Watt

  We were attached, you see, to the little bridge. For without it how should we have passed from one part of the garden to the other, without wetting our feet, and perhaps catching a chill, liable to develop into pneumonia, with very likely fatal results.

  Of seats, on which to sit down, and rest, there was not the slightest vestige.

  Shrubs and bushes, properly so called, were absent from the scene. But thickets rose at every turn, brakes of impenetrable density, and towering masses of brambles, of a beehive form.

  Birds of every kind abounded, and these it was our delight to pursue, with stones and clods of earth. Robins, in particular, thanks to their confidingness, we destroyed in great numbers. And larks’ nests, laden with eggs still warm from the mother’s breast, we ground into fragments, under our feet, with peculiar satisfaction, at the appropriate season, of the year.

  But our particular friends were the rats, that dwelt by the stream. They were long and black. We brought them such titbits from our ordinary as rinds of cheese, and morcels of gristle, and we brought them also bird’s eggs, and frogs, and fledgelings. Sensible of these attentions, they would come flocking round us at our approach, with every sign of confidence and affection, and glide up our trouserlegs, and hang upon our breasts. And then we would sit down in the midst of them, and give them to eat, out of our hands, of a nice fat frog, or a baby thrush. Or seizing suddenly a plump young rat, resting in our bosom after its repast, we would feed it to its mother, or its father, or its brother, or its sister, or to some less fortunate relative.

  It was on these occasions, we agreed, after an exchange of views, that we came nearest to God.

  When Watt spoke, he spoke in a low and rapid voice. Lower voices, voices more rapid, have been heard, will be heard, than Watt’s voice, no doubt. But that there ever issued from the mouth of man, or ever shall again, except in moments of delirium, or during the service of the mass, a voice at once so rapid and so low, is hard to believe. Watt spoke also with scant regard for grammar, for syntax, for pronunciation, for enunciation, and very likely, if the truth were known, for spelling too, as these are generally received. Proper names, however, both of places and of persons, such as Knott, Christ, Gomorrha, Cork, he articulated with great deliberation, and from his discourse these emerged, palms, atolls, at long intervals, for he seldom specified, in a most refreshing manner. The labour of composition, the uncertainty as to how to proceed, or whether to proceed at all, inseparable from even our most happy improvisations, and from which neither the songs of birds, nor even the cries of quadrupeds, are exempt, had here no part, apparently. But Watt spoke as one speaking to dictation, or reciting, parrot-like, a text, by long repetition become familiar. Of this impetuous murmur much fell in vain on my imperfect hearing and understanding, and much by the rushing wind was carried away, and lost for ever.

  This garden was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence, greatly in need of repair, of new wire, of fresh barbs. Through this fence, where it was not overgrown by briars and giant nettles, similar gardens, similarly enclosed, each with its pavilion, were on all sides distinctly to be seen. Now converging, now diverging, these fences presented a striking irregularity of contour. No fence was party, nor any part of any fence. But their adjacence was such, at certain places, that a broad-shouldered or broad-basined man, threading these narrow straits, would have done so with greater ease, and with less jeopardy to his coat, and perhaps to his trousers, sideways than frontways. For a big-bottomed man, on the contrary, or a big-bellied man, frontal motion would be an absolute necessity, if he did not wish his stomach to be perforated, or his arse, or perhaps both, by a rusty barb, or by rusty barbs. A big-bottomed big-bosomed woman, an obese wet-nurse, for example, would be under a similar necessity. While persons at once broad-shouldered and big-bellied, or broad-basined and big-bottomed, or broad-basined and big-bellied, or broad-shouldered and big-bottomed, or big-bosomed and broad-shouldered, or big-bosomed and broad-basined, would on no account, if they were in their right senses, commit themselves to this treacherous channel, but turn about, and retrace their steps, unless they wished to be impaled, at various points at once, and perhaps bleed to death, or be eaten alive by the rats, or perish from exposure, long before their cries were heard, and still longer before the rescuers appeared, running, with the scissors, the brandy and the iodine. For were their cries not heard, then their chances of rescue were small, so vast were these gardens, and so deserted, in the ordinary way.

  Some time passed, after Watt’s transfer, before we met again. I walked in my garden as usual, that is to say when I yielded to the call of the kind of weather I liked, and similarly Watt walked in his. But as it was no longer the same garden, we did not meet. When finally we did meet, again, in the way described below, it was clear to us both, to me, to Watt, that we might have met much sooner, if we had wished. But there, the wish to meet was lacking. Watt did not wish to meet me, I did not wish to meet Watt. This is not to say that we were opposed to meeting, to resuming our walks, our talks, as before, for we were not, but only that the wish to do so was not felt, by Watt, by me.

