Ulysses on Top Among 100 Best Novels

Ulysses," that sprawling, difficult, but uniquely original masterpiece by James Joyce, has been voted the finest English-language novel published this century by a jury of scholars and writers.

The book -- in which an immensely long account of a single day in the lives of a group of Dubliners becomes a metaphor for the human condition and the author experiments with language almost to the point of unintelligibility -- heads the list of 100 novels drawn up by the editorial board of Modern Library, which has been publishing classic English-language literature at affordable prices since 1917 and is now a division of Random House.

The list is to be released on Friday at a workshop for young publishers known as the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Radcliffe College of Harvard University.

The board members are Christopher Cerf, Gore Vidal, Daniel J. Boorstin, Shelby Foote, Vartan Gregorian, A. S. Byatt, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and William Styron. "Ulysses" was banned in the United States as obscene from 1920 to 1933, when the ban was lifted by a Federal judge, John M. Woolsey, who called the book "a sincere and serious attempt to devise a new literary method for the observation and description of mankind."

"Ulysses" is followed in descending order by "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald's magical tale of romance, mystery and violence among rich Long Island socialites in the 1920's; another work by Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," his autobiographical account of a young man's intellectual awakening"; "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's tale of the aging Humbert Humbert's doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze, and "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley's satirical horror tale of a civilization where humans are literally made to order.

These five novels originally tied for first place, with each winning the support of 9 of the editorial board's 10 members. In a second separate vote, the panel then placed them in their final order.

Executives at Random House said they hoped that as the century drew to a close their list would encourage public debate about the greatest works of fiction of the last hundred years, thus both increasing awareness of the Modern Library and stimulating sales of novels the group publishes.

"It's a way to bring the Modern Library to public attention," Random House's president and editor in chief, Ann Godoff, said in an interview. "We want to grow the Modern Library and its stable of classics"

Random House was recently bought by the German Bertelsmann group, already the owners of the American publishing house of Bantam Doubleday Bell, and which then became the largest commercial book publisher in the world. Executives say the Bertelsmann group currently publishes 59 of the 100 novels on the Modern Library list. And of the Modern Library board members, all but Professor Gregorian are published by Random House or the Bertelsmann group.

Modern Library plans to reissue at least 10 novels on the list in paperback over the next eight months. These will include Samuel Butler's autobiographical attack on Victorian morality, "The Way of All Flesh" (No. 12); Joseph Conrad's tale of intrigue "The Secret Agent" (No. 46); "Zuleika Dobson," Max Beerbohm's comic tale of a femme fatale at Oxford University (No. 59); "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London (No. 88), and "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington (No. 100).

Random House, which in 1934 published the first legal American edition of "Ulysses," will place promotional material in bookstores that are offering novels from the Modern Library's list. And the company is inviting readers to send in on-line suggestions for an alternative list of great English-language fiction of this century to www.randomhouse.com/modern library.

In the next few months Random House also plans to expand the size of the Modern Library's editorial board.

It will then invite the expanded board to make a list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in this century.

"That is something that has never been done before," Ms. Godoff noted.

The Modern Library's best-novels list includes 58 books by an eclectic collection of American writers: William Faulkner's "Sound and the Fury" (No. 6); Ernest Hemingway's "Sun Also Rises" (No. 45); the "U.S.A." trilogy by John Dos Passos (No. 23) as well as three works by Henry James -- "The Wings of the Dove (No. 26)," "The Ambassadors" (No. 27) and "The Golden Bowl" (No. 32) -- although James lived much of his life in England and eventually became a British citizen.

But it also includes Joseph Heller's "Catch-22"(No. 7), Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer"(No. 50) and Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"(No. 55), as well as Dashiell Hammett's "Maltese Falcon" (No. 56) and James M. Cain's "Postman Always Rings Twice" (No. 98).

The 39 works by British writers include D. H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" (No. 9), "The Rainbow" (No. 48) and "Women in Love" (No. 49); E. M. Forster's "Passage to India"(No. 25) and "Howards End" (No. 38); George Orwell's "1984" (No. 13) and "Animal Farm " (No. 31) as well as novels by Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and Anthony Powell.

In addition to his two works in the top five, Joyce's third well-known book, "Finnegans Wake," also makes the list, in 77th place.

But apart from Joyce, the list contains no other works by English-speaking writers from outside the United States and Britain, although India, Australia and South Africa all have flourishing literary traditions and have produced many distinguished authors.

In addition, only eight women make the list. They are led by Virginia Woolf whose "To the Lighthouse" is in 15th place, followed in 17th by Carson McCullers's "Heart Is a Lonely Hunter." Other women represented are Edith Wharton (twice), Willa Cather, Muriel Spark, Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys and Iris Murdoch.

Several board members criticized the absence of writers from the rest of the English-speaking world as well as the small number of female authors selected.

Calling the final list "typically American," Ms. Byatt regretted that the Australian Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Patrick White, had not been chosen, and said there was "definitely room for more women." Like the American author William Styron, she regretted the absence of the South African writer Doris Lessing and the American novelist Mary McCarthy. Mr. Styron said that he was surprised, too, by the omission of Patrick White and that he wished the list had included the American writer Eudora Welty.

But Professor Gregorian, who heads the Carnegie Corporation, said he and several other judges had felt they should choose only books that had been in print a long time, thus showing that they "have really stood the test of time."

All the judges who could be reached for comment said they believed "Ulysses" deserved first place and considered "The Great Gatsby" a worthy second. Ms. Byatt called "Ulysses" "the first truly modern novel, a real break with the past, like Picasso." Mr. Styron said it was "the watershed novel of the 20th century from which all modernism flows."

Gore Vidal, the American novelist, called the top five "about right." But several of his colleagues on the board were unhappy with the novels in third, fourth and fifth places.

Edmund Morris, an American historian, said he was "pleased" that "Ulysses" and "Lolita" had made the top five. But he argued that "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" did not deserve so high a slot because it is really "a sketch for 'Ulysses.' " He also dismissed "Brave New World" as "not Huxley's greatest."

Shelby Foote, also a historian, said that he accepted "Ulysses" and "The Great Gatsby" but that he had "trouble with the others" in the top five slots. In his view, Lawrence's "Rainbow" and Faulkner's "As I lay Dying" would have been better choices.

The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called the first three choices "sensible" but said he would have preferred to see Henry James's "Wings of the Dove" and E. M. Foster's "Passage to India" in fourth and fifth places. He also thought Evelyn Waugh's World War II trilogy, "Sword of Honor," would have been a better choice than "Brideshead Revisited" (No. 80).

Other editorial board members who participated in the voting but could not be reached were Mr. Cerf, son of Bennett Cerf, who bought the Modern Library and founded Random House, and Mr. Boorstin, a former Librarian of the Library of Congress.

In a recent interview, Harold M. Evans, currently editorial director of U.S. News and World Report, said he had come up with the plan to compile a list of the best 100 novels for the millennium when he was president of Random House. But it was not completed until after he had handed over the top job to Ms. Godoff last November.

-------
By PAUL LEWIS, published at NYTimes.

Read More......

James Joyce's Method Regarding the Stream of Consciousness

James Joyce’s Method—Regarding the “Stream of Consciousness” (Jeimuzu Joisu no metōdo “ishiki no nagare” ni tsuite) is an article published in June 1930 in the journal Shi, genjitsu by the author and literary critic Itō Sei (1905-1969), who was also one of a team of three Japanese translators that prepared the first Japanese translation of Ulysses in 1931. In addition to being one of Itō’s first critical essays, this essay also has the distinction of capturing the eye of Joyce himself, who wrote to Sylvia Beach in 1931 that he was interested in having the article translated and submitted for publication in an English magazine.[1] Although this endeavor did not come to fruition, the fact that Joyce himself had paid attention to Itō’s article makes clear the importance of Itō’s work not only regarding Ulysses, but also regarding the state of Joyce reception in Japan during the 1930s.


Itō had been inspired to turn to Joyce primarily by the English scholar Doi Kōchi, whose article “Joisu no Yurishīzu” (Joyce’s Ulysses) had appeared in the journal Kaizō in 1929. Itō, inspired by this article, which praised Joyce’s new writing style and his meticulous planning, purchased a copy of the 1922 publication of Ulysses and attempted to read it. However, finding it too difficult to read, he turned to explanatory matter such as Herbert Gorman’s James Joyce, His First Forty Years before attempting to continue.[2] In 1930, Itō was commissioned by the head of the journal Shi, genjitsu, Yodono Ryūzō (who had just finished translating Proust’s Swann’s Way), along with Nagamatsu Sadamu and Tsujino Hisanori, to prepare a Japanese translation of Ulysses. Translation began in July 1930, and culminated in the publication ofUlysses in two parts: the first in 1931 and the second in 1934. Upon publication of the second volume of Ulysses, the book was banned for indecency, and allowed to be republished later provided the Molly Bloom soliloquy was excised.[3]


In “Jeimuzu Joisu no metōdo,” Itō argued that literature was running out of novel approaches to writing. He wrote in particular that authors like Flaubert, Henry James and Dostoyevsky had breached the last reaches of literature by exploring the psychological interior of characters in their writing.[4] As a result, Itō proposed a new technique that was supposed to represent the only path left for literature: the stream of consciousness. Itō argued that this technique originated in the works of Edouard Dujardin, particularly his novel Les Lauriers sont coupés. Itō’s remarks resonate with similar remarks that Joyce himself made regarding Dujardin as the origin of the stream of consciousness.


Itō praised Joyce’s use of the stream of consciousness for making “the consciousness purely unconscious,” and allowing his expressions to “flow along the unconscious.”[5] He was particularly concerned with the psychological ramifications of Joyce’s use of the stream of consciousness as the result of Itō’s previous exposure to Freud and psychoanalysis. Itō believed that the stream of consciousness had the ability to accurately depict both the reality of the outside world as well as the inner reality of the psychology of characters.[6] However, it is curious that Itō overlooks consideration in this article of the planning that Joyce undertook in the preparation of Ulysses, even though it was specifically alluded to in Doi’s prior article, among other works that Itō would have read in preparation for this essay.


Itō reinforces his examination of Joyce by comparing him to other authors such as Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson. In particular, Itō was interested in comparing the style of Joyce’s use of the stream of consciousness to Woolf’s use of the technique in her novel Jacob’s Room, as well as Richardson’s use of it in Interim. Itō’s concern here was the result of criticisms that he felt were levied at the stream of consciousness: that it was untrustworthy and would destroy the novel itself. He argued that as long as the author was faithful to his own sensations and had sufficient talent, neither issue would be a problem, and cited Woolf and Richardson as alternative examples that supported his argument. Ultimately, however, Itō felt that Joyce’s utilization of the technique was the superior one; he wrote that Woolf’s use of stream of consciousness appeared to be too planned, whereas Richardson’s use was so magnified that the story and movement of the novel itself completely disappeared.[7]


Although Itō’s article makes interesting points regarding the stream of consciousness style and how Itō perceives that it operates on both a literary and psychoanalytical level, the larger objective of his article must be questioned. Itō focuses primarily on the stream of consciousness as a technique and how it is used in Ulysses, without considering the other contexts at play within the work, particularly the socio-political context. Furthermore, Itō’s concern with Joyce’s use of the stream of consciousness as a way to depict the unconscious appears to overlook the Joyce’s conscious subjectivity in the creation of Ulysses. Nevertheless, although Itō’s article may be flawed, it is interesting to consider how he views the stream of consciousness as the crux, not only to Joyce’s style, but to a new type of literature.[8]


1. ↑ Gilbert, Stuart, ed. Letters of James Joyce. 3 vols. Faber and Faber, 1957-1966, 1:513.
2. ↑ Kockum, Keiko. Itō Sei: Self-Analysis and the Modern Japanese Novel. Stockholm University Press, 1994, p. 30.
3. ↑ Ibid, p. 93.
4. ↑ Itō 1930, p. 113.
5. ↑ Ibid, p. 113.
6. ↑ Ibid, p. 113
7. ↑ Ibid, pp. 113-114.
8. ↑ This article prepared by Michael Chan.


