By JAMES JOYCE PART TWO TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Edited by Samuel Roth PRICE FIFTY CENTS ULYSSES Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations Partial Contents of VOLUME ONE NUMBER TWO Second part of ULYSSES James Joyce Richard Middleton Arthur Machen Eeldrop and Appleplex T. S. Eliot Twelve Great Passions: The Second Mrs. Shelley J. A. Brendon The Ghost Ship Richard Middleton An Immorality Ezra Pound A Literary Holiday: Barrie Samuel Roth Adultery: Ad Absurdum Richard Le Gallienne TWO WORLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY 500 FIFTH AYE., Suite 405-8, NEW YORK The BOOK of THE Thousand Nights and One Night BURTON’S ver- sion has hither- to been the last word; but it is so no longer. Most readers will prefer Dr. Mardrus’s French text as ren- dered into English by Mr. E. Powys Mathers. The tale, after all, is the thing, and the tale is better told by Mardrus than by Burton. London Times Limited Edition of 500 Numbered Sets SIXTEEN VOLUMES BOUND IN FOUR Illustrated in color from Persian illuminations Artistically bound in French boards, Orien- tal motif, gold tops, full gilt backs, colored end papers. Price: $60. THE new trans- lation of the Arabian Nights is from the French of Dr. J. C. Mardrus, and is the work of Mr. E. Powys Mathers. It is in- comparably the best we have ever had. —English Review of Reviews AT LAST Mr. E. Powys Mathers has pub- lished a translation of Dr. Mardrus’s version, and we have an unexpur- gated English text that will probably be for many years the best —London Spectator THE REAL ARABIAN NIGHTS Two Worlds Publishing Co. 500 Fifth Avenue, Suite 405-8 New York City. Gentlemen: I enclose $60, for which please send me the four-volume set of the unexpurgated Thousand and One Nights in the Mardrus-Mathers edition. Name . Address City Only a few sets of this delight- ful version of the Thousand and One Nights, in the beautiful English of E. Powys Mathers, translated from the literal un- expurgated French edition by Dr. J. C. Mardrus, are avail- able. Use the coupon on this page to get your order in be- fore they are gone. ARTHUR SYMONS, London Contributing Editors PAUL MORAND, Paris WORLDS with its auxiliary publication, TWO WORLDS MONTHLY. TWO WORLDS is a quarterly literary magazine sold by private subscription only. Limited to 450 subscribers. Three dollars a copy Ten dollars a year Every copy beautifully printed, bound and boxed. TWO WORLDS offers with every issue, complete, a novel, a play, a short story, verse, and the translation of at least one contemporary masterpiece in a Euro- pean language. It appears on the 15th of every September, December, March and June. The second volume, which begins with the September, 1926, issue, is already nearly subscribed for. 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YOU SHOULD OWN NUMBER ONE BE- CAUSE IT CONTAINS: The First Instalment of The New Unnamed Work by James Joyce; the first of the inimitable songs for the Entertainment of My Lady Joan; the Prologue to David Zorn's already much discussed tetralogy, ad Samuel Roth’s voyage into the upper regions in his magnificent story The Milk of Heavenly Kindness. Eight copies of this number are still available. YOU SHOULD OWN NUMBER TWO BE- CAUSE IT CONTAINS: Mark Twain’s famous suppressed “1601”; White Streams. David Zorn’s brilliant novel of adolescence; Tatyana Riepen, an unpublished play by Anton Checkoff, and more of James Joyce s new work. Twenty-seven copies of this number are still available. Unpublished Portion of Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis,” together with a new preface for Frank Hariss's "Life and Confessions of Wilde”; T. W. H. Crosland’s bitter invective "The First Stone”; a sketch about Wilde by Max Beerbohm; Pierre Louys' “Leda" and Rabelaisian Fauntasies” an anonymous satire on the late war. Sixty-nine copies of this number are still available. A Literary Quarterly devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations. Edited by SAMUEL ROTH TWO WORLDS MONTHLY EDITED BY SAMUEL ROTH This issue of Two Worlds Monthly is dedicated to the memory of RICHARD MIDDLETON who wrote good English and died young Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations Contents of Volume One, Number Two The short paragraphs scattered throughout this issue of Two Worlds Monthly are taken from the works of Ambrose Bierce. Life and Letters Julia’s Clothes The Fur Coat Perdition Richard Middleton The Ghost Ship An Offended Lady Adultery: Ad Absurdum A Love Song from India The Death of the Dauphin For the Saving of Souls Twelve Great Passions: The Second Mrs. Shelley Intimate Glimpses of AnatolE France The Stronger Woman: A Play.. Eeldrop and Appleplex An Epitaph Katherine the Lacemaker An Immorality A Mighty Man In Sion.. A Literary Holiday: Barrie Grows Old.. Two Poems ULYSSES: Part Two... Published by the TWO WORLDS PUB- LISHING COMPANY, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York. Printed in the United States. Copy- right, 1926, by Samuel Roth Published monthly at 50 cents a copy. An- nual subscription, $5.00; Canadian subscrip- tion, $5.50; foreign subscription, $6.00; back numbers, $1.00 ..Richard Le Gallicnne Hjetlmar Soderberg .........Mathilde Serao .Arthur Mac hen Richard Middleton ........Abraham Raisin .. .Richard Le Gallienne Alphonse Daudet ...........Roberto Bracco .... .J. A. Brendon ..........J. J. Brousson August Strindberg ...............T. S. Eliot Walter de la Mare ..........Marcel Schzvob ...............Ezra Pound ............Caradoc Evans ..............Samuel Roth ..........Carl Sandburg ..............James Joyce ..........Heinrich Heine 129 130 131 134 137 142 148 155 156 161 163 166 182 185 189 192 193 195 196 200 203 205 252 $3.50 3.50 3.50 3.50 ■ 6.00 1.75 15.00 4.75 2.50 110.00 8.50 12.50 15.00 17.50 7.50 7.00 7.50 5.00 7.50 5.00 24.00 Some Privately Published Books On Our Trade Shelves Balzac (Honore de) DROLL STORIES (red cloth) Boccaccio (Giovanni) THE DECAMERON (red cloth) Rabelais (Francois) THE WORKS OF RABELAIS (red cloth) Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, THE HEPTAMERON (red cloth) Balzac (Honore De) PHYSIOLOGY OF .MARRIAGE. Privately printed, London Baudelaire (Chas.) POEMS AND PROSE POEMS. Preface by James Huneker, N. Y. 1919 Flaubert (Gustave) FIRST TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY. Trans, by Rene Francis. With unusual imaginative illustrations in color and black and white by Jean de Bosschere Flaubert (Gustave) THREE TALES. Trans, into English by A. McDonall. Printed at the Cloister Press. Illus. with 12 colored reproductions by Robt. Dias de Soria. Lond. 1923 Burton (Sir Richard F.) THE KASIDAH. N. Y. 1924 THE CASANOVA MEMOIRS, with woodcuts by Rockwell Kent. 12 volumes.... Cellini (Benvenuto) AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Trans, by John Addington Symonds. With 40 photogravure illus. Printed at the Merrymount Press. 2 vols Machen (Arthur) CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY or the History of IX Joyous Journeys. Containing the amorous inventions and facetious tales of Master Gervase Perrot. By Arthur Machen. Privately printed limited edition, signed by Arthur Machen, 1923. ... Machen (Arthur) FANTASTIC TALES or the Way to Attain. A book full of Pantagruelism. Privately printed, limited edition, signed by the author, 1923 Machen (Arthur) ONE HUNDRED MERRYE AND DELIGHTSOME STORIES, illustrated with sixteen etchings by Clara Tice. Privately printed limited edi- tion, signed by the author and artist. 2 vols. 1924.. France (Anatole) WELL OF SANTA CLARA. Trans, by A. R. Allison. Printed on nandmade paper and edition limited to 500 copies. Published by Charles Carrington in Paris 1903. Original wrappers Huneker (James G.) INTIMATE LETTERS. Collected by Josephine Huneker, containing 7 illustrations. Limited edition 1924 Rousseau (Jean-Jacques) CONFESSIONS. Translated by Edmund Wilson. 2 vols. 1923.... Sterne (Laurence) A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY, Illustrated with 12 wood engravings by Wilfred Jones. Special limited edition 1925 Villon (Francois) COMPLETE POEMS. Translated by J. H. Lepper. Including the text of John Paine and others. Limited edition, N. Y. 1924 Harris (Frank) OSCAR WILDE, HIS LIFE AND CONFESSIONS. With an added chapter. Memoirs of Oscar Wilde by Bernard Shaw, 2 volumes Zola (Emile) WORKS. NANA, GERMINAL, LA TERRE, PIPING HOT, L’AS- SOMMOIR, LA CUREE. Limited edition, 2 vols., N. Y. 1924 All Orders Must Be Accompanied by Remittances in Full TWO WORLDS MONTHLY VOLUME ONE NUMBER TWO 129 Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations Life and Letters ON the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the American republic, with its concomittant guarantee of the right to speak and print freely, Two Worlds Monthly appeared, with the in- tention of speaking, if not with as untrammeled a voice as the Fathers of the Republic had envisioned, at least in a manner less constrained by conventionality than those of the ordinary commercial magazines which with one-and-a-half eyes cast carefully backwards towards their advertisers have only half a forward-looking eye to spare for their readers. Two Worlds Monthly was and shall be unlamentably careless about advertising. Appearing with no other advertising material than its own, it was enabled to make its sole attention the interest of its matter to its readers. Too many of its competitors consider fearfully the effect of each contribution on its advertisers before accepting it. And business men are notoriously conservative about the type of magazine in which they advertise. We have conceived our first duty to be to the reader rather than the advertiser. At five dollars a year, we believe we can issue a valuable magazine, independently of advertising. If advertisers come to us we will, as is only natural, welcome them; but we shall always be in a posi- tion that will make it necessary for us to consider only our readers, not our advertisers, in selecting the matter we shall present. Issuing our first number on this principle, we found our success marked and immediate. News dealers and bookstores requested reorders on Two Worlds Monthly; a week after its appearance a little town of 13,000 130 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY population in Pennsylvania was obliged to enter a second order of fifty copies; and before the end of the month the exhaustion of the first edi- tion of 50,000 copies necessitated a second printing. The demand for Ulysses, which hitherto no advertising vehicle had dared to print in spite of its undisputed supremacy in modern letters, was of course very great; and its appearance in Two Worlds Monthly was one of the causes for the selling out of the issue in many localities. At the time of writing, there has been no opposition to Two Worlds Monthly from any official source; but to the great surprise of the edi- tor, certain booksellers, more timorous than business-like, have refused to take the chance of selling it. The humor of the situation lies in the fact that almost invariably these same reticent purveyors of literature carry a complete file of the salacious “art” magazines and the pornographic cheap story magazines of the day. This refusal to handle Two Worlds Monthly springs then, obviously, from excess of caution rather than principle. We find this attitude faintly amusing; and we are confident that, in three months time, these same booksellers will be clamoring for copies of a magazine, which has already, after a very few days on the stands, met with the unmistakable approbation of the public. Julia’s Clothes By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE Ah, when at night my lady sweet Loosens the honeyed linen from her thigh, Girdle and smock and all the warm things lie Fall’n in a snowdrift round her feet; Or like the foam that kissed the toes Of Venus, nailed with pearl, W hen from the sea she rose, The wondrous golden girl. Then, bending low, I take the sweet cloud up, Stained through with sweets from arm and breast and thigh, And, like a greedy gloating butterfly, Upon the hoarded fragrance sup and sup. Yea, as I feast upon my lady’s clothes, I dream I am a bee, and they a rose. The Fur Coat By HJALMAR SODERBERG THE winter was cold that year. Every one except those who wore furs shrank in the frigid air and grew smaller. Magistrate Rich- ardt owned a large fur coat. This almost went with his professional du- ties, for he was managing director in a completely new company. On the other hand, his old friend, Doctor Henck, possessed no fur coat: he merely had a pretty wife and three children. Doctor Henck was pale and lean. Some people get fat from marrying, others grow thin. Doc- tor Henck had grown thin; and then came Christmas Eve. “This year has been a poor one for me,” said Doctor Henck to him- self, when around three o’clock on Christmas Eve, just before twilight, he was on his way to see his old friend, John Richardt, to borrow some money. “It’s been a very poor year. My health is irregular, not to say destroyed. Meanwhile my pa- tients, practically the whole lot of them, have cheered up; I seldom see them nowadays. In all probability I shall die soon. My wife, too, be- lieves this; I have noticed it. In that case it would be desirable if it oc- curred before the passing of Janu- ary, when the damned premium on my life insurance is to be paid.” When he had reached this point of his reflections, he was standing at the corner of Regeringsgatan and Hamngatan. As he was traversing the street-crossing in order to con- tinue down Regeringsgatan, he glid- ed on a slippery sleigh-track and fell; and just then a cab-sleigh came driving by at full speed. The driver swore, and instinctively the horse swerved aside; but Doctor Henck was struck in the shoulder from one of the runners, and then a screw or nail or some such thing caught his overcoat and tore a great hole in it. People gathered about him. A policeman helped him to his legs; a young girl brushed the snow off him; an old lady gesticulated around his ragged coat in a way which indicated that she would have mended it on the spot had she been able; a prince of the royal household, who acci- dentally was passing by, picked up his cap and placed it on his head; and thus everything was well again, except the coat. “Damn it, how you look, Gustav!” said Magistrate Richardt, when Henck arrived at the office. “Yes, I have been run over by a cab,” said Henck. “That’s just like you,” said Rich- ardt, laughing good-naturedly. “But you can’t go home in that condition. You may borrow my fur coat, if you like, and I’ll send a boy home for my other overcoat.” 131 132 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY “Thanks,” said Doctor Henck. When he had borrowed the hun- dred crowns he needed, he added: “Don’t forget you are coming to dinner with us.” Richardt was a bachelor and was in the habit of spending Christmas Eve at the Henck’s. On his way home at the end of the day, Dr. Henck found himself in a better humour chan he had been for a long time. “It’s the fur coat,” he said to him- self. “If I had been wise, I would have gotten a fur coat on credit long ago. It would have strengthened my confidence and elevated me in the regard of my fellow-men. It is impossible to pay as small fees to a doctor in an ordinary overcoat with worn buttonholes. Too bad I haven’t thought of that before. Now it’s too late.” He took a stroll through Kung- stradgarden. It was already dark, it had begun to snow again, and the acquaintances he met did not recog- nize him. “Who knows, after all, if it it too later” Henck continued to himself. “I’m not old yet, and I may have been mistaken in regard to my health. I am as poor as the fox in the wood; but John Richardt was poor too not so long ago. My wife has been cool and unfriendly of late. She would certainly love me again if I earned more money and if I were dressed in a fur coat. It has seemed to me as if she liked John better since he got a fur coat than she did before. It may be that as a young girl she was a little gone on him too; but he never paid any at- tention to her. He told her and every one else that he would never dare to marry on less than ten thou- sand dollars a year. “But I dared; and Ellen was a poor girl and wanted very much to get married. I don’t believe she was so fond of me that I could have seduced her. But I didn’t want to do that anyway; how could I have dreamed of such a love? I haven’t done anything of that kind since I was sixteen years old and saw ‘Faust’ at the opera for the first time, with Arnoldson as the leading man. But I am sure just the same that she liked me through the early period of our marriage; you could never go wrong in such matters. Why shouldn’t she do so again? During the time just after our wedding she was always saying mean things to John, as often as they met. But then he started a stock company and invited us to the theatre now and then and got a fur coat. And then, of course, my wife got tired of say- ing mean things to him.” Henck had a few more errands to do before dinner. It was half-past five when he reached home laden with packages. He felt very sensi- tive in the left shoulder; otherwise there was nothing to remind him of his mishap of the forenoon, except the fur coat. “It will be great fun to see what kind of a face my wife makes when she sees me togged out in a fur coat," said Doctor Henck to himself. The entrance was quite dark; the lamp was never lighted except dur- ing reception-time. “There, I hear her in the drawing-room,” thought Doctor Henck. “She moves as lightly as a little bird. It’s queer THE FUR COAT 133 how my heart still glows whenever I hear her steps in some adjoining room.” Doctor Henck was right in his supposition that his wife would give him a more loving reception when he was clad in a fur coat than she usually did. She slipped up close to him as he stood in the darkest corner of the vestibule, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him tenderly and passionately. Then she buried her head in his fur collar and whispered softly: “Gustav isn’t home yet.” “Yes,” answered Doctor Henck in a somewhat wavering voice, as he caressed her hair with both hands. “Yes, he is home.” A big fire was blazing in Doctor Henck’s study. On the table stood whisky and water. Magistrate Richardt lay stretched out in a great leather-covered armchair and smoked a cigar. Doctor Henck sat crumpled up in a corner of the sofa. The door to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Henck and the children were in the act of lighting the candles, stood open. The dinner had been very quiet. The children alone had chirped and talked all at once and been happy. “You are not saying much, old boy,” said Richardt. “As you sit there are you pondering about your ragged overcoat?” “No,” replied Henck. “About the fur coat.” There was a pause before he con- tinued: “I am also thinking about something else. As I sit here I realize that this is the last Christmas we shall celebrate together. I am a physician and I know there are not very many days left me. Conse- quently, I want to thank you for all the kindness that you have shewn me and my wife recently.” “Oh, you are mistaken,” said Richardt and looked away. “No,” answered Henck, “I am not mistaken. And I also want to thank you because you lent me your fur coat. It has caused me the last moments of joy I have known in life.” You are not permitted to kill a woman who has wronged you, but nothing forbids you to reflect that she is growing older every minute. You are avenged fourteen hundred and forty times a day. Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots. Perdition By MATITILDE SERAO WHILE the mother was placid- ly embroidering the hem of a little shirt and Mario, seated on the floor, was cutting out red and blue soldiers from a card, the young fa- ther entered suddenly, radiant. “Come, Mario, my boy; let mo- ther dress you and let's go out; I’m going to take you for a walk.” The mother knit her brows slight- ly, but did not move; Mario sprang to his feet and seized his father by the legs. “Oh. my good father, dear little father,” he cried happily, twisting about like a serpent. “Come on, Tecla, dress Mario; it’s getting late.” “Do you really want to take him out?” she asked in surprise, but with- out rising. “Just think of it; I’m free for two hours ! I he child never gets out with me.” “If you take him to the Pincio he will catch cold.” “1 hen we won’t go there. My lit- tle doll, you don t care anything about the Pincio, do you?” “I don’t care, father, so long as I’m with you and mother puts on my satin suit.” “Down in the Castle meadows it will be damp,” the mother observed. “I won’t take him to the meadows —she doesn’t want you to go out, my boy. She’s jealous, eh?” “Tut,” she exclaimed, giving him a tap on the shoulder. And rising slowly, with marked indifference, going and coming with- out haste, opening all the boxes and drawers without finding things, the blond mother dressed Mario. He stood up in his shirt on the bed, kick- ing out his legs, impatient for his shoes and stockings, joking with his father, bouncing up and down on the bed, letting himself be tickled, laugh- ing, kissing his father, who did everything to amuse him, as he also rolled over on the bed, laughing. More than once, while she drew on his stockings, or laced up his shoes, or buttoned his vest, his mother leaned down over the child’s face as if she had some secret to whisper, waiting and smiling. She buttoned him up wrong and had to begin over again. Mario shook with impa- tience; restless and alert, the father already had his hat on while the mother was finding a handkerchief to give Mario. “I’ll give him mine, Tecla, if he needs one.” “I won’t need it; let’s go, father.” “Don't buy him any toys,” she whispered to her husband. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” Then the mother pressed a long 134 135 kiss on the child’s face, as if she wished to make his lips comprehend an unknown language. She went out to the landing and watched the two descend the steps, skipping and chat- tering. “Mario!” she called. “What is it, mother?” “I want to tell you something.” “Tell me from there.” “If you are cold, let me give you your cape.” “I am not cold, mother—good- by.” At the entrance to the menagerie, where you go in to see the pools with crocodiles and the cages with tigers, Mario’s curiosity and courage dwin- dled. He looked up into his father’s eyes with a face half of fear, half of desire, but stood still, not daring to enter. “Are the crocodiles big, fa- ther?” “Yes, ’fraid-cat.” “Big as Nanna, the cook?” “Longer and fatter.” “Come away, father. You tell me about the crocodiles and the tigers. Buy me a toy on National street with the money that you were going to spend in the menagerie.” “No, my pet, you have too many toys.” “Oh, father, what are you saying? If you only knew how many Alex- ander has, at school—fine ones, that work, with machinery inside to move them. He has a train of three cars, with passengers inside, and on the engine is the engineer, all dirty and black. Then he has a horse circus, with jumpers, and riders that turn around and around. You under- stand?