3. Proteus
Link every word (may take a few seconds)
[1775][ 3 ]
[1776]
[1777]Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought
[1778]through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn
[1779]and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver,
[1780]rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies.
[1781]Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By
[1782]knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a
[1783]millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why
[1784]in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it
[1785]is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.
[1786]
[1787]Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and
[1788]shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time.
[1789]A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six:
[1790]the nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the
[1791]audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles
[1792]o’er his base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably! I am
[1793]getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with
[1794]it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs,
[1795]nebeneinander. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of Los Demiurgos. Am
[1796]I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick,
[1797]crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a’.
[1798]
[1799] Won’t you come to Sandymount,
[1800] Madeline the mare?
[1801]Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs
[1802]marching. No, agallop: deline the mare.
[1803]
[1804]Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I
[1805]open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. Basta! I will see if I can
[1806]see.
[1807]
[1808]See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world
[1809]without end.
[1810]
[1811]They came down the steps from Leahy’s terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer:
[1812]and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in
[1813]the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother.
[1814]Number one swung lourdily her midwife’s bag, the other’s gamp poked
[1815]in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe,
[1816]relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One
[1817]of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing.
[1818]What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed
[1819]in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of
[1820]all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your
[1821]omphalos. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha:
[1822]nought, nought, one.
[1823]
[1824]Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel.
[1825]Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum,
[1826]no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to
[1827]everlasting. Womb of sin.
[1828]
[1829]Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man
[1830]with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath.
[1831]They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will. From before the
[1832]ages He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A lex eterna
[1833]stays about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and
[1834]Son are consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions?
[1835]Warring his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality.
[1836]Illstarred heresiarch! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last:
[1837]euthanasia. With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne,
[1838]widower of a widowed see, with upstiffed omophorion, with clotted
[1839]hinderparts.
[1840]
[1841]Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves.
[1842]The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of
[1843]Mananaan.
[1844]
[1845]I mustn’t forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half
[1846]twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile.
[1847]Yes, I must.
[1848]
[1849]His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara’s or not? My
[1850]consubstantial father’s voice. Did you see anything of your artist
[1851]brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he’s not down in Strasburg terrace
[1852]with his aunt Sally? Couldn’t he fly a bit higher than that, eh?
[1853]And and and and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the
[1854]things I married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little
[1855]costdrawer and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable
[1856]gondoliers! And skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes,
[1857]sir. No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ!
[1858]
[1859]I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take
[1860]me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.
[1861]
[1862]—It’s Stephen, sir.
[1863]
[1864]—Let him in. Let Stephen in.
[1865]
[1866]A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me.
[1867]
[1868]—We thought you were someone else.
[1869]
[1870]In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the
[1871]hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the
[1872]upper moiety.
[1873]
[1874]—Morrow, nephew.
[1875]
[1876]He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for
[1877]the eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and
[1878]common searches and a writ of Duces Tecum. A bogoak frame over his bald
[1879]head: Wilde’s Requiescat. The drone of his misleading whistle brings
[1880]Walter back.
[1881]
[1882]—Yes, sir?
[1883]
[1884]—Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she?
[1885]
[1886]—Bathing Crissie, sir.
[1887]
[1888]Papa’s little bedpal. Lump of love.
[1889]
[1890]—No, uncle Richie...
[1891]
[1892]—Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky!
[1893]
[1894]—Uncle Richie, really...
[1895]
[1896]—Sit down or by the law Harry I’ll knock you down.
[1897]
[1898]Walter squints vainly for a chair.
[1899]
[1900]—He has nothing to sit down on, sir.
[1901]
[1902]—He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair.
[1903]Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs
[1904]here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the
[1905]better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills.
[1906]
[1907]All’erta!
[1908]
[1909]He drones bars of Ferrando’s aria di sortita. The grandest number,
[1910]Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen.
[1911]
[1912]His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the air,
[1913]his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees.
[1914]
[1915]This wind is sweeter.
[1916]
[1917]Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you
[1918]had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of
[1919]them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh’s
[1920]library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom?
[1921]The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind
[1922]ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon,
[1923]his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine faces,
[1924]Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas father, furious
[1925]dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! Descende, calve, ut
[1926]ne nimium decalveris. A garland of grey hair on his comminated head
[1927]see him me clambering down to the footpace (descende!), clutching a
[1928]monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! A choir gives back menace
[1929]and echo, assisting about the altar’s horns, the snorted Latin of
[1930]jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded,
[1931]fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat.
