u03_proteus.xml

<div type="episode" n="03">
<p><lb n="030001"/>Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought
<lb n="030002"/>through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and
<lb n="030003"/>seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust:
<lb n="030004"/>coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was
<lb n="030005"/>aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his
<lb n="030006"/>sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, <foreign xml:lang="it">maestro
<lb n="030007"/>di color che sanno</foreign>. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane,
<lb n="030008"/>adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it is a gate, if not a
<lb n="030009"/>door. Shut your eyes and see.</p>
<p><lb n="030010"/>Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and
<lb n="030011"/>shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A
<lb n="030012"/>very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the
<lb n="030013"/><foreign xml:lang="de">Nacheinander</foreign>. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible.
<lb n="030014"/>Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o'er his base, fell
<lb n="030015"/>through the <foreign xml:lang="de">Nebeneinander</foreign> ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark.
<lb n="030016"/>My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his
<lb n="030017"/>boots are at the ends of his legs, <foreign xml:lang="de">nebeneinander</foreign>. Sounds solid: made by the
<lb n="030018"/>mallet of Los <emph>demiurgos</emph>. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount
<lb n="030019"/>strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens
<lb n="030020"/>them a'.</p>
<p rend="inset"><lb n="030021"/><emph>Won't you come to Sandymount,
<lb n="030022"/>Madeline the mare?</emph></p>
<p><lb n="030023"/>Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. Acatalectic tetrameter of iambs
<lb n="030024"/>marching. No, agallop: <emph>deline the mare</emph>.</p>
<p><lb n="030025"/>Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I
<lb n="030026"/>open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. <foreign xml:lang="it">Basta!</foreign> I will see if I can see.</p>
<p><lb n="030027"/>See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world
<lb n="030028"/>without end.</p>
<p><lb n="030029"/>They came down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently,
<lb n="030030"/><foreign xml:lang="de">Frauenzimmer</foreign>: and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet
<lb n="030031"/>sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty
<lb n="030032"/>mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp
<lb n="030033"/>poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence
<lb n="030034"/>MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street.
<lb n="030035"/>One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing.
<lb n="030036"/>What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in
<lb n="030037"/>ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh.
<lb n="030038"/>That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your <foreign xml:lang="grc-Latn">omphalos</foreign>.
<lb n="030039"/>Hello! Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought,
<lb n="030040"/>one.</p>
<p><lb n="030041"/>Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had
<lb n="030042"/>no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum,
<lb n="030043"/>no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to
<lb n="030044"/>everlasting. Womb of sin.</p>
<p><lb n="030045"/>Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the
<lb n="030046"/>man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her
<lb n="030047"/>breath. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the
<lb n="030048"/>ages He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A <foreign xml:lang="la">lex eterna</foreign>
<lb n="030049"/>stays about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son
<lb n="030050"/>are consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring
<lb n="030051"/>his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred
<lb n="030052"/>heresiarch! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: <foreign xml:lang="grc-Latn">euthanasia</foreign>. With
<lb n="030053"/>beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a
<lb n="030054"/>widowed see, with upstiffed <foreign xml:lang="grc-Latn">omophorion</foreign>, with clotted hinderparts.</p>
<p><lb n="030055"/>Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming,
<lb n="030056"/>waves. The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds
<lb n="030057"/>of Mananaan.</p>
<p><lb n="030058"/>I mustn't forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half
<lb n="030059"/>twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile.
<lb n="030060"/>Yes, I must.</p>
<p><lb n="030061"/>His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara's or not? My
<lb n="030062"/>consubstantial father's voice. Did you see anything of your artist brother
<lb n="030063"/>Stephen lately? No? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with his aunt
<lb n="030064"/>Sally? Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And and and and tell us,
<lb n="030065"/>Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the things I married into! De
<lb n="030066"/>boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little costdrawer and his brother, the
<lb n="030067"/>cornet player. Highly respectable gondoliers! And skeweyed Walter sirring
<lb n="030068"/>his father, no less! Sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by
<lb n="030069"/>Christ!</p>
<p><lb n="030070"/>I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take
<lb n="030071"/>me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.