—you pull a string. Did you have toys when you were little, like me?” “A few, Mario.” “And were you troublesome?” “Less than you are, you rogue.” “Did they whip you?” “Yes, my dear.” “Did it hurt?” “Sometimes, Mario.” “When mother hits me it doesn’t hurt. I cry aloud and scream, but it’s nothing. Now she doesn’t hit me any more.” “You love her—mother?” “Yes, father, but I love you bet- ter.” “You shouldn’t say that. Why do you love me better?” “Because I see you only at dinner. I see mother all the time. If you buy me a toy, I’ll say I love you both the same.” “You shameless rascal ! Wouldn’t you rather have a sherbet at Sing- er’s?” “Yes, father, a red sherbet.” Then, after he had eaten his sherbet slowly to make it last longer, M ario wanted to buy some pastry to take to mother, who, poor thing, had stayed at home and had no sherbet. He insisted on carrying the package, twisting the knot of the string around his fingers. “Father, when I am big, may I eat a sherbet every day?” “It will give you stomach ache.” “No, no, it won’t give me any- thing. Father, I want to be a sol- dier.” “And if you stay small? Then you will be my little doll.” “Oh, make me eat, make me get big and tall! If I’m little they won’t want me for a soldier.” PERDITION 136 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY The great show window of Na- tali’s shop attracted him. Silent, with eyes intent, with mouth half open, he regarded the wonderful toys. His hand clasped that of his father, as though he would communicate his excitement. And his face was so pale with longing, his beautiful eyes pfeaded so eloquently, that his father could not resist entering the shop to buy him a toy. “I’m so glad you bought me that little town," murmured Mario as they boarded a car to return home. “How many houses has it?” “Twenty, perhaps.” “Then I’ll give you twenty little kisses, and if there is a big tower I’ll give you a great big one. I’m glad, because this is a toy I can play with at home. Friday mother brought me a hoop and a rubber ball. But what can you do with them indoors? They scratch the furniture and break glasses.” "Son went to the Pincio, mother tells me.” “You went to Pamphily. When I was there Friday with mother I didn’t like to have to stay in the car- riage with her. When we go there we’ll get out.” “You didn’t go in a closed car- riage, Mario?” “Always, father.” "And then you played with your hoop and ball?” "Yes, while mother talked with Richard.” “With Richard?” “Yes, father.” “What did he do?” “Walked up and down. For a time I was with them, but they paid no attention to me, so I ran on, with my ball. Then the ball went into a cross alley, and after I had hunted for it I couldn’t find mother. If I had been lost, the wolves would have eaten me there, in the woods.” ‘Yes—perhaps. And mother?” “I saw her by the carriage wait- ing for me.” "Longafter, Mario?” “After five minutes.” "That is too short.” "Then five days after, father. She scolded me and I cried. It was the fault of the hoop and the ball, and I whipped them. Richard got into the carriage with us. Then they pulled down the curtains, and I couldn’t see out. We got out at Ripetta, father, but first Richard kissed mother on the neck. Why did he do that, fa- ther?” Receiving no answer, Mario prat- tled on: “We came away, but he stayed in the carriage. But why did he kiss mother on the neck? He is not my father, he is not Mario, he can't kiss mother. Tell him not to do it again.” “I shall tell him, my son.” The mother was waiting on the landing for her son, her attention strained for the sounds of the steps. “Are you alone, Mario?” “Yes. Father has bought me a lit- tle town, mother, and cakes for you.” She turned pale and trembled. The little fellow stood erect before her, watching her with shining eyes. “Where is your father, Mario?” “He has gone to tell Richard not to kiss you any more, mother.” “My son!” she cried, and she tot- tered and fell fainting at the child’s feet. Richard Middleton By ARTHUR MACHEN THE other day I said to a friend, “I have just been read- ing in proof a volume of short sto- ries by an author named Richard Middleton. He is dead. It is an extraordinary book, and all the work in it is full of a quite curious and dis- tinctive quality. In my opinion it is a very fine work indeed.” It would be so simple if the busi- ness of the introducer or preface- writer were limited to such a straightforward, honest, and direct expression of opinion: unfortunately that is not so. For most of us, the happier ones of the world, it is enough to say “I like it,” or “I don’t like it,” and there is an end: the critic has to answer the everlasting “Why?” And so, I suppose, it is my office, in this present instance, to say why I like the collection of tales that follows. I think that I have found a hint as to the right answer in two of his stories. One is called “The Story of a Book,” the other “The Biog- raphy of a Superman.” Each is rather an essay than a tale, though the form of each is narrative. The first relates the sad bewilderment of a successful novelist who feels that, after all, his great work was some- thing less than nothing. He could not help noticing that London had discovered the secret which made his intellectual life a torment. The streets were more than a mere, assemblage of houses, London herself was more than a tangled skein of streets, and over- head heaven was more than a meeting-place of individual stars. What was this secret that made words into a book, houses into cities, and restless and measured stars into an unchanging and im- measurable universe? Then from “The Biography of a Superman” I select this very strik- ing passage: Possessed of an intellect of great analytic and destructive force, he was almost entirely lack- ing in imagination, and he was therefore unable to raise his work to a plane in which the mutually combative elements of his nature might have been reconciled. His light moments of envy, anger, and vanity passed into the crucible to come forth unchanged. He lacked the magic wand, and his work never took wings above his con- ception. Now compare the two places: “the streets were more than a mere as- semblage of houses”; “his light mo- ments . . . passed into the crucible to 137 138 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY come forth unchanged. He lacked the magic wand.” I think these two passages indicate the answer to the “why” that I am forced to resolve; show something of the secret of the strange charm which “The Ghost Ship” possesses. It delights because it is significant, because it is no mere assemblage of words and fact and observations and incidents; it delights because its mat- ter has not passed through the cru- cible unchanged. On the contrary, the jumble of experiences and im- pressions which fell to the lot of the author as to us all had assuredly been placed in the athanor of art, in that furnace of the sages which is said to be governed with wisdom. Lead en- tered the burning of the fire, gold came forth from it. This analogy of the process of alchemy which Richard Middleton has himself suggested is one of the finest and the fittest for our purpose; but there are many others. The “magic wand” analogy comes to much the same thing; there is the like notion of something ugly and insigni- ficant changed to something beautiful and significant. Something ugly; shall we not say rather something formless transmuted into form? Af- ter all, the Latin Dictionary declares solemnly that “beauty” is one of the meanings of “forma.” And here we are away from alchemy and the magic wand ideas, and pass to the thought of the first place that I have quoted: "the streets were more than a mere assemblage of houses.” The puzzle is solved; the jig-saw—I think they call it—has been success- fully fitted together. There in a box lay all the jagged, irregular pieces, each in itself crazy and meaningless and irritating by its very lack of meaning; now we see each part adapted to the other and the whole is one picture and one purpose. But the first thing necessary to this achievement is the recognition of the fact that there is a puzzle. There are many people who go through life persuaded that there isn’t a puz- zle at all; that it was only the in- fancy and rude childhood of the world which dreamed a vain dream of a picture to be made out of the jagged bits of wood. There never has been a picture, these persons say, and there never will be a picture; all we have to do is to take the bits out of the box, look at them, and put them back again. Or, returning to Richard Middleton’s excellent ex- ample: there is no such thing as London, there are only houses. No man has seen London at any time; the very word (meaning “the fort on the lake”) is nonsensical; no hu- man eye has ever beheld aught else but a number of houses; it is clear that this “London” is as mythical and monstrous and irrational a con- cept as many others of the same class. Well, people who talk like that are doubtless sent into the world for some useful but mysterious pro- cess; but they can’t write real books. Richard Middleton knew that there was a puzzle; in other words, that the universe is a great mystery; and this consciousness of his is the source of the charm of “The Ghost Ship.” I have compared this orthodox view of life and the universe and the fine art that results from this view to the solving of a puzzle; but the analogy is not an absolutely perfect RICHARD MIDDLETON 139 one. For if you buy a jig-saw in a box in the Haymarket, you take it home with you and begin to put the pieces together, and sooner or later the toil is over and the difficulties are overcome: the picture is clear before you. Yes, the toil is over, but so is the fun; it is but poor sport to do the trick all over again. And here is the vast inferiority of the things they sell in the shops to the universe; our great puzzle is never perfectly solved. We come across marvelous hints, we join line to line and our hearts beat with the rapture of a great surmise; we follow a certain track and know by sure signs and signals that we are not mistaken, that we are on the right road; we are fur- nished with certain charts which tell us “here there be water-pools,” “here is a waste place,” “here a high hill riseth,” and we find as we jour- ney that so it is. But, happily, by the very nature of the case, we can never recover the perfect utterance of the Lost Word, we can never say “here is the end of all the journey.” Man is so made that all his true de- light arises from the contemplation of mystery, and, save by his own frantic and invincible folly, mystery is never taken from him; it rises within his soul, a well of joy un- ending. Hence it is that the consciousness of this mystery, resolved into the form of art, expresses itself usually (or always) by symbols, by the part put for the whole. Now and then, as in the case of Dante, as it was with the great romance-cycle of the Holy Graal, we have a sense of completeness. With the vision of the Angelic Rose and the sentence concerning that Love which moves the sun and the other stars there is the shadow of a catholic survey of all things; and so in a less degree it is as we read of the translation of Galahad. Still, the Rose and the Graal are but symbols of the eternal verities, not those verities themselves in their essences; and in these later days when we have become clever— with the cleverness of the Perform- ing Pig—it is a great thing to find the most obscure and broken indica- tions of the things which really are. There is the true enchantment of true romance in the Don Quixote— 'for those who can understand—but it is delivered in the mode of parody and burlesque; and so it is with the extraordinary fantasy, “The Ghost Ship,” which gives its name to his collection of tales. Take this story to bits, as it were; analyse it; you will be astonished at its frantic ab- surdity: the ghostly galleon blown in by a great tempest to a turnip-patch in Fairfield, a little village lying near the Portsmouth Road about half-way between London and the sea; the farmer grumbling at the loss of so many turnips; the captain of the weird vessel acknowledging the jus- tice of the claim and tossing a great gold brooch to the landlord by way of satisfying the debt; the deplor- able fact that all the decent village ghosts learned to riot with Captain Bartholomew Roberts; the visit of the parson and his godly admonitions to the Captain on the evil work he was doing; mere craziness, you will say? Yes; but the strange thing is that as, in spite of all jocose tricks and low-comedy misadventures, Don WITH all that Arthur Machen has said about the genius of Middle- ton there can be no dispute. But it is a pity that he knew the man only through his work, that he is unable to add to the appraisal of his writing a picture of the man himself or tell the story of his death, as I my- self have just heard it from the lips of a bookseller who met Middleton not many days before the event. Middleton, by this report, was a young man of imposing height, with a tremendous breadth of shoulders, and a voice that had in it the growling of a lion, so that, being with him for the first time, people felt a bit uneasy. He, Middleton, was as uneasy as anyone else, only that he never really got over it. What was it in himself that Middleton seemed to be afraid of? Prob- TWO WORLDS MONTHLY 140 Quixote departs from us with a great light shining upon him; so this ghost ship of Richard Middleton’s, some- how or other, sails and anchors and resails in an unearthly glow; and Captain Bartholomew’s rum that was like hot oil and honey and fire in the veins of the mortals who drank of it, has become for me one of the nobilium poculorum of story. And thus did the ship put forth from the village and sail away in a great tem- pest of wind—to what unimaginable seas of the spirit! The wind that had been howl- ing outside like an outrageous dog had all of a sudden turned as melodious as the carol-boys of a Christmas Eve. We went to the door, and the wind burst it open so that the han- dle was driven clean into the plaster of the wall. But we didn’t think much of that at the time; for over our heads, sailing very com- fortably through the windy stars, was the ship that had passed the summer in landlord’s field. Her portholes and her bay-window were blazing with lights, and there was a noise of singing and fiddling on her decks. “He’s gone," shouted landlord above the storm, “and he’s taken half the village with him!" I could only nod in answer, not having lungs like bel- lows of leather. I declare I would not exchange this short, crazy, enchanting fantasy for a whole wilderness of seemly novels, proclaiming in decorous ac- cents the undoubted truth that there are milestones on the Portsmouth Road. An Editorial Note AN EDITORIAL NOTE 141 ably the asthma which clung to him stubbornly and sent him scurrying out of London from time to time for relief. With such a robust physique as his he might have had a fairly good chance with his deadly foe, but for an even deadlier one, poverty. One day, when even Brussels could not relieve him and he found himself entirely penniless, he decided to give up. He wrote to Lord Alfred Douglas and another friend declaring that he intended to kill himself to escape the twin scourges of poverty and disease. Knowing Middleton as a man of great will power, these two made all haste to Brussels, but trains are slow and death is sudden. When they arrived, it was necessary to force the door to Middleton’s room, where he was found dead, poisoned by his own hand, dead in his youth and on the threshold of what must inevitably have been a distinguished career in English letters. There is one more fact to record, a gaucherie of destiny of so poor an artistic quality that Middleton himself would never have committed it. If he had written the story of his own life, his aesthetic taste, extremely sen- sitive as it was to the exact location of that tenuous boundary between the sublime and the ridiculous, would have prevented him from adding the last touch, the irony that is just a bit too improbable, the incredible climax that would certainly have occurred to an unpractised writer and as certainly been rejected by one of greater delicacy. If we, like the ancients, choose to personify the fates, we may imagine three grim old women cackling in malevolent glee as they added to the life story of Richard Middleton the final touch too much, the cheap artifice of the hack writer. For in his mail was found, in the most approved manner of tragic melodrama, the publisher’s check that would have saved his life and started a great artist on the road to a happy and productive life. Empty wine-bottles have a bad opinion of women. A noble enthusiasm in praise of Woman is not compatible with a spirited zeal in defamation of women. The Ghost Ship By RICHARD MIDDLETON FAIRFIELD is a little village ly- ing near the Portsmouth Road about half-way between London and the sea. Strangers who find it by ac- cident now and then call it a pretty, old-fashioned place; we who live in it and call it home don’t find anything very pretty about it, but we should be sorry to live anywhere else. Our minds have taken the shape of the inn and the church and the green, I suppose. At all events we never feel comfortable out of Fairfield. Of course the Cockneys, with their vasty houses and noise-ridden streets, can call us rustics if they choose, but for all that Fairfield is a better place to live in than London. Doctor says that when he goes to London his mind in bruised with the weight of the houses, and he was a Cockney born. He had to live there himself when he was a little chap, but he knows better now. You gentlemen may laugh—perhaps some of you come from London way—but it seems to me that a witness like that is worth a gallon of arguments. Dull ? Well, you might find it dull, but I assure you that I’ve listened to all the London yarns you have spun to-night, and they’re absolutely noth- ing to the things that happen at Fair- field. It’s because of our way of thinking and minding our own busi- ness. If one of vour Londoners were set down on the green of a Sat- urday night when the ghosts of the lads who died in the War keep tryst with the lasses who lie in the church- yard, he couldn't help being curious and interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where it was quieter. But we just let them come and go and don't make any fuss, and in consequence Fairfield is the ghostiest place in all England. Why, I’ve seen a headless man sitting on the edge of the well in broad day- light, and the children playing about his feet as if he were their father. Take my word for it, spirits know when they are well off as much as human beings. Still, I must admit that the thing I’m going to tell you about was queer even for our part of the world, where three packs of ghost-hounds hunt regularly during the season, and blacksmith's great-grandfather is busy all night shoeing the dead gentlemen’s horses. Now that’s a thing that wouldn’t happen in Lon- don, because of their interfering ways, but blacksmith he lies up aloft and sleeps as quiet as a lamb. Once when he had a bad head he shouted down to them not to make so much noise, and in the morning he found an old guinea left on the anvil as an apology. He wears it on his watch- chain now. But I must get on with 142 THE GHOST SHIP 143 my story; if I start telling you about the queer happenings at Fairfield I’ll never stop. It all came of the great storm in the spring of ’97, the year that we had two great storms. This was the first one, and I remember it very well, because I found in the morn- ing that it had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow’s garden as clean as a boy’s kite. When I looked over the hedge, widow— Tom Lamport’s widow that was— was prodding for her nasturtiums with a daisy-grubber. After I had watched her for a little I went down to the “Fox and Grapes” to tell land- lord what she had said to me. Land- lord he laughed, being a married man and at ease with the sex. “Come to that,” he said, “the tempest has blowed something into my field. A kind of a ship, I think it would be.” I was suprised at that until he ex- plained that it was only a ghost ship and would do no hurt to the turnips. We argued that it had been blown up from the sea at Portsmouth, and then we talked of something else. There were two slates down at the parsonage and a big tree in Lumley’s meadow. It was a rare storm. I reckon the wind had blown our ghosts all over England. They were coming back for days afterwards with foundered horses and as foot- sore as possible, and they were so glad to get back to Fairfield that some of them walked up the street crying like little children. Squire said that his great-grandfather’s great- grandfather hadn’t looked so dead- beat since the battle of Naseby, and he’s an educated man. What with one thing and another, I should think it was a week before we got straight again, and then one afternoon I met the landlord on the green and he had a worried face. “I wish you’d come and have a look at that ship in my field,” he said to me; “it seems to me it’s leaning real hard on the turnips. I can’t bear thinking what the missus will say when she sees it.” I walked down the lane with him, and sure enough there was a ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as no man had seen on the water for three hundred years, let alone in the middle of a turnip- field. It was all painted black and covered with carvings, and there was a great bay window in the stern for all the world like the Squire’s draw- ing-room. There was a crowd of lit- tle black cannon on deck and looking out of her port-holes, and she was anchored at each end to the hard ground. I have seen the wonders of the world on picture-post-cards, but I have never seen anything to equal that. “She seems very solid for a ghost ship,” I said, seeing the landlord was bothered. “I should say it’s a betwixt and between,” he answered, puzzling it over, “but it’s going to spoil a matter of fifty turnips, and missus she’ll want it moved.” We went up to her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real ship. “Now there’s folks in England would call that very curious,” he said. Now I don’t know much about ships, but I should think that that ghost ship weighed a solid two hun- dred tons, and it seemed to me that she had come to stay, so that I felt 144 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY sorry for landlord, who was a mar- ried man. “All the horses in Fair- field won’t move her out of my tur- nips,’’ he said, frowning at her. Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up and saw that a man had come out of her front cabin and was looking down at us very peaceably. He was dressed in a black uniform set out with rusty gold lace, and he had a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. “I’m Captain Bartholomew Rob- erts,’’ he said, in a gentleman’s voice, “put in for recruits. I seem to have brought her rather far up the har- bor." “Harbor!” cried landlord; “why, you’re fifty miles from the sea.” Captain Roberts didn’t turn a hair. “So much as that, is it?" he said coolly. “Well, it’s of no conse- quence." Landlord was a bit upset at this. “I don’t want to be unneighborly," he said, "but I wish you hadn’t brought your ship into my field. You see, my wife sets great store on those turnips." The Captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. “I’m only here for a few months,” he said; “but if a testimony of my esteem would pacify your good lady I should be content,” and with the words he loosed a great gold brooch from the neck of his coat and tossed it down to landlord. Landlord blushed as red as a strawberry. “I’m not denying she’s fond of jewelry,” he said, “but it’s too much for half a sackful of tur- nips.” And indeed it was a hand- some brooch. The Captain laughed. “Tut, man,” he said, “it’s a forced sale, and you deserve a good price. Say no more about it”; and nodding good-day to us, he turned on his heel and went into the cabin. Landlord walked back up the lane like a man with a weight off his mind. “That tempest has blowed me a bit of luck,” he said, “the missus will be main pleased with that brooch. It’s better than blacksmith’s guinea, any day.” Ninety-seven was Jubilee year, the year of the second Jubilee, you remember, and we had great doings at Fairfield, so that we hadn’t much time to bother about the ghost ship, though anyhow it isn’t our way to meddle in things that don’t concern us. Landlord, he saw his tenant once or twice when he was hoeing his turnips and passed the time of day, and landlord’s wife wore her new brooch to church every Sunday. But we didn't mix much with the ghosts at any time, all except an idiot lad there was in the village, and he didn’t know the difference between a man and a ghost, poor innocent! On Jubilee Day, however, somebody told Captain Roberts why the church bells were ringing, and he hoisted a flag and fired off his guns like a loyal Englishman. ’Tis true the guns were shotted, and one of the round shot knocked a hole in Farmer John- stone’s barn, but nobody thought much of that in such a season of re- joicing. It wasn’t till our celebrations were over that we noticed that anything was wrong in Fairfield. ’Twas shoe- THE GHOST SHIP 145 maker who told me first about it one morning at the “Fox and Grapes.” “You know my great great-uncle ?” he said to me. “You mean Joshua, the quiet lad,” I answered, knowing him well. “Quiet!” said shoemaker indig- nantly. “Quiet you call him, coming home at three o’clock every morning as drunk as a magistrate and wak- ing up the whole house with his noise.” “Why, it can’t be Joshua !” I said, for I knew him for one of the most respectable young ghosts in the vil- lage. “Joshua it is,” said shoemaker; “and one of these nights he’ll find himself out in the street if he isn’t careful,” This kind of talk shocked me, I can tell you, for I don’t like to hear a man abusing his own family, and I could hardly believe that a steady youngster like Joshua had taken to drink. But just then in came butcher Aylwin in such a temper that he could hardly drink his beer. “The young puppy! the young puppy!” he kept on saying; and it was some time before shoemaker and I found out that he was talking about his an- cestor that fell at Senlac. “Drink?” said shoemaker hope- fully, for we all like company in our misfortunes, and butcher nodded grimly. “The young noodle,” he said, emptying his tankard. Well, after that I kept my ears