Still 3
Whence when back no knowing where no telling where been how long how it was. Back in the chair at the window before the window head in hand as shown dead still listening again in vain. No not yet not listening again in vain quite yet while the dim questions fade where been how long how it was. For head in hand eyes closed as shown always the same dark now from now all hours of day and night. No nightbird to mean night at least or day at least so faint perhaps mere fancy with the right valley wind the incarnation bell. Or Mother Calvet with the dawn pushing the old go-cart for whatever she might find and back at dusk. Back then and nothing to tell but some soundless place and in the head in the hand where such questions once like ghosts where what how long weirdest of all. Till in imagination from the dead faces faces on off in the dark sudden whites long short then black long short then another so on or the same. White stills all front no expression eyes wide unseeing mouth no expression male female all ages one by one never more at a time. There somewhere some time hers or his or some other creature’s try dreamt away saying dreamt away where face after face till hers in the end or his or that other creature’s. Where faces in the dark as shown for one in the end even though only once only for a second say back try saying back from there head in hand as shown. For one or more why while at it one alone no one alone one by one none it till perhaps some time in the end that one or none. Size as seen in the life at say arm’s length sudden white black all about no known expression eyes its at last not looking lids the ones no expression marble still so long then out.
Appendix 2: Publication History
The following bibliography gives first publication details for all texts presented in this volume, together with their first printing in individual editions or collections. A list of collections of Beckett’s shorter prose follows. Publication for Calder is London, Grove Press is New York and for Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris.
Textes pour rien
‘Texte pour rien V’, Deucalion (October 1952)
‘Textes pour rien III, VI and X’, Les Lettres Nouvelles 1 : 3 (May 1953), pp. 267–77
‘Texte pour rien XI’, Arts-Spectacles 418 (3–9 July 1953), p. 5
‘Texte pour rien XIII’, Le Disque Vert 1 : 4 (November–December 1953), pp. 3–5
‘Textes pour rien I and XII’, Monde Nouveau/Paru 10 : 89/90 (May–June 1955), pp. 144–9
Nouvelles et Textes pour rien (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1955)
Texts for Nothing
‘Text for Nothing I’, Evergreen Review 3 : 9 (Summer 1959), pp. 21–4
‘Text for Nothing III’, Great French Short Stories, ed. Germaine Brée (New York: Dell, 1960) [translated by Samuel Beckett and Anthony Bonner]
‘Texts for Nothing XII’, Transatlantic Review 24 (Spring 1967), pp. 15–16
‘Text for Nothing VI’, London Magazine n.s. 7 : 5 (August 1967), pp. 47–50
No’s Knife: Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1966 (Calder, 1967; repr. 1975)
Stories and Texts for Nothing (Grove Press, 1967)
Texts for Nothing (Signature Series: Signature 21) (Calder and Boyars, 1974).
From an Abandoned Work
Trinity News: A Dublin University Weekly 3 : 17 (7 June 1956), p. 4
Evergreen Review 1 : 3 (1957), pp. 83–91
From an Abandoned Work (Faber and Faber, 1958)
First Love and Other Shorts (Grove Press, 1974)
D’un ouvrage abandonné [translated by Ludovic and Agnes
Janvier in collaboration with Beckett]
D’un ouvrage abandonné (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1967)
Faux Départs
Kursbuch 1 (June 1965), pp. 1–5
All Strange Away
All Strange Away, with illustrations by Edward Gorey (New York: Gotham Book Mart, 1976)
Journal of Beckett Studies 3 (Summer 1978), pp. 1–9
All Strange Away (John Calder Ltd, 1979)
Rockaby and Other Short Pieces (Grove Press, 1981)
Imagination morte imaginez
Les Lettres nouvelles 13 (October–November 1965), pp. 13–16
Imagination morte imaginez (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1965)
Imagination Dead Imagine
Sunday Times (7 November 1965), p. 48
Imagination Dead Imagine (John Calder Ltd, 1965) [trade edition 1966]
Evergreen Review 10 : 39 (February 1966), pp. 48–9
First Love and Other Shorts (Grove Press, 1974)
Assez
Assez (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1966)