<lb n="030072"/><said who="Walter Goulding">―It's Stephen, sir.</said>
<lb n="030073"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―Let him in. Let Stephen in.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030074"/>A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me.
<lb n="030075"/><said who="Walter Goulding">―We thought you were someone else.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030076"/>In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over
<lb n="030077"/>the hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the
<lb n="030078"/>upper moiety.
<lb n="030079"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―Morrow, nephew. Sit down and take a walk.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030080"/>He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the
<lb n="030081"/>eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and
<lb n="030082"/>common searches and a writ of <foreign xml:lang="la">Duces Tecum</foreign>. A bogoak frame over his bald
<lb n="030083"/>head: Wilde's <foreign xml:lang="la">Requiescat</foreign>. The drone of his misleading whistle brings
<lb n="030084"/>Walter back.
<lb n="030085"/><said who="Walter Goulding">―Yes, sir?</said>
<lb n="030086"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she?</said>
<lb n="030087"/><said who="Walter Goulding">―Bathing Crissie, sir.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030088"/>Papa's little bedpal. Lump of love.
<lb n="030089"/><said who="Stephen Dedalus">―No, uncle Richie ....</said>
<lb n="030090"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky!</said>
<lb n="030091"/><said who="Stephen Dedalus">―Uncle Richie, really ....</said>
<lb n="030092"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―Sit down or by the law Harry I'll knock you down.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030093"/>Walter squints vainly for a chair.
<lb n="030094"/><said who="Walter Goulding">―He has nothing to sit down on, sir.</said>
<lb n="030095"/><said who="Richie Goulding">―He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair.
<lb n="030096"/>Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs
<lb n="030097"/>here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the better.
<lb n="030098"/>We have nothing in the house but backache pills.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030099"/><foreign xml:lang="it">All'erta!</foreign></p>
<p><lb n="030100"/>He drones bars of Ferrando's <foreign xml:lang="it">aria di sortita</foreign>. The grandest number,
<lb n="030101"/>Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen.</p>
<p><lb n="030102"/>His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the air,
<lb n="030103"/>his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees.</p>
<p><lb n="030104"/>This wind is sweeter.</p>
<p><lb n="030105"/>Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry
<lb n="030106"/>you had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of
<lb n="030107"/>them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's
<lb n="030108"/>library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For
<lb n="030109"/>whom? The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his
<lb n="030110"/>kind ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the
<lb n="030111"/>moon, his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine
<lb n="030112"/>faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas father,
<lb n="030113"/>furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! <foreign xml:lang="la">Descende, calve, ut
<lb n="030114"/>ne amplius decalveris.</foreign> A garland of grey hair on his comminated head see
<lb n="030115"/>him me clambering down to the footpace (<foreign xml:lang="la">descende!</foreign>), clutching a
<lb n="030116"/>monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! A choir gives back menace
<lb n="030117"/>and echo, assisting about the altar's horns, the snorted Latin of jackpriests
<lb n="030118"/>moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of
<lb n="030119"/>kidneys of wheat.</p>
<p><lb n="030120"/>And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating
<lb n="030121"/>it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx.
<lb n="030122"/>Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own
<lb n="030123"/>cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that,
<lb n="030124"/>invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his
<lb n="030125"/>brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his second
<lb n="030126"/>bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and, rising, heard (now I
<lb n="030127"/>am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang in diphthong.</p>
<p><lb n="030128"/>Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were
<lb n="030129"/>awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might
<lb n="030130"/>not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the
<lb n="030131"/>fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street. <foreign xml:lang="it">O
<lb n="030132"/>si, certo!</foreign> Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw. More
<lb n="030133"/>tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain:
<lb n="030134"/><emph>Naked women! Naked women!</emph> What about that, eh?</p>
<p><lb n="030135"/>What about what? What else were they invented for?</p>
<p><lb n="030136"/>Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was
<lb n="030137"/>young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause
<lb n="030138"/>earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one
<lb n="030139"/>saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have
<lb n="030140"/>you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W.
<lb n="030141"/>Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies
<lb n="030142"/>to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including
<lb n="030143"/>Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a
<lb n="030144"/>mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When
<lb n="030145"/>one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one
<lb n="030146"/>with one who once ......</p>
<p><lb n="030147"/>The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a
<lb n="030148"/>damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the
<lb n="030149"/>unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada.