--------
this article waswritten by Michael Chan, officially published here

Read More......

Ulysses and stream of consciousness in fiction

Ulysses is famous of course for introducing stream of consciousness to fiction. Characters' thoughts, fragments of memory and fantasies are mixed with input from the outside world. But it is all rather academic for me. Despite Joyce's attempts to replicate the flow of sensation through characters' minds with a diverse repertoire of literary effects, I doubt anyone has such intelligible thought processes as the characters in Ulysses do. In my own experience, vast stretches of mental time are passed without any thoughts that are expressed internally in words. This is a failing of the stream-of-consciousness method. An author must either include blank pages, pages of scribbling, musical notes, etc., or give up the pretence that one is reproducing the mental process. An author has to acknowledge that out of the nearly infinite range of daily human experience he is selecting specific items to put together artificially to represent through language what is largely inarticulate.


The stream-of-consciousness approach introduced by Joyce has had a great effect on modern writing, but Ulysses may be the over-the-top experiment (we won't even mention Finnegans Wake) that has allowed other writers to use the technique selectively as is appropriate in their writing. read the complete article here

Read More......

Ulysses by James Joyce

This is a hypertextual, self-referential edition of Ulysses by James Joyce. The text was prepared using the Project Gutenberg edition.

Click on any word to see its occurrences in the text; click on line numbers to go to that line; click on chapter names to go to that chapter; or search using the form below. Search terms can contain spaces and punctuation.

