAMM:

You'll finish him later. Let us pray to God.

CLOV:

Again!

NAGG:

Me sugar-plum!

HAMM:

God first!

(Pause.)

Are you right?

CLOV (resigned):

Off we go.

HAMM (to Nagg):

And you?

NAGG (clasping his hands, closing his eyes, in a gabble):

Our Father which art---

HAMM:

Silence! In silence! Where are your manners?

(Pause.)

Off we go.

(Attitudes of prayer. Silence. Abandoning his attitude, discouraged.)

Well?

CLOV (abandoning his attitude):

What a hope! And you?

HAMM:

Sweet damn all!

(To Nagg.)

And you?

NAGG:

Wait!

(Pause. Abandoning his attitude.)

Nothing doing!

HAMM:

The bastard!! He doesn't exist.

CLOV:

Not yet.

NAGG:

Me sugar-plum!

HAMM:

There are no more sugar plums!

(Pause.)

NAGG:

It's natural. After all I'm your father. It's true if it hadn't been me it would have been someone else. But that's no excuse.

(Pause.)

Turkish Delight, for example, which no longer exists, we all know that, there is nothing in the world I love more. And one day I'll ask you for some, in return for a kindness, and you'll promise it to me. One must live with the times.

(Pause.)

Whom did you call when you were a tiny boy, and were frightened, in the dark? Your mother? No. Me. We let you cry. Then we moved you out of earshot, so that we might sleep in peace.

(Pause.)

I was asleep, as happy as a king, and you woke me up to have me listen to you. It wasn't indispensable, you didn't really need to have me listen to you.

(Pause.)

I hope the day will come when you'll really need to have me listen to you, and need to hear my voice, any voice.

(Pause.)

Yes, I hope I'll live till then, to hear you calling me like when you were a tiny boy, and were frightened, in the dark, and I was your only hope.

(Pause. Nagg knocks on lid of Nell's bin. Pause.)

Nell!

(Pause. He knocks louder. Pause. Louder.)

Nell!

(Pause. Nagg sinks back into his bin, closes the lid behind him. Pause.)

HAMM:

Our revels now are ended.

(He gropes for the dog.)

The dog's gone.

CLOV:

He's not a real dog, he can't go.

HAMM (groping):

He's not there.

CLOV:

He's lain down.

HAMM:

Give him up to me.

(Clov picks up the dog and gives it to Hamm. Hamm holds it in his arms. Pause. Hamm throws away the dog.)

Dirty brute!

(Clov begins to pick up the objects lying on the ground.)

What are you doing?

CLOV:

Putting things in order.

(He straightens up. Fervently.)

I'm going to clear everything away!

(He starts picking up again.)

HAMM:

Order!

CLOV (straightening up):

I love order. It's my dream. A world where all would be silent and still and each thing in its last place, under the last dust.

(He starts picking up again.)

HAMM (exasperated):

What in God's name do you think you're doing?

CLOV (straightening up):

I'm doing my best to create a little order.

HAMM:

Drop it!

(Clov drops the objects he has picked up)