<lb n="030150"/>Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward
<lb n="030151"/>sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden
<lb n="030152"/>of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up,
<lb n="030153"/>stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful
<lb n="030154"/>thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets;
<lb n="030155"/>farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a
<lb n="030156"/>dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown
<lb n="030157"/>steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.</p>
<p><lb n="030158"/>He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going
<lb n="030159"/>there? Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the
<lb n="030160"/>firmer sand towards the Pigeonhouse.
<lb n="030161"/><said  who="Joseph">―<foreign xml:lang="fr">Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?</foreign></said>
<lb n="030162"/><said who="Mary">―<foreign xml:lang="fr">C'est le pigeon, Joseph.</foreign></said></p>
<p><lb n="030163"/>Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar
<lb n="030164"/>MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird,
<lb n="030165"/>he lapped the sweet <foreign xml:lang="fr">lait chaud</foreign> with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face.
<lb n="030166"/>Lap, <foreign xml:lang="fr">lapin</foreign>. He hopes to win in the <foreign xml:lang="fr">gros lots</foreign>. About the nature of women he
<lb n="030167"/>read in Michelet. But he must send me <title type="book" xml:lang="fr">La Vie de Jésus</title> by <foreign xml:lang="fr" rend="none">M</foreign>. Léo Taxil.
<lb n="030168"/>Lent it to his friend.
<lb n="030169"/><said who="Patrice Egan">―<foreign xml:lang="fr">C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en
<lb n="030170"/>l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père.</foreign></said>
<lb n="030171"/><said who="Stephen Dedalus">―<foreign xml:lang="fr">Il croit?</foreign></said>
<lb n="030172"/><said who="Patrice Egan">―<foreign xml:lang="fr">Mon père, oui.</foreign></said></p>
<p><lb n="030173"/><foreign xml:lang="de">Schluss.</foreign> He laps.</p>
<p><lb n="030174"/>My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I
<lb n="030175"/>want puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other
<lb n="030176"/>devil's name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: <foreign xml:lang="fr">physiques, chimiques et
<lb n="030177"/>naturelles</foreign>. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of <foreign xml:lang="fr">mou en civet</foreign>, fleshpots of
<lb n="030178"/>Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone:
<lb n="030179"/>when I was in Paris, <foreign xml:lang="fr">boul'Mich'</foreign>, I used to. Yes, used to carry punched
<lb n="030180"/>tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice.
<lb n="030181"/>On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by
<lb n="030182"/>two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Lui,
<lb n="030183"/>c'est moi.</foreign> You seem to have enjoyed yourself.</p>
<p><lb n="030184"/>Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a
<lb n="030185"/>dispossessed. With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging door
<lb n="030186"/>of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger toothache.
<lb n="030187"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">Encore deux minutes.</foreign> Look clock. Must get. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Fermé.</foreign> Hired dog! Shoot him
<lb n="030188"/>to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls all brass
<lb n="030189"/>buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O, that's all
<lb n="030190"/>right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's all right. Shake a
<lb n="030191"/>shake. O, that's all only all right.</p>
<p><lb n="030192"/>You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after
<lb n="030193"/>fiery Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt
<lb n="030194"/>from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: <foreign xml:lang="la">Euge! Euge!</foreign> Pretending to speak
<lb n="030195"/>broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the
<lb n="030196"/>slimy pier at Newhaven. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Comment?</foreign> Rich booty you brought back; <foreign xml:lang="fr">Le
<lb n="030197"/>Tutu</foreign>, five tattered numbers of <foreign xml:lang="fr">Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge</foreign>; a blue
<lb n="030198"/>French telegram, curiosity to show:
<lb n="030199"/><said who="Simon Dedalus AS telegram">―Nother dying come home father.</said></p>
<p><lb n="030200"/>The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't.</p>
<p rend="inset"><lb n="030201"/><emph>Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt
<lb n="030202"/>And I'll tell you the reason why.
