Complete Works of James Joyce (300 page)

2
7

Faintly, under the heavy summer night, through the silence of the town which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs upon the Dublin road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment as they pass the dark windows the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They are heard now far away - hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as diamonds, hurrying beyond the grey, still marshes to what journey’s end - what heart - bearing what tidings?

2
8

A moonless night under which the waves gleam feebly. The ship is entering a harbour where there are some lights. The sea is uneasy, charged with dull anger like the eyes of an animal which is about to spring, the prey of its own pitiless hunger. The land is flat and thinly wooded. Many people are gathered on the shore to see what ship it is that is entering their harbour.

2
9

A long curving gallery: from the floor arise pillars of dark vapours. It is peopled by the images of fabulous kings, set in stone. Their hands are folded upon their knees, in token of weariness, and their eyes are darkened for the errors of men go up before them for ever as dark vapours.

3
0

The spell of arms and voices - the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces, and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone, - come. And the voices say with them, We are your people. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth.

3
1

Here are we come together, wayfarers; here are we housed, amid intricate streets, by night and silence closely covered. In amity we rest together, well content, no more remembering the deviousness of the ways that we have come. What moves upon me from the darkness subtle and murmurous as a flood, passionate and fierce with an indecent movement of the loins? What leaps, crying in answer, out of me, as eagle to eagle in mid air, crying to overcome, crying for an iniquitous abandonment?

3
2

The human crowd swarms in the enclosure, moving through the slush. A fat woman passes, her dress lifted boldly, her face nozzling in an orange. A pale young man with a Cockney accent does tricks in his shirtsleeves and drinks out of a bottle. A little old man has mice on an umbrella; a policeman in heavy boots charges down and seizes the umbrella: the little old man disappears. Bookies are bawling out names and prices; one of them screams with the voice of a child - ‘Bonny Boy!’ ‘Bonny Boy!’... Human creatures are swarming in the enclosure, moving backwards and forwards through the thick ooze. Some ask if the race is going on; they are answered ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ A band begins to play
   
A beautiful brown horse, with a yellow rider upon him, flashes far away in the sunlight.

3
3

They pass in twos and threes amid the life of the boulevard, walking like people who have leisure in a place lit up for them. They are in the pastry cook’s, chattering, crushing little fabrics of pastry, or seated silently at tables by the café door, or descending from carriages with a busy stir of garments soft as the voice of the adulterer. They pass in an air of perfumes: under the perfumes their bodies have a warm humid smell
    
No man has loved them and they have not loved themselves: they have given nothing for all that has been given them.

3
4

She comes at night when the city is still; invisible, inaudible, all unsummoned. She comes from her ancient seat to visit the least of her children, mother most venerable, as though he had never been alien to her. She knows the inmost heart; therefore she is gentle, nothing exacting; saying, I am susceptible of change, an imaginative influence in the hearts of my children. Who has pity for you when you are sad among the strangers? Years and years I loved you when you lay in my womb.

3
5

          
(London: in a house

          
Kennington)

Eva Leslie - Yes, Maudie Leslie’s my sister an’

   
Fred Leslie’s my brother — yev

   
‘eard of Fred Leslie?... (
musing)...

   
O, ‘e’s a whoite-arsed bugger...’E’s

   
awoy at present
   

   
 
        
(later)

   
I told you someun went with me

   
ten toimes one noight...That’s

   
Fred - my own brother Fred...

   
 
(musing)..
.’E is ‘andsome...O I

   
do
love Fred...

3
6

Yes, they are the two sisters. She who is churning with stout arms (their butter is famous) looks dark and unhappy: the other is happy because she had her way. Her name is R... Rina. I know the verb ‘to be’ in their language.

- Are you Rina? –

I knew she was. But here he is himself in a coat with tails and an old-fashioned high hat. He ignores them: he walks along with tiny steps, jutting out the tails of his coat... My goodness! how small he is! He must be very old and vain
   
Maybe he isn’t what I...It’s funny that those two big women fell out over this little man...But then he’s the greatest man in the world...

3
7

I lie along the deck, against the engine-house, from which the smell of lukewarm grease exhales. Gigantic mists are marching under the French cliffs, enveloping the coast from headland to headland. The sea moves with the sound of many scales... Beyond the misty walls, in the dark cathedral church of Our Lady, I hear the bright, even voices of boys singing before the altar there.

3
8

                        
(Dublin: at the corner of

                        
Connaught St, Phibsborough)

The Little Male Child -
(at the garden gate).
.Na..o.

The First Young Lady -
(half kneeling, takes his

   
hand) -
Well, is Mabie

   
your sweetheart?

The Little Male Child - Na...o.

The Second Young Lady -
(bending over him, looks

   
up) - Who
is your

   
sweetheart?

3
9

She stands, her book held lightly at her breast, reading the lesson. Against the dark stuff of her dress her face, mild-featured with downcast eyes, rises softly outlined in light; and from a folded cap, set carelessly forward, a tassel falls along her brown ringletted hair...

   
What is the lesson that she reads - of apes, of strange inventions, or the legends of martyrs? Who knows how deeply meditative, how reminiscent is this comeliness of Raffaello?

4
0

                      
in O’Connell St:

               
(Dublin: /\ in Hamilton, Long’s

               
the chemist’s,)

Gogarty - Is that for Gogarty?

              
                       
pay

The Assistant -
(looks)
- Yes, sir...Will you
take

   
it with you
? for it now?

Gogarty - No,
send it
put it in the

account; send it on. You know

the address.

(takes a pen)

The Assistant -
Yes
   
Ye-es.

Gogarty — 5 Rutland Square.

                                   
while

The Assistant -
(half to himself
as
he writes)

               
.. 5..
.Rutland…
Square
.

This posthumous text was written in 1914, following the publication of
Dubliners
.
  
In 1968 Faber and Faber published the work, which was taken from sixteen of Joyce’s handwritten pages. It is a free-form love poem, presented as a series of notes, in which Joyce portrays himself as a teacher in love with one of his students — a ‘dark lady’, who becomes the object of an illicit love affair.
 
‘Giacomo’ is the Italian form of the author’s Christian name, James.