[1932]
[1933]And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating
[1934]it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx.
[1935]Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own
[1936]cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that,
[1937]invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled
[1938]his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his
[1939]second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and,
[1940]rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang
[1941]in diphthong.
[1942]
[1943]Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were
[1944]awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you
[1945]might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue
[1946]that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the
[1947]wet street. O si, certo! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned
[1948]round a squaw. More tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth tram
[1949]alone crying to the rain: Naked women! Naked women! What about that, eh?
[1950]
[1951]What about what? What else were they invented for?
[1952]
[1953]Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young.
[1954]You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause
[1955]earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one
[1956]saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles.
[1957]Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O
[1958]yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply
[1959]deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the
[1960]world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few
[1961]thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very
[1962]like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one
[1963]feels that one is at one with one who once...
[1964]
[1965]The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again
[1966]a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the
[1967]unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada.
[1968]Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing
[1969]upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a
[1970]midden of man’s ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle
[1971]stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel:
[1972]isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze
[1973]of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the
[1974]higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams
[1975]of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.
[1976]
[1977]He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara’s. Am I not going there?
[1978]Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand
[1979]towards the Pigeonhouse.
[1980]
[1981]—Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?
[1982]
[1983]—C’est le pigeon, Joseph.
[1984]
[1985]Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon.
[1986]Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father’s a bird, he
[1987]lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny’s
[1988]face. Lap, lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of
[1989]women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jésus by M.
[1990]Léo Taxil. Lent it to his friend.
[1991]
[1992]—C’est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas
[1993]en l’existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père.
[1994]
[1995]—Il croit?
[1996]
[1997]—Mon père, oui.
[1998]
[1999]Schluss. He laps.
[2000]
[2001]My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want
[2002]puce gloves. You were a student, weren’t you? Of what in the other
[2003]devil’s name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: physiques, chimiques et
[2004]naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of
[2005]Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone:
[2006]when I was in Paris; boul’ Mich’, I used to. Yes, used to carry
[2007]punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder
[2008]somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the
[2009]prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me.
[2010]Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c’est moi. You seem to have enjoyed
[2011]yourself.
[2012]
[2013]Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a
[2014]dispossessed. With mother’s money order, eight shillings, the banging
[2015]door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger
[2016]toothache. Encore deux minutes. Look clock. Must get. Fermé. Hired dog!
[2017]Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls
[2018]all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O,
[2019]that’s all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that’s all
[2020]right. Shake a shake. O, that’s all only all right.
[2021]
[2022]You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery
[2023]Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt
[2024]from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: Euge! Euge! Pretending to speak
[2025]broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the
[2026]slimy pier at Newhaven. Comment? Rich booty you brought back; Le Tutu,
[2027]five tattered numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge; a blue French
[2028]telegram, curiosity to show:
[2029]
[2030]—Mother dying come home father.
[2031]
[2032]The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That’s why she won’t.
[2033]
[2034] Then here’s a health to Mulligan’s aunt
[2035] And I’ll tell you the reason why.
[2036] She always kept things decent in
[2037] The Hannigan famileye.
[2038]His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by
[2039]the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone
[2040]mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is
[2041]there, the slender trees, the lemon houses.
[2042]
[2043]Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of
[2044]farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the
[2045]air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife, the
[2046]kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand.
[2047]In Rodot’s Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties,
[2048]shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry, their mouths yellowed
[2049]with the pus of flan bréton. Faces of Paris men go by, their
[2050]wellpleased pleasers, curled conquistadores.
[2051]
[2052]Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers
[2053]smeared with printer’s ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his
[2054]white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. Un demi
[2055]sétier! A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me
[2056]at his beck. Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais,
[2057]nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui! She thought you wanted a cheese
[2058]hollandais. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial.
[2059]There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call
[2060]it his postprandial. Well: slainte! Around the slabbed tables the
[2061]tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over
[2062]our saucestained plates, the green fairy’s fang thrusting between his
[2063]lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur
[2064]Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his
[2065]yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You’re your father’s son.
[2066]I know the voice. His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its
[2067]Spanish tassels at his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont,
[2068]know what he called queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth.
[2069]Vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, La
[2070]Patrie, M. Millevoye, Félix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men.
[2071]The froeken, bonne à tout faire, who rubs male nakedness in the bath
[2072]at Upsala. Moi faire, she said, Tous les messieurs. Not this Monsieur,
[2073]I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn’t
[2074]let my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green
[2075]eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.