<lb n="030203"/>She always kept things decent in
<lb n="030204"/>The Hannigan famileye.</emph></p>
<p><lb n="030205"/>His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows,
<lb n="030206"/>along by the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled
<lb n="030207"/>stone mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is
<lb n="030208"/>there, the slender trees, the lemon houses.</p>
<p><lb n="030209"/>Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of
<lb n="030210"/>farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the air.
<lb n="030211"/>Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the kerchiefed
<lb n="030212"/>housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In Rodot's Yvonne
<lb n="030213"/>and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth
<lb n="030214"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">chaussons</foreign> of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the <foreign xml:lang="fr">pus</foreign> of <foreign xml:lang="fr">flan breton</foreign>.
<lb n="030215"/>Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased pleasers, curled <foreign xml:lang="fr">conquistadores</foreign>.</p>
<p><lb n="030216"/>Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through
<lb n="030217"/>fingers smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his
<lb n="030218"/>white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Un demi
<lb n="030219"/>setier!</foreign> A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me at
<lb n="030220"/>his beck. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, nous,
<lb n="030221"/>Irlande, vous savez? Ah, oui!</foreign> She thought you wanted a cheese <foreign xml:lang="fr">hollandais</foreign>.
<lb n="030222"/>Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a
<lb n="030223"/>fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his
<lb n="030224"/>postprandial. Well: <foreign xml:lang="ga">slainte!</foreign> Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined
<lb n="030225"/>breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained
<lb n="030226"/>plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the
<lb n="030227"/>Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, AE, pimander,
<lb n="030228"/>good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our
<lb n="030229"/>common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. His fustian
<lb n="030230"/>shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his secrets. M.
<lb n="030231"/>Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen
<lb n="030232"/>Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Vieille ogresse</foreign> with the <foreign xml:lang="fr">dents
<lb n="030233"/>jaunes</foreign>. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, <foreign xml:lang="fr">la Patrie</foreign>, M. Millevoye, Félix
<lb n="030234"/>Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The <foreign xml:lang="sv">froeken</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="fr">bonne à tout faire</foreign>,
<lb n="030235"/>who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Moi faire</foreign>, she said, <foreign xml:lang="fr">tous les
<lb n="030236"/>messieurs.</foreign> Not this <foreign xml:lang="fr">monsieur</foreign>, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most
<lb n="030237"/>private thing. I wouldn't let my brother, not even my own brother, most
<lb n="030238"/>lascivious thing. Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.</p>
<p><lb n="030239"/>The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose
<lb n="030240"/>tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw
<lb n="030241"/>facebones under his peep of day boy's hat. How the head centre got away,
<lb n="030242"/>authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms,
<lb n="030243"/>drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the betrayed,
<lb n="030244"/>wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not here.</p>
<p><lb n="030245"/>Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell
<lb n="030246"/>you. I'll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he
<lb n="030247"/>prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of
<lb n="030248"/>Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in
<lb n="030249"/>the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, Egan
<lb n="030250"/>of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day's stations, the dingy
<lb n="030251"/>printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in,
<lb n="030252"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">rue de la Goutte-d'Or</foreign>, damascened with flyblown faces of the gone.
<lb n="030253"/>Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy without her outcast
<lb n="030254"/>man, madame in <foreign xml:lang="fr">rue Gît-le-Cœur</foreign>, canary and two buck lodgers. Peachy
<lb n="030255"/>cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young thing's. Spurned and undespairing.
<lb n="030256"/>Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time.
<lb n="030257"/><foreign xml:lang="fr">Mon fils</foreign>, soldier of France. I taught him to sing <emph>The boys of Kilkenny are
<lb n="030258"/>stout roaring blades</emph>. Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that. Old
<lb n="030259"/>Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow's castle on the Nore. Goes like this. <emph>O,
<lb n="030260"/>O.</emph> He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand.</p>
<p rend="inset"><lb n="030261"/><emph>O, O the boysof
<lb n="030262"/>Kilkenny</emph> ....</p>
<p><lb n="030263"/>Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he
<lb n="030264"/>them. Remembering thee, O Sion.</p>
<p><lb n="030265"/>He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his
<lb n="030266"/>boots. The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of
<lb n="030267"/>seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, am I?
<lb n="030268"/>He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the quaking soil.