open, and it was the same story all over the village. There was hardly a young man among all the ghosts of Fairfield who didn’t roll home in the small hours of the morning the worse for liquor. I used to wake up in the night and hear them stumble past my house, singing outrageous songs. The worst of it was that we couldn’t keep the scandal to our- selves, and the folk at Greenhill be- gan to talk of “sodden Fairfield” and taught their children to sing a song about us: “Sodden Fairfield, sodden Fairfield, has no use for bread and butter, Rum for breakfast, rum for dinner, rum for tea, and rum for supper!” We are very easy-going in our vil- lage, but we didn’t like that. Of course we soon found out where the young fellows went to get the drink, and landlord was terribly cut up that his tenant should have turned out so badly, but his wife wouldn’t hear of parting with the brooch, so that he couldn’t give the Captain notice to quit. But as time went on, things grew from bad to worse, and at all hours of the day you would see those young repro- bates sleeping it off on the village green. Nearly every afternoon a ghost wagon used to jolt down to the ship with a lading of rum, and though the older ghosts seemed in- clined to give the Captain’s hospital- ity the go-by, the youngsters were neither to hold nor to bind. So one afternoon when I was tak- ing my nap I heard a knock at the door, and there was parson looking very serious, like a man with a job before him that he didn’t altogether relish. “I’m going down to talk to the Captain about all this drunken- ness in the village, and I want you 146 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY to come with me,” he said straight out. I can't say that I fancied the visit much myself, and I tried to hint to parson that as, after all, they were only a lot of ghosts, it didn’t very much matter. “Dead or alive, I’m responsible for their good conduct,” he said, “and I’m going to do my duty and put a stop to this continued disorder. And you are coming with me, John Simmons.” So I went, parson being a persuasive kind of man. We went down to the ship, and as we approached her I could see the Captain tasting the air on deck. When he saw parson he took off his hat very politely, and I can tell you that I was relieved to find that he had a proper respect for the cloth. Parson acknowledged his salute and spoke out stoutly enough: “Sir, I should be glad to have a word with you.” “Come on board, sir; come on board,” said the Captain, and I could tell by his voice that he knew why we were there. Parson and I climbed up an uneasy kind of ladder, and the Captain took us into the great cabin at the back of the ship, where the bay-window was. It was the most wonderful place you ever saw in your life, all full of gold and silver plate, swords with jeweled scabbards, carved oak chairs, and great chests that looked as though they were bursting with guineas. Even parson was surprised, and he did not shake his head very hard when the Captain took down some silver cups and poured us out a drink of rum. I tasted mine, and I don’t mind saying that it changed my view of things entirely. There was noth- ing betwixt and between about that rum, and I felt that it was ridicu- lous to blame the lads for drinking too much of stuff like that. It seemed to fill my veins with honey and fire. Parson put the case squarely to the Captain, but I didn’t listen much to what was said; I was busy sipping my drink and looking through the window at the fishes swimming to and fro over landlord’s turnips. Just then it seemed the most nat- ural thing in the world that they should be there, though afterwards, of course, I could see that that proved it was a ghost ship. But even then I thought it was queer when I saw a drowned sailor float by in the thin air with his hair and beard all full of bubbles. It was the first time I had seen any- thing quite like that at Fairfield. All the time I was regarding the wonders of the deep parson was tell- ling Captain Roberts how there was no peace or rest in the village owing to the curse of drunkenness, and what a bad example the youngsters were setting to the older ghosts. The Captain listened very attentive- ly, and only put in a word now and then about boys being boys and young men sowing their wild oats. But when parson had finished his speech he filled up our silver cups and said to parson, with a flourish: "I should be sorry to cause trouble anywhere where I have been made welcome, and you will be glad to hear that I put to sea tomorrow night. And now you must drink me a prosperous voyage.” So we all stood up and drank the THE GHOST SHIP 147 toast with honour, and that noble rum was like hot oil in my veins. After that Captain showed us some of the curiosities he had brought back from foreign parts, and we were greatly amazed, though afterwards I couldn’t clearly remem- ber what they were. And then I found myself walking across the turnips with parson, and I was tell- ing him of the glories of the deep that I had seen through the window of the ship. He turned on me severe- ly. “If I were you, John Simmons,” he said, “I should go straight home to bed.” He has a way of putting things that wouldn’t occur to an ordi- nary man, has parson, and I did as he told me. Well, next day it came on to blow, and it blew harder and harder, till about eight o’clock at night I heard a noise and looked out into the gar- den. 1 dare say you wouldn’t be- lieve me, it seems a bit tall even to me, but the wind had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the wid- ow’s garden a second time. I thought I wouldn’t wait to hear what widow had to say about it, so I went across the green to the “Fox and Grapes,” and the wind was so strong that I danced along on tip- toe like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn landlord had to help ine shut the door; it seemed as though a dozen goats were pushing against it to come in out of the storm. “It’s a powerful tempest,” he said, drawing the beer. “I hear there’s a chimney down at Hickory End.” “It’s a funny thing how these sail- ors know about the weather,” I an- swered. “When Captain said he was going tonight, I was thinking it would take a capful of wind to car- ry the ship back to sea, but now here’s more than a capful.” “Ah, yes,” said landlord, “it’s to- night he goes true enough, and, mind you, though he treated me handsome over the rent, I’m not sure it’s a loss to the village. I don’t hold with gentrice who fetch their drink from • London instead of helping local traders to get their living.” “But you haven’t got any rum like his,” I said, to draw him out. His neck grew red above his col- lar, and I was afraid I'd gone too far; but after a while he got his breath with a grunt. “John Simmons,” he said, “if you’ve come down here this windy night to talk a lot of fool’s talk, you’ve wasted your journey.” Well, of course, then I had to smooth him down with praising his rum, and Heaven forgive me for swearing it was better than Cap- tain’s. For the like of that rum no living lips have tasted save mine and parson’s. But somehow or other I brought landlord round, and pres- ently we must have a glass of his best to prove its quality. “Beat that if you can!” he cried, and we both raised our glasses to our mouths, only to stop half-way and look at each other in amaze. For the wind that had been howl- ing outside like an outrageous dog had all of a sudden turned as melo- dious as the carol-boys of a Christ- mas Eve. “Surely that’s not my Martha,” whispered landlord; Martha being his great-aunt that lived in the loft overhead. 148 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY We went to the door, and the wind burst it open so that the han- dle was driven clean into the plaster of the wall. But we didn’t think about that at the time; for over our heads, sailing very comfortably through the windy stars, was the ship that had passed the summer in land- lord’s field. Her portholes and her bay-window were blazing with lights, and there was a noise of singing and fiddling on her decks. “He’s gone!” shouted landlord above the storm. “And he’s taken half the village with him!” I could only nod in answer, not having lungs like bellows of leather. In the morning we were able to measure the strength of the storm, and over and above my pigsty there was damage enough wrought in the village to keep us busy. True it is that the children had to break down no branches for the firing that au- tumn, since the wind had strewn the woods with more than they could carry away. Many of our ghosts were scattered abroad, but this time very few came back, all the young men having sailed with Captain; and not only ghosts, for a poor half- witted lad was missing, and we reck- oned that he had stowed himself away or perhaps shipped as cabin- boy, not knowing any better. What with the lamentations of the ghost girls and the grumblings of families who had lost an ances- tor, the village was upset for a while, and the funny thing was that it was the folk who had complained most of the carryings-on of the young- sters who made most noise now that they were gone. I hadn’t any sym- pathy with shoemaker or butcher, who ran about saying how much they missed their lads, but it made me grieve to hear the poor bereaved girls calling their lovers by name on the village green at nightfall. It didn’t seem fair to me that they should have lost their men a second time, after giving up life in order to join them, as like as not. Still, not even a spirit can be sorry for ever, and after a few months we made up our mind that the folk who had sailed in the ship were never coming back, and we didn’t talk about it any more. And then one day, I dare say it would be a couple of years after, when the whole business was quite forgotten, who should come trapes- ing along the road from Portsmouth but the daft lad who had gone away with the ship, without waiting till he Avas dead to become a ghost. You never saw such a boy as that in all your life. He had a great rusty cut- lass hanging to a string at his waist, and he was tattooed all over in fine colours, so that even his face looked like a girl's sampler. He had a handkerchief in his hand full of for- eign shells and old-fashioned pieces of small money, very curious, and he walked up to the well outside his mother’s house and drew himself a drink as if he had been nowhere in particular. The worst of it was that he had come back as soft-handed as he went, and try as we might we couldn’t get anything reasonable out of him. He talked a lot of gibberish about keel- hauling and walking the plank and crimson murders—things which a decent sailor should know nothing about, so that it seemed to me that THE GHOST SHIP 149 for all his manners Captain had been more of a pirate than a gen- tleman mariner. But to draw sense out of that boy was as hard as pick- ing cherries off a crab-tree. One sil- ly tale he had that he kept on drift- ing back to, and to hear him you would have thought that it was the only thing that happened to him in his life. “We was at anchor,” he would say, “off an island called the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors had caught a lot of parrots and we were teaching them to swear. Up and down the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they used was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts of the Span- ish ship outside the harbour. Out- side the harbour they were, so we threw the parrots into the sea and sailed out to fight. And all the par- rots were drowned in the sea and the language they used was dread- ful.” That’s the sort of boy he was, nothing but silly talk of parrots when we asked him about the fighting. And we never had a chance of teach- ing him better, for two days after he ran away again, and hasn’t been seen since. That’s my story, and I assure you that things like that are happening at Fairfield all the time. The ship has never come back, but somehow as people grow older they seem to think that one of these windy nights she’ll come sailing in over the hedges with all the lost ghosts on board. Well, when she comes, she’ll be wel- come. There’s one ghost lass that has never grown tired of waiting for her lad to return. Every night you’ll see her out on the green, straining her poor eyes with looking for the mast-lights among the stars. A faith- ful lass you’d call her, and I’m think- ing you’d be right. Landlord’s field wasn’t a penny the worse for the visit, but they do say that since then the turnips that have grown in it have tasted of rum. SHE was about twenty-two. Her stature was slender, her round, small face very charming and inno- cent. Her eyes, large and dark, shone with an expression of quiet ap- peal, as though to ask, “Is there anything really beautiful in the world? And, sometimes, it would seem they wished to answer her own question, “Ah, yes. Indeed, there is beauty in the world.” I confess that, on seeing her for the first time, a pleasant thrill pos- sessed my whole body: here was a young woman with whom it would be well worth while to become friends. With her I would feel sanctified, holier. Especially on rainy days, when the drops strike monotonously against the window panes, it would be very pleasant to sit with her, alone in a small room, and talk to her of beautiful and en- nobling subjects, pressing gently, in the meantime, her small hand with its long white fingers. Do not seek to excuse me—it is no more than truth to say that I was a bit forward. Seeing her one day at the theatre, where I sat among Jews, I trod on her foot, unintentionally, you may be sure. I cannot think how I could have been so clumsy. The cause was, probably, that the theatre was crowded—an extremely modern piece was on the bills, and the urban intelligentsia, in those days, worshipped at the feet of mod- ernism. Only for that reason, I as- sure you, did the accident occur; surely such gaucherie on my part would not otherwise have been pos- sible. Luckily, the step was, at least, not heavy. She gasped only a stifled 150 An Offended Lady A Tale of Inexperience By ABRAHAM RAISIN Translated by Samuel Baron We present this delightful story in honor of the fiftieth birthday of Abraham Raisin, a Yiddish writer of distinction, whose work, unfortunately, is practically unknown among English readers on account of the incompatibility of the Yiddish and English lan- guages, which renders translation a difficult task. We hope that the present translation will carry enough of the subtlety of Raisin’s writing to bring about a demand for further English versions of the work of a man whose name describes a Jewish literary tradition which has already become well-nigh legendary. AN OFFENDED LADY 151 “Oh!”, but it startled me. I apol- ogized in three different languages. She gazed at me with her large, dark eyes, and answered, in Russian, “Nitshevo.” Between the acts, that evening, the orchestra played the Barcarolle of Tschaikovsky. But the “Nitshe- vo,” which had fallen from her lovely little mouth sang more sweetly to me than the music of the Russian genius. I felt instinctively that in this word “Nitshevo” dwelt a great, a very great, meaning; I felt that from this “nothing,” a very impor- tant something would develop. That was how it happened. My second chance came in the old form of the fallen handkerchief. I stooped quickly and, with all the elegance and refinement at my com- mand, returned the kerchief to her. The charming young woman was most grateful. She granted me a sweet smile, and thanked me with the Russian word “Blogodoriv.” Her tone rang with something more than mere politeness. Not words, but melodies, would have been re- quired to duplicate the nuances of her voice. I did not know precisely why, but I was certain that this young lady was attracted to me. . . . It was going to be very simple to become her friend! And it was simple. I knew her name by the fourth act: she was called Katia Gold. I, of course, told her mine, and the conversation turned upon literature. “You have read Andreyev?” she asked. “ Yes, indeed,” I answered eager- ly. “I’m his most enthusiastic ad- mirer! You’re thinking, of course” —there was warmth in my tone— “of The Red Laugh?” “That is indeed wonderful,” she waxed enthusiastic. “And Gorki’s Twenty-Six and One?” “Ah, yes! Gorki is, without doubt, a master. But Andreyev has surpassed him.” “And Artzibashev?” She lifted to me suddenly her great deep eyes. Embarrassed, I lowered my gaze, unwilling to commit myself by an opinion: Her purity, at that beauti- ful moment, seemed so perfect that I was unwilling to intrude upon it by speaking of Artzibashev. I was ashamed to admit to so charming a girl that I was acquainted with his works. Ah, in what deep honor I held this woman! In the space of a week I had the good fortune to meet her several times accidentally (at least we pre- ferred to call these meetings acci- dents), each time among surround- ings of culture and refinement. Once it was in the library, once at a lec- ture, attended by the foremost in- tellects of the city, on immigration— and a third time on the spot where a bomb, half an hour earlier, had been thrown at nothing in particular. I began to speak to her of the doc- trine of terror. “I have absolutely no faith in ter- rorism,” I whispered in her ear. “The social revolution ” I was interrupted by a policeman, who came to scatter the crowd. “Mais mon Dieu!” she cried im- patiently. “With absolutism still so strong . . . ! Come, let us go.” And as we walked, we spoke of Andreyev’s latest book. Her opin- 152 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY ion of him was very high. I, of course, agreed. “And Sanine?” she asked, very quietly. “Sanine,” I declared indignantly, “is an extremely pornographic work.” I spoke with great disgust, to emphasize the soundness of my morals. There was a little pause. Then, "Where do you expect to go now, Katia?” I asked her. “Now?” she echoed, in her charm- ing manner, “I believe I’ll go to the library.” “Ah, what a woman!” I thought, praising her in the privacy of my mind. How I should have liked to go home . . . with her, I mean. But how could I invite her? How could I make her understand that I meant her no harm ? But just like that . . . out of a clear sky . . . there was an autumn tang in the air . . . the eve- ning would be long, a chat would be most enjoyable. “Do you know, Katia,” I in- formed her suddenly, “I have really some very excellent books?” “Indeed!” she said. “Indeed!” I repeated enthusias- tically. "I have a genuinely nrst- rate library.” “You don’t happen to have the History of Civilization in England?” she asked, with a look that seemed to mirror an interest in subjects far more fundamental than civilization in England. “Why, of course,” I cried, sur- prised. “How could I do without it? It’s one of my reference books.” “In that case,” she said quickly and with enthusiasm. “I’ll visit your home with you. Where do you live?” Intoxicated with my happiness as I was, I still had the presence of mind not to blurt out the distance to my residence. “I live in a very quiet neighbor- hood.” “Where there are trees?” she asked. “How poetic you are, Katia.” She was charming! “Yes, I’m fortunate enough to live on a street that’s dot- ted with trees. It’s a Christian street. As a matter of fact, I live with a gentile . . . they’re very intel- ligent gentiles; they read the Retsh. But I live very privately . . . two rooms . . , they’re very cheap . . I was afraid, as I poured forth my confidences, that I might be over- stepping the bounds. But a close scrutiny of her features reassured me. Scores of melodies welled from the pure joy in my heart. She is coming with me, she is coming. This adorable, sweet, enchanting, and ex- ceptionally intelligent young woman is coming with me! I reminded myself that I must be circumspect in her presence, that I must not often stand close to her, or allow her to glimpse my sensual nature. “I must remember,” I told myself, “that she is a young lady of breeding, of lofty ideals and an im- maculate viewpoint. I must, above all, be the gentleman.” I led her, quietly and carefully, into my small apartment as though she were Fortuna. My two little rooms were dark. I apologized for the gloom, and was very careful not to brush against her and alarm her. How my heart pounded! Quickly, I lit the lamp. The first little room sprang into illumination. She looked about it, her gaze fell upon the bed, and I thought I de- tected a blush. As for me, I colored very evidently. I led the way into the second room, furnished with a small table and a sofa, where my library was kept. Immediately she absorbed herself in the books. “Indeed you have a tempting li- brary,” she said, as she thumbed through the pages of book after book. “Ah, and here is Heine,” she cried joyfully. “You will lend it to me?” “With the greatest of pleasure.” We sat upon the sofa, and began to talk. I looked at the window cur- tain. It was not lowered. I cannot explain what possessed me, but I felt sorely tempted to lower the curtain. But why? For that matter, who would care? But I feared that she might misconstrue my meaning. God forbid! Offend a woman? Not I! “Why do you stare at the window so?” she asked at last. Confused, I answered at random : "It’s your imagination, Katia! I’m not looking ” And again we fell to talking. Ah! How many interesting things there were to talk about! She was so clever, so well read, and my opin- ions, thank fortune, interested her greatly. Suddenly she turned to me as though she bad just awakened. “How late is it, please?” I drew my watch from my pocket and was astonished. One o’clock! How had the time passed so quickly? “You won’t believe how late it is,” I smiled; and my heart began to beat more rapidly at the thought that soon my Fortuna would be obliged to go. “How late?” she asked. I told her, waiting anxiously to see how the news would affect her. She heard me, and her lips formed, in a murmur, the words, “Really late . . . and I have so far to go ” “If I were only a woman,” I be- gan tactfully, “you could spend the night here.” “But you’re not a woman,” she laughed. “To my great sorrow,” I re- turned jokingly; and indeed at that moment I really wished I had been a woman. “It’s nothing to be sorry for,” she answered sadly, remaining seated. “We women are the most unfor- tunate of creatures.” Her tragic tone so moved me that I forgot my good resolutions against offending her, took her hand, and said consolingly, “Oh, Katia, you women possess a something that renders you desirable and lovely; you are, consequently, sure to be fortunate.” To that she did not answer. In- stead, she darted a sudden silent look at me, and murmured, “I feel so very comfortable here!” “It makes me very happy to hear you say that,” I cried joyously. “Why then shouldn’t you stay here for the night? There are two rooms . . . you can trust me ... ” “Oh, I’m not afraid,” she laughed. “But isn’t it a little chilly here?” “True, it is chilly,” I admitted, though I was burning with excite- ment. “It is indeed chilly. It’s late autumn, and we haven’t yet turned AN OFFENDED LADY 153 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY on the heat. But I’ll give you my coat as well as my blanket.” “And you?” she asked, as good- heartedly as a nun. “Oh, don’t worry, about me. I’ll cover myself with something else.” “Well, then, I’ll stay,” she de- cided calmly. “Stay! Yes, by all means, stay!” I said warmly, hardly believing in my good fortune. Within half an hour she was lying in my bed, covered by my blanket and coat. I lay in the other room on the sofa, my spring coat over me, and a small pillow beneath my head. I lay awake musing on my good for- tune. At last I could stand the quiet no longer, and I called from my room: “Katia, are you asleep?” “I’m cold,” she complained pet- tishly. Without meaning the slightest harm, but with motives only of kind- ness, I sprang out of bed, clothed myself in my spring coat, went in to her, and asked, “My dear Katia, are you then cold?” “Cover me better!” she begged. So I covered her again, tucking the blanket and coat about her lovely legs, and, in ecstasy at my holy mis- sion, I could not restrain myself from giving her a single kiss. “Ah, what are you doing?” she sighed softly. Frightened, I returned to my couch and laid down, unable to fall asleep. “Now you’ve offended her . . . offended her!” I accused myself. And my conscience bothered me all night. Not until early morning could I fall asleep. When I awoke, Katia was already dressed and ready to go. “What, going already, Katia?” I cried in surprise. “Yes, I must go at once!” I felt a coldness in her voice, and I repented for the kiss I had stolen. Katia! I pleaded. “Forgive me! I meant no harm!” “Oh, let me alone,” she said cross- ly. “I must go.” And she gave me her hand, smil- ing now. “Adieu, then! And . . . thanks for the night’s lodging.” And