[2076]
[2077]The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose
[2078]tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw
[2079]facebones under his peep of day boy’s hat. How the head centre
[2080]got away, authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil,
[2081]orangeblossoms, drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost
[2082]leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not
[2083]here.
[2084]
[2085]Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell you.
[2086]I’ll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love
[2087]he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the
[2088]walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them
[2089]upward in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree
[2090]he hides, Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day’s
[2091]stations, the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre
[2092]lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutte-d’Or, damascened with
[2093]flyblown faces of the gone. Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite
[2094]nicey comfy without her outcast man, madame in rue Gît-le-Cœur, canary
[2095]and two buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young
[2096]thing’s. Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat you saw me, won’t you?
[2097]I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. Mon fils, soldier of France. I
[2098]taught him to sing The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades.
[2099]Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that. Old Kilkenny: saint Canice,
[2100]Strongbow’s castle on the Nore. Goes like this. O, O. He takes me,
[2101]Napper Tandy, by the hand.
[2102]
[2103] O, O the boys of
[2104] Kilkenny...
[2105]Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them.
[2106]Remembering thee, O Sion.
[2107]
[2108]He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots.
[2109]The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of
[2110]seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship,
[2111]am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the
[2112]quaking soil. Turn back.
[2113]
[2114]Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly
[2115]in new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the
[2116]barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my
[2117]feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk,
[2118]nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait,
[2119]their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned
[2120]platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when
[2121]this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their blind
[2122]bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his
[2123]feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take
[2124]all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon’s
[2125]midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing
[2126]Elsinore’s tempting flood.
[2127]
[2128]The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back
[2129]then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge
[2130]and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a
[2131]grike.
[2132]
[2133]A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the
[2134]gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. Un coche ensablé Louis Veuillot called
[2135]Gautier’s prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have
[2136]silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of
[2137]weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones.
[2138]Heavy of the past. Sir Lout’s toys. Mind you don’t get one bang
[2139]on the ear. I’m the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well
[2140]boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz
[2141]an Iridzman.
[2142]
[2143]A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
[2144]Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not
[2145]be master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From
[2146]farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures,
[2147]two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes.
[2148]Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?
[2149]
[2150]Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
[2151]bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings,
[2152]torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the
[2153]collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon,
[2154]spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city
[2155]a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers’ knives, running,
[2156]scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and
[2157]slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among
[2158]them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering
[2159]resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me.
[2160]
[2161]The dog’s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy.
[2162]I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Terribilia meditans. A
[2163]primrose doublet, fortune’s knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you
[2164]pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The
[2165]Bruce’s brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck,
[2166]York’s false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of
[2167]a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion
[2168]crowned. All kings’ sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He
[2169]saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur’s yelping. But the
[2170]courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house.
[2171]House of... We don’t want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would
[2172]you do what he did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. Natürlich, put
[2173]there for you. Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine
[2174]days ago off Maiden’s rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth,
[2175]spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer.
[2176]Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes.
[2177]Can’t see! Who’s behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the
[2178]tide flowing quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly,
[2179]shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still
[2180]to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me
[2181]out of horror of his death. I... With him together down... I could not
[2182]save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.
[2183]
[2184]A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet.
[2185]
[2186]Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on
[2187]all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made
[2188]off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a
[2189]lowskimming gull. The man’s shrieked whistle struck his limp ears.
[2190]He turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a
[2191]field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of
[2192]the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His
[2193]snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented
[2194]towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking,
[2195]plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves.
[2196]
[2197]Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping,
[2198]soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped
[2199]running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again
[2200]reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them
[2201]as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting
[2202]from his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off
[2203]at a calf’s gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed,
[2204]stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling
[2205]rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog’s bedraggled fell. Dogskull,
[2206]dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor
[2207]dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody’s body.
[2208]
[2209]—Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!
[2210]
[2211]The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless
[2212]kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He
[2213]slunk back in a curve. Doesn’t see me. Along by the edge of the mole
[2214]he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg
[2215]pissed against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg,
[2216]pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor.
[2217]His hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and
[2218]delved. Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the
[2219]sand, dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the
[2220]sand again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther,
[2221]got in spousebreach, vulturing the dead.
[2222]
[2223]After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway.
[2224]Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That
[2225]man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my
[2226]face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red
[2227]carpet spread. You will see who.
[2228]
[2229]Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet
[2230]out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler
[2231]strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the
[2232]ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and
[2233]shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed.