<lb n="030269"/>Turn back.</p>
<p><lb n="030270"/>Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in
<lb n="030271"/>new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the
<lb n="030272"/>barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet are
<lb n="030273"/>sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep
<lb n="030274"/>blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, their pushedback chairs,
<lb n="030275"/>my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned platters. Who to clear it?
<lb n="030276"/>He has the key. I will not sleep there when this night comes. A shut door of
<lb n="030277"/>a silent tower, entombing their blind bodies, the panthersahib and his
<lb n="030278"/>pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned
<lb n="030279"/>back by the mole of boulders. Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me,
<lb n="030280"/>form of forms. So in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the
<lb n="030281"/>rocks, in sable silvered, hearing Elsinore's tempting flood.</p>
<p><lb n="030282"/>The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get
<lb n="030283"/>back then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the
<lb n="030284"/>sedge and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a
<lb n="030285"/>grike.</p>
<p><lb n="030286"/>A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the
<lb n="030287"/>gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Un coche ensablé</foreign> Louis Veuillot called
<lb n="030288"/>Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted
<lb n="030289"/>here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of weasel rats.
<lb n="030290"/>Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones. Heavy of the
<lb n="030291"/>past. Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one bang on the ear. I'm the
<lb n="030292"/>bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well boulders, bones for my
<lb n="030293"/>steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz an Iridzman.</p>
<p><lb n="030294"/>A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
<lb n="030295"/>Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be master of
<lb n="030296"/>others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking
<lb n="030297"/>shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The two maries. They
<lb n="030298"/>have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog.
<lb n="030299"/>He is running back to them. Who?</p>
<p><lb n="030300"/>Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
<lb n="030301"/>bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs
<lb n="030302"/>of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of
<lb n="030303"/>gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting, hobbling
<lb n="030304"/>in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city a horde of jerkined
<lb n="030305"/>dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, scaling, hacking in green
<lb n="030306"/>blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their blood is in me,
<lb n="030307"/>their lusts my waves. I moved among them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a
<lb n="030308"/>changeling, among the spluttering resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to
<lb n="030309"/>me.</p>
<p><lb n="030310"/>The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my
<lb n="030311"/>enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. <foreign xml:lang="la">Terribilia meditans.</foreign> A
<lb n="030312"/>primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you
<lb n="030313"/>pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The Bruce's
<lb n="030314"/>brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's false
<lb n="030315"/>scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert
<lb n="030316"/>Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings' sons.
<lb n="030317"/>Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from drowning and
<lb n="030318"/>you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or
<lb n="030319"/>san Michele were in their own house. House of ... We don't want any of
<lb n="030320"/>your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A boat would be
<lb n="030321"/>near, a lifebuoy. <foreign xml:lang="de">Natürlich</foreign>, put there for you. Would you or would you
<lb n="030322"/>not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. They are
<lb n="030323"/>waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I
<lb n="030324"/>am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in the
<lb n="030325"/>basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out quickly, quickly!
<lb n="030326"/>Do you see the tide flowing quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand
<lb n="030327"/>quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still
<lb n="030328"/>to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me
<lb n="030329"/>out of horror of his death. I ... With him together down .... I could not save
<lb n="030330"/>her. Waters: bitter death: lost.</p>
<p><lb n="030331"/>A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet.</p>
<p><lb n="030332"/>Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing
<lb n="030333"/>on all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made off
<lb n="030334"/>like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a
<lb n="030335"/>lowskimming gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He
<lb n="030336"/>turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a field
<lb n="030337"/>tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of the tide he
<lb n="030338"/>halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at
<lb n="030339"/>the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented towards his feet, curling,
<lb n="030340"/>unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from
<lb n="030341"/>farther out, waves and waves.</p>
<p><lb n="030342"/>Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping,
<lb n="030343"/>soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped
<lb n="030344"/>running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again
<lb n="030345"/>reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as
<lb n="030346"/>they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from
<lb n="030347"/>his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a
<lb n="030348"/>calf's gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked
<lb n="030349"/>round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like a dog
<lb n="030350"/>all over the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the
<lb n="030351"/>ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies poor
<lb n="030352"/>dogsbody's body.