-- I --
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5] STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of
[6] lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown,
[7] ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He
[8] held the bowl aloft and intoned:
[9]
[10] --INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.
[11]
[12] Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
[13]
[14] --Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
[15]
[16] Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about
[17] and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the
[18] awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent
[19] towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and
[20] shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms
[21] on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling
[22] face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured
[23] hair, grained and hued like pale oak.
[24]
[25] Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered
[26] the bowl smartly.
[27]
[28] --Back to barracks! he said sternly.
[29]
[30] He added in a preacher's tone:
[31]
[32] --For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and
[33] blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A
[34] little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
[35]
[36] He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused
[37] awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there
[38] with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered
[39] through the calm.
[40]
[41] --Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the
[42] current, will you?
[43]
[44] He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering
[45] about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
[46] sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A
[47] pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
[48]
[49] --The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!
[50]
[51] He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
[52] laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
[53] halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he
[54] propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
[55] lathered cheeks and neck.
[56]
[57] Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.
[58]
[59] --My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
[60] Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We
[61] must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty
[62] quid?
[63]
[64] He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
[65]
[66] --Will he come? The jejune jesuit!
[67]
[68] Ceasing, he began to shave with care.
[69]
[70] --Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
[71]
[72] --Yes, my love?
[73]
[74] --How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?
[75]
[76] Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.
[77]
[78] --God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
[79] you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money
[80] and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you
[81] have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you is
[82] the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.
[83]
[84] He shaved warily over his chin.
[85]
[86] --He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is
[87] his guncase?
[88]
[89] --A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?
[90]
[91] --I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark
[92] with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
[93] black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If
[94] he stays on here I am off.
[95]
[96] Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down
[97] from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.
[98]
[99] --Scutter! he cried thickly.
[100]
[101] He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper
[102] pocket, said:
[103]
[104] --Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.
[105]
[106] Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a
[107] dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
[108] Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:
[109]
[110] --The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
[111] You can almost taste it, can't you?
[112]
[113] He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair
[114] oakpale hair stirring slightly.
[115]
[116] --God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet
[117] mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. EPI OINOPA PONTON.
[118] Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the
[119] original. THALATTA! THALATTA! She is our great sweet mother. Come and
[120] look.
[121]
[122] Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked
[123] down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of
[124] Kingstown.
[125]
[126] --Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said.
[127]
[128] He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's
[129] face.
[130]
[131] --The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't
[132] let me have anything to do with you.
[133]
[134] --Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.
[135]
[136] --You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother asked
[137] you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to think of
[138] your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for
[139] her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you ...
[140]
[141] He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
[142] smile curled his lips.
[143]
[144] --But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest
[145] mummer of them all!
[146]
[147] He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.
[148]
[149] Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against
[150] his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve.
[151] Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in
[152] a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its
[153] loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her
[154] breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of
[155] wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a
[156] great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and
[157] skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood
[158] beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up
[159] from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.
[160]
[161] Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.
[162]
[163] --Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt and
[164] a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?
[165]
[166] --They fit well enough, Stephen answered.
[167]
[168] Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.
[169]
[170] --The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God
[171] knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair
[172] stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You
[173] look damn well when you're dressed.
[174]
[175] --Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.
[176]
[177] --He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror.
[178] Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey
[179] trousers.
[180]
[181] He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the
[182] smooth skin.
[183]
[184] Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its
[185] smokeblue mobile eyes.
[186]
[187] --That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, says
[188] you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General
[189] paralysis of the insane!
[190]
[191] He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad
[192] in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and
[193] the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong
[194] wellknit trunk.
[195]
[196] --Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!
[197]
[198] Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a
[199] crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face
[200] for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.
[201]
[202] --I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her
[203] all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead
[204] him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.
[205]
[206] Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.
[207]
[208] --The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If
[209] Wilde were only alive to see you!
[210]
[211] Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:
[212]
[213] --It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.
[214]
[215] Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him
[216] round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had
[217] thrust them.
[218]
[219] --It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God
[220] knows you have more spirit than any of them.
[221]
[222] Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The
[223] cold steelpen.
[224]
[225] --Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap downstairs
[226] and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks you're
[227] not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or
[228] some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work
[229] together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it.
[230]
[231] Cranly's arm. His arm.
[232]
[233] --And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one
[234] that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you up
[235] your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring
[236] down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive
[237] Kempthorpe.
[238]
[239] Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces:
[240] they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall
[241] expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit
[242] ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the
[243] table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the
[244] tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't want
[245] to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me!
[246]
[247] Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf
[248] gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower on
[249] the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.
[250]
[251] To ourselves ... new paganism ... omphalos.
[252]
[253] --Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at
[254] night.
[255]
[256] --Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm
[257] quite frank with you. What have you against me now?
[258]
[259] They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the
[260] water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.
[261]
[262] --Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.
[263]
[264] --Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything.
[265]
[266] He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,
[267] fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of
[268] anxiety in his eyes.
[269]
[270] Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:
[271]
[272] --Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's
[273] death?
[274]
[275] Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:
[276]
[277] --What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and
[278] sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?
[279]
[280] --You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to get
[281] more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the drawingroom.
[282] She asked you who was in your room.
[283]
[284] --Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.
[285]
[286] --You said, Stephen answered, O, IT'S ONLY DEDALUS WHOSE MOTHER IS
[287] BEASTLY DEAD.
[288]
[289] A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck
[290] Mulligan's cheek.
[291]
[292] --Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?
[293]
[294] He shook his constraint from him nervously.
[295]
[296] --And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You saw
[297] only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and
[298] Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly
[299] thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down
[300] to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because
[301] you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong
[302] way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not
[303] functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups
[304] off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in
[305] death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like some hired
[306] mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to
[307] offend the memory of your mother.
[308]
[309] He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds
[310] which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:
[311]
[312] --I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
[313]
[314] --Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.
[315]
[316] --Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.
[317]
[318] Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.
[319]
[320] --O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.
[321]
[322] He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post,
[323] gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew
[324] dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt
[325] the fever of his cheeks.
[326]
[327] A voice within the tower called loudly:
[328]
[329] --Are you up there, Mulligan?
[330]
[331] --I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.
[332]
[333] He turned towards Stephen and said:
[334]
[335] --Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, Kinch,
[336] and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.
[337]
[338] His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level
[339] with the roof:
[340]
[341] --Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the
[342] moody brooding.
[343]
[344] His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the
[345] stairhead:
[346]
[347]
[348] AND NO MORE TURN ASIDE AND BROOD
[349] UPON LOVE'S BITTER MYSTERY
[350] FOR FERGUS RULES THE BRAZEN CARS.
[351]
[352]
[353] Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the
[354] stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of
[355] water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the
[356] dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the
[357] harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words
[358] shimmering on the dim tide.
[359]
[360] A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in
[361] deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song:
[362] I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door
[363] was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to
[364] her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words,
[365] Stephen: love's bitter mystery.
[366]
[367] Where now?
[368]
[369] Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a
[370] gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny
[371] window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the
[372] pantomime of TURKO THE TERRIBLE and laughed with others when he sang:
[373]
[374]
[375] I AM THE BOY
[376] THAT CAN ENJOY
[377] INVISIBILITY.
[378]
[379]
[380] Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.
[381]
[382]
[383] AND NO MORE TURN ASIDE AND BROOD.
[384]
[385]
[386] Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his
[387] brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had
[388] approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar,
[389] roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely
[390] fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's
[391] shirts.
[392]
[393] In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its
[394] loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,
[395] bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.
[396]
[397] Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me
[398] alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured
[399] face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on
[400] their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. LILIATA RUTILANTIUM TE
[401] CONFESSORUM TURMA CIRCUMDET: IUBILANTIUM TE VIRGINUM CHORUS EXCIPIAT.
[402]
[403] Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
[404]
[405] No, mother! Let me be and let me live.
[406]
[407] --Kinch ahoy!
[408]
[409] Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the
[410] staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry,
[411] heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.
[412]
[413] --Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is
[414] apologising for waking us last night. It's all right.
[415]
[416] --I'm coming, Stephen said, turning.
[417]
[418] --Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our
[419] sakes.
[420]
[421] His head disappeared and reappeared.
[422]
[423] --I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch
[424] him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.
[425]
[426] --I get paid this morning, Stephen said.
[427]
[428] --The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.
[429]
[430] --If you want it, Stephen said.
[431]
[432] --Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll have a
[433] glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns.
[434]
[435] He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of
[436] tune with a Cockney accent:
[437]
[438]
[439] O, WON'T WE HAVE A MERRY TIME,
[440] DRINKING WHISKY, BEER AND WINE!
[441] ON CORONATION,
[442] CORONATION DAY!
[443] O, WON'T WE HAVE A MERRY TIME
[444] ON CORONATION DAY!
[445]
[446]
[447] Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone,
[448] forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there
[449] all day, forgotten friendship?
[450]
[451] He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,
[452] smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So
[453] I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet
[454] the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.
[455]
[456] In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form
[457] moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its
[458] yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor
[459] from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of
[460] coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.
[461]
[462] --We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?
[463]
[464] Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the
[465] hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open
[466] the inner doors.
[467]
[468] --Have you the key? a voice asked.
[469]
[470] --Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked!
[471]
[472] He howled, without looking up from the fire:
[473]
[474] --Kinch!
[475]
[476] --It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.
[477]
[478] The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set
[479] ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway,
[480] looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down
[481] to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he
[482] carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down
[483] heavily and sighed with relief.
[484]
[485] --I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when ... But, hush! Not a
[486] word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines,
[487] come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts.
[488] Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.
[489]
[490] Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from
[491] the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.
[492]
[493] --What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.
[494]
[495] --We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the
[496] locker.
[497]
[498] --O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove
[499] milk.
[500]
[501] Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:
[502]
[503] --That woman is coming up with the milk.
[504]
[505] --The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his
[506] chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I
[507] can't go fumbling at the damned eggs.
[508]
[509] He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three plates,
[510] saying:
[511]
[512] --IN NOMINE PATRIS ET FILII ET SPIRITUS SANCTI.
[513]
[514] Haines sat down to pour out the tea.
[515]
[516] --I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do
[517] make strong tea, don't you?
[518]
[519] Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's
[520] wheedling voice:
[521]
[522] --When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I
[523] makes water I makes water.
[524]
[525] --By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.
[526]
[527] Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:
[528]
[529] --SO I DO, MRS CAHILL, says she. BEGOB, MA'AM, says Mrs Cahill, GOD SEND
[530] YOU DON'T MAKE THEM IN THE ONE POT.
[531]
[532] He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled
[533] on his knife.
[534]
[535] --That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines
[536] of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of
[537] Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.
[538]
[539] He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his
[540] brows:
[541]
[542] --Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken of
[543] in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?
[544]
[545] --I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.
[546]
[547] --Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?
[548]
[549] --I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the
[550] Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.
[551]
[552] Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.
[553]
[554] --Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth and
[555] blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!
[556]
[557] Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened
[558] rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:
[559]
[560]
[561] --FOR OLD MARY ANN
[562] SHE DOESN'T CARE A DAMN.
[563] BUT, HISING UP HER PETTICOATS ...
[564]
[565]
[566] He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.
[567]
[568] The doorway was darkened by an entering form.
[569]
[570] --The milk, sir!
[571]
[572] --Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.
[573]
[574] An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.
[575]
[576] --That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.
[577]
[578] --To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure!
[579]
[580] Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.
[581]
[582] --The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of
[583] the collector of prepuces.
[584]
[585] --How much, sir? asked the old woman.
[586]
[587] --A quart, Stephen said.
[588]
[589] He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white
[590] milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a
[591] tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a
[592] messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out.
[593] Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her
[594] toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed
[595] about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old
[596] woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an
[597] immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common
[598] cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid,
[599] whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.
[600]
[601] --It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.
[602]
[603] --Taste it, sir, she said.
[604]
[605] He drank at her bidding.
[606]
[607] --If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat
[608] loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten
[609] guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with
[610] dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits.
[611]
[612] --Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.
[613]
[614] --I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.
[615]
[616] --Look at that now, she said.
[617]
[618] Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice
[619] that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she
[620] slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is
[621] of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's
[622] likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be
[623] silent with wondering unsteady eyes.
[624]
[625] --Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.
[626]
[627] --Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.
[628]
[629] Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.
[630]
[631] --Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?
[632]
[633] --I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the
[634] west, sir?
[635]
[636] --I am an Englishman, Haines answered.
[637]
[638] --He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak Irish
[639] in Ireland.
[640]
[641] --Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak the
[642] language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows.
[643]
[644] --Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill
[645] us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am?
[646]
[647] --No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the
[648] milkcan on her forearm and about to go.
[649]
[650] Haines said to her:
[651]
[652] --Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we?
[653]
[654] Stephen filled again the three cups.
[655]
[656] --Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at
[657] twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three
[658] mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a
[659] shilling and one and two is two and two, sir.
[660]
[661] Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly
[662] buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his
[663] trouser pockets.
[664]
[665] --Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling.
[666]
[667] Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick
[668] rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his
[669] fingers and cried:
[670]
[671] --A miracle!
[672]
[673] He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:
[674]
[675] --Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give.
[676]
[677] Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand.
[678]
[679] --We'll owe twopence, he said.
[680]
[681] --Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good morning,
[682] sir.
[683]
[684] She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant:
[685]
[686]
[687] --HEART OF MY HEART, WERE IT MORE,
[688] MORE WOULD BE LAID AT YOUR FEET.
[689]
[690]
[691] He turned to Stephen and said:
[692]
[693] --Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring
[694] us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland
[695] expects that every man this day will do his duty.
[696]
[697] --That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your
[698] national library today.
[699]
[700] --Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.
[701]
[702] He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:
[703]
[704] --Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?
[705]
[706] Then he said to Haines:
[707]
[708] --The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.
[709]
[710] --All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey
[711] trickle over a slice of the loaf.
[712]
[713] Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the
[714] loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:
[715]
[716] --I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.
[717]
[718] Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit.
[719] Conscience. Yet here's a spot.
[720]
[721] --That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol
[722] of Irish art is deuced good.
[723]
[724] Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth
[725] of tone:
[726]
[727] --Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.
[728]
[729] --Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just
[730] thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.
[731]
[732] --Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked.
[733]
[734] Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of the
[735] hammock, said:
[736]
[737] --I don't know, I'm sure.
[738]
[739] He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and
[740] said with coarse vigour:
[741]
[742] --You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?
[743]
[744] --Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the
[745] milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think.
[746]
[747] --I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along
[748] with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.
[749]
[750] --I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.
[751]
[752] Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm.
[753]
[754] --From me, Kinch, he said.
[755]
[756] In a suddenly changed tone he added:
[757]
[758] --To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they
[759] are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let
[760] us get out of the kip.
[761]
[762] He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying
[763] resignedly:
[764]
[765] --Mulligan is stripped of his garments.
[766]
[767] He emptied his pockets on to the table.
[768]
[769] --There's your snotrag, he said.
[770]
[771] And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them,
[772] chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and
[773] rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God,
[774] we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green
[775] boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I
[776] contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of
[777] his talking hands.
[778]
[779] --And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said.
[780]
[781] Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the
[782] doorway:
[783]
[784] --Are you coming, you fellows?
[785]
[786] --I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out,
[787] Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out with
[788] grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:
[789]
[790] --And going forth he met Butterly.
[791]
[792] Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out
[793] and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and
[794] locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket.
[795]
[796] At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:
[797]
[798] --Did you bring the key?
[799]
[800] --I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.
[801]
[802] He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy
[803] bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.
[804]
[805] --Down, sir! How dare you, sir!
[806]
[807] Haines asked:
[808]
[809] --Do you pay rent for this tower?
[810]
[811] --Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.
[812]
[813] --To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder.
[814]
[815] They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:
[816]
[817] --Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?
[818]
[819] --Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on
[820] the sea. But ours is the OMPHALOS.
[821]
[822] --What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.
[823]
[824] --No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aquinas
[825] and the fifty-five reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I have
[826] a few pints in me first.
[827]
[828] He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his
[829] primrose waistcoat:
[830]
[831] --You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?
[832]
[833] --It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.
[834]
[835] --You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?
[836]
[837] --Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.
[838] It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is
[839] Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own
[840] father.
[841]
[842] --What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?
[843]
[844] Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in
[845] loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear:
[846]
[847] --O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!
[848]
[849] --We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is
[850] rather long to tell.
[851]
[852] Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.
[853]
[854] --The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.
[855]
[856] --I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this tower
[857] and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. THAT BEETLES O'ER
[858] HIS BASE INTO THE SEA, ISN'T IT?
[859]
[860] Buck Mulligan turned suddenly. for an instant towards Stephen but did not
[861] speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap
[862] dusty mourning between their gay attires.
[863]
[864] --It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.
[865]
[866] Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.
[867] The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the
[868] smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail tacking
[869] by the Muglins.
[870]
[871] --I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused.
[872] The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the
[873] Father.
[874]
[875] Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at
[876] them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had
[877] suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a
[878] doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began
[879] to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:
[880]
[881]
[882] --I'M THE QUEEREST YOUNG FELLOW THAT EVER YOU HEARD.
[883] MY MOTHER'S A JEW, MY FATHER'S A BIRD.
[884] WITH JOSEPH THE JOINER I CANNOT AGREE.
[885] SO HERE'S TO DISCIPLES AND CALVARY.
[886]
[887]
[888] He held up a forefinger of warning.
[889]
[890]
[891] --IF ANYONE THINKS THAT I AMN'T DIVINE
[892] HE'LL GET NO FREE DRINKS WHEN I'M MAKING THE WINE
[893] BUT HAVE TO DRINK WATER AND WISH IT WERE PLAIN
[894] THAT I MAKE WHEN THE WINE BECOMES WATER AGAIN.
[895]
[896]
[897] He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward
[898] to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or
[899] wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:
[900]
[901]
[902] --GOODBYE, NOW, GOODBYE! WRITE DOWN ALL I SAID
[903] AND TELL TOM, DIEK AND HARRY I ROSE FROM THE DEAD.
[904] WHAT'S BRED IN THE BONE CANNOT FAIL ME TO FLY
[905] AND OLIVET'S BREEZY ... GOODBYE, NOW, GOODBYE!
[906]
[907]
[908] He capered before them down towards the forty-foot hole, fluttering his
[909] winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind
[910] that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.
[911]
[912] Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and
[913] said:
[914]
[915] --We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a
[916] believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of
[917] it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?
[918]
[919] --The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered.
[920]
[921] --O, Haines said, you have heard it before?
[922]
[923] --Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.
[924]
[925] --You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the
[926] narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a
[927] personal God.
[928]
[929] --There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.
[930]
[931] Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green
[932] stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.
[933]
[934] --Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.
[935]
[936] Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his
[937] sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang
[938] it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk
[939] towards Stephen in the shell of his hands.
[940]
[941] --Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or
[942] you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a
[943] personal God. You don't stand for that, I suppose?
[944]
[945] --You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible
[946] example of free thought.
[947]
[948] He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side.
[949] Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My
[950] familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line along
[951] the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants
[952] that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him
[953] the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes.
[954]
[955] --After all, Haines began ...
[956]
[957] Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not
[958] all unkind.
[959]
[960] --After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your
[961] own master, it seems to me.
[962]
[963] --I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an Italian.
[964]
[965] --Italian? Haines said.
[966]
[967] A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.
[968]
[969] --And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.
[970]
[971] --Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?
[972]
[973] --The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and
[974] the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.
[975]
[976] Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he spoke.
[977]
[978] --I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think
[979] like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather
[980] unfairly. It seems history is to blame.
[981]
[982] The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of
[983] their brazen bells: ET UNAM SANCTAM CATHOLICAM ET APOSTOLICAM ECCLESIAM:
[984] the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts,
[985] a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope
[986] Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and
[987] behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and
[988] menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry:
[989] Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius,
[990] warring his life long upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the
[991] Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle
[992] African heresiarch Sabellius who held that the Father was Himself His own
[993] Son. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since in mockery to the stranger.
[994] Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a
[995] menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattled angels of the
[996] church, Michael's host, who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with
[997] their lances and their shields.
[998]
[999] Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. ZUT! NOM DE DIEU!
[1000]
[1001] --Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and I feel as one. I
[1002] don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.
[1003] That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now.
[1004]
[1005] Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman, boatman.
[1006]
[1007] --She's making for Bullock harbour.
[1008]
[1009] The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.
[1010]
[1011] --There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way
[1012] when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today.
[1013]
[1014] The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for
[1015] a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite.
[1016] Here I am.
[1017]
[1018] They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on
[1019] a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A
[1020] young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his
[1021] green legs in the deep jelly of the water.
[1022]
[1023] --Is the brother with you, Malachi?
[1024]
[1025] --Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons.
[1026]
[1027] --Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young
[1028] thing down there. Photo girl he calls her.
[1029]
[1030] --Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.
[1031]
[1032] Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near
[1033] the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water
[1034] glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling
[1035] over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging
[1036] loincloth.
[1037]
[1038] Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines
[1039] and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips
[1040] and breastbone.
[1041]
[1042] --Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of
[1043] rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.
[1044]
[1045] --Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said.
[1046]
[1047] --Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?
[1048]
[1049] --Yes.
[1050]
[1051] --Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with
[1052] money.
[1053]
[1054] --Is she up the pole?
[1055]
[1056] --Better ask Seymour that.
[1057]
[1058] --Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said.
[1059]
[1060] He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying
[1061] tritely:
[1062]
[1063] --Redheaded women buck like goats.
[1064]
[1065] He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.
[1066]
[1067] --My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the UBERMENSCH. Toothless Kinch
[1068] and I, the supermen.
[1069]
[1070] He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his
[1071] clothes lay.
[1072]
[1073] --Are you going in here, Malachi?
[1074]
[1075] --Yes. Make room in the bed.
[1076]
[1077] The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the
[1078] middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a
[1079] stone, smoking.
[1080]
[1081] --Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.
[1082]
[1083] --Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast.
[1084]
[1085] Stephen turned away.
[1086]
[1087] --I'm going, Mulligan, he said.
[1088]
[1089] --Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.
[1090]
[1091] Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped
[1092] clothes.
[1093]
[1094] --And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.
[1095]
[1096] Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck
[1097] Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:
[1098]
[1099] --He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake
[1100] Zarathustra.
[1101]
[1102] His plump body plunged.
[1103]
[1104] --We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the path
[1105] and smiling at wild Irish.
[1106]
[1107] Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.
[1108]
[1109] --The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.
[1110]
[1111] --Good, Stephen said.
[1112]
[1113] He walked along the upwardcurving path.
[1114]
[1115]
[1116] LILIATA RUTILANTIUM.
[1117] TURMA CIRCUMDET.
[1118] IUBILANTIUM TE VIRGINUM.
[1119]
[1120]
[1121] The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will
[1122] not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
[1123]
[1124] A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning
[1125] the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a
[1126] seal's, far out on the water, round.
[1127]
[1128] Usurper.
[1129]
[1130]
[1131]

Read More......