she left. Left alone, I began again to scold myself. “Scoundrel!” I told myself. “When a young girl trusts you and spends the night in your rooms, you cannot be a gentleman! You must kiss her, insult her irreparably!” But what is done cannot he un- done. Penitence comes always too late. It was a few weeks later that I met her once again, walking with a friend of mine. I greeted them with restraint, and left shamefaced- ly, without stopping to talk with them. But I decided to find my friend and confess to him. The next day I sought him out. “You know Katia?” I began. “Yes, indeed,” he returned, with some pride. “And a very nice girl she is, too. She’s an acquaintance of yours also, isn’t she?” “In a way.” I gazed at him searchingly, thought I might count on his sym- pathy, and poured out my heart to him. I told him everything, ending- 154 AN OFFENDED LADY 155 with the words, “Tell me the truth: did I offend her?” “Of course,” he said, smiling; and continued, “My dear young fool, do you mean to say that you allow a girl to spend the night with you and are satisfied with a kiss? She is a woman, do you understand? ... a woman. You left her alone, all night ... all alone. You could have offered her no greater insult.” “No!” I cried. “No; do you honestly mean it? Can it be pos- sible?” And I felt that I was just arousing from a sort of stupor. “Yes, honestly, I do mean it. You have really offended her; that is why I am so enraged at you.” And he laughed, as he put his hand on my shoulder and said: “The next time, my friend, be more considerate. It is not the act of a gentleman to give offense to a lady.” Adultery—Ad Absurdum By RICHARD LE GALLIENNE I saw a little burnished fly Within my Mistress’ bodice lie, Sipping lovely stolen sweets From her ample rosy teats. Small adulterer,” said I, Dost thou know where thou dost lie? ’Tis my lady’s bosom fine, And thou dost sip what is not thine.” A Love Song From India Maiden Oh! my loved one, I know not what fire consumes me, my mouth is parched, my heart is throbbing. What is this ill for which I know no cure? The star of night whose rays should give my soul repose by heralding the advent of him for whom I wait, has not yet risen. . . . Unhappy that I am, he for whom my heart is watching, whom my lips desire, from whom my parched bosom longs to receive life, will not come. I said to myself: I will tread the lotus-bordered path. . . . But alas! I have found there the serpent of love and his cruel tooth. Can it be that the moon’s rays, so cold by nature and so sweet to mortals, have lit the fire which consumes me within? The night-breeze, cool, and heavy with the scent of flowers, seems to me now like a scorching flame. He alone occupies all my thoughts and I have no will but his. He fills my whole being, and my soul is bereft of energy and strength. I tremble and am distraught; my sight fails me and I feel as though about to die. The Lover. Sweet one, I am here, and scarcely yet does the moon, whose shining orb should be the signal of my coming, begin to show herself. And see, yon fair planet whose brightness is revealed in thy dear face, now is veiled by clouds, like thy face when shaded with the tresses of thy hair. Her disc stands forth like a bow in the heavens and resembles the gleaming gold which decks thy neck. The streams of water which fall from the clouds are as slender and graceful as thy limbs. On the dark background of the clouds a long line of swans advances rivalled in whiteness by thy dazzling teeth. The Maid. Oh! light of my life, speak on, speak on; the sound of thy voice is as welcome to my heart as cooling showers to a sun-dried land. The Lover. I thirst for thy kisses; let me lay my lips on thine which are as fresh and ruddy as the pomegranate. 156 A LOVE SONG FROM INDIA 157 The Maid. Ah ! I die within thine arms. The Lover. Let me press thy lovely breasts, firm as the golden apples in the garden of Cama and sweet to smell as the jasmine-flower. The Maid. I am thine, oh my loved one; in thy embrace, mine eyes are lost in vacancy and life begins to leave me; oh, holy Goddess, Lakme, Mother of Love, does one feel such pleasure in dying of love? T the Lover. No, thou wilt not die; ’tis life which in long waves surges into thine entrails athirst for pleasure. The Maid. Oh! Oh! oh! my loved one! The Lover. Still let me embrace thee. The Maid. I am one with thee; ah! press me tighter in thine arms and let an amorous embrace unite us like the tree and the bark. The Lover. I fear lest I may hurt thy fair breasts or bruise they delicate limbs. The Maid. Have no fear ... go on, my lion, let me feel thy vigour, pierce me as the huntsman pierces with his arrow the hearts of the faithful hind in the thickets . . . pain gives still a greater zest to pleasure. The Lover. Oh! joy divine! And I am the first to roll thy sweet body on a bed of dried leaves ... The Maid. Kill me, come, kill me by pleasure, kill me by love, kill me by joy. The Lover. Nay, rather live, in order that we may repeat these hours of maddest passion. The Maid. Oh! kill me rather than forget me. 158 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY The Lover. Forget thee! forget thee! ah! read in mine eyes the wild pleasure which thou givest me. The Maid. Ah! what is this strange quivering . . . ? The Lover. ’Tis the pleasure of love. The Maid. My head swims, my lips grow cold . . . Cama, mighty God, help me! I am dying. The Lover. No! for a new life begins to circulate in thy womb. The Maid. Where am I, ye Gods? The Lover. hear naught, for I am near thee. The Maid. I am afraid. The Lover. What canst thou dread within thy lover’s arms? The Maid. Ah, I remember . . . thy kisses burn me still; leave me not. The Lover. I watch over thee as a mother watches over her child. The Maid. The horrid Pisatchas may play me some evil trick. The Lover. They can do naught to thee here upon my heart. The Maid. Sing to me, my loved one, for the sound of thy voice gives me confidence. A LOVE SONG FROM INDIA 159 The Lover. ’Tis the season the most propitious for love, the leaves are fallen into the pools and cover the waters once so bright and limpid and now dulled by the streams; these clouds, driven by the wind and on which the moonlight plays, clash together in the air like elephants fighting in the forest with their dazzling tusks. The Maid. And it is the strongest which o’ercomes the others in the forest glade. And so thou hast made me yield to thee on this bed of dried leaves. The Lover. I have won thee by love, not overcoming thee by force. The Maid. Yet believe me, my loved one, that love is willing to find itself tamed and subdued by force. The Lover. I know of no time more propitious for love than this stormy season which so often sees the seven-colored bow appearing in the sky, like the sacred sign which crowns thy forehead. At sight of the stormy sky, the peacocks loudly voice their joy, uttering shrill cries and gathering together; they rear aloft their tails heavy and shapeless with the rain, and prancing beside their companions, imitate the movement of a dancer. Some, under the shelter of the terraces, stalk proudly and display the varied colours of their bril- liant plumage; while others, caught by the storm on the tops of the trees, gather the treasures of their plumage beneath their moistened wings, and, their fair bodies all quivering, descend to the green carpet of the ground. The rain ceases for an instant, and all around the soft fresh air is balmy with the scent of sandal and filled with the intoxicating perfumes of limbs and foretells a fresh fall of rain to follow. What would autumn be deprived of this beneficent breeze? No, there is nothing to be preferred to this perfumed wind which comes to disturb the calm of our intercourse, and, after the sweet fatigue of love, gently refreshes our burning limbs. The Maid. Oh! sing again. The Lover. See, my sweetest, the heaven laden with clouds, like some deep lake hung above our heads whose waters threaten each instant to break their banks; see too these clouds which the moon encircles with a silvern girdle; they bring coolness to this parched earth. 160 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Oh! how I love this season of the year, bringing in its train the thunder and the storm; it wakes fond lovers from their slumber, and compels them to seek a shelter from their fear in one another’s arms, and thus doubles the transports of their love. The Maid. Oh! my dearest, my sweetest, who are to my soul as the cloud to the thirsty earth, this season has one defect, for with a damp and gloomy veil it hides from our gaze that moon which shines like thy fair face. When that planet, the world’s sweet torch, is revealed between the clouds, the fascinated watcher seems to see a friend come back from the far-off land. The moon is the witness of the groans of the maid separated from her lover. Oh, moon! thou charm of secret meetings, how fair thou art when the lover remains faithful and hastens to his mistress at the appointed hour; how sad and gloomy when the abandoned mistress follows thy course with her eyes, as she counts the hours which slowly pass, when the faithless lover has for- gotten her whom once he loved. The Lover. My life’s charm, my beloved, I swear that thou shall never count those hours, I swear that thou shall never have cause to follow with lonely eyes the course of the moon, and that thy lover shall always come before the hour of meeting. The Maid. Ah! I need to hear thine oaths; swear that thou wilt never leave me. The Lover. I swear to love thee always, and may my soul take life again in the body of a vampire, whose only food is the bodies of those whom he drags from their tombs, if I ever fail to my oath. The Maid. I believe thee, beloved one. The Lover. Come, let us enter again this shady dell and seal our vows with fresh kisses, The Death of the Dauphin By ALPHONSE DAUDET THE little Dauphin is ill; the little Dauphin is dying. In all the churches of the kingdom the Holy Sacrament remains exposed night and day, and great tapers burn, for the recovery of the royal child. The streets of the old capi- tal are sad and silent, the bells ring no more, the carriages slacken their pace. In the neighborhood of the palace the curious towns-people gaze through the railings upon the bea- dles with gilded paunches, who con- verse in the courts and put on im- portant airs. All the. castle is in a flutter. Cham- berlains and major-domos run up and down the marble stair-ways. The galleries are full of pages and of courtiers in silken apparel, who hurry from one group to another, begging in low tones for news. Upon the wide perrons the maids of hon- or, in tears, exchange low courtesies and wipe their eyes with daintily em- broidered handkerchiefs. A large assemblage of robed phy- sicians has gathered in the Orangery. They can be seen through the panes waving their long black sleeves and inclining their periwigs with profes- sional gestures. The governor and the equerry of the little Dauphin walk up and down before the door awaiting the decision of the Faculty. Scullions pass by without saluting them. The equerry swears like a pagan; the governor quotes verses from Horace. And meanwhile, over there, in the direction of the stables, is heard a long and plaintive neighing; it is the little Dauphin’s sorrel, forgotten by the hostlers, and calling sadly before his empty manger. And the King? Where is his Highness the King? The King has locked himself up in a room at the other end of the castle. Majesties do not like to be seen weeping. For the Queen it is different. Sitting by the bedside of the little Dauphin, she bows her fair face, bathed in tears, and sobs very loudly before everybody, like a mere draper’s wife. On the bed embroidered with lace the little Dauphin, whiter than the pillows on which he is extended, lies with closed eyes. They think that he is asleep; but no, the little Dau- phin is not asleep. He turns toward his mother, and seeing her tears, he asks: “Madame la Reine, why do you weep? Do you really believe that I am going to die?” The Queen tries to answer. Sobs prevent her from speaking. “Do not weep, Madame la Reine. You forget that I am the Dauphin, and that Dauphins cannot die thus.” 161 The Queen sobs more violently, and the little Dauphin begans to feel frightened. “Holloa!” says he, “I do not want Death to come and take me away, and I know how to prevent him from coming here. Order up on the spot forty of the strongest lansquenets to keep guard around our bed! Have a hundred big can- nons watch day and night, with light- ed fuses, under our windows! And woe to Death if he dares to come near us!” In order to humor the royal child, the Queen makes a sign. On the spot the great cannons are heard rolling in the courts, and forty tall lansquenets, with halberds in their fists, draw up around the room. They are all veterans, with grizzly mustaches. The little Dauphin claps his hands on seeing them. He rec- ognizes one, and calls, “Lorrain! Lorrain!” The veteran makes a step towards the bed. “I love you well, my old Lorrain. Let me see your big sword. If Death wants to fetch me, you will kill him, won’t you?” Lorrain answers: “Yes, Monseigneur.” And two great tears roll down his tanned cheeks. At that moment the chaplain ap- proaches the little Dauphin, and pointing to the crucifix, talks to him in low tones. The little Dauphin 162 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY listens with astonished air; then, suddenly interrupting him, "I understand well what you are saying, Monsieur l’Abbe; but still, couldn't my little friend Beppo die in my place, if I gave him plenty of money?” The chaplain continues to talk to him in low tones, and the little Dau- phin looks more and more aston- ished. When the chaplain has finished, the little Dauphin resumes, with a heavy sigh: “What you have said is all very sad, Monsieur l’Abbe; but one thing consoles me, and that is that up there, in the Paradise of the stars, I shall still be the Dauphin. I know that the good God is my cousin, and cannot fail to treat me according to my rank.” Then he adds, turning towards his mother; "Bring me my fairest clothes, my doublet of white ermine, and my pumps of velvet! I wish to look brave to the angels, and to enter Paradise in the dress of a Dauphin.” A third time the chaplain bends over the little Dauphin, and talks to him in low tones. In the midst of his discourse the royal child inter- rupts him angrily. "Why, then,” he cries, “to be Dauphin is nothing at all!” And refusing to listen to anything more, the little Dauphin turns to- wards the Avail and weeps bitterly. For The Saving Of Souls By ROBERTO BRACCO Sister filomena, her lips close to the grating of the con- fessional, began humbly: "Father, I am not sure that I have sinned. Sometimes my conscience tells me that I have and sometimes it tells me that I have not. And when it tells me that I have not, I suffer more than when it tells me that I have.” The father-confessor did not un- derstand. “Speak more clearly, my daughter. And tell me everything. You are so young! At eighteen one’s conscience cannot be trusted. Let me judge. The Lord will give me light. Speak.” “Listen, father; this is the whole truth: Toward midnight on Mon- day, No. 7 in ward five, where I have been substituting for Sister Maria since I entered th-e hospital, received the consolation of religion. The physician on duty said there was no longer any hope. He told me that the suffering could not last long and that death would surely come before dawn. “ There will not be many parox- ysms,’ the doctor added, ‘but if you think I am needed, call me without hesitation. The other patients need no attention. They will give no trouble either to you or to me,’ and he went to get some sleep. “I had nothing to do but to ad- minister a teaspoonful of medicine every half-hour. I took my accus- tomed place beside the bed, and as I sat there, thinking, I began to pray for the soul that was passing.” “For whose soul?” “For the soul of the poor man who was suffering.” “It was a man, then?” “Did I not say so, father?” “You spoke of No. 7, if I am not mistaken, and No. 7, my daughter, has no sex. It does not matter; go on.” “It was almost three o’clock, when in a weak voice—I could almost hear the death-rattle—he gasped: “ ‘Sister Filomena, it has come.’ Since midnight he had lain silent al- most in a stupor. “ ‘Courage, my brother,’ I whis- pered in his ear; ‘courage.’ “Then slowly, slowly, forcing him- self to utter every word clearly, he continued: ‘I am ready. It is sad to die at twenty-five, but I am resigned. And perhaps it is better so. I was alone, I was poor. I thought I was a poet, and I was nothing. I thought I was loved, and no one loved me. If I did not have you beside me now, I should die as if abandoned in a desert.’ “He was silent, and I repeated: ‘Courage, my brother, God is with you.’ 16' TWO WORLDS MONTHLY “After a few moments I saw that his deep, blue eyes were dim with tears. “ ‘Will you grant me a favor, Sis- ter Filomena ?’ he asked. “ ‘Any that I can, my brother.’ “And he said: ‘Do you wish me to die in peace ? Do you wish me to die blessing Him who made me?’ “ ‘Every good Christian should die so,’ I answered.” “You answered well, my daugh- ter." “The dying man said softly: ‘Help me to do so.’ “ ‘How, my brother?’ I asked. “ ‘Help me to cross without bitter- ness the threshold of the life I am leaving. Let me carry with me into the next life the memory of a kind- ness. Sister Filomena, have pity on a dying man. Give me—a kiss.’ ” “A kiss!” the priest exclaimed. “I repeated again, ‘Courage, my brother; prepare yourself for the kiss of God.’ ” “Well said, my daughter." “But with failing breath he beg- ged: ‘Grant me this favor. Do you not understand, Sister Filomena, that you will be my salvation? Would you be forever weighed down with remorse? Would you have me lose my soul? Would you be the cause of my damnation?’ ” “And you, my daughter? And you ?” “Father, I was frightened by those words. I reflected that, dying in bitterness, he might run the risk of everlasting damnation, and I, too, if I should be the cause. I reflected that every minute that passed death took a step toward him, and that the end must come before dawn. In the quiet room, I could hear his la- bored breathing. There were but few patients in the ward, and they were sleeping peacefully. The lights had been lowered. The white beds, in the dim light, looked like tombs. A great sadness came upon me. I stooped and kissed him. I barely caught the words, ‘Thanks, thanks.’ Then I began to pray again.” “And where did you kiss him?” The father-confessor by his quiet voice tried to conceal his anxiety, the perplexity that was troubling his judgment. “Father, it was almost dark,” Sis- ter Filomena answered quietly, “but I think I kissed him on the mouth.” “An imprudence, an imprudence, to say the least! I understand that it was done with good intentions, my daughter. You were moved by a sentiment of Christian piety—sub- lime, if you will, but mistaken—I might almost say dangerous. On the brow instead of the mouth would have been better; and that would have been sufficient to save his soul. Still, you kissed a man who was al- most dead.” “That is what I said, also.” “And now that he is duly dead and buried—requiscat in pace—we will think no more about him." “But, father, it is not quite so. He is living.” “Living!” ‘Yes. He was in a dying condi- tion until dawn. With the first rays of the sun came relief. The doctor, on entering the ward, could not con- ceal his surprise from the sick man, on whose lips there was a slight smile. He made a careful examina- tion, gave him a hypodermic injec- 164 FOR THE SAVING OF SOULS 165 tion, and said in a low tone: 'It is strange, strange. Perhaps we shall get the better of the disease.’ ” “But that is a disaster!” ex- claimed the father, in dismay. “Father, what are you saying!” “This is a serious matter, my daughter. If you kissed a living man on the lips and he continues to live, I do not know what is to be done. With death at the door it was dif- ferent. All would have adjusted it- self in the sight of the Lord. But if he lives, the Divine Clemency may be seriously perplexed. Let us speak openly. We must save appearances.” After pondering a little, he ques- tioned further. “Tell me, daughter, what sort of a man is this doctor?” “Oh, a good man!” “But his standing as a physician?” “He is one of the best.” “And how is the sick man today?” “He is better.” “You are lost!” “Oh, my God!” “You still dare utter his name?” “I am a wicked sinner, father?” “Unworthy to wear that habit!” But as Sister Filomena burst into bitter sobbing, the priest spoke less cruelly. “I cannot yet see my way clear. You told me just now that when your conscience tells you you have not sinned, you suffer more than when it tells you the opposite. How is such a contradiction possible? How am I to understand that?” “I do not know, father. I feel what I feel, and I am confessing it to you just as it is.” “And you repent, now, of what you have done?” “If it is a sin, I must repent.” “But do not think that I will give you absolution now. We will wait a few days. Who knows? We will see what turn the illness of this young man takes, and act according- ly. Now go. I do not wish to hear more today. And when you ap- proach the bed, blush; you under- stand?” “I always blush, father.” “That is well.” A few days later Sister Filomena came again to her father-confessor. “Well, how is No. 7?” “I think he is much improved.” “And what do the doctors think?” “They say that he will recover.” “My child, there is no longer any hope for you!” “That is what I told him.” “What did you tell him?” “I told him that I was lost on ac- count of him, and that if I had known that he would live, I should not have kissed him.” “And what did this healthy poet answer?” “He answered that he did not de- sire my perdition, and that he, in his turn, would save my soul.” “He might have done that by dying!” “Yes, father; and so he has sworn to me that on the day when they tell him he was fully recovered, he will kill himself for me.” This was a new complication. The priest reflected a few moments; then with an air of resignation and re- solve, he said: “On the whole, it is better to give you absolution. If that sort of a man begins to die again, we shall have to begin once more at the very beginning.” Twelve Great Passions II. The Second Mrs. Shelley By J. A. BRENDON Much mud has been thrown at the name of Shelley. It was thrown freely during the man’s lifetime. It has been thrown freely since his death. Still it is being thrown. And quite an unfair pro- portion of this mud found the mark, and stuck there. In fact, it has be- come orthodox even for compara- tively tolerant critics to denounce Percy Bysshe Shelley either as a very bad man, or, at the best, as one of those incomprehensible, ab- normal individuals whose warped sense of right and wrong renders it impossible for them to be placed in any ethical category. And yet Shelley was not really very bad; he was bad only in that he was abnormal; and he was ab- normal mainly because it was natur- al for him to be as other men are not. Alter all, he had but one small vice, and that a vice which, incident- ally, is the chief virtue of the little hero of Kensington Gardens. Shel- ley refused to grow up; he could not grow up. Now, children—that is to say, normal children—have one distinc- tive quality—presumably it is the survival of some primitive instinct— they detest authority; they detest ex- isting institutions, and regard dis- cipline as a gross infringement of man’s natural liberty, instituted merely, to annoy. In the child such thoughts are pardonable, even in the youth. In the man they become a crime; education should have taught him the wisdom and advantages of discipline. Shelley, for his part, however, learned none of these things. He hated discipline. He hated author- ity. He hated intolerance. And, from the day of his birth to the day of his death, he warred relentlessly on each of them, while circumstances aided and abetted him. But posterity surely should be grateful to those circumstances. In- deed, but for their help, Shelley, as is befitting to the son of an old county family, the heir to a baron- etcy, and a man with almost unlimit- ed wealth at his disposal, would probably have grown up to become a respectable bishop, to hold a min- or position in some Tory Ministry, or even to prove himself a conscien- tious though probably incompetent Colonial governor. And what a tragedy that would have been! The world is not so rich in litera- 166 TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 167 ture that it can afford to lose the genius even of one poet. Now Shelley’s violent hatred of authority dated from his very earli- est years. It was, in fact, the only quality he shared in common with other boys; it, and a passionate lik- ing for sensational literature. For the society of his fellows he had no use; he much preferred solitude and his own imaginings; whilst for games, skill in which is the golden road to schoolboy favour, he had no physical, and still less mental ap- titude. To elderly people, he thought, games perhaps were to be commend- ed, for such people seemed often to be afflicted with cares and troubles which recreation was able to dispel. But for young folk to spend several precious hours of every week pursu- ing a ball and one another wildly round a field, young folk who had no cares, no troubles, nothing to do, in fact, save think and fancy what they would—well, it seemed nothing short of ridiculous. This attitude, needless to say, did not find favour for him in the eyes of other boys. Hence, unpopular though he made himself at his pre- paratory school, at Eton he made himself still more unpopular. The masters hated him. The boys, for the most part, regarded him as an object for contempt. They could not understand him; it was inexplic- able to them how Shelley, who time after time proved himself a “funk” in the playing fields, could show such audacious daring in his resistance to authority; how he, who could not bring himself to stand up fairly and fight another boy, yet had the cour- age to conceal an elaborate electrical contrivance in a master’s desk so as to cause that gentleman severe physi- cal discomfiture, and later, when summoned to his study to be pun- ished, could pour corrosive acid on the carpet by way of protest against chastisement. A recent writer denies that Shel- ley was expelled from Eton. No doubt he is right, but the statement can be based on very little more than a technical distinction. Still, perhaps it is wise to compromise, and say that the boy left the school under a cloud. This certainly he did, and from Eton he went to Oxford. Now at Oxford, where he found himself freed from most of the petty annoyances of his childhood, where physical prowess was not de- manded of him, where philosophic imaginings were encouraged, and where discipline was comparatively lax, Shelley was able to divert his great discontent into wider channels. Accordingly having hurled opprobri- um at his various dons, tutors, and professors, having denounced the government of the University and its whole system of education, he found time to turn his attention to such considerations as politics, ethics, and religion, until at last he evolved and published an amazing treatise entitled The Necessity of Atheism. This was altogether too much for staid, academic Oxford, and—Shel- ley was “sent down.” He had dis- graced his university. His univer- sity, therefore, disgraced him. But since his death—perhaps because he died tragically—a memorial has been erected to his honour within the walls of University College. 