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And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the
corner is elevating it. Dringdring! And two streets off
another locking it into a pyx. Dringadring! And in a
ladychapel another taking housel all to his own cheek.
Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam
thought of that, invincible doctor. A misty English
morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain. Bringing his
host down and kneeling he heard twine with his second
bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and,
rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is
kneeling) twang in diphthong.
Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints.
You were awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the
Blessed Virgin that you might not have a red nose. You
prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy
widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the
wet street. O si, certo! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags
pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still!! On the
top of the Howth tram alone crying to the rain: Naked
women! naked women! What about that, eh?
What about what? What else were they invented for?
Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night,
eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror,
stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face.
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Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell
no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for
titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but
W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies
written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be
sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world,
including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there
after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della
Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads
these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is
at one with one who once ...
The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His
boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells,
squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats,
wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada.
Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles,
breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed
smouldered in seafire under a midden of man’s ashes. He
coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up,
stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel:
isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the
land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away
chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a
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dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams
of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.
He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara’s. Am I
not going there? Seems not. No-one about. He turned
northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards the
Pigeonhouse.
—Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?
—c’est le pigeon, Joseph.
Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me
in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan
of Paris. My father’s a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud
with pink young tongue, plump bunny’s face. Lap, lapin.
He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of
women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie
de Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend.
—C’est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne
crois pas en l’existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re.
—Il croit?
—Mon pere, oui.
Schluss. He laps.
My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the
character. I want puce gloves. You were a student,
weren’t you? Of what in the other devil’s name?
Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: physiques, chimiques et
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naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet,
fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say
in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris; boul’ Mich’, I
used to. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an
alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice.
On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the
prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it:
other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c’est moi. You
seem to have enjoyed yourself.
Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like?
Forget: a dispossessed. With mother’s money order, eight
shillings, the banging door of the post office slammed in
your face by the usher. Hunger toothache. Encore deux
minutes. Look clock. Must get. Ferme. Hired dog! Shoot
him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered
walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack
back. Not hurt? O, that’s all right. Shake hands. See what
I meant, see? O, that’s all right. Shake a shake. O, that’s all
only all right.
You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to
Europe after fiery Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their
creepystools in heaven spilt from their pintpots,
loudlatinlaughing: Euge! Euge! Pretending to speak broken
English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence,
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