Exiles by James Joyce

RICHARD ROWAN, a writer.
BERTHA.
ARCHIE, their son, aged eight years.
ROBERT HAND, journalist.
BEATRICE JUSTICE, his cousin, music teacher.
BRIGID, an old servant of the Rowan family.
A FISHWOMAN.

At Merrion and Ranelagh, suburbs of Dublin.
Summer of the year 1912.

(The drawingroom in Richard Rowan's house at Merrion, a suburb of Dublin. On the right, forward, a fireplace, before which stands a low screen. Over the mantelpiece a giltframed glass. Further back in the right wall, folding doors leading to the parlour and kitchen. In the wall at the back to the right a small door leading to a study. Left of this a sideboard. On the wall above the sideboard a framed crayon drawing of a young man. More to the left double doors with glass panels leading out to the garden. In the wall at the left a window looking out on the road. Forward in the same wall a door leading to the hall and the upper part of the house. Between the window and door a lady's davenport stands against the wall. Near it a wicker chair. In the centre of the room a round table. Chairs, upholstered in faded green plush, stand round the table. To the right, forward, a smaller table with a smoking service on it. Near it an easychair and a lounge. Cocoanut mats lie before the fireplace, beside the lounge and before the doors. The floor is of stained planking. The double doors at the back and the folding doors at the right have lace curtains, which are drawn halfway. The lower sash of the window is lifted and the window is hung with heavy green plush curtains. The blind is pulled down to the edge of the lifted lower sash. It is a warm afternoon in June and the room is filled with soft sunlight which is waning.)

(Brigid and Beatrice Justice come in by the door on the left. Brigid is an elderly woman, lowsized, with irongrey hair. Beatrice Justice is a slender dark young woman of 27 years. She wears a wellmade navyblue costume and an elegant simply trimmed black straw hat, and carries a small portfolioshaped handbag.)

BRIGID

The mistress and Master Archie is at the bath. They never expected you. Did you send word you were back, Miss Justice?

BEATRICE

No. I arrived just now.

BRIGID

(Points to the easychair.) Sit down and I'll tell the master you are here. Were you long in the train?

BEATRICE

(Sitting down.) Since morning.

BRIGID

Master Archie got your postcard with the views of Youghal. You're tired out, I'm sure.

BEATRICE

O, no. (She coughs rather nervously.) Did he practise the piano while I was away?

BRIGID

(Laughs heartily.) Practice, how are you! Is it Master Archie? He is mad after the milkman's horse now. Had you nice weather down there, Miss Justice?

BEATRICE

Rather wet, I think.

BRIGID

(Sympathetically.) Look at that now. And there is rain overhead too. (Moving towards the study.) I'll tell him you are here.

BEATRICE

Is Mr Rowan in?

BRIGID

(Points.) He is in his study. He is wearing himself out about something he is writing. Up half the night he does be. (Going.) I'll call him.

BEATRICE

Don't disturb him, Brigid. I can wait here till they come back if they are not long.

BRIGID

And I saw something in the letterbox when I was letting you in. (She crosses to the study door, opens it slightly and calls.) Master Richard, Miss Justice is here for Master Archie's lesson.

(Richard Rowan comes in from the study and advances towards Beatrice, holding out his hand. He is a tall athletic young man of a rather lazy carriage. He has light brown hair and a moustache and wears glasses. He is dressed in loose lightgrey tweed.)

RICHARD

Welcome.

BEATRICE

(Rises and shakes hands, blushing slightly.) Good afternoon, Mr Rowan. I did not want Brigid to disturb you.

RICHARD

Disturb me? My goodness!

BRIGID

There is something in the letterbox, sir.

RICHARD

(Takes a small bunch of keys from his pocket and hands them to her.) Here.

(Brigid goes out by the door at the left and is heard opening and closing the box. A short pause. She enters with two newspapers in her hands.)

RICHARD

Letters?

BRIGID

No, sir. Only them Italian newspapers.

RICHARD

Leave them on my desk, will you?

(Brigid hands him back the keys, leaves the newspapers in the study, comes out again and goes out by the folding doors on the right.)

RICHARD

Please, sit down. Bertha will be back in a moment.

(Beatrice sits down again in the easychair. Richard sits beside the table.)

RICHARD

I had begun to think you would never come back. It is twelve days since you were here.

BEATRICE

I thought of that too. But I have come.

RICHARD

Have you thought over what I told you when you were here last?

BEATRICE

Very much.

RICHARD

You must have known it before. Did you? (She does not answer.) Do you blame me?

BEATRICE

No.

RICHARD

Do you think I have acted towards you-- badly? No? Or towards anyone?

BEATRICE

(Looks at him with a sad puzzled expression.) I have asked myself that question.

RICHARD

And the answer?

BEATRICE

I could not answer it.

RICHARD

If I were a painter and told you I had a book of sketches of you you would not think it so strange, would you?

BEATRICE

It is not quite the same case, is it?

RICHARD

(Smiles slightly.) Not quite. I told you also that I would not show you what I had written unless you asked to see it. Well?

BEATRICE

I will not ask you.

RICHARD

(Leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands joined.) Would you like to see it?

BEATRICE

Very much.

RICHARD

Because it is about yourself?

BEATRICE

Yes. But not only that.

RICHARD

Because it is written by me? Yes? Even if what you would find there is sometimes cruel?

BEATRICE

(Shyly.) That is part of your mind, too.

RICHARD

Then it is my mind that attracts you? Is that it?

BEATRICE

(Hesitating, glances at him for an instant.) Why do you think I come here?

RICHARD

Why? Many reasons. To give Archie lessons. We have known one another so many years, from childhood, Robert, you and I-- haven't we? You have always been interested in me, before I went away and while I was away. Then our letters to each other about my book. Now it is published. I am here again. Perhaps you feel that some new thing is gathering in my brain; perhaps you feel that you should know it. Is that the reason?

BEATRICE

No.

RICHARD

Why, then?

BEATRICE

Otherwise I could not see you.

(She looks at him for a moment and then turns aside quickly.)

RICHARD

(After a pause repeats uncertainly.) Otherwise you could not see me?

BEATRICE

(Suddenly confused.) I had better go. They are not coming back. (Rising.) Mr Rowan, I must go.

RICHARD

(Extending his arms.) But you are running away. Remain. Tell me what your words mean. Are you afraid of me?

BEATRICE

(Sinks back again.) Afraid? No.

RICHARD

Have you confidence in me? Do you feel that you know me?

BEATRICE

(Again shyly.) It is hard to know anyone but oneself.

RICHARD

Hard to know me? I sent you from Rome the chapters of my book as I wrote them; and letters for nine long years. Well, eight years.

BEATRICE

Yes, it was nearly a year before your first letter came.

RICHARD

It was answered at once by you. And from that on you have watched me in my struggle. (Joins his hands earnestly.) Tell me, Miss Justice, did you feel that what you read was written for your eyes? Or that you inspired me?

BEATRICE

(Shakes her head.) I need not answer that question.

RICHARD

What then?

BEATRICE

(Is silent for a moment.) I cannot say it. You yourself must ask me, Mr Rowan.

RICHARD

(With some vehemence.) Then that I expressed in those chapters and letters, and in my character and life as well, something in your soul which you could not-- pride or scorn?

BEATRICE

Could not?

RICHARD

(Leans towards her.) Could not because you dared not. Is that why?

BEATRICE

(Bends her head.) Yes.

RICHARD

On account of others or for want of courage-- which?

BEATRICE

(Softly.) Courage.

RICHARD

(Slowly.) And so you have followed me with pride and scorn also in your heart?

BEATRICE

And loneliness.

(She leans her head on her hand, averting her face. Richard rises and walks slowly to the window on the left. He looks out for some moments and then returns towards her, crosses to the lounge and sits down near her.)

RICHARD

Do you love him still?

BEATRICE

I do not even know.

RICHARD

It was that that made me so reserved with you-- then-- even though I felt your interest in me, even though I felt that I too was something in your life.

BEATRICE

You were.

RICHARD

Yet that separated me from you. I was a third person I felt. Your names were always spoken together, Robert and Beatrice, as long as I can remember. It seemed to me, to everyone...

BEATRICE

We are first cousins. It is not strange that we were often together.

RICHARD

He told me of your secret engagement with him. He had no secrets from me; I suppose you know that.

BEATRICE

(Uneasily.) What happened-- between us-- is so long ago. I was a child.

RICHARD

(Smiles maliciously.) A child? Are you sure? It was in the garden of his mother's house. No? (He points towards the garden.) Over there. You plighted your troth, as they say, with a kiss. And you gave him your garter. Is it allowed to mention that?

BEATRICE

(With some reserve.) If you think it worthy of mention.

RICHARD

I think you have not forgotten it. (Clasping his hands quietly.) I do not understand it. I thought, too, that after I had gone... Did my going make you suffer?

BEATRICE

I always knew you would go some day. I did not suffer; only I was changed.

RICHARD

Towards him?

BEATRICE

Everything was changed. His life, his mind, even, seemed to change after that.

RICHARD

(Musing.) Yes. I saw that you had changed when I received your first letter after a year; after your illness, too. You even said so in your letter.

BEATRICE

It brought me near to death. It made me see things differently.

RICHARD

And so a coldness began between you, little by little. Is that it?

BEATRICE

(Half closing her eyes.) No. Not at once. I saw in him a pale reflection of you: then that too faded. Of what good is it to talk now?

RICHARD

(With a repressed energy.) But what is this that seems to hang over you? It cannot be so tragic.

BEATRICE

(Calmly.) O, not in the least tragic. I shall become gradually better, they tell me, as I grow older. As I did not die then they tell me I shall probably live. I am given life and health again-- when I cannot use them. (Calmly and bitterly.) I am convalescent.

RICHARD

(Gently.) Does nothing then in life give you peace? Surely it exists for you somewhere.

BEATRICE

If there were convents in our religion perhaps there. At least, I think so at times.

RICHARD

(Shakes his head.) No, Miss Justice, not even there. You could not give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Looking at him.) I would try.

RICHARD

You would try, yes. You were drawn to him as your mind was drawn towards mine. You held back from him. From me, too, in a different way. You cannot give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Joins her hands softly.) It is a terribly hard thing to do, Mr Rowan-- to give oneself freely and wholly-- and be happy.

RICHARD

But do you feel that happiness is the best, the highest that we can know?

BEATRICE

(With fervour.) I wish I could feel it.

RICHARD

(Leans back, his hands locked together behind his head.) O, if you knew how I am suffering at this moment! For your case, too. But suffering most of all for my own. (With bitter force.) And how I pray that I may be granted again my dead mother's hardness of heart! For some help, within me or without, I must find. And find it I will.

(Beatrice rises, looks at him intently, and walks away toward the garden door. She turns with indecision, looks again at him and, coming back, leans over the easychair.)

BEATRICE

(Quietly.) Did she send for you before she died, Mr Rowan?

RICHARD

(Lost in thought.) Who?

BEATRICE

Your mother.

RICHARD

(Recovering himself, looks keenly at her for a moment.) So that, too, was said of me here by my friends-- that she sent for me before she died and that I did not go?

BEATRICE

Yes.

RICHARD

(Coldly.) She did not. She died alone, not having forgiven me, and fortified by the rites of holy church.

BEATRICE

Mr Rowan, why did you speak to me in such a way?