La Quinzaine littéraire 1 (15 March 1966), pp. 4–5
Enough
Books and Bookmen 13 : 7 (April 1967), pp. 62–3
No’s Knife: Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1966 (Calder, 1967)
First Love and Other Shorts (Grove Press, 1974)
Le Dépeupleur
Le Dépeupleur (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1970)
The Lost Ones
The Lost Ones (Calder and Boyars, 1972)
The Lost Ones (Grove Press, 1972)
Bing
Bing (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1966)
Ping
Encounter 28 : 2 (February 1967), pp. 25–6
Harper’s Bazaar 3067 (June 1967), pp. 120, 140
No’s Knife: Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1966 (Calder, 1967)
First Love and Other Shorts (Grove Press, 1974)
Sans
La Quinzaine littéraire 82 (1 November 1969), pp. 3–4
Sans (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1969)
Lessness
New Statesman (1 May 1970), p. 635
Evergreen Review 14.80 (July 1970), pp. 35–6
Lessness (Signature Series: Signature 9) (Calder and Boyars, 1970)
Foirades
‘Foirade I’, Minuit 1 (November 1972), pp. 22–6
‘Foirades II & III’, Minuit 2 (January 1973), pp. 40–2
‘Foirades IV & V’, Minuit 4 (May 1973), pp. 71–2
Pour finir encore (Minuit, 1976)
Pour finir encore et autre foirades (Minuit, 1976)
Fizzles
‘Still’, with etchings by Stanley William Hayter (Milan: M’Arte Edizioni, 1974)
‘Still’, Signature Anthology: Signature 20 (Calder and Boyars, 1975)
‘Still’, The Malahide Review 33 (January 1975), pp. 9–10
‘For to End Yet Again’, New Writing and Writers 13 (John Calder Ltd, 1976 [1975]), pp. 9–14.
Foirades/Fizzles, with etchings by Jasper Johns, ed. Véra Lindsay (New York: Petersburg Press, 1976)
Fizzles (Grove Press, 1976)
For to EndYet Again and Other Fizzles (John Calder Ltd, 1976)
‘Fizzle 1’ [‘He is barehead’], Tri-Quarterly (In the wake of the Wake) 38 (Winter 1977), pp. 163–7
‘Sounds’, Essays in Criticism 28 : 2 (April 1978), pp. 156–7
‘Still 3’, Essays in Criticism 28 : 2 (April 1978), pp. 156–7
As the Story Was Told
Günter Eich zum Gedächtnis, ed. Siegfried Unseld (Frankfurt a. Main: Suhrkamp, 1975), pp. 10–[13]
Chicago Review 33 : 2 (1982), pp. 76–7
As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Late Prose (John Calder Ltd/Riverrun Press, 1990)
La Falaise
Celui qui ne peut se servir de mots: à Bram Van Velde (Montpellier: Fata Morgana, 1975).
The Cliff [translated by Edith Fournier]
The Complete Short Prose 1929–1989, ed. S. E. Gontarski (Grove Press, 1995)
neither
Programme, première of ‘neither’, set to music by Morton Feldman, Rome, 12 June 1977
High Fidelity and Musical America (February 1979)
Journal of Beckett Studies 4 (Spring 1979), p. 5
Collections and Anthologies:
No’s Knife: Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1966 (Calder and Boyars, 1967; repr. 1975) [‘The Expelled’, ‘The Calmative’ and ‘The End’, Texts for Nothing, ‘From an Abandoned Work’, ‘Enough’, ‘Imagination Dead Imagine’ and �
��Ping’]
Stories and Texts for Nothing (Grove Press, 1967)
Têtes-mortes (Les Éditions de Minuit, 1967) [‘D’un ouvrage abandonné’, ‘Assez’, ‘Imagination morte imaginez’, ‘Bing’; 1972 reprint included ‘Sans’]
First Love and Other Shorts (Grove Press, 1974) [‘First Love’, ‘From an Abandoned Work’, ‘Enough’, ‘Imagination Dead Imagine’, ‘Ping’, ‘Not I’, ‘Breath’]
Six Residua (John Calder Ltd, 1978) [‘From an Abandoned Work’, ‘Enough’, ‘Imagination Dead Imagine’, ‘Ping’, ‘Lessness’ and ‘The Lost Ones’]
Rockaby and Other Short Pieces (Grove Press, 1981) [‘Rockaby’, ‘Ohio Impromptu’, ‘All Strange Away’, ‘A Piece of Monologue’]
Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1980 (John Calder Ltd, 1984)
The Complete Short Prose 1929–1989, ed. S. E. Gontarski (Grove Press, 1995)
About the Author
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He was educated at Portora Royal School and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1927. His made his poetry debut in 1930 with Whoroscope and followed it with essays and two novels before World War Two. He wrote one of his most famous plays, Waiting for Godot, in 1949 but it wasn’t published in English until 1954. Waiting for Godot brought Beckett international fame and firmly established him as a leading figure in the Theatre of the Absurd. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. Beckett continued to write prolifically for radio, TV and the theatre until his death in 1989.
