Complete Works of James Joyce (299 page)

1
5

                  
[In Mullingar: an evening

                   
in autumn]

The Lame Beggar -
{gripping his stick)...
It was

   
you called out after me yesterday.

The Two Children -
(gazing at him)..
.No, sir.

The Lame Beggar - O, yes it was, though...
(moving

   
his stick up and down)...
But

   
mind what I’m telling you...

D’ye see that stick?

The Two Children - Yes, sir.

The Lame Beggar — Well, if ye call out after me

   
any more I’ll cut ye open with

   
that stick. I’ll cut the livers

   
out o’ye...
(explains himself)

... D’ye hear me? I’ll cut ye

open. I’ll cut the livers and

the lights out o’ye.

1
6

A white mist is falling in slow flakes. The path leads me down to an obscure pool. Something is moving in the pool; it is an arctic beast with a rough yellow coat. I thrust in my stick and as he rises out of the water I see that his back slopes towards the croup and that he is very sluggish. I am not afraid but, thrusting at him often with my stick drive him before me. He moves his paws heavily and mutters words of some language which I do not understand.

1
7

                   
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s, Belvedere

                  
Place)

Hanna Sheehy - O, there are sure to be great crowds.

Skeffington - In fact it’ll be, as our friend

   
Jocax would say, the day of the

   
rabblement.

Maggie Sheehy - (
declaims)
- Even now the

   
rabblement may be standing

   
by the door!

1
8

                   
(Dublin, on the North Circular

                   
Road: Christmas)

Miss O’Callaghan -
(lisps)
- I told you the name,

   
The Escaped Nun.

Dick Sheehy — (
loudly)
- O, I wouldn’t read

   
a book like that...I must

   
ask Joyce. I say, Joyce, did

   
you ever read
The Escaped

   
Nun?

Joyce - I observe that a certain

   
phenomenon happens about

   
this hour.

Dick Sheehy — What phenomenon?

Joyce - O...the stars come out.

Dick Sheehy -
(to Miss O’Callaghan).
.Did you

   
ever observe how...the

   
stars come out on the end

   
of Joyce’s nose about this

   
hour?..
.(she smiles).
.Because

   
I observe that phenomenon.

1
9

                              
(Dublin: in the house in

                              
Glengariff Parade: evening)

Mrs Joyce - (
crimson, trembling, appears at the

 
parlour door)..
.Jim!

Joyce -
(at the piano)..
.Yes?

Mrs Joyce - Do you know anything about the

   
body?...What ought I do?...There’s

 
  
some matter coming away from

   
the hole in Georgie’s stomach...

   
Did you ever hear of that happening?

Joyce -
(surprised)..
.I don’t know...

Mrs Joyce - Ought I send for the doctor, do you

  
think?

Joyce - I don’t know
   
What hole?

Mrs Joyce -
(impatient).
..The hole we all have

   
here (
points)

Joyce - (
stands up)

2
0

They are all asleep. I will go up now
   
He lies on my bed where I lay last night: they have covered him with a sheet and closed his eyes with pennies... Poor little fellow! We have often laughed together - he bore his body very lightly... I am very sorry he died. I cannot pray for him as the others do
   
Poor little fellow! Everything else is so uncertain!

2
1

Two mourners push on through the crowd. The girl, one hand catching the woman’s skirt, runs in advance. The girl’s face is the face of a fish, discoloured and oblique-eyed; the woman’s face is small and square, the face of a bargainer. The girl, her mouth distorted, looks up at the woman to see if it is time to cry; the woman, settling a flat bonnet, hurries on towards the mortuary chapel.

2
2

                 
(Dublin: in the National Library)

Skeffington - I was sorry to hear of the death of

   
your brother...sorry we didn’t

   
know in time
   
to have been at

   
the funeral
   

Joyce - O, he was very young...a boy...

Skeffington - Still
   
it hurts...

2
3

That is no dancing. Go down before the people, young boy, and dance for them... He runs out darkly-clad, lithe and serious to dance before the multitude. There is no music for him. He begins to dance far below in the amphitheatre with a slow and supple movement of the limbs, passing from move- ment to movement, in all the grace of youth and distance, until he seems to be a whirling body, a spider wheeling amid space, a star. I desire to shout to him words of praise, to shout arrogantly over the heads of the multitude ‘See! See!’
    
His dancing is not the dancing of harlots, the dance of the daughters of Herodias. It goes up from the midst of the people, sudden and young and male, and falls again to earth in tremulous sobbing to die upon its triumph.

2
4

Her arm is laid for a moment on my knees and then withdrawn, and her eyes have revealed her - secret, vigilant an enclosed garden - in a moment. I remember a harmony of red and white that was made for one like her, telling her names and glories, bidding her arise as for espousal, and come away, bidding her look forth, a spouse, from Amana and from the mountain of the leopards. And I remember that response whereunto the perfect tenderness of the body and the soul with all its mystery have gone: Inter ubera mea commorabitur.

2
5

The quick light shower is over but tarries, a cluster of diamonds, among the shrubs of the quadrangle where an exhalation arises from the black earth. In the colonnade are the girls, an April company. They are leaving shelter, with many a doubting glance, with the prattle of trim boots and the pretty rescue of petticoats, under umbrellas, a light armoury, upheld at cunning angles. They are returning to the convent - demure corridors and simple dormitories, a white rosary of hours - having heard the fair promises of Spring, that well- graced ambassador
    

   
Amid a flat rain-swept country stands a high plain building, with windows that filter the obscure daylight. Three hundred boys, noisy and hungry, sit at long tables eating beef fringed with green fat and vegetables that are still rank of the earth.

2
6

She is engaged. She dances with them in the round - a white dress lightly lifted as she dances, a white spray in her hair; eyes a little averted, a faint glow on her cheek. Her hand is in mine for a moment, softest of merchandise.

   
- You very seldom come here now. -

   
- Yes I am becoming something of a recluse. -

   
- I saw your brother the other day
   
He is

very like you. -

   
- Really? -

She dances with them in the round - evenly, discreetly, giving herself to no one. The white spray is ruffled as she dances, and when she is in shadow the glow is deeper on her cheek.