RICHARD

(Rises and walks nervously to and fro.) And what I suffer at this moment you will say is my punishment.

BEATRICE

Did she write to you? I mean before...

RICHARD

(Halting.) Yes. A letter of warning, bidding me break with the past, and remember her last words to me.

BEATRICE

(Softly.) And does death not move you, Mr Rowan? It is an end. Everything else is so uncertain.

RICHARD

While she lived she turned aside from me and from mine. That is certain.

BEATRICE

From you and from...?

RICHARD

From Bertha and from me and from our child. And so I waited for the end as you say; and it came.

BEATRICE

(Covers her face with her hands.) O, no. Surely no.

RICHARD

(Fiercely.) How can my words hurt her poor body that rots in the grave? Do you think I do not pity her cold blighted love for me? I fought against her spirit while she lived to the bitter end. (He presses his hand to his forehead.) It fights against me still-- in here.

BEATRICE

(As before.) O, do not speak like that.

RICHARD

She drove me away. On account of her I lived years in exile and poverty too, or near it. I never accepted the doles she sent me through the bank. I waited, too, not for her death but for some understanding of me, her own son, her own flesh and blood; that never came.

BEATRICE

Not even after Archie...?

RICHARD

(Rudely.) My son, you think? A child of sin and shame! Are you serious? (She raises her face and looks at him.) There were tongues here ready to tell her all, to embitter her withering mind still more against me and Bertha and our godless nameless child. (Holding out his hands to her.) Can you not hear her mocking me while I speak? You must know the voice, surely, the voice that called you the black protestant, the pervert's daughter. (With sudden selfcontrol.) In any case a remarkable woman.

BEATRICE

(Weakly.) At least you are free now.

RICHARD

(Nods.) Yes, she could not alter the terms of my father's will nor live for ever.

BEATRICE

(With joined hands.) They are both gone now, Mr Rowan. They both loved you, believe me. Their last thoughts were of you.

RICHARD

(Approaching, touches her lightly on the shoulder, and points to the crayon drawing on the wall.) Do you see him there, smiling and handsome? His last thoughts! I remember the night he died. (He pauses for an instant and then goes on calmly.) I was a boy of fourteen. He called me to his bedside. He knew I wanted to go to the theater to hear Carmen. He told my mother to give me a shilling. I kissed him and went. When I came home he was dead. Those were his last thoughts as far as I know.

BEATRICE

The hardness of heart you prayed for... (She breaks off.)

RICHARD

(Unheeding.) That is my last memory of him. Is there not something sweet and noble in it?

BEATRICE

Mr Rowan, something is on your mind to make you speak like this. Something has changed you since you came back three months ago.

RICHARD

(Gazing again at the drawing, calmly, almost gaily.) He will help me, perhaps, my smiling handsome father.

(A knock is heard at the hall door on the left.)

RICHARD

(Suddenly.) No, no. Not the smiler, Miss Justice. The old mother. It is her spirit I need. I am going.

BEATRICE

Someone knocked. They have come back.

RICHARD

No, Bertha has a key. It is he. At least, I am going, whoever it is. (He goes out quickly on the left and comes back at once with his straw hat in his hand.)

BEATRICE

He? Who?

RICHARD

O, probably Robert. I am going out through the garden. I cannot see him now. Say I have gone to the post. Goodbye.

BEATRICE

(With growing alarm.) It is Robert you do not wish to see?

RICHARD

(Quietly.) For the moment, yes. This talk has upset me. Ask him to wait.

BEATRICE

You will come back?

RICHARD

Please God.

(He goes out quickly through the garden. Beatrice makes as if to follow him. and then stops after a few paces. Brigid enters by the folding doors on the right and goes out on the left. The hall door is heard opening. A few seconds after Brigid enters with Robert Hand. Robert Hand is a middlesized, rather stout man between thirty and forty. He is cleanshaven, with mobile features. His hair and eyes are dark and his complexion sallow. His gait and speech are rather slow. He wears a dark blue morning suit and carries in his hand a large bunch of red roses wrapped in tissue paper.)

ROBERT

(Coming toward. her with outstretched hand which she takes.) My dearest coz. Brigid told me you were here. I had no notion. Did you send mother a telegram?

BEATRICE

(Gazing at the roses.) No.

ROBERT

(Following her gaze.) You are admiring my roses. I brought them to the mistress of the house. (Critically.) I am afraid they are not nice.

BRIGID

O, they are lovely, sir. The mistress will be delighted with them.

ROBERT

(Lays the roses carelessly on a chair out of sight.) Is nobody in?

BRIGID

Yes, sir. Sit down, sir. They'll be here now any moment. The master was here. (She looks about her and with a half curtsey goes out on the right.)

ROBERT

(After a short silence.) How are you, Beatty? And how are all down in Youghal? As dull as ever?

BEATRICE

They were well when I left.

ROBERT

(Politely.) O, but I'm sorry I did not know you were coming. I would have met you at the train. Why did you do it? You have some queer ways about you, Beatty, haven't you?

BEATRICE

(In the same tone.) Thank you, Robert. I am quite used to getting about alone.

ROBERT

Yes, but I mean to say... O, well, you have arrived in your own characteristic way. (A noise is heard at the window and a boy's voice is heard calling, Mr Hand! Robert turns.) By Jove, Archie, too, is arriving in a characteristic way!

(Archie scrambles into the room through the open window on the left and then rises to his feet, flushed and panting. Archie is a boy of eight years, dressed in white breeches, jersey and cap. He wears spectacles, has a lively manner and speaks with the slight trace of a foreign accent.)

BEATRICE

(Going towards him.) Goodness gracious, Archie! What is the matter?

ARCHIE

(Rising, out of breath.) Eh! I ran all the avenue.

ROBERT

(Smiles and holds out his hand.) Good evening, Archie. Why did you run?

ARCHIE

(Shakes hands.) Good evening. We saw you on the top of the tram, and I shouted Mr Hand! But you did not see me. But we saw you, mamma and I. She will be here in a minute. I ran.

BEATRICE

(Holding out her hand.) And poor me!

ARCHIE

(Shakes hands somewhat shyly.) Good evening, Miss Justice.

BEATRICE

Were you disappointed that I did not come last Friday for the lesson?

ARCHIE

(Glancing at her, smiles.) No.

BEATRICE

Glad?

ARCHIE

(Suddenly.) But today it is too late.

BEATRICE

A very short lesson?

ARCHIE

(Pleased.) Yes.

BEATRICE

But now you must study, Archie.

ROBERT

Were you at the bath?

ARCHIE

Yes.

ROBERT

Are you a good swimmer now?

ARCHIE

(Leans against the davenport.) No. Mamma won't let me into the deep place. Can you swim well, Mr Hand?

ROBERT

Splendidly. Like a stone.

ARCHIE

(Laughs.) Like a stone! (Pointing down.) Down that way?

ROBERT

(Pointing.) Yes, down; straight down. How do you say that over in Italy?

ARCHIE

That? Giù. (Pointing down and up.) That is giù and this is sù. Do you want to speak to my pappie?

ROBERT

Yes. I came to see him.

ARCHIE

(Going towards the study) I will tell him. He is in there, writing.

BEATRICE

(Calmly, looking at Robert.) No; he is out. He is gone to the post with some letters.

ROBERT

(Lightly.) O, never mind. I will wait if he is only gone to the post.

ARCHIE

But mamma is coming. (He glances towards the window.) Here she is!

(Archie runs out by the door on the left. Beatrice walks slowly towards the davenport. Robert remains standing. A short silence. Archie and Bertha come in through the door on the left. Bertha is a young woman of graceful build. She has dark grey eyes, patient in expression, and soft features. Her manner is cordial and selfpossessed. She wears a lavender dress and carries her cream gloves knotted round the handle of her sunshade.)

BERTHA

(Shaking hands.) Good evening, Miss Justice. We thought you were still down in Youghal.

BEATRICE

(Shaking hands.) Good evening, Mrs Rowan.

BERTHA

(Bows.) Good evening, Mr Hand.

ROBERT

(Bowing.) Good evening, signora! Just imagine, I didn't know either she was back till I found her here.

BERTHA

(To both.) Did you not come together?

BEATRICE

No. I came first. Mr Rowan was going out. He said you would be back any moment.

BERTHA

I'm sorry. If you had written or sent over word by the girl this morning...

BEATRICE

(Laughs nervously.) I arrived only an hour and a half ago. I thought of sending a telegram but it seemed too tragic.

BERTHA

Ah? Only now you arrived?

ROBERT

(Extending his arms, blandly.) I retire from public and private life. Her first cousin and a journalist, I know nothing of her movements.

BEATRICE

(Not directly to him.) My movements are not very interesting.

ROBERT

(In the same tone.) A lady's movements are always interesting.

BERTHA

But sit down, won't you? You must be very tired.

BEATRICE

(Quickly.) No, not at all. I just came for Archie's lesson.

BERTHA

I wouldn't hear of such a thing, Miss Justice, after your long journey.

ARCHIE

(Suddenly to Beatrice.) And, besides, you didn't bring the music.

BEATRICE

(A little confused.) That I forgot. But we have the old piece.

ROBERT

(Pinching Archie's ear.) You little scamp. You want to get off the lesson.

BERTHA

O, never mind the lesson. You must sit down and have a cup of tea now. (Going towards the door on the right.) I'll tell Brigid.

ARCHIE

I will, mamma. (He makes a movement to go.)

BEATRICE

No, please Mrs Rowan. Archie! I would really prefer...

ROBERT

(Quietly.) I suggest a compromise. Let it be a half-lesson.

BERTHA

But she must be exhausted.

BEATRICE

(Quickly.) Not in the least. I was thinking of the lesson in the train.

ROBERT

(To Bertha.) You see what it is to have a conscience, Mrs Rowan.

ARCHIE

Of my lesson, Miss Justice?

BEATRICE

(Simply.) It is ten days since I heard the sound of a piano.

BERTHA

O, very well. If that is it...

ROBERT

(Nervously, gaily.) Let us have the piano by all means. I know what is in Beatty's ears at this moment. (To Beatrice.) Shall I tell?

BEATRICE

If you know.

ROBERT

The buzz of the harmonium in her father's parlour. (To Beatrice.) Confess.

BEATRICE

(Smiling.) Yes. I can hear it.

ROBERT

(Grimly.) So can I. The asthmatic voice of protestantism.

BERTHA

Did you not enjoy yourself down there, Miss Justice?

ROBERT

(Intervenes.) She did not, Mrs Rowan. She goes there on retreat, when the protestant strain in her prevails-- gloom, seriousness, righteousness.

BEATRICE

I go to see my father.

ROBERT

(Continuing.) But she comes back here to my mother, you see. The piano influence is from our side of the house.

BERTHA

(Hesitating.) Well, Miss Justice, if you would like to play something... But please don't fatigue yourself with Archie.

ROBERT

(Suavely.) Do, Beatty. That is what you want.

BEATRICE

If Archie will come?

ARCHIE

(With a shrug.) To listen.

BEATRICE

(Takes his hand.) And a little lesson, too. Very short.

BERTHA

Well, afterwards you must stay to tea.

BEATRICE

(To Archie.) Come.

(Beatrice and Archie go out together by the door on the left. Bertha goes towards the davenport, takes off her hat and lays it with her sunshade on the desk. Then taking a key from a little flowervase, she opens a drawer of the davenport, takes out a slip of paper and closes the drawer again. Robert stands watching her.)

BERTHA

(Coming towards him with the paper in her hand.) You put this into my hand last night. What does it mean?

ROBERT

Do you not know?

BERTHA

(Reads.) There is one word which I have never dared to say to you. What is the word?

ROBERT

That I have a deep liking for you.

(A short pause. The piano is heard faintly from the upper room.)

ROBERT

(Takes the bunch of roses from the chair.) I brought these for you. Will you take them from me?

BERTHA

(Taking them.) Thank you. (She lays them on the table and unfolds the paper again.) Why did you not dare to say it last night?