168 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY This is an action typical of Ox- ford, still more typical of England. It is a graceful manner of confessing mistakes, the mistake in this case having been made by a number of intellectual old gentlemen who hounded Shelley from their sight be- cause, as a boy of eighteen, he ven- tured to deny the existence of a God. Had the poet been allowed to stay there, Oxford might have saved him from himself, and have enabled him to become a useful member of so- ciety, within the accepted meaning of the phrase. But Oxford did not allow him to stay. Shelley was “sent down.” And that decree con- firmed and established for ever his hatred of intolerance. It was an event of supreme importance in his life. All the while he had been at Ox- ford—indeed, be the truth known, even before he had left Eton— Shelley had been in love with his cousin, little Harriet Grove, a pretty, dainty girl of his own age. They were not actually engaged to be mar- ried; though there was a very defi- nite “understanding” between them recognized, nay, encouraged, even, by their elders; that is to say, recog- nized until Shelley was “sent down” from Oxford. This altered everything. Harriet’s parents, his own parents also, or- dained that the companionship must cease immediately; that he and Har- riet must never meet again; that there must be no more letters, no exchange of messages, not even an explanation. And Harriet, for her part, obeyed their orders gladly. Greatly alarmed by this hideous thing which had happened, as dis- closed to her by her parents, such affection as she bore for her lover had turned to horror, almost to hatred. But Shelley—“I swear,” he wrote, ‘‘and as I break my oath may in- finity, eternity blast me—here I swear that never will I forgive in- tolerance. . . . You shall see—you shall hear how it has injured me. She is no longer mine. She abhors me as a sceptic. . . . Oh, bigotry! When I pardon this last, this sever- est, of thy persecutions, may Heav- en (if there be wrath in Heaven) blast me.” And so, robbed at once of life’s two most gentle influences—Oxford and a woman’s love—this dog with a bad name went up to London, took rooms in Poland Street, and thence set out to wage war on society and its conventions. II. Now, Shelley found his earliest disciples in this, his crusade against intolerance, among his own three sisters. Themselves suffering under the relentless tyranny of a boarding- school regime, they welcomed his doctrines; in fact, were immeasur- ably proud of their brother, this elo- quent aesthetic young reformer, with the face of an angel and a manner as tender as a woman’s, who aspired with one stroke to sweep away cen- turies of man-made institutions, and restore to the world its primaeval in- nocence and freedom. Miss Harriet Westbrook, too, be- came a ready convert. She was a friend of Shelley’s sisters, and, like TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 169 them, a pupil at Mrs. Fenning’s “Select Academy for Young La- dies.” Being the daughter of a re- tired coffee-house keeper, who had saved some money, she had been sent to Mrs. Fenning’s school at Clapham to be transformed into a lady. But the process of transforma- tion, it would seem, she found to be utterly distasteful. At any rate, she hated intensely both Mrs. Fenning and Mrs. Fenning’s school. No wonder, then, she threw her sixteen- year-old self, heart and soul, into the campaign instituted by Shelley against oppression. Besides, instinc- tively, almost unconsciously perhaps, she realized immediately in her com- mercial little mind the possibilities of friendship with such a man, a close friend of the Duke of Norfolk, the heir to a baronetcy. Her sister cer- tainly did. Th e sister was older, fifteen years older; she warmly encouraged the acquaintanceship. So also did Shel- ley’s sisters. The schoolgirl’s love for romance was strong within them; and this they thought romance in- deed. They used to send Flarriet, therefore, to their brother’s rooms with little gifts of money—his father had cut him off with the customary penny—and messages and notes. And Harriet went gladly. She felt like the heroine of a penny novel- ette, a feeling she had always longed for, and thought much more of what she believed to be Shelley’s admira- tion for her than she did of Shelley’s cause; whilst he, for his part, de- lighted with the apparent enthusiasm of his first real convert, persuaded her to commit all manner of gross insubordinations, for which Mrs. Fenning punished her most fear- somely. But Harriet rejoiced in her mar- tyrdom; rejoiced in being denounced as the friend of an atheist. She had no idea what an atheist might be, but found it very delightful to be able to go to one with the story of her woes; to hear him breathe words of hope and consolation in her ears, and promise to stand by her what- ever might happen. This, needless to say, Shelley did admirably. What more, then, could a vulgar and ro- mantic schoolgirl want? So, for a while, the “cause” pros- pered splendidly, until, in fact, Shel- ley gradually began to realize that Flarriet was falling in love with him. Then he became greatly alarmed; he wished he had never seen the girl; for, although an admirable disciple, he really could not bring himself to love her; her manner, even her par- ticular form of prettiness, offended all his refined susceptibilities. And yet—how very silly of him! —he had promised to stand by her, whatever might happen! What was he to do? Shirk his responsibilities? That was out of the question. He could not be false to his first real convert. Nor, on the other hand, could he bring himself to marry her. Hence, hoping that absence, per- haps, would help her to forget him, he escaped from London for a while, and went to Wales, there passing the time among the moun- tains, meditating and writing pro- digiously long letters to Miss Eliza- beth Hitchener, a more recent and much more satisfactory convert, who complained that nobody understood 170 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY her, and who had, therefore, a real grievance against life. There could be no doubt as to her sincerity. Besides, she happened to live too far away to be able to meet Shelley often, was eight years his senior, and plain. In her case, then, there seemed to be but little danger of sentiment intruding upon business. Thus Shelley felt that he could call her his “soul’s sister” with impunity. And this he did; he could not help himself, for Miss Hitchener wrote charming letters which gave him in- finite pleasure. But, while he dallied thus, he did not succeed, as he had hoped he would, in freeing himself from Har- riet Westbrook. Indeed, forsaken by the man whom she had thought to be her lover, she promptly went into a decline, and wrote Shelley piteous letters. Life at home, she said, had become intolerable; her father was tormenting her, and had told her that she must return to the school which Shelley’s doctrines had taught her to detest. What, then, was she to do? Return to school and die? Resist her father? Com- mit suicide? Or, what? Let Shel- ley only tell her, and she would do it. Shelley, really distressed by the girl s apparent unhappiness, forth- with wrote to Mr. Westbrook beg- ging him to be gentler with his daughter. Mr. Westbrook, however for already he had decided that one day he would become the father- in-law of Sir Percy Shelley, Bart — remained obdurate. So Harriet, no doubt to her elder sister’s knowl- edge, then wrote to Shelley, implor- ing him to elope with her. This was too terrible. Shelley had no desire to be eloped with. Still, he felt he must do something in the matter. So, without delay, he took coach to London, intending there to talk to Mr. Westbrook seriously. Instead, Mr. Westbrook talked seriously to him, and Harriet talked to him still more seriously. Shelley found her lying on a couch, looking pale and worn and ill, and so greatly was he perturbed by the picture of her misery that—well, he shall tell the whole story himself as he told it to Miss Hitchener. "I arrived in London,” he wrote. ‘‘I was shocked at observing the al- teration of her looks. Little did I divine its cause. She had become violently attached to me, and feared I should not return her attachment. Prejudice made the confession pain- ful. It was impossible to avoid be- ing affected; I promised to unite my fate to hers. I stayed in London several days, during which she re- covered her spirits. I had promised, at her bidding, to come again to London. They endeavoured to com- pel her to return to a school where malice and pride embittered every hour. She wrote to me. I came to London. I proposed marriage, for the reasons which I have given you, and she complied. Blame if thou wilt, dearest friend, for still thou art dearest to me; yet pity even this error if thou blamest me. If Har- riet be not at sixteen all you are at a more advanced age, assist me to mould a really noble soul with all that can make its nobleness useful and lovely.” It was in August, 1811, that the TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 171 young couple set out from London. They had decided to fly to Scotland. It was easier to be married there than in England. In fact, to get married in England seemed nigh im- possible, for Mr. Westbrook, al- though quite prepared to see Har- riet a titled lady, would, as Shelley knew, protest emphatically against her marrying a penniless prospective heir, at any rate until the latter had obtained some satisfactory and very definite assurance from his father. And this, of course, never could have been obtained. Timothy Shel- ley, indeed, had said repeatedly that he would support illegitimate chil- dren cheerfully, but would never for- give his son should he marry a wo- man his inferior in rank. And Shel- ley, now that he had just been re- conciled to his father, had no desire again to quarrel, especially for so slight a cause as Harriet, seeing that from the recent reconciliation he was still benefiting to the extent of a small, albeit very useful, quarterly allowance. Secrecy, then, was un- doubtedly of great importance. So to Scotland he and Harriet set forth. But in those days the journey was a very long one, and expensive. Shelley was hard put to find the nec- essary money, since it still lacked a week to quarter day, and in conse- quence, as perhaps is not surprising, his available resources were non- existent. Still he contrived somehow to borrow £25. That seemed ample for his immediate requirements. And so it was. At any rate, it took IH arriet and himself so far as York in comfort. There he wrote to his friend Hogg. “We are in a slight pecuniary distress," he said. “We shall have seventy-five pounds on Sunday, until when can you send ten pounds?" Hogg sent the money. Shelley and his bride then proceeded on their journey; and eventually arrived at Edinburgh, but arrived absolutely penniless. Undaunted by this, how- ever—Peacock has declared in his “Memoirs” of the poet—“they took a lodging, and Shelley immediately told the landlord who they were, what they had come for and the ex- haustion of their resources, and asked him if he would take them in and advance them money to get married and to carry them on till they could get a remittance. This the man agreed to do, on condition that Shelley would treat him and his friends to a supper in honour of the occasion.” Of course Shelley accepted the terms. Necessity left him no alter- native. And a very cheery feast that supper must have been. The revels continued long after the bride and bridegroom had retired; in fact, far into the night, when suddenly the poet was aroused from his slumbers by a tapping on the door. He got out of bed, struck a light, and moved to the door to see who knocked. There he found the landlord con- fronting him, and the other guests arrayed in single file upon the stair- case. Mine host proceeded to explain the nature of his mission. “It is customary here,” he said, “at wed- dings for the guests to come up in the middle of the night and wash the bride with whisky.” “Indeed !” remarked Shelley calm- ly, and the landlord nodded in a 172 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY foolish, drunken manner; but when he found himself gazing down the barrels of a brace of pistols, he be- gan to appreciate Shelley’s opinion of the startling custom he had inno- vated. In fact he fled precipitately down the staircase, tumbling over himself and the other guests, who eventually all lay at the bottom in a confused and huddled mass. In this way, Mr. and Mrs. Percy Shelley began their married life. III. But that marriage—what a hid- eous mistake it was. How could it have ended in anything other than disaster? Not love, not even affec- tion, it was merely a misguided al- truism which had led Shelley to join himself to Harriet. In his heart he disapproved of the union most utter- ly, even as he disapproved of the whole system of wedlock. Matrimony, he remarked once in a letter to Miss Hitchener, is “the most horrible of all the means which the world has had recourse to, to bind the noble to itself.” Yet Shelley married twice! So also did William Godwin, who con- verted him to this belief. Philoso- phers are not the best exponents of their own philosophies. But Shelley's first marriage most certainly was horrible, an act of folly which nothing can excuse; not even the fact the joint age of bride and bridegroom was only thirty-five. None the less, that error once com- mitted, no one can justly blame them for or wonder at the consequence. Indeed, how could so ill-mated a pair possibly have lived happily to- gether? In the first place, Harriet was a very silly little girl, endowed, one must confess, with a very vulgar little heart. Of course, she cannot be held to blame for this; it was not her fault; it was merely Shelley’s misfortune, and the tragedy lies in the fact that, despite her vulgarity, probably because of it, she tried to appear intellectual, and insisted on reading aloud to her husband, in season, out of season, even on the honeymoon, learned works which conveyed absolutely no meaning to her. One can imagine, then, how she read them! And, poor child, she hoped in this way to please her hus- band! Instead—although, as Fran- cis Gribble has declared, “not the least distinguishing of his character- istics was his desire to see women study”—her persistence goaded the unhappy man almost to frenzy. Then again, the poet’s penniless, adventurous existence soon lost its charm for Harriet. She made no endeavour to understand her hus- band, or those ideals which were his guiding principles; if the world was content to be oppressed by tyranny, that, she maintained, was no concern of hers. On the contrary, as the wife of a ‘gentleman,’ she chose sud- denly to hanker after the fleshpots of luxury, squandering Shelley’s scanty earnings on jewels and rich apparel, and demanding that he should open for her the magic por- tals of Society and so enable her to take her place in the world as a great lady. Now these requests must have TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 173 awakened Shelley very rudely from such dreams as still he may have cherished at the time of his mar- riage—Shelley, the man who, mainly for Harriet’s sake, had allowed him- self to be ostracized by his kinsfolk in order that he might struggle to uproot those very institutions which Society held dear. Perhaps one could almost forgive him had he been deliberately cruel to her. But this he was not. Ac- cording to his own views, he did his best to provide for her wants; and to be kind to the little girl whose life he had so foolishly taken into his keeping. Still, the fault by no means lay only on Harriet’s side. Shelley, in fact, could not have been an easy man to live with, for he was quite unlike anybody other than himself, and held in contempt every single known convention. He wore ridicu- lous clothes in a ridiculous manner, chose to sleep when the other men were awake, to work when others slept. Nor would he even eat his meals in a rational manner; he pre- ferred to walk about in the open air, munching the bread and raisins which he carried in his pockets. Now this sort of behaviour must have been exasperating to a girl of Harriet’s temperament—a girl who aspired to pose as a “real lady,” and give extravagant banquets to her husband’s high-born relatives. She hated his eccentricities. Yet, even in spite of this, the misery of her married life might have been less utter and complete had Shelley not insisted on having his friend Hogg to live with him; and she, her elder sister, Eliza. The latter was the real cause of all the trouble—a disagreeable, in- terfering, middle-aged woman, pos- sessed of all the discordant charac- teristics which belong to the prover- bial mother-in-law. Her presence in the house was poison to Shelley, since she spent her time alternately accusing him of carrying on a low intrigue with Elizabeth Hitchener, and Harriet, of unfaithfulness to him with Hogg. Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that he should have endorsed entirely the latter’s opinion of the woman. “I had ample leisure,” Hogg wrote soon after Eliza’s arrival, “to contemplate the addition to our do- mestic circle. She was older than I had expected, and she looked much older than she was. The lovely face was seamed with small-pox, and of a deadly white, as faces so marked and scarred commonly are; as white, indeed, as a mass of boiled rice, but of a dingy hue, like rice boiled in dirty water. The eyes were dark, but dull, and without meaning; the hair was black and glossy, but coarse; and there was the admired crop—a long crop, much like the tail of a horse—a switch-tail. The fine figure was meagre, prim, and con- strained. The beauty, the grace, and the elegance existed, no doubt, in their utmost perfection, but only in the imagination of her partial young sister.” The society of Eliza Westbrook, thus forced upon him, must very soon have shattered Shelley’s hope of connubial bliss—and very com- pletely. Such fine hopes too! In- deed, after his honeymoon, when he took rooms in York, at 20 Coney 174 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Street, he announced his intention of living there “for ever” with Harriet and Hogg—he wished Miss Hitch- ener also to join them—and aspired to spend his days presiding at an un- ending intellectual seance, at which should be considered only such sub- jects as the immortality of the soul, the existence of a God, and the rights of man. It was indeed an amazing, ludi- crous idea—a feast of reason in a dingy lodging-house, on an income hardly able to meet the rent, in the company of the unscrupulous Thom- as Hogg and a daughter of the re- tired keeper of a Clapham eating- house. Even had Miss Hitchener joined the party, instead of Harriet’s sis- ter, Shelley surely would have found himself still very, very far from his Utopia. Indeed, that even he ever should have hoped to reach it, seems utterly incredible. Still, he did hope, until of course Eliza arrived, and brought death to his ambitions. Then he set out for Ireland, full of missionary zeal, to preach emanci- pation to mankind—an enterprise, incidentally, to which Miss Hitchen- er alone lent warm encouragement, but which Shelley found infinitely preferable to the society of his wife’s sister. “I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul,” he once declared. "It is a sight which awakens an in- expressible sensation of disgust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe* in whom I may here- after find the consolation of sympa- thy. I sometimes feel faint with the •Ianthe was the first of Shelley’s children by Harriet. She was born in 1813. fatigue of checking the overflowings of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm that cannot see to sting.” Poor Shelley—has there ever been a man so much afflicted with un- desirable, unwanted relatives as he? Under the circumstances, then, perhaps it is a matter for no small amount of wonder that he should have tolerated the atmosphere which pervaded his home circle for so long as he did, especially seeing that he had learned from his friend William Godwin, the philosopher, that the sanctity of marriage existed only while the tie of wedlock proved it- self a supreme satisfaction in the lives of the two people whom it joined together. Now this belief, lofty, no doubt, though it be in theory, in practice always proves to be, at any rate, ex- tremely inconvenient, as even Mr. Godwin began to realize when he found Shelley contemplating a spirit- ual divorce such as he himself had advocated, and making love to his (Mr. Godwin’s) own fair daughter. Forthwith he retracted all his teaching, and sought earnestly to reconcile the Shelleys. But this could not be. Nor do I believe could any power on earth now have kept the poet and Mary Godwin long apart. If ever there have been affinities, they indeed were; and the love they bore for one another, despite such censures as one perforce must pass upon it, in the end proved itself to be at any rate as sincere as the love of man and woman can be. Mary Godwin was quite a child when first she came into Shelley’s TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 175 life—seventeen years of age, in fact, but older in mind, beautiful, sensi- tive, with artistic tastes, and possess- ing just those traits of character which one would expect a man of the poet’s temperament to have found attractive in a woman. She had ac- quired her father’s unorthodox and liberal views on life, and had inherit- ed from him that love for learning and philosophy which was essential to the woman who hoped for any length of time to command the re- spect of Shelley. “Every one who knows me,” he once told Peacock, “must know that the partner of my life must be one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy. Harriet is a noble ani- mal, but she can do neither.” Poor little Harriet! And then again, from her step- mother, Mary had learned those very lessons which had embittered Shelley to the world, for the second Mrs. Godwin was a shrew, a tyrant who delighted in tormenting the daughter of her husband’s former wife. Now, the first Mrs. Godwin had been none other than the bril- liant Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the sweetest women who ever lived. She had died in giving birth to Mary. And Mary adored her mother’s memory; it remained with her always the most pure and sacred influence on her life, giving her that wistful melancholy which appealed so irresistibly to Shelley. She and the young poet often used to meet in the twilight by her mother’s graveside in Old St. Pan- eras Churchyard—it was a quiet, peaceful spot in those days, though now it is a slum through which a rail- way makes its way amid the roar and dirt of a great city—and there sit talking; not of love; they were not lovers yet, these children; they were bound merely by a boy-and- girl companionship of mutual under- standing, for Shelley, be it remem- bered, although a married man, was still a child in mind. Such he always remained. He and Mary, then, would talk of philosophy and poetry, and lament together all the sin and ugliness which marred the fair beauty of God’s beauteous world. They were both very young. And Shelley still had ideals. All this happened in the spring and summer of 1814. Mr. Godwin, it would seem, was then passing through one of his frequent financial crises, and Shelley, ever generous, had undertaken to try to help him. This, of course, made it necessary for him to go to London. And to London he went, leaving Harriet in the country. She, therefore, knew nothing of his doings. But in London, attracted by the person of Mr. Godwin’s daughter, Shelley tarried no doubt overlong. Meanwhile his friendship with Mary Godwin grew and ripened. His friendship—Shelley did not purpose ever to make it more, until one day, distressed at hearing fresh news of Mrs. Godwin’s tyrannies, he, too, unburdened his mind of its great discontent, and begged Mary to come and live with him. He saw no reason against such a proposal; and was quite astonished, or admirably feigned astonishment, at the objec- tion raised by Mr. Godwin; still more astonished at Mrs. Shelley’s protests. 