About the Editor
Mark Nixon is Lecturer in English at the University of Reading, where he is also a Director of the Beckett International Foundation. He has published widely on Samuel Beckett’s work and is an editor of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Beckett Studies and Co-Director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.
Titles in the Samuel Beckett series
ENDGAME
Preface by Rónán McDonald
COMPANY/ILL SEEN ILL SAID/WORSTWARD HO/STIRRINGS STILL
Edited by Dirk Van Hulle
KRAPP’S LAST TAPE AND OTHER SHORTER PLAYS
Preface by S. E. Gontarski
MURPHY
Edited by J. C. C. Mays
WATT
Edited by C. J. Ackerley
ALL THAT FALL AND OTHER PLAYS FOR RADIO AND SCREEN
Preface and Notes by Everett Frost
MOLLOY
Edited by Shane Weller
HOW IT IS
Edited by Édouard Magessa O’Reilly
THE EXPELLED/THE CALMATIVE/THE END & FIRST LOVE
Edited by Christopher Ricks
SELECTED POEMS, 1930‒1989
Edited by David Wheatley
WAITING FOR GODOT
Preface by Mary Bryden
MORE PRICKS THAN KICKS
Edited by Cassandra Nelson
MALONE DIES
Edited by Peter Boxall
THE UNNAMABLE
Edited by Steven Connor
HAPPY DAYS
Preface by James Knowlson
TEXTS FOR NOTHING AND OTHER SHORTER PROSE, 1950‒1976
Edited by Mark Nixon
MERCIER AND CAMIER
Edited by Seán Kennedy
Copyright
Texts for Nothing
Originally published in French in Nouvelles et textes pour rien by Les Éditions du Minuit, Paris, 1954. First published in Great Britain, in the author’s translation, in No’s Knife by Calder & Boyars, 1967. Published separately in 1974 by Calder & Boyars.
From an Abandoned Work
First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber, 1958.
Faux Départs first published in the review Kursbuch, Berlin, 1965.
All Strange Away first published with etchings by Edward Gorey in 1976 by Gotham Book Mart; reprinted in 1978 in Journal of Beckett Studies and in 1979 by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd.
Imagination Dead Imagine originally published as Imagination morte imaginez by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1965, and in Great Britain by Calder & Boyars, 1965.
Enough originally published as Assez by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1966, and in Great Britain in No’s Knife, 1967.
The Lost Ones originally published as Le Dépeupleur by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1970, and in Great Britain by Calder & Boyars 1972.
Ping originally published as Bing by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1966, and in Great Britain in No’s Knife, 1967.
Lessness originally published as Sans by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1969, and in Great Britain by Calder & Boyars, 1970.
Fizzles
Originally published, individually in the review Minuit and together as Pour finir encore et autres foirades, by Les Éditions de Minuit, 1976. Still first published in Great Britain by Calder & Boyars, 1975; For to end yet again first published in Great Britain by Calder & Boyars, 1976; five Fizzles first published in English with etchings by Jasper Johns, Petersburg Press, 1976; all texts published collectively, in the author’s translation, as For to End Yet Again and Other Fizzles by John Calder Publishers, 1976. Sounds and Still 3 first published in Essays in Criticism, 1978.
As the Story Was Told originally published in English and German in Günter Eich zum Gedächtnis by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1973.
The Cliff first published in French as La Falaise in Celui qui ne peut se servir de mots, Montpellier, 1975; English translation by Edith Fournier first published in The Complete Short Prose, 1929–1989 by Grove Press, 1995.
Neither first published in the programme accompanying premiere of text with music set by Morton Feldman, Rome, 1977; reprinted by the Journal of Beckett Studies, 1979 and in As the Story Was Told: Uncollected and Late Prose by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd in 1990.
This edition first published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
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This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Les Éditions de Minuit, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1976
© The Estate of Samuel Beckett, 2010 Preface
© Mark Nixon, 2010
The right of Samuel Beckett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The right of Mark Nixon to be identified as editor of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26689–6
Texts for Nothing and Other Shorter Prose 1950-1976 Page 17