…I’ll have said it inside me, then in the same breath outside me, perhaps that’s what I feel, an outside and an inside and me in the middle, perhaps that’s what I am, the thing that divides the world in two, on the one side the outside, on the other the inside, that can be as thin as foil, I’m neither one side nor the other, I’m in the middle, I’m the partition, I’ve two surfaces and no thickness, perhaps that’s what I feel, myself vibrating, I’m tympanum, on the one hand the mind, on the other the world, I don’t belong to either… (Three Novels, p 383)

Notes:

a) “perhaps that’s what I am, the thing that divides the world in two”: both Hegel and Heidegger see human being as uniquely revealing being itself because it is uniquely representative of the original power of division. See “Nur” in Hegel and Heidegger, ”Nur” in SZ and Der Verstand dient als Fackelträger.

b) “I’m neither one side nor the other” – see Neither:

TO AND FRO in shadow from inner to outershadow
from inpenetrable self to inpenetrable nonself by way of neither
as between two lit refuges
…
heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other
unheard footfalls only sound
till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other
then no sound
then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

The Unnameable

…what it’s like, where the door is, if there’s a door, and whereabouts I am in it, and what lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country, whether it’s sea, or whether it’s mountain, and the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself up, come to the place where the axe falls…

…calls that living, the space of the way from here to the door, it’s all there… travel the road, find the door, find the axe…find the door, open the door, drop into the silence, it won’t be I…the door that opens, closes again, it was never I…far from here, through the noise, through the door, into the silence, that must be it…perhaps it’s the door, perhaps I’m at the door, that would surprise me….it’s now at the door, what door, what’s a door doing here, it’s the last words, the true last… (Three Novels, pp. 411-413)

Intellectually a year of profound gloom until that wonderful night in March, at the end of the pier, in the high wind, when suddenly I saw the whole thing. The turning-point at last. This, I imagine, is what I have chiefly to set down this evening, against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no place in my memory, and no thankfulness, for the miracle- (pause)- for the fire that set it alight. What I saw was the assumption I had been going on all my life, namely -(He switches off machine impatiently, winds tape forward, switches on again)-granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the beacon and the anemometer spinning like a propeller, clear to me at last that the dark I have struggled to keep at bay out of my work is in reality my most valuable- (He curses, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again)- strange association till my dying day of the storm and night with the light of understanding and the- (He curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward, switches on again. (No Symbols Where None Intended, p 49-50).)

Notes:

a) For ‘at the end of the pier’, see Joyce: “Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. The words troubled their gaze.” (Ulysses, Nestor)

b) A bridge is analog, a pier, digital.

c) The ‘disappointed’ ‘pier’ rather than the ‘bridge’ is emphasized by Beckett through the device of telling the tale on a tape which is repeatedly switched on and off.

d) For the final version of this text, see The space of the door 3

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts

Significantly, the original of “the space of a door” is “le temps d’une porte”, which seems to have been altered by Beckett from ‘time’ to ‘space’ to emphasize the contrast between “flowing”, “harrying fleeing” and “treading” on the one hand and “cease” on the other.

At any rate, where “le temps d’une porte” is essentially different from the time of “my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end”, it may be seen why Heidegger insists on the plurality of time(s) and on the essential connection between the question of the plurality of time and the question of the meaning of being. Hence: Sein und Zeit….Being and Time.

folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -

what is the word

Night. As long as day in this endless equinox. It falls and we go on. Before the dawn we are gone.

Where the ‘equinox’ is “endless”, different conditions prevail, of course: it is “eternally mild. As if the earth had come to rest in spring….the windlessness”.

Here, where we are, the ‘equinox’ is seldom and is accompanied by the wind, or ushered in by the wind, in a sort of incursion of the spirit. There, the ‘equinox’ is “endless” and the wind is still, perhaps since spirit already prevails. In any case, humans cannot tarry with the equinox even where it is “endless”: “we go on. Before the dawn we are gone.” (RLD)

Compare Shakespeare in Hamlet.

TO AND FRO in shadow from inner to outershadow
from inpenetrable self to inpenetrable nonself by way of neither
as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close,
once turned away from gently part again
beckoned back and forth and turned away
heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other
unheard footfalls only sound
till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other
then no sound
then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither
unspeakable home

He returns to the matter a little later, after a diversion, as follows: “(Pause.) Spiritually, a year of profound gloom and indigence until that memorable night in March, at the end of the jetty, in the howling wind, never to be forgotten, when suddenly I saw the whole thing. (Impatient reaction from KRAPP.) The vision at last. This I fancy is what I have chiefly to (Violent reaction from KRAPP.) record this evening, against the day when my work will be done and perhaps no place left in memory, warm or cold, for the miracle that…(hesitates). (KRAPP thumps on table.)…for the fire that set it alight. What I suddenly saw was this, that the belief I had been going on all my life, namely – (KRAPP switches off impatiently, winds tape forward (mechanical with gabble, 2 seconds) switches on again.) – great granite rocks the foam flying up in the light of the lighthouse and the wind-gauge spinning like a propeller, clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most – (KRAPP curses, switches off, winds tape forward, [mechanical with gabble, 3 seconds], switches on again.) – unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light of the understanding and the fire – (KRAPP curses louder, switches off, winds tape forward [mechanical with gabble, 4 seconds], switches on again, [lowers head].) – my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side. (Pause. [Raises head, stares front.]) Past midnight. Never knew such silence. The earth might be uninhabited. (Pause.) Here I end…” (lines 167ff).

The ‘equinox‘ of what Beckett calls (not without horror at the presumptive language) “the whole thing”, “reality” and “all”, occurs in an uninhabited and uninhabitable space where the light and the dark, warm and cold, fire and night, and “up and down” occur together in “unshatterable association” – “by way of neither“. The ‘equinox’ is a bond and way between these which is neither the one, nor the other, but something else which is unspeakable and dark beyond night: “Past midnight“.

What has happened to Krapp (“Slight improvement in bowel condition”), in a “vision” or “miracle”, is that he has experienced a shift in his foundations which can never be brought about by will: “We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us”. Previously bound to (ie, in a world structured by) the antagonistic opposition of the light and the dark, he “suddenly” sees that there is another dark, one far deeper and more silent than the “gloom and indigence” he had previously taken for the dark: “the belief I had been going on all my life”. This new dark, this second dark, is a dark that both separates and binds: “clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most…”

In terms of the gigantomachia, Beckett has left off allegiance to the gods or titans (the light OR the dark) and found the child ‘holding to both’ (the light AND the dark, where the AND is a different and yet more silent dark). To do so, he has somehow taken the pathless path from one shape of being to another, and in this other shape he has first come to see the very way, the space of the door, which got him there in the first place.

Also see Early version of Krapp’s tape