176 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Intolerance again ! Was it impos- sible for men and women to live in the world as they wished to live? Shelley could not, would not, see that it was impossible; how futile was his struggle against the man- dates of society. But hatred of intolerance came now to him and Mary like a serpent showing them where grew the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They loved one another. They real- ized it now; and they loved with a love which could not be strangled simply in obedience to the orders of convention. And they would not strangle that love. So Shelley said. Mary Godwin was unhappy; he was unhappy. They would go away to- gether then. He wanted her. He insisted. Then—exactly what happened it is impossible to say. Did Harriet leave Shelley? Did Shelley leave Harriet? Biographers differ. In- deed, the whole history of these events* is shrouded deep in mys- tery; and Mary, who alone, perhaps, could have thrown light upon it, de- clined to do so. “This is not the time to tell the truth,’’ she wrote, by way of pre- face in her edition of the poet’s works, “and I should reject any col- ouring of the truth. No account of those events has ever been given at all approaching reality in their de- tails either as regards himself or others; nor shall I further allude to them than to remark that the errors of action committed by a man as *In justification. of Shelley’s action, It has often been maintained that he was goaded on by his wife’s unfaithfulness. But the evi- dence is quite insufficient. noble and generous as Shelley w as far as he only is concerned, may he fearlessly avowed by those who loved him, in the firm conviction that, were they judged impartially, his character would stand in brighter and fairer light than that of any contemporary.” One must be content, therefore, merely with conjecture. But one fact, the important fact, is indisput- able. Some time in 1814 Harriet and Shelley separated, and soon after- wards the poet fled to France with Mary Godwin. And with them went that little imp of mischief, Mary’s half-sister, Jane Clairmont. The latter insisted on accompanying them. Apparently she made it the price of her conniv- ance; and Mary encouraged the idea, maybe because she was woman enough to think Jane’s presence would mitigate the outrage she her- self was about to commit against propriety. Thus, at the age of twenty-two, Shelley, a married man, found him- self in France in the company of one woman whom he could not marry and another woman who could not be his sister-in-law, for the very rea- son that the other could not be his wife! The situation surely is unique, one in which Shelley, ever the plaything of eccentric fate, only could have found himself. IV. Now Mary, although only seven- teen years of age, was a woman of TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 177 “How beautiful and calm and free thou wert In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain, And walk as free as light the clouds among. * * * * * “No more alone through the world’s wilderness, Although I trod the paths of high intent, I journey now.” But before this day came, there were many difficulties to be faced and overcome. When he fled from England, Shelley had made absolute- ly no provision for the future; nor had he any money either due to him or in his pocket. True, his watch realized £8 5s. and he contrived somehow to bor- row £60 in Paris. Still, under the most favourable circumstances, to travel with two ladies on the Con- tinent is not a cheap amusement. This Shelley very soon discovered. Perhaps then it was not surprising that, before they had been away long, he, Jane, and Mary should have been forced to return home with unseemly haste to that very England which, when they left it, they declared they would never see again. After numerous adventures they arrived at Gravesend towards the end of August, arrived, moreover, without even a cab fare in their pockets. None the less they took a cab, and drove round London until they could find a landlady prepared to give them lodgings and long cred- the world. She knew well what she was doing when she ran away with Shelley; knew what the result must be. But she loved the man, and be- cause she felt herself to be his proper complement, cheerfully faced the fu- ture, confident that she had acted rightly. And surely 'she justified her ac- tion. In spite of all, the story of the eight years which lay still before her and Shelley is a love idyll as un- assailable as any that ever has been told in prose or verse. And those were not happy years as the world gauges happiness. In turn, every form of affliction, of poverty, sick- ness, and distress, assailed the lov- ers. Yet their love proved stronger than all those things, and at last led them to the haven which they sought. Shelley had made a failure of his life. He began to see it now, at the age of twenty-two; began to see that he never could regain the place to him, which he had lost in the es- teem of his fellow-men. So he sought to escape from them, and to hide from the world. And escape he did. And Mary went with him, in his retreat. Nor—though he failed utterly to appreciate its magnitude—was he unmindful of this, the self-sacrifice she made on his behalf; she, the wo- man who worshipped him, and in whose society he changed from an agnostic, oppressed by the bitterness and cruelty of the world, into the bard who sang rapturous songs in honour of his God, the perfect poet of beauty, love, and joy. And he loved Mary the more for her unselfishness. 178 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY it. This done, Shelley continued to drive until he could find a cab fare. He was compelled eventually to bor- row it from Harriet. Then he re- turned to the lodgings. And there during the next few months, Jane, Mary, and himself had more than ample leisure to re- pent their hasty action and contem- plate the stern realities of life, for, in addition to the taunts of friends and relatives, the most dire poverty afflicted them. Indeed, often they were forced literally to beg their j o daily bread in order to solve the most elementary problem of exist- ence, and, at that time, they had very few friends from whom to beg. Life, therefore, soon resolved it- self into a game of hide-and-seek with brokers’ men and bailiffs. And this at the time when Mary was ex- pecting the birth of her first child! Surely even the humour of the situa- tion could scarcely have relieved its sordid tragedy. What would have happened ulti- mately it is impossible to imagine, had Shelley not been Shelley. But, being Shelley and therefore quite irresponsible, Fate took compassion on him. In short, early in January, 1815, his grandfather died, leaving him a parcel of land which his father, who now succeeded to the baronetcy, took from him in return for the payment of all his debts and an annual allowance of £1000. This, of course, solved immedi- ately and for ever the poet’s finan- cial difficulties. But it did not bring all his troubles to an end. On the contrary, worse ones were still to come. . . . It was only when Shelley had gone from her that Harriet fully realized the greatness of her loss; of how much she had robbed herself by her callous intolerance. And it was too late then for vain regrets. She had already chosen her path and left her- self with no alternative other than to follow it. Shelley asked her to re- turn to him. But this she could not do. Live with her husband and the woman who had supplanted her in his favour—of course she could not; pride forbade her. So, for a while, she tried to lead an idle life of pleasure, dallying in tawdry gaiety; and Shelley—this at least stands to his credit—provided her with every penny he could spare for her to squander. But Harriet had not the temper- ament of a bad woman, nor the charm necessary to an adventuress. The world had dealt very cruelly with her, and now, so it seemed, had nothing more to offer. She was not one of those women able to soar above the meanness of adverse cir- cumstance. And so at last, betrayed by her follies, she allowed despair to enter her soul, and in the early hours of the morning of November 9, 1816, drowned herself and all her sorrows in the waters of the Serpen- tine. For some weeks her disappear- ance remained a mystery; nobody, not even her parents, knew what had become of her, until, on Decem- ber 12, a paragraph in The Times at last made known the truth:— “On Tuesday a respectable fe- male, far advanced in pregnancy, was taken out of the Serpentine River and brought to her residence in Queen Street, Brompton, having TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 179 tunes, despite those periods of mel- ancholy which darkened his later years, he lived a life of perfect hap- piness, free and untrammelled from the follies of the past. Amid sun- shine and the sublimest of Italian scenery, the old Shelley ceased to ex- ist; a new one came into being; a Shelley who, in the company only of those who understood and were able to appreciate him as the genius which he was, soared to the dizziest heights of poesy, exemplifying to the full the truth of his own lines:— “Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong, They learn in suffering what they teach in song.” And Mary—she too found hap- piness in Italy, though hers—and how could it have been otherwise? —was a happiness tinged both with sorrows and regret. Much has been written about Mary Shelley’s lofty soul and poetic aspirations, but most of it is gross exaggeration. The author of “Frankenstein,” though cultured and appreciative of art, was not her- self a genius; she was merely a middle-class English woman who, though content with lesser things than Harriet, found the wild Bohe- mianism of her husband’s life utter- ly distasteful. She had no wish to escape from the world and bury her- self in the solitude of oblivion. On the contrary, although she never dared admit it, the one thing she desired was to reinstate herself in Mrs. Grundy’s favour; and she hank- ered ever longingly for those tea- parties and other conventional mo- been missing nearly six weeks. She had a valuable ring on her finger. A want of honour in her own con- duct is supposed to have led to this fatal catastrophe, her husband being abroad.” But her husband was not abroad. Shelley, in fact, was at Bath when he heard of the tragedy, and the news shocked him profoundly. Forthwith he hastened to London to attend the funeral, though still he declared his feelings to be those only of sorrow, not of remorse. He de- nied that he had been in any way the cause of Harriet’s death. Yet posterity, I think, may, in turn, deny his denial, for the picture of his first wife’s hideous end re- mained in his mind, poignant and vivid till his death. “It was,” wrote Leigh Hunt, “a heavy blow to him,' and he never forgot it.” Whilst even Peacock, Harriet’s friend, de- clared that “her untimely fate occa- sioned him deep agony of mind, which he felt the more because for a long time he kept the feeling to him- self,” adding that he then deter- mined to “take a great glass of ale every night.” “I shall do it,” he said, “to dead- en my feelings.” The death of little Harriet, how- ever, made it possible for Shelley now to take Mary Godwin as his wife. This he did six weeks later. Then, repudiated by his relations, scorned by the world as the murder- er of his wife, forbidden in the Law Courts ever again to be a father to her children, he set out for Italy with the one woman in the world who really understood him. And there, despite his misfor- 180 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY notonies, so dear to women of her class, which were denied to her in Italy. Shelley, of course, could have moved in any social circle that he wished; could have become, in fact, a leader of fashion, as Byron did, for a man with his name and his reputation would have been regard- ed as an acquisition by an English community—on the Continent. And, no doubt, had he taken the trouble to do so, he could have opened the doors of the most exclusive houses also to his wife. But this he would not do; deliberately he shunned so- ciety as a something evil. And on her own merits only, Mary, a tradesman’s daughter, who had been her husband’s mistress before she be- came his wife, could not be received, save only by such people as Shelley chose to know, Trelawny’s friends and the intimates of Byron. They were people very few of whom paid much heed to the conventions. And then there was Jane Clair- mont—she proved herself a sorry trial to Mary, not only on account of her blatant indiscretions and seeming disregard for all morality, but be- cause of her relationship with Shel- ley. Mary could not convince her- self as to its innocence, suspicions harassed her, for, in matters of the heart, she knew her stepsister to be as reckless as she was irresponsible. Besides, there were other women too—Jane Williams, for example, Emilia Viviani, and the fair un- known who followed the author of “Queen Mab” from England, and died at Naples of a broken heart, because her love still remained un- requited. This was the second cause of Mary’s sorrow — that green-eyed monster, jealousy. Still, there is another side to the picture. “My greatest content,” Shelley once wrote, and at a time, moreover, when Mary’s baseless fears were most acute, “would be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the sea, and shut upon my retreat the flood gates of the world. I would read no reviews and talk with no authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me there are one or two chosen companions besides yourself whom I should desire. But to this I would not listen—where two or three are gathered together, the devil is among them. And good, far more than evil, impulses, love, far more than hatred, has been to me, except as you have been its object, the source of all sorts of mischief.” And those were not idle words; Shelley meant them, every one of them, and did earnestly wish to seek now a retreat still more sequestered, and thither to escape alone with the woman whom he recognized as his good genius, the only woman he had ever really loved, the woman who had saved him from himself. But, because he loved her, he restrained the wish. “Poor Mary! hers is a sad fate,” he told Trelawny. “Come along; she can’t bear solitude, nor I society —the quick coupled with the dead.” In some measure, then, at least, he realized the greatness of her sac- rifice, and, by showering upon her treasures from his boundless store TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS 181 It was in 1822 that Shelley met his tragic end. He was returning from Leghorn, whither he had gone one day to meet Leigh Hunt, across Spezzia Bay in a small boat alone with Captain Williams to his house, the Casa Alagni at Lerici. Tre- lawny had intended to accompany him part of the way in Byron’s yacht, but at the last minute was pre- vented. The small boat, therefore, set out alone, Trelawny watching its progress from the yacht, conversing with the mate. The boat was carry- ing too much sail, the latter said; unless Williams and Shelley were more careful they would find them- selves in difficulty. Hardly had he spoken when his fears were realized. The storm burst suddenly. Exactly what hap- pened to the boat the watchers could not see, for soon it was lost from view in fog; and, when at length the fog had cleared it had vanished from sight. Nor were its luckless crew heard of, or seen again, until a few days later, when, after a period of hide- ous suspense for those who loved them, their mangled bodies were washed ashore on the land which now had long been Shelley’s home, the land of his adoption. “Do you think that I shall ever marry?” Alary wrote to Trelawny some time after her husband’s death. “Never—neither you nor anybody else. Alary Shelley shall be written on my tomb—and why? I cannot tell, except that it is so pretty a name that, though I were to preach to my- self for years, I should never have the heart to get rid of it.” of love, did what he could to com- pensate her for it. And it was in that love that Mary found her hap- piness. Though how much more she might have found she did not know till Shelley left her never to return; then, only then, when it already was too late, when death had claimed him, there dawned within her the consciousness of her own failings. And that, consciousness it was which made her write:— “Oh, gentle Spirit, thou hast often sung How fallen on evil days thy heart was wrung; Now fierce remorse and unreplying death Waken a chord within my heart, whose breath, Thrilling and keen, in accents aud- ible A tale of unrequited love doth tell. It was not anger—while thy earthly dress Encompassed still thy soul’s rare loveliness, All anger was atoned by many a kind Caress and tear, that spoke the softened mind— It speaks of cold neglect, averted eyes, That blindly crushed the soul’s fond sacrifice; My heart was all thine own—but yet a shell Closed in its core, which seemed im- penetrable, Till sharp-toothed misery tore the husk in twain, Which gaping lies, nor may unite again. Forgive me !” Intimate Glimpses of Anatole France By JEAN JACQUES BROUSSON It is not generally known that when “Anatole France en Pantouffles," by the secretary of the great French writer, was translated into English, a number of the most trenchant anecdotes were omitted. TWO WORLDS MONTHLY will print trans- lations of all of the slighted fragments, as well as its own trans- lation of those incidents already translated which, in its opinion, have either been distorted in translation or are worth print- ing in an enlivened form for the excellence of their content. ONE morning we took refuge in the great library, opposite the bedroom. There is a huge chimney- piece with a stone cowl. A piece of tapestry, caught back, exposes a sort of alcove. In a glass case, Tanagra figures, Etruscan vases, Egyptian pots. In another, precious embla- zoned bindings and medals. Near the window a huge oak table. The whole room, like the rest of the house for that matter, resembles a sort of Victor Hugo museum. Be- fore seating himself in the adjustable Louis XIV armchair, Anatole France addresses a sort of invoca- tion to the mutilated Venus, standing on a movable base, in the sanctuary formed by the tapestry. By means of a handle he turns the goddess. His fingers run over her breast and loins. “See how lovely she is! She is the mistress of the house. I bought her in Rome, but she is of Greek origin; the shape and quality of the marble show that. Touch her; she puts up with anything, for she has no arms. It is real Paros! The satin of the very skin, you would say, wouldn t you ? She is the mistress of the house. Let us put ourselves un- der her protection before we under- take the Maid. Was she really a maid, do you think? So much the worse for her. It took me a lot of trouble to extract my goddess from the Roman shop where she lay. You know there is a law in Italy that pre- vents the export of works of art? Happily I made the acquaintance of the Abbe de —. He was a French- man attached to the papal court and in addition to that managed a kind of archaeological agency. He could obtain, at one and the same THE MISTRESS OF THE HOUSE 182 INTIMATE GLIMPSES OF ANATOLE FRANCE 183 time, audiences with the Pope, relics, marriage dispensations, separations, titles of nobility, Venuses, Gany- medes and medals. He did not openly keep a shop, but made it his business to know about tourists who had arrived. After the fashion of lady go-betweens, he would indicate the antiquary, or the impoverished Roman noble willing to part with various valuables. He took his little commission from both parties. He undertook, in return, you under- stand, for a certain consideration, to get round the law and to pass into France, under the nose of the cus- toms officials, the gods and god- desses of Olympus. He came to see me at my hotel with a list of divini- ties and addresses. His breviary was stuffed with photographs. None was marked with a Callipyge and Prime with a faun. He wanted frantically to sell me his faun. He thought my tastes must be Virgilian. The good abbe’s chief treasure was an Andro- gynus after Bernini. You should have heard him sing the praises of his Androgynus. It was his pearl above price. But I wanted a Venus! He took me for a bumpkin, some ill- instructed amateur. I induced H—, of the Assistance Publique, to buy his faun playing a pipe, and he placed it in his library. He was mightily pleased with his faun. He said to me: ‘When I look at that marble boy, I think of twelve thou- sand boys of flesh and blood whom I must feed.' He is a gentleman who lays it on thick. As for me, I like my Venus best. Come! To work!” IN a book-box on the embankment, France has unearthed the Kisses and the Elegies of Jean Second. It is the Tissot edition. The subtitles set him talking. One reads: Fol- lowed by several original kisses by P. F. Tissot. “What conceit! What an ignora- mus a man must be to think that there remains anything original in that titillating sphere! The first day of creation after two or three hours passed in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve knew every bit as much as Second and Tissot. Then I haven’t much faith in these vendors of pat- ent kisses. Their mouths are so full of Greek and Latin that when they pass from theory to practice they must deposit little spots of ink on their fair one’s cheeks. But do they pass? That is the question. Erotic writers usually cool their heels pretty badly in real life. Their gallantries are of the ink-pot variety.” He goes on : ‘‘Do you love caresses? I thirst for them! I give you everything else: age, beauty, social position. Duchess or dariy-maid—it’s a mere label! I hold to the opinion of our greatest royal voluptuary: ‘No matter which of them!’ said Louis XV to his valet, Lebel. ‘But take her first to the bath and to the dentist.’ ‘‘That monarch was a great man. Whatever may be said of him, he deserves the title of ‘Beloved.’ The bath and the dentist! There you ORIGINAL KISSES 184 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY have the whole thing. The bath spells hygiene, the only moral code of love. The body must be ready for the caress, for you are not, I hope, one of those Lenten fellows who would salute the fair sex with a little peck on the cheek, fit for a relic or a sacred vessel. Myself, I de- mand Venus in all her beauty. The face! It’s good only for relations, friends, husband or children. By dint of such domestic usage it be- comes hardened. The dawn van- ishes, the surface grows feelingless. Lovers have the right to more orig- inality; let us say to first editions. Now I know the vanity of all human learning. What useless reading, what crushing knowledge for a life so brief and passed in the midst of dunces! Why take all this tiresome luggage for so short a journey? People praise my learning. I no longer desire any other learning than that of love. Love is now my one particular study. It is to that I de- vote the flickering remains of pas- sion. If only I could write all that the little god inspires in me ! Dismal prudery reigns in literature, a pru- dery more silly, cruel and criminal than the Holy Inquisition. For me now, a woman is a book. Do you recall that I have told you there are no bad books? By dint of seeking through the pages you end by finding a passage that repays you for your trouble. I seek, my friend, I seek diligently.” So saying, he wets his finger and in the air, feverishly and caressingly, turns pages of imaginary parchment. He goes on, his eyes sparkling with youth: “When I have the joy of holding in my arms one of God’s creatures, I read the masterpiece, line by line. Not a stop, not a comma do I miss. Sometimes I lose my spectacles over it!” IN the Avenue de Wagram we go into a florist’s. Anatole France compares her to Flora. “In Latin: Flora. In Greek: Chloris. Eter- nal spring is here.” He buys a bunch of Parma violets for five francs, and a bunch of simple violets for one. The price never varies. The ordinary violets are for me: “Give them,” he says, “to your little girl friend from an old disappointed fellow.” Arrived at the Avenue Hoche, he runs lightly upstairs to the study and puts down his hat and his bunch of flowers. AT FLORA'S The Stronger Woman A PLAY By AUGUST STRINDBERG its.) I say, Millie, I’m not at all sure you wouldn't have done better to have kept him. If you come to think of it, I was the first to ask you to forgive him at the time. Don’t you remember? Why, you could have been married now, and have had a home! Do you remember how delighted you were at Christ- mas when you stayed with your fiance’s people in the country? You were quite enthusiastic over domestic happiness and quite keen on getting away from the theatre. After all, my dear Amelia, there’s nothing like home, sweet home—after the pro- fession, of course!—and the kids. Isn’t it so? But you couldn’t under- stand that! (Miss Y. looks contemptuous. Mrs. X. drinks some spoonfuls of chocolate out of her cup, then opens the basket and looks at the Christmas presents.) There, let me show you what I’ve bought for my little chicks. (Takes up a doll.) Just look at this ! That’s for Lisa. Just look, it can roll its eyes and waggle its neck. What? And here’s Maja’s cork pistol. (Loads and shoots at Miss Y. Miss Y. gives a start.) Are you frightened? Did you think I wanted to shoot you, dear? Upon my word I’d never have thought you’d have thought that. I’d have been much less surprised if 185 Scene : A nook in a ladies' cafe; two small tables, a red plush sofa and some chairs. Mrs. X. enters in winter dress, in a hat and cloak, with a light Jap- anese basket over her arm. Miss Y. sits in front of an unfinished bottle of beer and reads an illus- trated paper, which she subse- quently exchanges for another. MRS. X. How are you, my dear Millie? You look aw- fully lonely, at this gay time of year, sitting here all by yourself, like a poor bachelor girl. (Miss Y. looks up from her pa- per, nods and continues her reading.) It makes me really quite sorry, to look at you. All alone at a cafe when all the rest of us are having such a good time of it! It reminds me of how I felt when I saw a wed- ding party once, in a Paris res- taurant, and the bride, sat and read a comic paper while the bridegroom played billiards with the witnesses. If they begin like this, I said to my- self, how will they go on, and how will they end? Fancy! He was playing billiards on the night of his wedding—and she was reading an illustrated paper! Oh, well, but you are not quite in the same box! (Waitress enters, puts a cup of cho- colate in front of Mrs. X., and ex- 186 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY you'd wanted to shoot me, for get- ting in your way. I know that you can never forget anything, although I was absolutely innocent. You be- lieved, of course, that I worked it to get you out of the Grand Theatre, but I didn’t do that. I didn’t do it, although you think I did. But it makes no odds my saying all this, for you always think it was me. (Takes out a pair of embroidered slippers.) These are for my hubby, with tulips on them which I embroidered myself. I can’t stand tulips, you know, but he’s awfully keen on them. (Miss Y. looks up ironically and curiously from her paper. Mrs. X. holds a slipper up in each hand.) Just look what small feet Bob has, eh! You should just see, dear, how well he carries himself. But of course you’ve never seen him in slip- pers, have you, dear? (Miss Y. laughs loudly.) Look, you must see. (She walks the slippers upon the table. Miss Y. laughs loudly.) Just see here. This is the way he always stamps about whenever he’s out of sorts, like this. “Eh, that damned girl will never learn how to make coffee! Ugh! And now the confounded idiot has trimmed the lamp wrong!” The next min- ute there’s a draught and his feet get cold. “Oof, how cold it is, and that blighted fool can never manage to keep the fire going.” (She rubs the soles of the slippers one against the other. Miss Y. laughs out loud.) And this is how he goes on when he comes home and looks for his slippers: which Mary puts under the chest of drawers. Oh, it’s a shame for me to sit here and give my husband away. He’s a good sort, at any rate, and that’s something, I can tell you. Yes, you should have a husband like that, Amelia; yes, you, my dear. What are you laughing at? Eh? Eh? And I’ll tell you how- I know he’s faithful! I am sure of it, for he told me so of his own accord. What are you giggling at? Why, when I went for a trip in Norway, that un- grateful Frederique ran after him and tried to seduce him—can you think of anything so disgraceful! (Pause.) I’d have scratched the eyes out of the creature’s head, that I would, if she’d come playing around when I was on the scene! (Pause.) It was lucky that Bob told me of his own accord, so that I didn’t get to hear of it first from a lot of sneaking scandalmongers. (Pause.) But Frederique was not the only one, you may say. I didn’t know it, but the women are abso- lutely crazy over my husband. They think he is awfully influential in get- ting engagements just because he holds an official position! It may be that you, too, have tried to run after him—I don’t trust you more than need be—anyway. I know that he doesn’t bother about you and that you seem to have a grudge against him, and consequently against me, the whole time! (Pause; they look at each other with embarrassment.) Come around and see us tonight, dear, just to show that you don’t feel badly about us, at any rate about me! I don’t know why, but somehow I feel that it would be THE STRONGER WOMAN 187 \ particularly ungracious of me to be unfriendly towards you of all peo- ple. It may be because I cut you out. (Speaking more slowly.) Or —or—I can’t tell the reason. {Miss Y. stares at Mrs. X. curi- ously. Mrs. X. continues re- flectively. ) But everything went wrong, when you came to our house, because I saw that my husband couldn’t stand you—and I felt quite uncomfortable as though there was a hitch some- where, and I did all I could to make him show himself friendly towards you, but without success—until you went and got engaged, and then a keen friendship sprang up, so that it seemed for a moment as though you had only first dared to show your true feelings when you were in safety—and then it went on!—I didn’t get jealous—strangely enough —and I remember the christening when you stood godmother and I made him kiss you. Yes, I did that, and you got so embarrassed—I mean I didn’t notice it at the time— I haven’t thought of it since then either, I haven’t thought of it from then till now. (Gets up sharply.) Why don’t you say something? You haven’t said a word the whole time, but have just let me sit here and talk; you have sat there with those eyes of yours and picked up all my thoughts—thoughts !—hallucina- tions, perhaps—and worked them into your chain, link by link. Ah, let me see. Why did you break off your engagement, and why, from that day to this, have you never come any more to our house? Why won’t you come in, in the evening? (Miss Y. seems as though she were about to speak.) Stop! You needn’t say it! I quite understand now. It was be- cause and because and because. Yes, it all fits in ! That’s what it is. Ugh, I won’t sit at the same table with you. (Moves her things to another table.) That was why I had to em- broider tulips on his slippers, though I couldn’t stand them; that was why. (Throws the slippers on the floor.) That was why I had to spend the summer at Lake Malarn, because you couldn’t stand sea air; that was why my boy had to be called Eskil, because it was your father’s name; that was why I had to wear your colors, read your authors, eat your favorite dishes, drink your drinks, —chocolate, for instance; that was why. Oh, my God! it is ghastly to think of, ghastly; everything I got came from you to me, even your passions! Your soul crept into mine like a worm into an apple, ate and ate— burrowed and burrowed, till there was nothing left but the rotten core. I wanted to avoid you, but I could not; you lay there like a serpent with your black eyes of fascination—I knew that you would succeed at last in dragging me down; I was lying in a swamp with my feet tied, and the more violently I struggled with my hands, the deeper did I work down, down to the bottom, while you lay there like a giant crab and gripped me in your claws; and now here I am at the bottom ! Oh, how I hate you, hate you, hate you! But you, you just sit there and say nothing, quiet, indiffer- ent—indifferent. It is all the same 188 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY to you if it is the beginning or the end of the month; Christmas or New Year; if the rest of the world is happy or unhappy; you can neither hate nor love; you sit as stolidly as a stork over a rat-trap. But you couldn’t capture your prey, mind you; you couldn’t pursue it; you could only wait for it. Here you sit in your lair—this nook, you know, has been called the Rat Trap—and you read your pa- pers to see if somebody’s having a bad time of it, if somebody’s had a misfortune, if somebody’s been sack- ed from the theater. Here you sit and survey your victims, reckon out your chances like a pilot his ship- wrecks; take your toll. My poor Amelia, do you know, I feel quite sorry for you, because I know that you are wretched, wretch- ed, like a wounded creature, and malicious because you are wounded. I cannot be angry with you, although I should like to be, because you are the weaker—why, as to that little affair with Bob, I am not bothering about that—what did it really mat- ter to me? Supposing it was you or somebody else who taught me to eat chocolate, what does it matter? (Drinks a spoonful out of her cup.) Besides, chocolate is very whole- some, and if I did learn to dress my- self in your model, well tant m'teux —it only strengthens my hold upon my husband—and you were the loser by it while I was the winner. Why, I had ample grounds for coming to the conclusion that you had already lost him—but it was you still thought that I should go my way! But now you carry on as though you were sitting and repent- ing; but, you see, I don’t do that. One mustn't be petty, you know. Why should 1 just take what no- body else will have? Perhaps you —taking it all round—are stronger than I am at this particular moment —you never got anything out of me but you gave me something of your- self. Oh, it’s really a case of thiev- ing, isn’t it?—and when you woke up I had possessed myself of the very thing you missed. How else does it come about that everything you touched became worthless and sterile? You couldn’t keep any man’s love, with those tulips and those passions of yours— but I could; you weren’t able to learn the art of my life out of your authors, but I learnt it; you haven’t got any little Eskil, although your papa was called Eskil. Else why do you sit there without a word, and brood and brood and brood? I thought it was strength, hut perhaps the reason is just that you haven’t anything to say, that’s because you couldn’t think of any- thing to say. (Rises and takes up the slippers.) I'm going home now—and taking these tulip things with me—your tulips, my dear; you couldn’t learn anything from others—you couldn’t yield, and that’s why you crumpled up like a dried-up leaf. I didn’t do that. I must really thank you, Ame- lia, for the excellent training you have given me—thank you for teach- ing my husband how to love. And now I’m going home to love him. [Exits.] CURTAIN. Eeldrop and Appleplex A FRAGMENT By T. S. ELIOT their doorsteps: then alien visitors would linger in the street, in caps, long after the centre of misery had been engulphed in his cell. Then Eel- drop and Appleplex would break off their discourse, and rush out to min- gle with the mob. Each pursued his own line of enquiry. Appleplex, who had the gift of an extraordinary ad- dress with the lower classes of both- sexes, questioned the onlookers, and usually extracted full and inconsis- tent histories: Eeldrop preserved a more passive demeanor, listened to the conversation of the people among themselves, registered in his mind their oaths, their redundance of phrase, their various manners of spitting, and the cries of the victim from the hall of justice within. When the crowd dispersed, Eeldrop and Appleplex returned to their rooms: Appleplex entered the results of his enquiries into large notebooks, filed according to the nature of the case, from A (adultery) to Y (yegg- men). Eeldrop smoked reflectively. It may be added that Eeldrop was a sceptic, with a taste for mysticism, and Appleplex a materialist with a leaning toward scepticism; that Eel- drop was learned in theology, and that Appleplex studied the physical and biological sciences. 189 EELDROP and Appleplex rent- ed two small rooms in a dis- reputable part of town. Here they sometimes came at nightfall, here they sometimes slept, and after they had slept, they cooked oatmeal and departed in the morning for destina- tions unknown to each other. They sometimes slept, more often they talked, or looked out of the window. They had chosen the rooms and the neighborhood with great care. There are evil neighborhoods of noise and evil neighborhoods of si- lence, and Eeldrop and Appleplex preferred the latter, as being the more evil. It was a shady street, its windows were heavily curtained; and over it hung the cloud of a respect- ability which has something to con- ceal. Yet it had the advantage of more riotous neighborhoods nearby, and Eeldrop and Appleplex com- manded from their windows the en- trance of a police station across the way. This alone possessed an irre- sistible appeal in their eyes. From time to time the silence of the street was broken; whenever a malefactor was apprehended, a wave of excite- ment curled into the street and broke upon the doors of the police station. Then the inhabitants of the street would linger in dressing-gowns, upon 190 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY There was a common motive which led Eeldrop and Appleplex thus to separate themselves from time to time, from the ’fields of their daily employments and their ordi- narily social activities. Both were endeavoring to escape not the com- monplace, respectable or even the domestic, but the too well pigeon- holed, too taken-for-granted, too highly systematized areas, and—in the language of those whom they sought to avoid—they wished “to apprehend the human soul in its con- crete individuality.” “Why,” said Eeldrop, “was that fat Spaniard, who sat at the table with us this evening, and listened to our conversation with occasional cu- riosity, why was he himself for a moment an object of interest to us? He wore his napkin tucked into his chin, he made unpleasant noises while eating, and while not eating, his way of crumbling bread between fat fingers made me extremely nerv- ous: he wore a waistcoat cafe au lait, and black boots with brown tops. He was oppressively gross and vulgar; he belonged to a type, he could easily be classified in any town of provincial Spain. Yet under the circumstances—when we had been discussing marriage, and he sudden- ly leaned forward and exclaimed: ‘I was married once myself’—we were able to detach him from his classification and regard Him for a moment as an unique being, a soul, however insignificant, with a history of its own, once for all. It is these moments which we prize, and which alone are revealing. For any vital truth is incapable of being applied to another case: the essential is unique. Perhaps that is why it is so neg- lected: because it is useless. What we learned about that Spaniard is in- capable of being applied to any other Spaniard, or even recalled in words. With the decline of orthodox the- ology and its admirable theory of the soul, the unique importance of events has vanished. A man is only im- portant as he is classed. Hence there is no tragedy, or no apprecia- tion of tragedy, which is the same thing. We had been talking of young Bistwick, who three months ago married his mother’s housemaid and now is aware of the fact. Who appreciates the truth of the matter? Not the relatives, for they are only moved by affection, by regard for Bistwick’s interests, and chiefly by their collective feeling of family dis- grace. Not the generous-minded and thoughtful outsider, who re- gards it merely as evidence for the necessity of divorce law reform. Bistwick is classed among the unhap- pily married. But what Bistwick feels when he wakes up in the morn- ing, which is the great important fact, no detached outsider conceives. The awful importance of the ruin of a life is overlooked. Men are only allowed to be happy or miserable in classes. In Gopsum Street a man murders his mistress. The impor- tant fact is that for the man the act is eternal, and that for the brief space he has to live, he is already dead. He is already in a different world from ours. He has crossed the frontier. The important fact that something is done which cannot be undone—a possibility which none of us realize until we face it our- selves. For the man’s neighbors the EELDROP AND APPLEPLEX 191 important fact is what the man killed her with? And at precisely what time? And who found the body? For the “enlightened public” the case is merely evidence for the Drink question, or Unemployment, or some other category of things to be re- formed. But the mediaeval world, insisting on the' eternity of punish- ment, expressed something nearer truth. “What you say,” replied Apple- plex, “commands my measured ad- herence. I should think, in the case of the Spaniard, and in the many other interesting cases which have come under our attention at the door of the police station, what we grasp in that moment of pure observation on which we pride ourselves, is not alien to the principle of classifica- tion, but deeper. We could if we liked make excellent comment upon the nature of provincial Spaniards, or of destitution (as misery is called by the philanthropists), or on homes for working girls. But such is not our intention. We aim at experience' in the particular centres in which alone it is evil. We avoid classifica- tion. We do not deny it. But when a man is classified something is lost. The majority of mankind live on pa- per currency: they use terms which are merely good for so much reality, they never see actual coinage.” “I should go even further than that,” said Eeldrop. “The major- ity not only have no language to ex- press anything save generalized man; they are for the most part un- aware of themselves as anything but generalized men. They are first of all government officials, or pillars of the church, or trade unionists, or poets, or unemployed; this cata- loguing is not only satisfactory to other people for practical purposes, it is sufficient to themselves for their ‘life of the spirit.’ Many are not quite real at any moment. When Wolstrip married, I am sure he said to himself: ‘Now I am consummat- ing the union of two of the best fam- ilies in Philadelphia.’ ” “The question is,” said Apple- plex, “what is to be our philosophy. This must be settled at once. Mrs. Howexden recommends me to read Bergson. He writes very entertain- ingly on the structure of the eye of the frog.” “Not at all,” interrupted his friend. “Our philosophy is quite irrelevant. The essential is, that our philosophy should spring from our point of view and not return upon itself to explain our point of view. A philosophy about intuition is some- what less likely to be intuitive than any other. We must avoid having a platform,” “But at least,” said Appleplex, “we are ” “Individualists. No! nor anti- intellectualists. These also are labels. The ‘individualist’ is a mem- ber of a mob as fully as any other man: and the mob of individualists is the most unpleasing, because it has the least character. Nietzsche was a mob-man, just as Bergson is an in- tellectualist. We cannot escape the label, but let it be one which carries no distinction, and arouses no self- consciousness. Sufficient that we should find simple labels, and not further exploit them. I am, I con- fess to you, in private life, a bank clerk. ...” 