  Then one fine day, of unparallelled brightness and turbulence, I found my steps impelled, as though by some external agency, towards the fence; and this impulsion was maintained, until I could go no further, in that direction, without doing myself a serious, if not fatal, injury; then it left me and I looked about, a thing I never used to do, on any account, in the ordinary way. How hideous is the semi-colon. I say an external agency; for of my own volition, which, if not robust, did nevertheless possess, at that period, a kind of kittenish tenacity, I should never have gone near the fence, under any circumstances; for I was very fond of fences, of wire fences, very fond indeed; not of walls, nor palissades, nor opacious hedges, no; but to all that limited motion, without limiting vision, to the ditch, the dyke, the barred window, the bog, the quicksand, the paling, I was deeply attached, at that time, deeply deeply attached. And (which renders, if possible, what follows even more singular than it would be otherwise), so, I believe, was Watt. For when, before his transfer, we walked together in our garden, on no single occasion did we go near the fence, as we surely must have done, if chance had led us, at least once or twice. Watt did not guide me, nor I him, but of our own accord, as though by mutual tacit consent, we never went nearer to the fence than a hundred yards, or a quarter of a mile. Sometimes we saw it afar, faintly the old sagging strands, the leaning posts, trembling in the wind, at the end of a glade. Or we saw a big black bird perched in the void, perhaps croaking, or preening its feathers.

  Being now so near the fence, that I could have touched it with a stick, if I had wished, and so looking about me, like a mad creature, I perceived, beyond all possibility of error, that I was in the presence of one of those channels or straits described above, where the limit of my garden, and that of another, followed the same course, at so short a remove, the one from the other, and for so considerable a distance, that it was impossible for doubts not to arise, in a reasonable mind, regarding the sanity of the person responsible for the lay-out. Continuing my inspection, like one deprived of his senses, I observed, with a distinctness that left no room for doubt, in the adjoining garden whom do you think but Watt, advancing backwards towards me. His progress was slow and devious, on account no doubt of his having no eyes in the back of his head, and painful too, I fancy, for often he struck against the trunks of trees, or in the tangles of underwood caught his foot, and fell to the ground, flat on his back, or into a great clump of brambles, or of briars, or of nettles, or of thistles. But still without murmur he came on, until he lay against the fence, with his hands at arm’s length grasping the wires. Then he turned, with the intention very likely of going back the way he had come, and I saw his face, and the rest of his front. His face was bloody, his hands also, and thorns were in his scalp. (His resemblance, at that moment, to the Christ believed by Bosch, then hanging in Trafalgar Square, was so striking, that I remarked it.) And at the same instant su
ddenly I felt as though I were standing before a great mirror, in which my garden was reflected, and my fence, and I, and the very birds tossing in the wind, so that I looked at my hands, and felt my face, and glossy skull, with an anxiety as real as unfounded. (For if anyone, at that time, could be truly said not to resemble the Christ supposed by Bosch, then hanging in Trafalgar Square, I flatter myself it was I.) Why, Watt, I cried, that is a nice state you have got yourself into, to be sure. Not it is, yes, replied Watt. This short phrase caused me, I believe, more alarm, more pain, than if I had received, unexpectedly, at close quarters, a charge of small shot in the ravine. This impression was reinforced by what followed. Wonder I, said Watt, panky-hanky me lend you could, blood away wipe. Wait, wait, I am coming, I cried. And I believe, that in my anxiety to come at Watt then, I would have launched myself against the barrier, bodily, if necessary. Indeed I went so far, with this purpose in view, as hastily to withdraw to a distance of ten or fifteen paces, and to cast round for a sapling, or a bough, susceptible of conversion, rapidly, and without the help of any cutting instrument, into a pole, or perch. While I was thus half-heartedly employed, I thought I saw, in the fence, on my right, a hole, large and irregular. Judge then of my astonishment when, upon approach, I found I was not mistaken. It was a hole, in the fence, a large irregular hole, caused by numberless winds, numberless rains, or by a boar, or by a bull, flying, pursuing, a wild boar, a wild bull, blind with fear, blind with rage, or who knows perhaps with carnal desire, crashing at this point, through the fence, weakened by numberless winds, numberless rains. Through this hole I passed, without hurt, or damage to my pretty uniform, and found myself looking about me, for I had not yet recovered my aplomb, in the couloir. My senses being now sharpened to ten or fifteen times their normal acuity, it was not long before I saw, in the other fence, another hole, in position opposite, and similar in shape, to that through which, some ten or fifteen minutes before, I had made my way. So that I said that no boar had made these holes, nor any bull, but the stress of weather, particularly violent just here. For where was the boar, where the bull, capable, after bursting a hole in the first fence, of bursting a second, exactly similar, in the second? But would not the bursting of the first hole so reduce the infuriated mass as to render impossible, in the course of the same charge, the bursting of the second? Add to this that a bare yard separated the fences, at this point, so that the snout would be, of necessity, in contact with the second fence, before the hind-quarters were clear of the first, and consequently the space be lacking in which, after the bursting of the first hole, the fresh impetus might be developed necessary to the bursting of the second. Nor was it likely that the bull, or boar, after the bursting of the first hole, had withdrawn to a point from which, proceeding as before, he might acquire the impetus necessary to the bursting of the second hole, via the first hole. For either, after the bursting of the first hole, the animal was still blind with passion, or he was so no longer. If he was so still, then the chances were indeed small of his seeing the first hole with the distinctness necessary to his passing through it with the velocity necessary to the bursting of the second hole. And if he was so no longer, but by the bursting of the first hole calmed, and his eyes opened, why then the probability was remote indeed of his desiring to burst another. Nor was it likely that the second hole, or better still Watt’s hole (for there was nothing to show that the so-called second hole was not anterior to the so-called first hole, and the so-called first hole not posterior to the so-called second hole), had been burst, independently, at some quite different time, from Watt’s side of the fence. For if the two holes had been independently burst, the one from Watt’s side of Watt’s fence, and the other from mine of mine, by two quite different infuriated boars, or bulls (for that the one had been burst by an infuriated boar, and the other by an infuriated bull, was unlikely), and at two quite different times, the one from Watt’s side of Watt’s fence, and the other from mine of mine, then their conjunction, at this point, was incomprehensible, to say the least. Nor was it likely that the two holes, the hole in Watt’s fence and the hole in mine, had been burst, on the same occasion, by two infuriated bulls, or by two infuriated boars, or by one infuriated bull and one infuriated cow, or by one infuriated boar and one infuriated sow (for that they had been burst, simultaneously, the one by an infuriated bull and the other by an infuriated sow, or the one by an infuriated boar and the other by an infuriated cow, was hard to believe), charging, with hostile or libidinous intent, the one from Watt’s side of Watt’s fence, the other from mine of mine, and clashing, the holes once burst, at the spot where now I stood, trying to understand. For this implied the bursting of the holes, by the bulls, or by the boars, or by the bull and cow, or by the boar and sow, at exactly the same moment, and not first one, and then an instant later the other. For if first one, and then an instant later the other, then the bull, the cow, the boar, the sow, first through its fence, and thrusting with its head against the other, must have prevented, willy nilly, through this other, at this particular point, the passage of the bull, the cow, the bull, the boar, the sow, the boar, hastening to meet it, with all the fury of hate, the fury of love. Nor could I find, though I went down on my knees, and parted the wild grasses, any trace, whether of combat or of copulation. No bull then had burst these holes, nor any boar, nor any two bulls, nor any two boars, nor any two cows, nor any two sows, nor any bull and cow, nor any boar and sow, no, but the stress of weather, rains and winds without number, and suns, and snows, and frosts, and thaws, particularly severe just here. Or was it not after all just possible, through the two fences thus weakened by exposure, for a single exceptionally powerful infuriated or terrified bull, or cow, or boar, or sow, or even some other wild animal, to have passed, whether from Watt’s side of Watt’s fence, or from mine of mine, as though the two fences were but one?

