128
PARTISAN REVIEW
In the next seri es, th e "you " is once aga in imp li ed, as it was in the
first secti on , but now some one, some "you " answers th e q ues tion
Where do people gath er?-Peopl e ga th er where o th er peop le
have gathered.
Where do peopl e gather?-In fron t of newspapers on di spl ay.
Where do people ga ther?-In front of traffi c li ght s.
In thi s series, th e same q uestion is repea ted over a nd over and the
"you " continues to try to come up with answers; th en , as if the
questioner is becomin g impa ti ent , the ques ti on changes
to
"Where
else?" "Where else?" The you who is bein g add ressed reacts
to
thi s
urgen cy by ra ttlin g o ff fi ve answers witho ut pausin g, as if to sa ti sfy and
silence the questi on er. The building tension is fin a ll y broken by a new
seri es: two simpl e declara ti ve sentences whi ch seem to come out of
nowhere:
" It
has begun to rain.-It's no t ra inin g ha rd enough yet. "
Who said tha t? T he "you " who
Wa S
answerin g th e questi ons? The " I"
who was asking them ? Is tha t the same " I" who issued th e commands
in the first series? Or, is thi s another speaker altogether? In the series
which follow to the end o f the poem , the " I" and its rela ti onship
to
the
:'you " are shifted eight mo re times, including two secti ons in whi ch
the di sjunction is heightened by the use of quo ta ti on mark s. T hi s
shuffling of the signs crea tes a sta te o f di sori en ta tion so extreme that,
finall y, the credibility o f th e va ri ous vo ices o f the poem becomes hi ghl y
suspect and , simultaneously, the medium th rough whi ch these voices
have been presented , tha t is, language itself, is a lso ca lled to ques ti on.
In the poems whi ch fo ll ow in
Th e lnnerworld.
H andke continues
to di slodge famili ar connecti ons and
to
sever the ti ss ue whi ch binds
words to their commonl y prescribed meanin gs; he forces th e reader
toward a reali za ti on of how tenuou s th e suppo rts o f "con ceptua lizing"
are:
" I know that noise! Someon e has jllst died! "
"No , it was just a grasshopper jumping on your oed."
Scarcely have 1 begun to open my eyes - already I begin
to distin guish one thing from another.
Scarce ly h ave 1 begun to di stinghish among panicul ars–
already 1 mu st recoll ect.
