"It
was therefore with a heavy heart that he set out on round two. The first cell
to be revisited, that at the south-westernmost corner of the nave, contained
Mr. Endon, voted by one and all the most biddable little gaga in the entire
institution, his preoccupation with apnoea notwithstanding. Murphy switched on
the thousand candles, shot back the judas shutter and looked in. A strange
sight met his eye.
Mr.
Endon, an impeccable and brilliant figurine in his scarlet gown, his crest a
gush of vivid white against the black shag, squatted tailor-fashion on the head
of his bed, holding his left foot in his right hand and in his left hand his
right foot. The purple poulaines were on his feet and the rings were on his
fingers. The light spurted off Mr. Endon north, south, east, west and in
fiftysix other directions. The sheet stretched away before him, as smooth and
taut as a groaning wife’s belly, and on it a game of chess was set up. The
little blue and olive face, wearing an expression of winsome fiat, was up-turned
to the judas.
Murphy
resumed his round, gratified in no small measure. Mr. Endon had recognised the
feel of his friend’s eye upon him and made his preparations accordingly.
Friend’s eye? Say rather, Murphy’s eye. Mr. Endon had felt Murphy’s eye upon him.
Mr. Endon would have been less than Mr. Endon if he had known what it was to
have a friend; and Murphy more than Murphy if he had not hoped against his
better judgment that his feeling for Mr. Endon was in some small degree
reciprocated. Whereas the sad truth was, that while Mr. Endon for Murphy was no
less than bliss, Murphy for Mr. Endon was no more than chess. Murphy’s eye? Say
rather, the chessy eye. Mr. Endon had vibrated to the chessy eye upon him and
made his preparations accordingly.
Murphy
completed his round, an Irish virgin. (Finished on time a round was called a
virgin; ahead of time, an Irish virgin.) The hypomanic it is true, in pad since
morning with a big attack blowing up, had tried to come at his tormentor
through the judas. This distressed Murphy, though he rather disliked the
hypomanic. But it did not delay him. Quite the reverse.
He
hastened back westward down the nave with his master key at the ready. He
stopped short of the wreck, switched on Mr. Endon’s light and entered bodily into
his cell. Mr. Endon was in the same position all but his head, which was now
bowed, whether over the board or merely on his chest it was hard to say. Murphy
sank down on his elbow on the foot of the bed and the game began.
Murphy’s
functions were scarcely affected by this break with the tradition of night
duty. All it meant was that he took his pauses with Mr. Endon instead of in the
wreck. Every ten minutes he left the cell, pressed the indicator with heartfelt
conviction and did a round. Every ten minutes and sometimes even sooner, for
never in the history of the M.M.M. had there been such a run of virgins and
Irish virgins as on this Murphy’s maiden night, he returned to the cell and
resumed the game. Sometimes an entire pause would pass without any change
having been made in the position; and at other times the board would be in an
uproar, a torrent of moves.
The
game, an Endon’s Affence, or Zweispringerspott, was as follows:
14. B–K2 14. Q–Q2
15. P–Q3 15. K–Q1 (f)
16. Q–Q2 16. Q–K1
17. K–Q1 17. Kt–Q2
18.
Kt–QB3 (g) 18. R–QKt1
19.
R–QKt1 19. Kt–QKt3
20.
Kt–QR4 20. B–Q2
21.
P–QKt3 21. R–KKt1
22.
R–KKt1 22. K–QB1 (h)
23.
B–QKt2 23. Q–KB1
24. K–QB1
24. B–K1
25. B–QB3
(i) 25. Kt–KR1
26.
P–QKt4 26. B–Q1
27. Q–KR6
(j) 27. Kt–QR1
(k)
28. Q–KB6
28. Kt–KKt3
29. B–K5 29. B–K2
30.
Kt–QB5 (l) 30. K–Q1 (m)
31.
Kt–KR1 (n) 31. B–Q2
32.
K–QKt2!! 32. R–KR1
33.
K–QKt3 33. B–QB1
34. K–QR4
34. Q–K1 (o)
35. K–R5 35. Kt–QKt3
36. B–KB4
36. Kt–Q2
37. Q–QB3
37. R–QR1
38. Kt–QR6
(p) 38. B–KB1
39.
K–QKt5 39. Kt–K2
40. K–QR5
40. Kt–QKt1
41. Q–QB6
41. Kt–KKt1
42.
K–QKt5 42. K–K2 (q)
43. K–R5 43. Q–Q1 (r)
And
White surrenders.
(a) Mr. Endon always
played Black. If presented with White he would fade, without the least trace of
annoyance, away into a light stupor.
(b) The primary cause
of all White’s subsequent difficulties.
(c) Apparently nothing
better, bad as this is.
(d) An ingenious and
beautiful début, sometimes called the Pipe-opener.
(e) Ill-judged.
(f) Never seen in the
Café de la Régence, seldom in Simpson’s Divan.
(g) The flag of
distress.
(h) Exquisitely played.
(i) It is difficult to
imagine a more deplorable situation than poor White’s at this point.
(j) The ingenuity of
despair.
(k) Black has now an
irresistible game.
(l) High praise is due
to White for the pertinacity with which he struggles to lose a piece.
(m) At this point Mr.
Endon, without as much as ‘j’adoube’, turned his King and Queen’s Rook upside
down, in which position they remained for the rest of the game.
(n) A coup de repos long
overdue.
(o) Mr. Endon not
crying ‘Check!’, nor otherwise giving the slightest indication that he was
alive to having attacked the King of his opponent, or rather vis-à-vis, Murphy
was absolved, in accordance with Law 18, from attending to it. But this would
have been to admit that the salute was adventitious.
(p) No words can
express the torment of mind that goaded White to this abject offensive.
(q) The termination of
this solitaire is very beautifully played by Mr. Endon.
(r) Further
solicitation would be frivolous and vexatious, and Murphy, with fool’s mate in
his soul, retires.
Following
Mr. Endon’s forty-third move Murphy gazed for a long time at the board before
laying his Shah on his side, and again for a long time after that act of
submission. But little by little his eyes were captured by the brilliant
swallow-tail of Mr. Endon’s arms and legs, purple, scarlet, black and glitter,
till they saw nothing else, and that in a short time only as a vivid blur, Neary’s
big blooming buzzing confusion or ground, mercifully free of figure. Wearying
soon of this he dropped his head on his arms in the midst of the chessmen,
which scattered with a terrible noise. Mr. Endon’s finery persisted for a
little in an after-image scarcely inferior to the original. Then this also faded
and Murphy began to see nothing, that colourlessness which is such a rare
postnatal treat, being the absence (to abuse a nice distinction) not of percipere
but of percipi. His other senses also found themselves at peace, an unexpected
pleasure. Not the numb peace of their own suspension, but the positive peace
that comes when the somethings give way, or perhaps simply add up, to the
Nothing, than which in the guffaw of the Abderite naught is more real. Time did
not cease, that would be asking too much, but the wheel of rounds and pauses
did, as Murphy with his head among the armies continued to suck in, through all
the posterns of his withered soul, the accidentless One-and-Only, conveniently
called Nothing. Then this also vanished, or perhaps simply came asunder, in the
familiar variety of stenches, asperities, ear-splitters and eye-closers, and
Murphy saw that Mr. Endon was missing."
MURPHY
Samuel Beckett