ROBERT

I could not speak to you or follow you. There were too many people on the lawn. I wanted you to think over it and so I put it into your hand when you were going away.

BERTHA

Now you have dared to say it.

ROBERT

(Moves his hand slowly past his eyes.) You passed. The avenue was dim with dusky light. I could see the dark green masses of the trees. And you passed beyond them. You were like the moon.

BERTHA

(Laughs.) Why like the moon?

ROBERT

In that dress, with your slim body, walking with little even steps. I saw the moon passing in the dusk till you passed and left my sight.

BERTHA

Did you think of me last night?

ROBERT

(Comes nearer.) I think of you always-- as something beautiful and distant-- the moon or some deep music.

BERTHA

(Smiling.) And last night which was I?

ROBERT

I was awake half the night. I could hear your voice. I could see your face in the dark. Your eyes... I want to speak to you. Will you listen to me? May I speak?

BERTHA

(Sitting down.) You may.

ROBERT

(Sitting beside her.) Are you annoyed with me?

BERTHA

No.

ROBERT

I thought you were. You put away my poor flowers so quickly.

BERTHA

(Takes them from the table and holds them close to her face.) Is this what you wish me to do with them?

ROBERT

(Watching her.) Your face is a flower too-- but more beautiful. A wild flower blowing in a hedge. (Moving his chair closer to her.) Why are you smiling? At my words?

BERTHA

(Laying the flowers in her lap.) I am wondering if that is what you say-- to the others.

ROBERT

(Surprised.) What others?

BERTHA

The other women. I hear you have so many admirers.

ROBERT

(Involuntarily.) And that is why you too...?

BERTHA

But you have, haven't you?

ROBERT

Friends, yes.

BERTHA

Do you speak to them in the same way?

ROBERT

(In an offended tone.) How can you ask me such a question? What kind of person do you think I am? Or why do you listen to me? Did you not like me to speak to you in that way?

BERTHA

What you said was very kind. (She looks at him for a moment.) Thank you for saying it-- and thinking it.

ROBERT

(Leaning forward.) Bertha!

BERTHA

Yes?

ROBERT

I have the right to call you by your name. From old times-- nine years ago. We were Bertha-- and Robert-- then. Can we not be so now, too?

BERTHA

(Readily.) O yes. Why should we not?

ROBERT

Bertha, you knew. From the very night you landed on Kingstown pier. It all came back to me then. And you knew it. You saw it.

BERTHA

No. Not that night.

ROBERT

When?

BERTHA

The night we landed I felt very tired and dirty. (Shaking her head.) I did not see it in you that night.

ROBERT

(Smiling.) Tell me what did you see that night-- your very first impression.

BERTHA

(Knitting her brows.) You were standing with your back to the gangway, talking to two ladies.

ROBERT

To two plain middleaged ladies, yes.

BERTHA

I recognized you at once. And I saw that you had got fat.

ROBERT

(Takes her hand.) And this poor fat Robert-- do you dislike him then so much? Do you disbelieve all he says?

BERTHA

I think men speak like that to all women whom they like or admire. What do you want me to believe?

ROBERT

All men, Bertha?

BERTHA

(With sudden sadness.) I think so.

ROBERT

I too?

BERTHA

Yes, Robert. I think you too.

ROBERT

All then-- without exception? Or with one exception? (In a lower tone.) Or is he too-- Richard too-- like us all-- in that at least? Or different?

BERTHA

(Looks into his eyes.) Different.

ROBERT

Are you quite sure, Bertha?

BERTHA

(A little confused, tries to withdraw her hand.) I have answered you.

ROBERT

(Suddenly.) Bertha, may I kiss your hand? Let me. May I?

BERTHA

If you wish.

(He lifts her hand to his lips slowly. She rises suddenly. and listens.)

BERTHA

Did you hear the garden gate?

ROBERT

(Rising also.) No.

(A short pause. The piano can be heard faintly from the upper room.)

ROBERT

(Pleading.) Do not go away. You must never go away now. Your life is here. I came for that too today-- to speak to him-- to urge him to accept this position. He must. And you must persuade him to. You have a great influence over him.

BERTHA

You want him to remain here.

ROBERT

Yes.

BERTHA

Why?

ROBERT

For your sake because you are unhappy so far away. For his sake too because he should think of his future.

BERTHA

(Laughing.) Do you remember what he said when you spoke to him last night?

ROBERT

About...? (Reflecting.) Yes. He quoted the Our Father about our daily bread. He said that to take care for the future is to destroy hope and love in the world.

BERTHA

Do you not think he is strange?

ROBERT

In that, yes.

BERTHA

A little-- mad?

ROBERT

(Comes closer.) No. He is not. Perhaps we are. Why, do you...?

BERTHA

(Laughs.) I ask you because you are intelligent.

ROBERT

You must not go away. I will not let you.

BERTHA

(Looks full at him.) You?

ROBERT

Those eyes must not go away. (He takes her hands.) May I kiss your eyes?

BERTHA

Do so.

(He kisses her eyes and then passes his hand over her hair.)

ROBERT

Little Bertha!

BERTHA

(Smiling.) But I am not so little. Why do you call me little?

ROBERT

Little Bertha! One embrace? (He puts his arm around her.) Look into my eyes again.

BERTHA

(Looks.) I can see the little gold spots. So many you have.

ROBERT

(Delighted.) Your voice! Give me a kiss, a kiss with your mouth.

BERTHA

Take it.

ROBERT

I am afraid. (He kisses her mouth and passes his hand many times over her hair.) At last I hold you in my arms!

BERTHA

And are you satisfied?

ROBERT

Let me feel your lips touch mine.

BERTHA

And then you will be satisfied?

ROBERT

(Murmurs.) Your lips, Bertha!

BERTHA

(Closes her eyes and kisses him quickly.) There. (Puts her hands on his shoulders.) Why don't you say: thanks?

ROBERT

(Sighs.) My life is finished-- over.

BERTHA

O, don't speak like that now, Robert.

ROBERT

Over, over. I want to end it and have done with it.

BERTHA

(Concerned but lightly.) You silly fellow!

ROBERT

(Presses her to him.) To end it all-- death. To fall from a great high cliff, down, right down into the sea.

BERTHA

Please, Robert...

ROBERT

Listening to music and in the arms of the woman I love-- the sea, music and death.

BERTHA

(Looks at him for a moment.) The woman you love?

ROBERT

(Hurriedly.) I want to speak to you, Bertha-- alone-- not here. Will you come?

BERTHA

(With downcast eyes.) I too want to speak to you.

ROBERT

(Tenderly.) Yes, dear, I know. (He kisses her again.) I will speak to you; tell you all; then. I will kiss you, then, long long kisses-- when you come to me-- long long sweet kisses.

BERTHA

Where?

ROBERT

(In tone of passion.) Your eyes. Your lips. All your divine body.

BERTHA

(Repelling his embrace, confused.) I meant where do you wish me to come.

ROBERT

To my house. Not my mother's over there. 1 will write the address for you. Will you come?

BERTHA

When?

ROBERT

Tonight. Between eight and nine. Come. I will wait for you tonight. And every night. You will?

(He kisses her with passion, holding her head between his hands. After a few instants she breaks from him. He sits down.)

BERTHA

(Listening.) The gate opened.

ROBERT

(Intensely.) I will wait for you.

(He takes the slip from the table. Bertha moves away from him slowly. Richard comes in from the garden.)

RICHARD

(Advancing, takes off his hat.) Good afternoon.

ROBERT

(Rises, with nervous friendliness.) Good afternoon, Richard.

BERTHA

(At the table, taking the roses.) Look what lovely roses Mr Hand brought me.

ROBERT

I am afraid they are overblown.

RICHARD

(Suddenly.) Excuse me for a moment, will you?

(He turns and goes into his study quickly. Robert takes a pencil from his pocket and writes a few words on the slip; then hands it quickly to Bertha.)

ROBERT

(Rapidly.) The address. Take the tram at Lansdowne Road and ask to be let down near there.

BERTHA

(Takes it.) I promise nothing.

ROBERT

I will wait.

(Richard comes back from the study.)

BERTHA

(Going.) I must put these roses in water.

RICHARD

(Handing her his hat.) Yes, do. And please put my hat on the rack.

BERTHA

(Takes it.) So I will leave you to yourselves for your talk. (Looking round.) Do you want anything? Cigarettes?

RICHARD

Thanks. We have them here.

BERTHA

Then I can go?

(She goes out on the left with Richard's hat, which she leaves in the hall, and returns at once; she stops for a moment at the davenport, replaces the slip do the drawer, locks it, and replaces the key, and, taking the roses, goes towards the right. Robert precedes her to open the door for her. She bows and goes out.)

RICHARD

(Points to the chair near the little table on the right.) Your place of honour.

ROBERT

(Sits down.) Thanks. (Passing his hand over his brow.) Good Lord, how warm it is today! The heat pains me here in the eye. The glare.

RICHARD

The room is rather dark, I think, with the blind down but if you wish...

ROBERT

(Quickly.) Not at all. I know what it is-- the result of night work.

RICHARD

(Sits on the lounge.) Must you?

ROBERT

(Sighs.) Eh, yes. I must see part of the paper through every night. And then my leading articles. We are approaching a difficult moment. And not only here.

RICHARD

(After a slight pause.) Have you any news?

ROBERT

(In a different voice.) Yes. I want to speak to you seriously. Today may be an important day for you-- or rather, tonight. I saw the vicechancellor this morning. He has the highest opinion of you, Richard. He has read your book, he said.

RICHARD

Did he buy it or borrow it?

ROBERT

Bought it, I hope.

RICHARD

I shall smoke a cigarette. Thirty-seven copies have now been sold in Dublin. (He takes a cigarette from the box on the table, and lights it.)

ROBERT

(Suavely, hopelessly.) Well, the matter is closed for the present. You have your iron mask on today.

RICHARD

(Smoking.) Let me hear the rest.

ROBERT

(Again seriously.) Richard, you are too suspicious. It is a defect in you. He assured me he has the highest possible opinion of you, as everyone has. You are the man for the post, he says. In fact, he told me that, if your name goes forward, he will work might and main for you with the senate and I... will do my part, of course, in the press and privately. I regard it as a public duty. The chair of romance literature is yours by right, as a scholar, as a literary personality.

RICHARD

The conditions?

ROBERT

Conditions? You mean about the future?

RICHARD

I mean about the past.

ROBERT

(Easily.) That episode in your past is forgotten. An act of impulse. We are all impulsive

RICHARD

(Looks fixedly at him.) You called it an act of folly, then-- nine years ago. You told me I was hanging a weight about my neck.

ROBERT

I was wrong. (Suavely.) Here is how the matter stands, Richard. Everyone knows that you ran away years ago with a young girl... How shall I put it? ...with a young girl not exactly your equal. (Kindly.) Excuse me, Richard, that is not my opinion nor my language. I am simply using the language of people whose opinions I don't share.

RICHARD

Writing one of your leading articles, in fact.

ROBERT

Put it so. Well, it made a great sensation at the time. A mysterious disappearance. My name was involved too, as best man, let us say, on that famous occasion. Of course, they think I acted from a mistaken sense of friendship. Well, all that is known. (With some hesitation.) But what happened afterwards is not known.

RICHARD

No?

ROBERT

Of course, it is your affair, Richard. However, you are not so young now as you were then. The expression is quite in the style of my leading articles, isn't it?

RICHARD

Do you, or do you not, want me to give the lie to my past life?

ROBERT

I am thinking of your future life-- here. I understand your pride and your sense of liberty. I understand their point of view also. However, there is a way out; it is simply this. Refrain from contradicting any rumours you may hear concerning what happened.... or did not happen after you went away. Leave the rest to me.

RICHARD

You will set these rumours afloat?

ROBERT

I will. God help me.

RICHARD

(Observing him.) For the sake of social conventions?

ROBERT

For the sake of something else too-- our friendship, our lifelong friendship.

RICHARD

Thanks.

ROBERT

(Slightly wounded.) And I will tell you the whole truth.

