1.
Where do you think it's going, I'll tell you where it's going: nowhere. Where do you think it's going, do you think it's going anywhere, well I'll tell you it's going nowhere, it's over now, it's all over, it was over before it began, it was over from the first. Over, no question about it. Over, having never begun.
Where do you think it's going, did you think it's going somewhere, well I can tell you, it's doomed, it's going nowhere, you're already lost. Where was it you supposed you were going, what was it you undertook to do, then, when you were younger, when you were full of confidence, when you wanted to begin? You didn't understand, then, did you? Didn't understand the way it was going to turn out and the way it has turned out.
How could it end but in disappointment? Who were you to think it could end in anything but disappointment? By what right did you think you could begin? By what right, and this is the same thing, did you think you could do better than others who failed before you, who had failed before you began. Didn't you heed the signs? Hadn't you been shown? Wasn't it apparent from the first? Wasn't it clear: failure was your lot, and that from the first and before the first.
Failure, yes, that's what was decreed and that was how it had to be: how was it you couldn't understand this law for what it was? How was it you dared to act otherwise? You will tell me it was your youth that led you astray, that it was by your youth that you forgot what you'd been shown and that you'd ever been shown.
Wasn't I the one who carefully showed you, who took you here and took you there and showed you? Wasn't I the one who took you round and showed you, and did not only show you, but explained to you, and not only explained to you, but wrote it down for you and sent it to you, wasn't I the one who bothered, who saw your youthfulness, your impetuousness, and recognised the one he once was in his youth, in his impetuousness?
What could you have known then of disappointment? What could you have known of failure? In truth, you had never really failed. In truth, you had never quite failed, because there was still hope in you, still hope that tomorrow you might succeed where today you had failed, and that tomorrow you might succeed where others had failed. I saw it in you - how could I not see it? - for I saw myself, and only myself. Yes, I saw the one I was, I lost my hope anew, I lost my faith anew, it was painful for me, do you think I enjoyed showing you the evidence and explaining how it was and writing to you, writing it down so you could keep it before you, writing what I had learnt and took half my life to learn?
I was doing you a favour, no question of that. I wanted to help you out, as I had not been helped. Had I been helped? Now, thinking of it, I wonder if I wasn't helped, if another hadn't sought to help me as I sought to help you, if another hadn't recognised himself in me just as I recognised myself in you. Perhaps this is the way it is with us, perhaps this is how what is called wisdom is transmitted from one generation to another. Yes, from one to another as from father to son, it is passed down. Passed down, yes, but forgotten almost at once - forgotten at once, yes, and isn't this the tragedy?
Perhaps I was told, as I told you. Perhaps I was shown as I showed you. Perhaps it was explained to me and written down for me just as I explained it to you and wrote it down for you. Where did I lose it, that bit of paper? Where did I lose it, if I ever had it, and now it seems I remember a scrap of paper, lost, no doubt, gone, no doubt, like so many other things - where was it lost? I would not have known its value - how could I have done? How will you know its value, what I will pass to you?
You will not know just as I did not know; this is how it is; this is how it must be. One generation tries to pass on its lesson to another, but that lesson is forgotten. The fruit of one generation's wisdom is to be passed on, but there's no chance, it's lost almost straightaway, and the coming generation will have to learn for itself, the new generation will have to make the same discoveries for itself. How painful it is to grow old and know it will be forgotten, everything I've learnt! How painful to grow older and know nothing will be transmitted, and all forgotten!
Was I told? Was I shown? Was it explained to me? I've forgotten. Where was the evidence? The scrap of paper? Lost, just as you will lose the scrap I would pass to you. So where do you think it's going? Where do you think it's heading? Where's it off to, towards what is it bound? Where it's going, where are you driving it, where is it being driven? I'll tell you where it's going, though you won't want to know. I'll tell you, though you won't listen, just as I, no doubt, wasn't prepared to listen.