  Turning now to where I had last had the pleasure of seeing Watt, I saw that he was there no longer, nor indeed in any of the other places, and they were numerous, visible to my eye. But when I called, Watt! Watt!, then he came, awkwardly buttoning his trousers, which he was wearing back to front, out from behind a tree, and then backwards, guided by my cries, slowly, painfully, often falling, but as often picking himself up, and without murmur, towards where I stood, until at last, after so long, I could touch him again, with my hand. Then I reached out with my hand, through the hole, and drew him, through the hole, to my side, and with a cloth that I had in my pocket wiped his face, and his hands, and then taking a little box of ointment that I had in my pocket from my pocket I anointed his face, and his hands, and then taking a little handcomb from my pocket I straightened his tufts, and his whiskers, and then taking a little clothesbrush from my pocket I brushed his coat, and his trousers. Then I turned him round, until he faced me. Then I placed his hands, on my shoulders, his left hand on my right shoulder, and his right hand on my left shoulder. Then I placed my hands, on his shoulders, on his left shoulder my right hand, and on his right shoulder my left hand. Then I took a single pace forward, with my left leg, and he a single pace back, with his right leg (he could scarcely do otherwise). Then I took a double pace forward with my right leg, and he of course with his left leg a double pace back. And so we paced together between the fences, I forwards, he backwards, until we came to where the fences diverged again. And then turning, I turning, and he turning, we paced back the way we had come, I forwards, and he of course backwards, with our hands on our shoulders, as before. And so pacing back the way we had come, we passed the holes and paced on, until we came to where the fences diverged again. And then turning, as one man, we paced back the way we had paced back the way we had come, I looking whither we were going, and he looking whence we were coming. And so, up and down, up and down, we paced between the fences, together again after so long, and the sun shone bright upon us, and the wind blew wild about us.

  To be together again, after so long, who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is perhaps som
ething, perhaps something.

  For us moving so between the fences, before they diverged, there was just room.

  In Watt’s garden, in my garden, we should have been more at our ease. But it never occurred to me to go back into my garden with Watt, or with him to go forward into his. But it never occurred to Watt to go back with me into his garden, or with me to go forward into mine. For my garden was my garden, and Watt’s garden was Watt’s garden, we had no common garden any more. So we walked to and fro, neither in his garden, in the way described.

  So we began, after so long a time, to walk together again, and to talk, from time to time.

  As Watt walked, so now he talked, back to front.