RICHARD

(Smiles and bows.) Yes. Do, please.

ROBERT

Not only for your sake. Also for the sake of-- your present partner in life.

RICHARD

I see.

(He crushes his cigarette softly on the ashtray and then leans forward, rubbing his hands slowly.)

RICHARD

Why for her sake?

ROBERT

(Also leans forward, quietly.) Richard, have you been quite fair to her? It was her own free choice, you will say. But was she really free to choose? She was a mere girl. She accepted all that you proposed.

RICHARD

(Smiles.) That is your way of saying that she proposed what I would not accept.

ROBERT

(Nods.) I remember. And she went away with you. But was it of her own free choice? Answer me frankly.

RICHARD

(Turns to him, calmly.) I played for her against all that you say or can say; and I won.

ROBERT

(Nodding again.) Yes, you won.

RICHARD

(Rises.) Excuse me for forgetting. Will you have some whisky?

ROBERT

All things come to those who wait.

(Richard goes to the sideboard and brings a small tray with the decanter and glasses to the table where he sets it down.)

RICHARD

(Sits down again, leaning back on the lounge.) Will you please help yourself?

ROBERT

(Does so.) And you? Steadfast? (Richard shakes his head.) Lord, when I think of our wild nights long ago-- talks by the hour, plans, carouses, revelry...

RICHARD

In our house.

ROBERT

It is mine now. I have kept it ever since though I don't go there often. Whenever you like to come let me know. You must come some night. It will be old times again. (He lifts his glass, and drinks.) Prosit!

RICHARD

It was not only a house of revelry; it was to be the hearth of a new life. (Musing.) And in that name all our sins were committed.

ROBERT

Sins! Drinking and blasphemy (he points) by me. And drinking and heresy, much worse (he points again) by you-- are those the sins you mean?

RICHARD

And some others.

ROBERT

(Lightly, uneasily.) You mean the women. I have no remorse of conscience. Maybe you have. We had two keys on those occasions. (Maliciously.) Have you?

RICHARD

(Irritated.) For you it was all quite natural?

ROBERT

For me it is quite natural to kiss a woman whom I like. Why not? She is beautiful for me.

RICHARD

(Toying with the lounge cushion.) Do you kiss everything that is beautiful for you?

ROBERT

Everything-- if it can be kissed. (He takes up a flat stone which lies on the table.) This stone, for instance. It is so cool, so polished, so delicate, like a woman's temple. It is silent, it suffers our passion; and it is beautiful. (He places it against his lips.) And so I kiss it because it is beautiful. And what is a woman? A work of nature, too, like a stone or a flower or a bird. A kiss is an act of homage.

RICHARD

It is an act of union between man and woman. Even if we are often led to desire through the sense of beauty can you say that the beautiful is what we desire?

ROBERT

(Pressing the stone to his forehead.) You will give me a headache if you make me think today. I cannot think today. I feel too natural, too common. After all, what is most attractive in even the most beautiful woman?

RICHARD

What?

ROBERT

Not those qualities which she has and other women have not but the qualities which she has in common with them. I mean... the commonest. (Turning over the stone, he presses the other side to his forehead.) I mean how her body develops heat when it is pressed, the movement of her blood, how quickly she changes by digestion what she eats into-- what shall be nameless. (Laughing.) I am very common today. Perhaps that idea never struck you?

RICHARD

(Drily.) Many ideas strike a man who has lived nine years with a woman.

ROBERT

Yes. I suppose they do.... This beautiful cool stone does me good. Is it a paperweight or a cure for headache?

RICHARD

Bertha brought it home one day from the strand. She, too, says that it is beautiful.

ROBERT

(Lays down the stone quietly.) She is right.

(He raises his glass, and drinks. A pause.)

RICHARD

Is that all you wanted to say to me?

ROBERT

(Quickly.) There is something else. The vicechancellor sends you, through me, an invitation for tonight-- to dinner at his house. You know where he lives? (Richard nods.) I thought you might have forgotten. Strictly private, of course. He wants to meet you again and sends you a very warm invitation.

RICHARD

For what hour?

ROBERT

Eight. But, like yourself, he is free and easy about time. Now, Richard, you must go there. That is all. I feel tonight will be the turningpoint in your life. You will live here and work here and think here and be honoured here-- among our people.

RICHARD

(Smiling.) I can almost see two envoys starting for the United States to collect funds for my statue a hundred years hence.

ROBERT

(Agreeably.) Once I made a little epigram about statues. All statues are of two kinds. (He folds his arms across his chest.) The statue which says: How shall I get down? and the other kind (he unfolds his arms and extends his right arm, averting his head) the statue which says: In my time the dunghill was so high.

RICHARD

The second one for me, please.

ROBERT

(Lazily.) Will you give me one of those long cigars of yours?

(Richard selects a Virginia cigar from the box on the table and hands it to him with the straw drawn out.)

ROBERT

(Lighting it.) These cigars Europeanize me. If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European. And that is what you are here for, Richard. Some day we shall have to choose between England and Europe. I am a descendant of the dark foreigners: that is why I like to be here. I may be childish. But where else in Dublin can I get a bandit cigar like this or a cup of black coffee? The man who drinks black coffee is going to conquer Ireland. And now I will take just a half measure of that whisky, Richard, to show you there is no ill feeling.

RICHARD

(Points.) Help yourself.

ROBERT

(Does so.) Thanks. (He drinks and goes on as before.) Then you yourself, the way you loll on that lounge: then your boy's voice and also-- Bertha herself. Do you allow me to call her that, Richard? I mean as an old friend of both of you.

RICHARD

O, why not?

ROBERT

(With animation.) You have that fierce indignation which lacerated the heart of Swift. You have fallen from a higher world, Richard, and you are filled with fierce indignation, when you find that life is cowardly and ignoble. While I... shall I tell you?

RICHARD

By all means.

ROBERT

(Archly.) I have come up from a lower world and I am filled with astonishment when I find that people have any redeeming virtue at all.

RICHARD

(Sits up suddenly and leans his elbows on the table.) You are my friend, then?

ROBERT

(Gravely.) I fought for you all the time you were away. I fought to bring you back. I fought to keep your place for you here. I will fight for you still because I have faith in you, the faith of a disciple in his master. I cannot say more than that. It may seem strange to you... Give me a match.

RICHARD

(Lights and offers him a match.) There is a faith still stranger than the faith of the disciple in his master.

ROBERT

And that is?

RICHARD

The faith of a master in the disciple who will betray him.

ROBERT

The church lost a theologian in you, Richard. But I think you look too deeply into life. (He rises, pressing Richard's arm slightly.) Be gay. Life is not worth it.

RICHARD

(Without rising.) Are you going?

ROBERT

Must. (He turns and says in a friendly tone.) Then it is all arranged. We meet tonight at the vicechancellor's. I shall look in at about ten. So you can have an hour or so to yourselves first. You will wait till I come?

RICHARD

Good.

ROBERT

One more match and I am happy.

(Richard strikes another match, hands it to him and rises also. Archie comes in by the door on the left, followed by Beatrice.)

ROBERT

Congratulate me, Beatty. I have won over Richard.

ARCHIE

(Crossing to the door on the right, calls.) Mamma, Miss Justice is going.

BEATRICE

On what are you to be congratulated?

ROBERT

On a victory, of course. (Laying his hand lightly on Richard's shoulder.) The descendant of Archibald Hamilton Rowan has come home.

RICHARD

I am not a descendant of Hamilton Rowan.

ROBERT

What matter? (Bertha comes in from the right with a bowl of roses.)

BEATRICE

Has Mr Rowan...?

ROBERT

(Turning towards Bertha.) Richard is coming tonight to the vicechancellor's dinner. The fatted calf will be eaten: roast, I hope. And next session will see the descendant of a namesake of etcetera, etcetera in a chair of the university. (He offers his hand.) Good afternoon, Richard. We shall meet tonight.

RICHARD

(Touches his hand.) At Philippi.

BEATRICE

(Shakes hands also.) Accept my best wishes, Mr Rowan.

RICHARD

Thanks. But do not believe him.

ROBERT

(Vivaciously.) Believe me, believe me. (To Bertha.) Good afternoon, Mrs Rowan.

BERTHA

(Shaking hands, candidly.) I thank you, too. (To Beatrice.) You won't stay to tea, Miss Justice?

BEATRICE

No, thank you. (Takes leave of her.) I must go. Good afternoon. Goodbye, Archie (going).

ROBERT

Addio, Archibald.

ARCHIE

Addio.

ROBERT

Wait, Beatty. I shall accompany you.

BEATRICE

(Going out on the right with Bertha.) O, don't trouble.

ROBERT

(Following her.) But I insist-- as a cousin.

(Bertha, Beatrice and Robert go out by the door on the left. Richard stands irresolutely near the table. Archie closes the door leading to the hall and, coming over to him, plucks him by the sleeve.)

ARCHIE

I say, pappie!

RICHARD

(Absently.) What is it?

ARCHIE

I want to ask you a thing.

RICHARD

(Sitting on the end of the lounge, stares in front of him.) What is it?

ARCHIE

Will you ask mamma to let me go out in the morning with the milkman?

RICHARD

With the milkman?

ARCHIE

Yes. In the milkcar. He says he will let me drive when we get on to the roads where there are no people. The horse is a very good beast. Can I go?

RICHARD

Yes.

ARCHIE

Ask mamma now can I go. Will you?

RICHARD

(Glances towards the door.) I will.

ARCHIE

He said he will show me the cows he has in the field. Do you know how many cows he has?

RICHARD

How many?

ARCHIE

Eleven. Eight red and three white. But one is sick now. No, not sick. But it fell.

RICHARD

Cows?

ARCHIE

(With a gesture.) Eh! Not bulls. Because bulls give no milk. Eleven cows. They must give a lot of milk. What makes a cow give milk?

RICHARD

(Takes his hand.) Who knows? Do you understand what it is to give a thing?

ARCHIE

To give? Yes.

RICHARD

While you have a thing it can be taken from you.

ARCHIE

By robbers? No?

RICHARD

But when you give it, you have given it. No robber can take it from you. (He bends his head and presses his son's hand against his cheek.) It is yours then for ever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give.

ARCHIE

But, pappie?

RICHARD

Yes?

ARCHIE

How could a robber rob a cow? Everyone would see him. In the night, perhaps.

RICHARD

In the night, yes.

ARCHIE

Are there robbers here like in Rome?

RICHARD

There are poor people everywhere.

ARCHIE

Have they revolvers?

RICHARD

No.

ARCHIE

Knives? Have they knives?

RICHARD

(Sternly.) Yes, yes. Knives and revolvers.

ARCHIE

(Disengages himself.) Ask mamma now. She is coming.

RICHARD

(Makes a movement to rise.) I will.

ARCHIE

No, sit there, pappie. You wait and ask her when she comes back. I won't be here. I'll be in the garden.

RICHARD

(Sinking back again.) Yes. Go.

ARCHIE

(Kisses him swiftly.) Thanks.

(He runs out quickly by the door at the back leading into the garden. Bertha enters by the door on the left. She approaches the table and stands beside it, fingering the petals of the roses, looking at Richard.)

RICHARD

(Watching her.) Well?

BERTHA

(Absently.) Well. He says he likes me.

RICHARD

(Leans his chin in his hand.) You showed him his note?

BERTHA

Yes. I asked him what it meant.

RICHARD

What did he say it meant?

BERTHA

He said I must know. I said I had an idea. Then he told me he liked me very much. That I was beautiful-- and all that.

RICHARD

Since when!

BERTHA

(Again absently.) Since when-- what?

RICHARD

Since when did he say he liked you?

BERTHA

Always, he said. But more since we came back. He said I was like the moon in this lavender dress. (Looking at him.) Had you any words with him-- about me?

RICHARD

(Blandly.) The usual thing. Not about you.

BERTHA

He was very nervous. You saw that?

RICHARD

Yes. I saw it. What else went on?

BERTHA

He asked me to give him my hand.