[2234]Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides
[2235]her body’s flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway
[2236]where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in
[2237]O’Loughlin’s of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues’ rum lingo,
[2238]for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend’s whiteness under her
[2239]rancid rags. Fumbally’s lane that night: the tanyard smells.
[2240]
[2241] White thy fambles, red thy gan
[2242] And thy quarrons dainty is.
[2243] Couch a hogshead with me then.
[2244] In the darkmans clip and kiss.
[2245]Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, frate porcospino.
[2246]Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: thy quarrons
[2247]dainty is. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber
[2248]on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets.
[2249]
[2250]Passing now.
[2251]
[2252]A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit?
[2253]I am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun’s
[2254]flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges,
[2255]schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering,
[2256]moondrawn, in her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not
[2257]mine, oinopa ponton, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon.
[2258]In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed,
[2259]bed of death, ghostcandled. Omnis caro ad te veniet. He comes, pale
[2260]vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth
[2261]to her mouth’s kiss.
[2262]
[2263]Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.
[2264]No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth’s kiss.
[2265]
[2266]His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb.
[2267]Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched:
[2268]ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring
[2269]wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy’s
[2270]letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off.
[2271]Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and
[2272]scribbled words. That’s twice I forgot to take slips from the library
[2273]counter.
[2274]
[2275]His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till
[2276]the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness
[2277]shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there
[2278]with his augur’s rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a
[2279]livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth
[2280]stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it
[2281]back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here?
[2282]Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field.
[2283]Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne
[2284]took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with
[2285]coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat:
[2286]yes, that’s right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat
[2287]I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in
[2288]stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is
[2289]in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our
[2290]sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the
[2291]more.
[2292]
[2293]She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue
[2294]hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of
[2295]the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges
[2296]Figgis’ window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you
[2297]were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the
[2298]braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief
[2299]and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a
[2300]pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and
[2301]yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings,
[2302]piuttosto. Where are your wits?
[2303]
[2304]Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me
[2305]soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone.
[2306]Sad too. Touch, touch me.
[2307]
[2308]He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled
[2309]note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes. That is
[2310]Kevin Egan’s movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. Et
[2311]vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona. Alo! Bonjour. Welcome as the flowers
[2312]in May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes
[2313]the southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan’s hour, the
[2314]faunal noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on
[2315]the tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far.
[2316]
[2317] And no more turn aside and brood.
[2318]His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck’s castoffs,
[2319]nebeneinander. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein
[2320]another’s foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in
[2321]tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt’s
[2322]shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. Tiens, quel petit pied! Staunch
[2323]friend, a brother soul: Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name. His
[2324]arm: Cranly’s arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I am. As I
[2325]am. All or not at all.
[2326]
[2327]In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering
[2328]greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float
[2329]away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the
[2330]low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a
[2331]fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of
[2332]waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops:
[2333]flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It
[2334]flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.
[2335]
[2336]Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and
[2337]sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water
[2338]swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night:
[2339]lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to,
[2340]they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting,
[2341]awaiting the fullness of their times, diebus ac noctibus iniurias
[2342]patiens ingemiscit. To no end gathered; vainly then released,
[2343]forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of
[2344]lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a
[2345]toil of waters.
[2346]
[2347]Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he
[2348]said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose
[2349]drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising
[2350]saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward.
[2351]There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery
[2352]floor. We have him. Easy now.
[2353]
[2354]Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a
[2355]spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly.
[2356]God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed
[2357]mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a
[2358]urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes
[2359]upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to
[2360]the sun.
[2361]
[2362]A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
[2363]known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: beware of imitations.
[2364]Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.
[2365]
[2366]Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
[2367]Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect,
[2368]Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum. No. My cockle hat and staff and hismy
[2369]sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.
[2370]
[2371]He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying
[2372]still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make
[2373]their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest
[2374]day. Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn
[2375]Tennyson, gentleman poet. Già. For the old hag with the yellow teeth.
[2376]And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. Già. My teeth are very
[2377]bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a
[2378]dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the
[2379]superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps?
[2380]
[2381]My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?
[2382]
[2383]His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn’t. Better buy one.
[2384]
[2385]He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
[2386]carefully. For the rest let look who will.
[2387]
[2388]Behind. Perhaps there is someone.
[2389]
[2390]He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the
[2391]air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees,
[2392]homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.
[2393]
[2394]
[2395]
[2396]
[2397]
[2398]
[2399]— II —
[2400]
[2401]
[2402]
[2403]
[2404]
[2405]