<lb n="030353"/><said who="cocklepicker">―Tatters! Outofthat, you mongrel!</said></p>
<p><lb n="030354"/>The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless
<lb n="030355"/>kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk
<lb n="030356"/>back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped,
<lb n="030357"/>dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it.
<lb n="030358"/>He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an
<lb n="030359"/>unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His hindpaws then
<lb n="030360"/>scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he
<lb n="030361"/>buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand, dabbling, delving and
<lb n="030362"/>stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand again with a fury of his
<lb n="030363"/>claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in spousebreach, vulturing the
<lb n="030364"/>dead.</p>
<p><lb n="030365"/>After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open
<lb n="030366"/>hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting
<lb n="030367"/>it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held
<lb n="030368"/>against my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In.
<lb n="030369"/>Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who.</p>
<p><lb n="030370"/>Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued
<lb n="030371"/>feet out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler
<lb n="030372"/>strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the ruffian
<lb n="030373"/>and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and shellgrit
<lb n="030374"/>crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed. Behind her lord,
<lb n="030375"/>his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides her body's flaws
<lb n="030376"/>calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired.
<lb n="030377"/>Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts.
<lb n="030378"/>Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A
<lb n="030379"/>shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. Fumbally's lane that night: the
<lb n="030380"/>tanyard smells.</p>
<p rend="inset"><lb n="030381"/><emph>White thy fambles, red thy gan
<lb n="030382"/>And thy quarrons dainty is.
<lb n="030383"/>Couch a hogshead with me then.
<lb n="030384"/>In the darkmans clip and kiss.</emph></p>
<p><lb n="030385"/>Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, <foreign xml:lang="la">frate porcospino</foreign>.
<lb n="030386"/>Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: <emph>thy quarrons dainty
<lb n="030387"/>is</emph>. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber on
<lb n="030388"/>their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets.</p>
<p><lb n="030389"/>Passing now.</p>
<p><lb n="030390"/>A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I
<lb n="030391"/>am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming
<lb n="030392"/>sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps, trains,
<lb n="030393"/>drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in her wake. Tides,
<lb n="030394"/>myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, <foreign xml:lang="grc-Latn">oinopa ponton</foreign>, a winedark sea.
<lb n="030395"/>Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids
<lb n="030396"/>her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled. <foreign xml:lang="la">Omnis caro ad te
<lb n="030397"/>veniet.</foreign> He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails
<lb n="030398"/>bloodying the sea, mouth to her mouth's kiss.</p>
<p><lb n="030399"/>Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.
<lb n="030400"/>No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss.</p>
<p><lb n="030401"/>His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her
<lb n="030402"/>moomb. Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath,
<lb n="030403"/>unspeeched: ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring
<lb n="030404"/>wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's
<lb n="030405"/>letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off.
<lb n="030406"/>Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and scribbled
<lb n="030407"/>words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library counter.</p>
<p><lb n="030408"/>His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till
<lb n="030409"/>the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining
<lb n="030410"/>in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur's
<lb n="030411"/>rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in
<lb n="030412"/>violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw this ended
<lb n="030413"/>shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be
<lb n="030414"/>mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will
<lb n="030415"/>read these written words? Signs on a white field. Somewhere to someone in
<lb n="030416"/>your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne took the veil of the temple
<lb n="030417"/>out of his shovel hat: veil of space with coloured emblems hatched on its
<lb n="030418"/>field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think
<lb n="030419"/>distance, near, far, flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly,
<lb n="030420"/>frozen in stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark.
<lb n="030421"/>Darkness is in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls,
<lb n="030422"/>shamewounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover
<lb n="030423"/>clinging, the more the more.</p>
<p><lb n="030424"/>She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the
<lb n="030425"/>blue hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of
<lb n="030426"/>the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges
<lb n="030427"/>Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you
<lb n="030428"/>were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the braided
<lb n="030429"/>jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief and kickshaws,
<lb n="030430"/>a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she
<lb n="030431"/>wears those curse of God stays suspenders and yellow stockings, darned
<lb n="030432"/>with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings, <foreign xml:lang="it">piuttosto</foreign>. Where are your
<lb n="030433"/>wits?</p>
<p><lb n="030434"/>Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch
<lb n="030435"/>me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone.