I'll tell you, I'll show you, I'll write it down for you, I'll take this stub of pencil from my coat pocket and write it on the scrap of paper I keep in my other pocket. I'll tell you, I'll write it down, I'll pass it to you, the message, as though you were my own son and I was your father, even though there's no point, even though it's a wasted effort, and I know it just as the one who wrote it for me knew it and the one who wrote it down for him knew it and so on ad infinitum and unto the ages of ages and so will it be ad infinitum and down unto the ages of ages.
Where's it going then? Where do you think it's going, I'll tell you, it's simple enough, it's going nowhere, there, that was simple: nowhere, it's going nowhere, you haven't a chance, you won't even begin, you won't even start, because it was over before it began, because it was botched then and it is botched now just as it will be botched for the youth whom you, one day, will try to instruct, just as another, with all the keenness of youth will refuse to be told.
Botched from the first, botched from day one, not beginning, not even bringing itself to the beginning, not even at the starting line or in the race. Outside, from the first. Counted out from the first. Did you think you could begin? Was that really what you thought? Did you think the world would make an exception for you? Did you think you were the exception? Did you think it was your mission? I would have told you. I could have told you then, even before you made your plans, could have said: you haven't a chance.
Yes, I would have done, and perhaps I did, even I can't remember. Yes, perhaps I told you before - or was it I who was told - I forget. Someone was told, that's the thing, whether you or I it makes no difference. There was something told, the old wisdom, there was the old wisdom to be transmitted, there was the wisdom to be passed from one to another, even though nothing ever passes from old to young.
Do you think we speak of our failures for our own benefit? Do you think we speak for our own sake? You never listen, you never deign to listen because you think that's what the old do, talk, and for their own benefit. But in truth we never talk for our own benefit, in truth it is never ourselves of whom we are thinking. We are old; we have stood aside; we have made room; there are many of us, but still, we'll make room, still there'll be place for you, still the opening in the crowd, still we'll stand back, some will stand in a ring around you, yes, you were protected, even loved, do you understand that?
And it was out of love that we told you, that you heard the same on all sides, and from each of us old men. There are many of us, it is true, and you heard it over and again. On all sides, bearing down on you, a ceaseless muttering. Yes, surrounding you, the same crowd, each interchangable, one as good as any other, one as wise as any other - we told you, we spoke to you, though to you no doubt it was babbling and madness, we told you, we spoke, and when we thought we couldn't be understood we wrote it down, we set it down on paper, on scraps of paper, writing with pencil stubs we'd saved in our coats.
You don't have a chance, we said, forget it, we said, it was over from the first and it's over now, don't begin, don't start, spare yourself the effort, spare yourself suffering, stop at once, give up and lie down in the circle we've cleared for you, give up now, lie down. That's what we said, and it's what you wouldn't hear. We said it, but you would not listen.
2.
Is it true, as some of us wondered, that we wanted it thus? Is it true that you were our hope, our bravest, our first-born? Is it true that we placed our hopes in you, and what we told you was by way of a test, a wall through which you had to break? Is it true that each of us receives our youth again by way of your strength, by way of your hope and your courage, you who would break out of the circle of the old and out of all circles?
Begin, we hope. Begin! Begin, and live for us, begin and overcome us, trample over our bodies - is that what we hope? Perhaps there is truth in that, and we too are young. Perhaps, beyond our circle, there are others older than us and more weary than us. Perhaps, beyond our circle, beyond us, there are others still, old and wizened, who have given up on hope and on hoping for hope. That's why they do not speak, those others. That's why you'll hear not a word, for what have they to convey? What lesson have they to transmit?
They know nothing will get through, they know, even as their glance falls on us by chance, even as, when they open a rheumy eye and it glances upon us, that we have no hope just as you have no hope. They know, but they are utterly without hope, those of the outer circle, those to whom we never turn. In truth, we fear the outer circle. In truth, we fear it, the circle to which we'll be driven, we who think ourselves as of the inner circle.
When will hope collapse? When will become too weary for hope? When will the measure fail us? Because it will fail us. We'll fade; we'll lose hope and we'll be forced outside, to lie down, body among other bodies, to lie with the others, outside. We'll wear away, we'll find our way on the outside even as you who were young will fill the inner circle. And so it will go on, generation unto generation, one after the another, down unto the ages of ages.