RICHARD

(Smiling.) In marriage?

BERTHA

(Smiling.) No, only to hold.

RICHARD

Did you?

BERTHA

Yes. (Tearing off a few petals.) Then he caressed my hand and asked would I let him kiss it. I let him.

RICHARD

Well?

BERTHA

Then he asked could he embrace me-- even once? ..and then...

RICHARD

And then?

BERTHA

He put his arm round me.

RICHARD

(Stares at the floor for a moment, then looks at her again.) And then?

BERTHA

He said I had beautiful eyes. And asked could he kiss them. (With a gesture.) I said: Do so.

RICHARD

And he did?

BERTHA

Yes. First one and then the other. (She breaks off suddenly.) Tell me, Dick, does all this disturb you? Because I told you I don't want that. I think you are only pretending you don't mind. I don't mind.

RICHARD

(Quietly.) I know, dear. But I want to find out what he means or feels just as you do.

BERTHA

(Points at him.) Remember, you allowed me to go on. I told you the whole thing from the beginning.

RICHARD

(As before.) I know, dear... And then?

BERTHA

He asked for a kiss. I said: Take it.

RICHARD

And then?

BERTHA

(Crumpling a handful of petals.) He kissed me.

RICHARD

Your mouth?

BERTHA

Once or twice.

RICHARD

Long kisses?

BERTHA

Fairly long. (Reflects.) Yes, the last time.

RICHARD

(Rubs his hands slowly; then:) With his lips? Or... the other way?

BERTHA

Yes, the last time.

RICHARD

Did he ask you to kiss him?

BERTHA

He did.

RICHARD

Did you?

BERTHA

(Hesitates, then looking straight at him.) I did. I kissed him.

RICHARD

What way?

BERTHA

(With a shrug.) O simply.

RICHARD

Were you excited?

BERTHA

Well, you can imagine. (Frowning suddenly.) Not much. He has not nice lips... Still I was excited, of course. But not like with you, Dick.

RICHARD

Was he?

BERTHA

Excited? Yes, I think he was. He sighed. He was dreadfully nervous.

RICHARD

(Resting his forehead on his hand.) I see.

BERTHA

(Crosses towards the lounge and stands near him.) Are you jealous?

RICHARD

(As before.) No.

BERTHA

(Quietly.) You are, Dick.

RICHARD

I am not. Jealous of what?

BERTHA

Because he kissed me.

RICHARD

(Looks up.) Is that all?

BERTHA

Yes, that's all. Except that he asked me would I meet him.

RICHARD

Out somewhere?

BERTHA

No. In his house.

RICHARD

(Surprised.) Over there with his mother, is it?

BERTHA

No, a house he has. He wrote the address for me.

(She goes to the desk, takes the key from the flower vase, unlocks the drawer and returns to him with the slip of paper.)

RICHARD

(Half to himself.) Our cottage.

BERTHA

(Hands him the slip.) Here.

RICHARD

(Reads it.) Yes. Our cottage.

BERTHA

Your...?

RICHARD

No, his. I call it ours. (Looking at her.) The cottage I told you about so often-- that we had the two keys for, he and I. It is his now. Where we used to hold our wild nights, talking, drinking, planning-- at that time. Wild nights; yes. He and I together. (He throws the slip on the couch and rises suddenly.) And sometimes I alone. (Stares at her.) But not quite alone. I told you. You remember?

BERTHA

(Shocked.) That place?

RICHARD

(Walks away from her a few paces and stands still, thinking, holding his chin.) Yes.

BERTHA

(Taking up the slip again.) Where is it?

RICHARD

Do you not know?

BERTHA

He told me to take the tram at Lansdowne Road and to ask the man to let me down there. Is it... is it a bad place?

RICHARD

O no, cottages. (He returns to the lounge and sits down.) What answer did you give?

BERTHA

No answer. He said he would wait.

RICHARD

Tonight?

BERTHA

Every night, he said. Between eight and nine.

RICHARD

And so I am to go tonight to interview-- the professor. About the appointment I am to beg for. (Looking at her.) The interview is arranged for tonight by him-- between eight and nine. Curious, isn't it? The same hour.

BERTHA

Very.

RICHARD

Did he ask you had I any suspicion?

BERTHA

No.

RICHARD

Did he mention my name?

BERTHA

No.

RICHARD

Not once?

BERTHA

Not that I remember.

RICHARD

(Bounding to his feet.) O yes! Quite clear!

BERTHA

What?

RICHARD

(Striding to and fro.) A liar, a thief, and a fool! Quite clear! A common thief! What else? (With a harsh laugh.) My great friend! A patriot too! A thief-- nothing else! (He halts, thrusting his hands into his pockets.) But a fool also!

BERTHA

(Looking at him.) What are you going to do?

RICHARD

(Shortly.) Follow him. Find him. Tell him. (Calmly.) A few words will do. Thief and fool.

BERTHA

(Flings the slip on the couch.) I see it all!

RICHARD

(Turning.) Eh!

BERTHA

(Hotly.) The work of a devil.

RICHARD

He?

BERTHA

(Turning on him.) No, you! The work of a devil to turn him against me as you tried to turn my own child against me. Only you did not succeed.

RICHARD

How? In God's name, how?

BERTHA

(Excitedly.) Yes, yes. What I say. Everyone saw it. Whenever I tried to correct him for the least thing you went on with your folly, speaking to him as if he were a grownup man. Ruining the poor child, or trying to. Then, of course, I was the cruel mother and only you loved him. (With growing excitement.) But you did not turn him against me-- against his own mother. Because why? Because the child has too much nature in him.

RICHARD

I never tried to do such a thing, Bertha. You know I cannot be severe with a child.

BERTHA

Because you never loved your own mother. A mother is always a mother, no matter what. I never heard of any human being that did not love the mother that brought him into the world, except you.

RICHARD

(Approaching her quietly.) Bertha, do not say things you will be sorry for. Are you not glad my son is fond of me?

BERTHA

Who taught him to be? Who taught him to run to meet you? Who told him you would bring him home toys when you were out on your rambles in the rain, forgetting all about him-- and me? I did. I taught him to love you.

RICHARD

Yes, dear. I know it was you.

BERTHA

(Almost crying.) And then you try to turn everyone against me. All is to be for you. I am to appear false and cruel to everyone except to you. Because you take advantage of my simplicity as you did-- the first time.

RICHARD

(Violently.) And you have the courage to say that to me?

BERTHA

(Facing him.) Yes, I have! Both then and now. Because I am simple you think you can do what you like with me. (Gesticulating.) Follow him now. Call him names. Make him be humble before you and make him despise me. Follow him!

RICHARD

(Controlling himself.) You forget that I have allowed you complete liberty-- and allow you it still.

BERTHA

(Scornfully.) Liberty!

RICHARD

Yes, complete. But he must know that I know. (More calmly.) I will speak to him quietly. (Appealing.) Bertha, believe me, dear! It is not jealousy. You have complete liberty to do as you wish-- you and he. But not in this way. He will not despise you. You don't wish to deceive me or to pretend to deceive me-- with him, do you?

BERTHA

No, I do not. (Looking full at him.) Which of us two is the deceiver?

RICHARD

Of us? You and me?

BERTHA

(In a calm decided tone.) I know why you have allowed me what you call complete liberty.

RICHARD

Why?

BERTHA

To have complete liberty with-- that girl.

RICHARD

(Irritated.) But, good God, you knew about that this long time. I never hid it.

BERTHA

You did. I thought it was a kind of friendship between you-- till we came back, and then I saw.

RICHARD

So it is, Bertha.

BERTHA

(Shakes her head.) No, no. It is much more; and that is why you give me complete liberty. All those things you sit up at night to write about (pointing to the study) in there-- about her. You call that friendship?

RICHARD

Believe me, Bertha dear. Believe me as I believe you.

BERTHA

(With an impulsive gesture) My God, I feel it! I know it! What else is between you but love?

RICHARD

(Calmly.) You are trying to put that idea into my head but I warn you that I don't take my ideas from other people.

BERTHA

(Hotly.) It is, it is! And that is why you allow him to go on. Of course! It doesn't affect you. You love her.

RICHARD

Love! (Throws out his hands with a sigh and moves away from her.) I cannot argue with you.

BERTHA

You can't because I am right. (Following him a few steps.) What would anyone say?

RICHARD

(Turns to her.) Do you think I care?

BERTHA

But I care. What would he say if he knew? You, who talk so much of the high kind of feeling you have for me, expressing yourself in that way to another woman. If he did it, or other men, I could understand because they are all false pretenders. But you, Dick! Why do you not tell him then?

RICHARD

You can if you like.

BERTHA

I will. Certainly I will.

RICHARD

(Coolly.) He will explain it to you.

BERTHA

He doesn't say one thing and do another. He is honest in his own way.

RICHARD

(Plucks one of the roses and throws it at her feet.) He is, indeed! The soul of honour!

BERTHA

You may make fun of him as much as you like. I understand more than you think about that business. And so will he. Writing those long letters to her for years, and she to you. For years. But since I came back I understand it-- well.

RICHARD

You do not. Nor would he.

BERTHA

(Laughs scornfully.) Of course. Neither he nor I can understand it. Only she can. Because it is such a deep thing!

RICHARD

(Angrily.) Neither he nor you-- nor she either! Not one of you!

BERTHA

(With great bitterness.) She will! She will understand it! The diseased woman!

(She turns away and walks over to the little table on the right. Richard restrains a sudden gesture. A short pause.)

RICHARD

(Gravely.) Bertha, take care of uttering words like that!

BERTHA

(Turning, excitedly.) I don't mean any harm! I feel for her more than you can because I am a woman. I do, sincerely. But what I say is true.

RICHARD

Is it generous? Think.

BERTHA

(Pointing towards the garden.) It is she who is not generous. Remember now what I say.

RICHARD

What?

BERTHA

(Comes nearer; in a calmer tone.) You have given that woman very much, Dick. And she may be worthy of it. And she may understand it all, too. I know she is that kind.

RICHARD

Do you believe that?

BERTHA

I do. But I believe you will get very little from her in return-- or from any of her clan. Remember my words, Dick. Because she is not generous and they are not generous. Is it all wrong what I am saying? Is it?

RICHARD

(Darkly.) No. Not all.

(She stoops and, picking up the rose from the floor, places it in the vase again. He watches her. Brigid appears at the folding doors on the right.)

BRIGID

The tea is on the table, ma'am.

BERTHA

Very well.

BRIGID

Is Master Archie in the garden?

BERTHA

Yes. Call him in.

(Brigid crosses the room and goes out into the garden. Bertha goes towards the doors on the right. At the lounge she stops and takes up the slip.)

BRIGID

(In the garden.) Master Archie! You are to come in to your tea.

BERTHA

Am I to go to this place?

RICHARD

Do you want to go?

BERTHA

I want to find out what he means. Am I to go?

RICHARD

Why do you ask me? Decide yourself.

BERTHA

Do you tell me to go?

RICHARD

No.

BERTHA

Do you forbid me to go?

RICHARD

No.

BRIGID

(From the garden.) Come quickly, Master Archie! Your tea is waiting on you.

(Brigis crosses the room and goes out through the folding doors. Bertha folds the slip into the waist of her dress and goes slowly towards the right. Near the door she turns and halts.)

BERTHA

Tell me not to go and I will not.

RICHARD

(Without looking at her.) Decide yourself.

BERTHA

Will you blame me then?

RICHARD

(Excitedly.) No, no! I will not blame you. You are free. I cannot blame you.

(Archie appears at the garden door.)

BERTHA

I did not deceive you. (She goes out through the folding doors. Richard remains standing at the table. Archie, when his mother has gone, runs down to Richard.)

ARCHIE

(Quickly.) Well, did you ask her?

RICHARD

(Starting.) What?

ARCHIE

Can I go?

RICHARD

Yes.

ARCHIE

In the morning? She said yes?

RICHARD

Yes. In the morning.

(He puts his arm round his son's shoulders and looks down at him fondly.)

Read More......