<lb n="030436"/>Sad too. Touch, touch me.</p>
<p><lb n="030437"/>He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the
<lb n="030438"/>scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes. That
<lb n="030439"/>is Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. <foreign xml:lang="la">Et
<lb n="030440"/>vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona.</foreign> Hlo! <foreign xml:lang="fr">Bonjour.</foreign> Welcome as the flowers in
<lb n="030441"/>May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the
<lb n="030442"/>southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal
<lb n="030443"/>noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the
<lb n="030444"/>tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far.</p>
<p rend="inset"><lb n="030445"/><emph>And no more turn aside and brood.</emph></p>
<p><lb n="030446"/>His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs,
<lb n="030447"/><foreign xml:lang="de">nebeneinander</foreign>. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein another's
<lb n="030448"/>foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in tripudium, foot I
<lb n="030449"/>dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's shoe went on you:
<lb n="030450"/>girl I knew in Paris. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Tiens, quel petit pied!</foreign> Staunch friend, a brother soul:
<lb n="030451"/>Wilde's love that dare not speak its name. His arm: Cranly's arm. He now
<lb n="030452"/>will leave me. And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all.</p>
<p><lb n="030453"/>In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering
<lb n="030454"/>greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float away.
<lb n="030455"/>I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the low rocks,
<lb n="030456"/>swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourworded
<lb n="030457"/>wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid
<lb n="030458"/>seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap:
<lb n="030459"/>bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely
<lb n="030460"/>flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.</p>
<p><lb n="030461"/>Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly
<lb n="030462"/>and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water
<lb n="030463"/>swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night:
<lb n="030464"/>lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to, they
<lb n="030465"/>sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the
<lb n="030466"/>fullness of their times, <foreign xml:lang="la">diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit</foreign>. To no
<lb n="030467"/>end gathered; vainly then released, forthflowing, wending back: loom of
<lb n="030468"/>the moon. Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman
<lb n="030469"/>shining in her courts, she draws a toil of waters.</p>
<p><lb n="030470"/>Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he
<lb n="030471"/>said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose
<lb n="030472"/>drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising saltwhite
<lb n="030473"/>from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. There he
<lb n="030474"/>is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. We
<lb n="030475"/>have him. Easy now.</p>
<p><lb n="030476"/>Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a
<lb n="030477"/>spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God
<lb n="030478"/>becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed
<lb n="030479"/>mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous
<lb n="030480"/>offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes upward the
<lb n="030481"/>stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun.</p>
<p><lb n="030482"/>A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
<lb n="030483"/>known to man. Old Father Ocean. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Prix de Paris</foreign>: beware of imitations. Just
<lb n="030484"/>you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.</p>
<p><lb n="030485"/>Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
<lb n="030486"/>Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, <foreign xml:lang="la">Lucifer,
<lb n="030487"/>dico, qui nescit occasum</foreign>. No. My cockle hat and staff and hismy sandal
<lb n="030488"/>shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.</p>
<p><lb n="030489"/>He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying still.
<lb n="030490"/>Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their end. By
<lb n="030491"/>the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the glad new
<lb n="030492"/>year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet.
<lb n="030493"/><foreign xml:lang="it">Già.</foreign> For the old hag with the yellow teeth. And Monsieur Drumont,
<lb n="030494"/>gentleman journalist. <foreign xml:lang="it">Già.</foreign> My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder. Feel.
<lb n="030495"/>That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that
<lb n="030496"/>money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the superman. Why is that, I
<lb n="030497"/>wonder, or does it mean something perhaps?</p>
<p><lb n="030498"/>My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?</p>
<p><lb n="030499"/>His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one.</p>
<p><lb n="030500"/>He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
<lb n="030501"/>carefully. For the rest let look who will.</p>
<p><lb n="030502"/>Behind. Perhaps there is someone.</p>
<p><lb n="030503"/>He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through
<lb n="030504"/>the air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees,
<lb n="030505"/>homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.</p>
</div> <!-- End of Episode 3, "Proteus" -->