Earlier Endgames

EARLIER ENDGAMES RUBY COHN BECKETI SINKS DEEP WITHIN HIMSELF to write. In his own words: "The only fertile research is excavatory, immersive. a contraction of the spirit, a descenl."I Such descent differs from the free associative flights of the Surrealists who value every sally. Beckett not only has abandoned hundreds of pages, however, but also painstakingly revises before he publishes. Different works require different re-view, from the minor modifications of Godol (a few passages dropped and a few phrases sharpened)' to the major changes of Endgame. Richard Admussen has traced the various versions of Play, as Breon Mitchell has done for Come and GoJ John Fletcher and I have commented on the distillation of what we believed to be the first draft of Endgame.' However, that draft has an antecedent to which Beckett himself called attention in a letter to his friend, France's eminent Anglicist JeanJacques Mayoux:' "La redaction definitive de Fin de partie est de 56. Mais j'avais aborde ce travail bien avant, peut-etre en 54. Une premiere , puis une deuxieme version en deux actes avait precede celIe en un acte que VOllS connaissez." The "deuxierne version en deux actes" is now in the Ohio State University library, whereas the "premiere" version is in the Beckett collection of Reading University, England, and a handwritten version of a brief continuation is in the Trinity College Library of the University of Dublin. We thus have an unparallelled opportunity to follow three stages of Beckett's favorite among his plays. Though the twenty-one page typescript at Reading has no title, 109 110 RUBY COHN Beckett's hand notes: "avant Fin de parlie," with no indication as to whether it is part or whole. Another hand entitles the piece "Abandoned Theatre in French," and it does seem to be a continuous but abandoned action involving two characters, master and servant, those staples of French comedy. Though they are designated by the letters X and F (for Factotum), the master's baptismal spoon reads Jeannot, and the servant is variously called Donald, Lucien, and mainly Albert by his master. As the letter X suggests, the master is almost as unknowable as Godot, but he is distinctly visible and audible. Tension is created by F's difficulties in addressing X; or rather, F wants to address him as "Votre Honneur" or "Monsieur" or even "Patron," but X rejects them. F declares himself incapable of calling X "vieux can" as directed; nevertheless, he does so once, while continuing the plea for the privilege of "Votre Honneur." X and F interact in a place undescribed by scenic directions, but Beckett seems to have envisioned a shelter not unlike that of Endgame, since F speaks of two large windows (now aveuglee) and retires to his kitchen, and X is confined to his wheel chair. F locates the shelter in Picardy, where destruction occurred "dans des circonstances mysterieuses " between 1914 and 1918. (In the final Endgame only Nell's mention of the Sedan hints at a French war, and the war recedes chronologically to the Franco-Prussian, for Sedan is where Napoleon III was disastrously defeated.) Though the location may be Picardy, the props are neutral, and X recites an inventory-a drum and stick attached to his chair (instead of the later whistle around his neck), a syringe that is not used, a baptismal spoon, and a Bible. Unmentioned by X is his Fahrenheit thermometer, and he also desires a telescope. The few scenic directions indicate silence, X's drumbeating to summon F, F's entrances and exits, X's vain efforts to move his wheel chair, and F's actual movements of the chair. Beckett evidently heard the dialogue before he sawall the gestures in his mind's eye. And what he heard is an action about playing, passing time, and a hint of ending. In X's first expository monologue he claims to be blind and paralyzed, then claims to pretend to be blind and paralyzed, then wonders whether he is lying or mistaken. His self-doubt is more insidious than that of Hamm, commensurate with his name X. Perhaps the Cartesian heritage is stronger; he doubts therefore he is...