192 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY “And should, according to your own view, have a wife, three chil- dren, and a vegetable garden in a suburb,” said Appleplex. “Such is precisely the case,” re- turned Eeldrop, “but I had not thought it necessary to mention this biographical detail. As it is Satur- day night, I shall return to my suburb. Tomorrow will be spent in that garden. ...” “I shall pay my call on Mrs. Howexden,” murmured Apple- plex. An Epitaph By WALTER DE LA MARE Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of heart and step was she. I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever lived in the west contree. But beauty vanishes, beauty passes, However rare, rare it be; And when I crumble who will remember This lady of the west contree? Katherine The Lacemaker By MARCEL SCHWOB SHE was born about the middle of the fifteenth century, in the rue de la Parcheminerie, near the rue Saint-Jacques, during a winter so cold that wolves ran over Paris on the snow. An old woman with a red nose under her hood took Katherine in and brought her up. At first she played in the doorways with Perre- nette, Guillemette, Ysabeau and Jehanneton, who wore little petti- coats and gathered icicles, chilling their small red fists in the icy gutters. They would watch neighborhood boys whistle at passers-by from the tables of the Saint-Merry tavern. Under open sheds they saw buckets of tripe, long fat sausages and big iron hooks from which the butchers hung quarters of meat near Saint- Benoit le Betourne, where the scriv- eners lived. They heard the scratch- ing of quills in little shops, and in the evening saw clerks snuff out their flickering candles. At Petit-Pont they mocked the sidewalk orators, then scampered away to hide among the angles of the rue des Trois- Portes. After that they would sit together along the fountain’s curb and chatter until nightfall. So Katherine passed her first youth, before the old woman taught her to sit in front of a lacemaker’s cushion, patiently crossing the threads from the bobbins. Later on she worked at that trade. Jehanne- ton became a capemaker, Perrenette a washerwoman, while Ysabeau made gloves and Guillemette, happi- est of all, was a sausagemaker, with her little face crimson and shin- ing as if it had been rubbed in fresh pork blood. For the boys who played at Saint-Merry new enter- prises began. Some went to study on Mount Sainte Genevieve, some drove carts to Trou-Perrette, some clinked goblets of Aunis at the Pomme de Pin, others quarreled at the Hotel de la Grosse Margot. At noon they were seen in the tavern entrance on the rue aux Feves; at midnight they left by the other door on the rue aux Juifs. As for Kathe- rine, she continued to interwork the threads of her lace. On summer evenings she found it pleasant sit- ting on the church steps where they let her laugh and gossip. Katherine wore an unbleached dress with a green jacket over it. Absorbed in the problems of clothes, she hated nothing so much as the padded garments worn by girls not of noble birth. She was fond of money—equally fond of the silver testons or ten sou pieces, the blancs, and above all of the golden ecus. That was how she made the ac- quaintance of Casin Cholet, sergeant of the yard at Chatelet, one evening 193 in the shadow of his little office. Casin was poorly paid. Katherine often had supper with him at the Hotel de la Mule, opposite the Church des Mathurins, and after supping Casin would go out to steal chickens around the moats and ditches of Paris, bringing them back under the folds of his wide tabard, selling them very fairly to Mache- croue, widow of Arnoul, who kept the poultry shop at the Petit-Chatelet gate. Soon Katherine gave up her lace- making, for the old woman with the red nose was now rotting her bones in the Cemetery des Innocents, and Casin Cholet had found his lit- tle friend a basement room near Trois-Pucelles, where he came to her late at night. He did not care if she showed herself at the window, her eyes blackened with charcoal, her cheeks smeared with white lead—he never forbade it; and all the pots, cups and dishes offered by Kathe- rine to those who paid well, were stolen by Casin from various inns— from the Chaire, the Cygnes or from the Hotel du Plat d’Etain. The day he pawned Katherine’s belted dress at the Trois-Lavandieres Casin dis- appeared. His friends told her he had been caught snooping in the bot- tom of a cart, that he had been soundly beaten and driven out of Paris by the Baudoyer gate at the order of the prevost. She never saw him again. Having no heart to earn her living alone, she became a girl of the streets, dwelling wherever she could. At first she waited by the tavern doors, and those who knew her took her behind walls, under the Chatelet 194 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY or around by the College of Na- varre. When it grew too cold for this, a complaisant old woman let her come into a bath-house where the madame gave her shelter. She lived there in a stone room strewn with green rushes, and they let her keep her name, Katherine the Lacemaker, though she made no more lace. Sometimes they gave her liberty to walk through the streets if she prom- ised to return by the hour the men were accustomed to arrive. Then Katherine would go peering into the glove shops and the lace shops, but most of all she envied the red face of the little sausagemaker, laughing among her chunks of pork. After- wards she would go back to the house, which the madame lighted at dusk with candles that melted and dripped thickly behind black panes. Finally Katherine grew tired of living shut in a square room. She ran away to the roads. From that time on she was no longer Parisienne or lacemaker, but one of those wom- en who haunt the outskirts of French towns, waiting by cemetery walls for any man who passes. These women know no names but those which suit their faces, and they called Kathe- rine ‘‘The Snout.” She tramped the fields, where her white face was often seen peeping between the mul- berry trees or over the hedges. Evenings, she sat by the roadside, and she learned to control her fear of the dark in the midst of the dead while her feet shivered against the stone-marked graves. No more white money, no more silver testons, no golden ecus; Katherine lived thin- ly now on bread, cheese and a jug of water. She had vagabond friends KATHERINE THE LACEMAKER 195 who cried, “Snout! Snout!” at her from afar—and she loved them. The chapel bells were her great- est loss, for The Snout would re- member June nights when she had spread her green jacket out on the church steps. Those were the days when she had so envied young ladies in their gay dresses. But now there remained to her neither cape nor jacket. Bareheaded, she crouched 0n the stones, waiting for her bread. In the thick shadows of the ceme- teries she regretted those red candles at the house with the square room, and the green rushes underfoot, in- stead of black mud sticking to her boots. One night a tramp came along dressed up like a soldier. He cut The Snout’s throat to get her purse, but he found no money in it. An Immorality By EZRA POUND Sing we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having Though I have been in many a land There’s naught else in living. And I would rather have my sweet Though rose-leaves die of grieving, Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men’s believing. A Mighty Man In Sion By CARADOC EVANS WHERE the Tramping road goes out into the Cardigan road you will see Tycornel. This is the house in which lived Ellen Pugh, who is buried in the field that is be- tween it and the road. Ellen had not known any man before her age was twenty-six, although her great thighs, and her soft, flaxen hair, and big breasts—of which much could be seen because her garments were sewn ill together—excited the de- sires of many men. If in the hay- fields a vicious lover foxed her, or if on the way home from Sion one waited for her in a secret place, she always prevailed against her adver- sary: the woman was strong and she was proud of her chastity. She fastened her door at nights, and drew a curtain over the window of the room in which she slept. Though men came and looked narrowly, none saw her without her garments. One night Lias Carpenter stood outside Tycornel and cried in a loud voice: “Ellen, now indeed to good- ness, your cows are in my bit of field.” Having clothed herself, Ellen opened the door, “Sorry am I, Lias Carpenter,” she said. “Fetch the creatures will I in a hurry.” “Wench fach, don’t you trouble over-much. Male very reasonable am I.” “Iss, for sure. Tarry you a while, Lias, and drink a small cup of tea.” “No, dear me; iss, dear me,” Lias answered. “Very good is tea bach.” Ellen removed the crust of coal and clay which was over the fire and put sticks in its place; and as they two ate and drank, Lias spoke: “Big is Matti Rhys Shop.” “So I see, Lias. Four children has Rhys. Every year Matti is big.” “A large one bach is Rhys for system. Children you ought to have, Ellen.” "Sober me, Lias Carpenter, why for you talk like that? Shut your lips, man.” “Large the families Boys Israel had. Tell words will I.” Lias thanked the Big Man for that which he had eaten and drunk, and turned to go away. He said: “Bring you home your cow on the morrow. Jasto, not safe is the bar on your door.” “How you speak?” “See you, female fach.” Lias- went outside. On the flagstone he told Ellen to close the door and bar it. The woman did so, and then Lias gathered together all his power and broke the bar. Ellen was astonished: “Glad am I that you displayed me this weak- ness.” 196 A MIGHTY MAN IN SION 197 increased she eased them; her con- trivings did not withhold her state. Folk said to her: “Many handfuls of gravel have been thrown at your window. Whisper the name of the thrower.” Before she delivered her child she pleaded in the hearing of Lias’s mother Shanni: “Women fach with- out wickedness, make your son veri- fy his pledge.” Old Shanni answered angrily: “Ho, ho! And is the bitch saying that Lias is the father?” “Don’t laugh, foolish Shanni. Serious is affairs.” Old Shanni tightened her lips and called to her Lias, who had kept himself close: “The strumpet of Ty- cornel says you art the father.” Lias opened his mouth, and a frothy spittle fell therefrom upon his beard. “Dear me,” he said. “Bad lies you talk.” Unable to contain herself, Old Shanni spoke savagely: “Go you off, you concubine of the big belly.” Ellen bare a child and she named him “Lias,” and after she was re- covered fury possessed her: she cried, as a peevish child cries, on the Tramping road, and in Shop Rhys, and at the Gates of Sion that Lias Carpenter was the father of her in- fant; and she would not be quieted, nor charge anyone else. Her shoutings vexed Lias. He shammed innocence before the Re- spected Bern-Davydd, to whom he sacrificed a hen, and whose counsel he craved, lamenting how Ellen pro- claimed this and that to his dis- credit. Bern-Davydd ordered the woman to the Seiet, and caused her to stand in the Big Seat in the face After Lias had put a new bar on the door, Ellen spoke to many peo- ple in this wise: “Neighbour very kind is Lias Carpenter. And there’s harmless he is. Trust him I can with me.” The people answered her: “Trust not your male before you win him.” For five nights Lias drove Ellen’s two cows into his field, and on four nights he stood without Tycornel, crying: “Wild are your creatures. In Lias’s field they are. Good-bye, now.” The fifth night he entered the room wherein Ellen slept, and he awoke her: “There you are! Told you I have in plenty. Come I have in the rain to tell this, and my trousers are wet. Touch you them with your hand fach.” “Well—well, Lias Carpenter,” said Ellen. “Speech how shall I dry them, woman fach very fair?” “Talk you like that.” “Harmless is my spirit,” said Lias. “Close your eyes. Ach, put your old private garments from my sight. Not religious that they pol- lute my eyes.” Thereafter Lias frequented Tycornel, whither he ar- rived and quitted in darkness and away from the common track. It came to be that Ellen said to him : “Boy bach, wed me you must.” “Speak will I to mam,” answered Lias. “Iss, do you in a haste.” “Indeed, speak will I. Fair day for now.” Ellen was troubled that Lias did not come any more to Tycornel and she connived that men and women should not discover her plight. She drew in her clothes, and as her size 198 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY of the congregation; and after the wily men of the High Places had laboured to prove her with questions, he lifted his voice: “Name the man bach you tempted.” Truly Ellen answered: "Sparrow of a pig, no-no. A liar you are. Very religious is Lias. Is he not in the Big Seat?” “He was bad with me,” Ellen said. “Didn't I put his trousers rib before the fire?” Bern-Davydd interrupted her: “Shut your head, you bull. Sense- less you are to talk trousers rib in the Big One’s Capel. Your bastard is by old Satan. Congregation, here’s a sin. Shaking and redding you are. Good that I am here, for am I not the Big Alan’s son? Lias Carpenter, say things.” These are the words of Lias Car- penter: “Dear people, stop you a time bach. Shedding tears am I, and they are salter than the weep- ings of Mishtress Lot. Evil was she, but boy very pious was Lot. Changed was she into a rock of salt; a rock bigger than the biggest in Shop Rhys. Let out tears will I this minute.” Lias wept. “Look you on the marks of the tears on my whiskers. So—ho, the wench says: ‘Lias Carpenter was naughty with me.’ No, dear me. Am I not full of the White Jesus bach? A carpenter was the Big Jesus. He made coffins. Iss, people bach, re- ligious is the male that makes coffins. Wise is the Respected. He said: ‘The Bad Man is the father of your hog ?’ Does Ellen not bolt her door and her window? Thick is the bolt I put on her door. Can a man walk through a door? Can a perished corpse come out of a screwed down coffin? Boys evil there are who die and wish to live. Sinners they are. That is why we use big screws, little folk. Ask you their length in Shop Rhys. Like would I now to hear the Respected report.” Bern-Davydd acquainted God with the perfidy of Ellen Pugh, and God gave him terrible words with which to scourge the woman. Ellen was broken out of the Seiet. Even so, her rage against Lias did not abate one jot. She invented means to bring misery upon him : she pretended goodwill and helped him to gather in his wheat and at the finish of the day went into his bed, but Lias -would not sin with her. She stole secretly into his house and placed stones in the midst of Shan- ni’s butter, insomuch that this be- came a proverb in the market-place of Castellybryn: “Say how much your butter weighs without the stones?” She opened the gates of his fields and set his cattle astray, and she maimed his horse to its death. All these acts and more she did in her hatred against Lias Carpen- ter. At the age of forty-five Ellen was as one whose years are seventy: her teeth were fallen out, there were sores on her legs—sores which dampened and stiffened her stock- ings, her hair was gray and clotted with many sorts of residue. She grew weary, and complained that the day was too long and the night too short. A hope came over her that Death was near, and a fear that she would be buried in the same burial ground as Lias Carpenter. She said to her son Lias Small: “Perishing is A MIGHTY MAN IN SION 199 your mam, boy bach. When I am dead, don’t you say to anyone: ‘Come and put a White Shirt on mam.’ Dig you a grave in the field, and bind me with sacks, and bury me there in the darkness. Hap I shall hear the Trumpet before Capel Sion. Goodness everybody, there’s things I shall speech to the Big Man about Lias.” Ellen died and her son bound her with sacks and buried her in the field. Then he became frightened and he ran this way and that way in his confusion and he told everyone whom he met that which his mother had said to him and that which he had done. Lias Carpenter heard his sayings and went to the owner of the field and bought it; and he built a hedge on all sides of it so that none should trespass in it. Moreover he raised a pulpit of wood near to the place under which Ellen lies; for he too shall be buried in the field, and at the first sound of the Trumpet he will arise and go up into the pulpit and he will warn the Big Man that Ellen Pugh was without a name in Sion. The angel with a flaming sword slept at his post, and Eve slipped back into the Garden. “Thank Heaven! I am again in Paradise,” said Adam. If women knew themselves, the fact that men do not know them would flatter them less and content them more. To most persons a sense of obligation is insupportable; beware upon whom you inflict it. A Literary Holiday BARRIE GROWS OLD By SAMUEL ROTH ONE chilly morning I was sit- ting back on top of a bus which nine times a day makes the journey from the Charing Cross Post Office to World’s End, when I espied on one of the front benches, his head bowed in the dark swirl of the city, a little bird-like old man who wrore a tall silk hat under which he gazed mildly, wincingly ahead of him. How did I know who he was? I had never seen him before, nor had anyone pointed him out to me and mentioned him by name. It is very simple. Before my departure for England, a dear friend (a lady with soft bronze hair and the profile of a madonna) admonished me thus: When you get to London, find Barrie, and give him my greet- ings. But how, I asked her, will I find him, when it is well known that this eccentric fellow' invariably refuses to talk to strangers? Easily enough, replied my lady. According to his owm confession he rides every morning, or nearly every morning, on top of the “bus” that passes Hyde Park. As for recog- nizing him, a fine wit you would be to fail to distinguish the author of those marvellous books in a crowd of shopkeepers and clerks. For weeks I had been enriching the London Bus Company, and kept myself in a constant sweat through exposure to an unstable and dreary climate. But I had triumphed at last. It was, moreover, a remark- able coincidence. Only the previous night I had sat through his then latest play, Mary Rose, and the thought had come to me that this romantic was already an old man in mourning. A few novels, a play now and then, a bit of domestic un- pleasantness, and one who dreamt so slowly and so leisurely that you might have thought him an immor- tal with years to fling away, was apparently caught in a whirlpool of despair. I moved, in the vaporous, faintly drizzling morning, into the seat next to him, and murmured: Mr. Barrie. He acknowledged my presence without trying to see me, and I was making some remarks concerning the ill-nature of the London weather which never gives a man sufficient time to get completely dry, when, still without turning, he interrupted me to say: It is the weather I like best. Then it’s time you knew better what is good for you, I returned 200 A LITERARY HOLIDAY 201 The wonder is that a sensible, con- servative old man like you should have allowed yourself such a feat of voluntary publicity. How can you bear to wring out your heart every night in such a public place as the Haymarket? Three hundred and fifty performances. Ugh! What is the use ? he wailed. Once I kept my personal feelings under the veil of an iron reticence. You know what happened. They made my household affairs a meal for all the slanderous mouths in Christen- dom. You remember that? I nodded. He continued: I determined that the only way to hide things from the people was to expose them publicly for them to see, for what is to be seen clearly with the naked eye and felt simply with the unaffected heart, the people, whose eyes and hearts are closed, missed entirely. But I have not done so well. His anguish hurt me, but sudden- ly I remembered something. IYave you read The Wickerwork Woman by Anatole France? I asked him. He nodded. You remember the story? Perfectly. M. Bergeret is plainly Anatole France himself, is that not so? Probably. And the implication is that Ana- tole France, like yourself, was be- trayed by a friend? He winced. I know what you want to say, I pursued ruthlessly. You think I am severely stretching a literary discus- sion. But consider that I am a per- fect stranger, and that you will severely. What can your physician be about to let you expose yourself to this nasty chill? I am not to be ordered about by a physician, he said mildly. I’m not a child. You’re an old man, I pointed out to him. What’s the difference? He appeared shaken with indigna- tion. I expected him to turn about and look at me. But he didn’t. Who told you I am an old man? he demanded. You did yourself, I replied. I never saw you before in my life, he declared indignantly. Nevertheless I have seen a great deal of you, I persisted, and last night you spoke to me through your Mary Rose. He calmed suddenly, and I had a feeling that, without actually turn- ing his head, he was looking at me. I resumed: Mary Rose who turns up in the midst of her family after an ab- sence of twenty years, as young and as beautiful as ever, is merely your personification of the girl who re- sides, ageless and with unfading lustre, in the heart of every artist. It is apparent, since you have ex- posed the whole business in the play, that she is already complaining to you of the stiffening of your bones and the dimming of your eyes. Per- haps she has already given you no- tice of her intention of setting up her residence elsewhere? The head under the silk hat bowed forward a little more, and a sweet moaning voice, that might have been the voice of a bird, mur- mured: You understood all that? Yes, and more, I said severely. 202 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY never see me or hear from me again, that to you I am only a shadow. Is there any harm in let- ting a shadow solve the difficulty which is darkening your old age? Since he said nothing to this, I continued : Your method differs from France’s in this way: You write about your affairs and pretend they are not your affairs, while France writes openly about his, takes no pains to deny that they are his af- fairs, thereby giving the public no- tice that it now knows less about his affairs than it knew before? And do they believe him ? he asked anxiously. Certainly. The people always be- lieve a writer who deliberately in- sults them, whereas they instinctive- ly and rightly mistrust a writer who assumes that they have intelligence for who should know better than they that they haven’t any? That may be so, that may be so, he murmured. But I could hardly do that, indeed not. Why not? I demanded. It is this way, Barrie replied. A Frenchmen enjoys life in this world, so that he need not bother whether he is right or wrong. An Englishman to whom life is a con- stant reminder of his duty and the future, must be more careful. And having said this, the little man looked at me fully and sharply. I saw the white of his hair and eyes as he pressed the signal button. The bus came to a full stop, and as he ambled away and down into the soft, obliterating mist, I had the queer feeling of a seagull passing over my head in flight. Dear lady, I have not given him your greeting. But how can you greet a man you have met only in a dream? (The first chapter of A Literary Holiday appeared in the first number of Two WORLDS Monthly. Succeeding chapters will appear in later issues.) Two Poems By CARL SANDBURG WINTER WEATHER It is cold. The bitter of the winter whines a story. It is the colder weather when the truck drivers sing it would freeze the whiskers off a brass monkey. It is the bitterest whining of the winter now. Well, we might sit down, have a cup of coffee apiece, and talk about now, the weather. We might look back on things that happened long ago, times when the weather was different. Or we might talk about things ahead of us, funny things in the days, days, days to come, days when the weather will be different again. Yes, a cup of coffee apiece. Even if this winter weather is bitter, The truck drivers are laughing: It would freeze the whiskers off a brass monkey. WRITINGS LEFT BY A GUITAR PLAYER WHO WISHED TO LIVE ONE MORE WINTER Child of the rich red mouth, come to me and tell me how you grew in the wild grass, how you and your children came, how the lights in your eyes grew, how kisses were taken and yet 203 204' TWO WORLDS MONTHLY kisses grew richer and redder. Tell me how the years left you younger. * * * The gold axis of the sun accomplishes miracles. Stand on the railroad track where the rails run into the sun, measure the gold, the axis, take it home, and measure the miracle. * * * Old wood from China must be fixed over. Old pictures from Korea, old stories of silk threads changing into a roomful of butterflies and changing back again for a miracle, all must be fixed over. * * * Meditations on old Japanese lutes come out with finger thrummings. Notes picked off with wise fingers jump into the air as fairy acrobats sent out to do and be done. * * * The winter birds are few and their songs are few. Hiding out from the hunting winds they defeat the hunt of the winds. Saying ‘orioles are few now’ is wrong because there are no orioles at all now. There is a mousey gray wind people, nevertheless, short dwarf birds chasing starved morsels; they get by where orioles strangle. Even if the winter birds are few, little and strong they beat their hunters; ' sometimes they chuckle hungry to sleep. Ulysses By JAMES JOYCE Part Two MR. LEOPOLD BLOOM ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish. The coals were reddening. Another slice of bread and but- ter: three, four: right. She didn’t like her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. —Mkgnao! —O, there you are, Mr. Bloom said, turning from the fire. The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr. Mr. Bloom watched curiously, kindly, the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees. —Milk for the pussens, he said. —Mrkgnao! the cat cried. They call them stupid. They un- derstand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive, too. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me. —Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chook-chooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens. Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. —Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly. She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plain- tively and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser took the jug Hanlon’s milkman had just filled for 205 206 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY him, poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. —Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped three times and licked lightly. Won- der is it true if you clip them they can’t mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind of feelers in the dark, per- haps. He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a mutton kidney at Buck- ley’s. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz’s. While the kettle is boil- ing. She lapped slower, then lick- ing the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No. On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way. He said sofdy in the bare hall: —I am going round the corner. Be back in a minute. And when he had heard his voice say it he added: —You don’t want anything for breakfast? A sleepy soft grunt answered: —Mn. No. She did not want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Span- ish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah, yes, of course. Bought it at the governor’s auction. Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that cor- ner in stamps. Now that was far- seeing. His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy over- coat and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim, too. Course they do. The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's high grade hat. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip of paper. Quite safe. On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky ward- robe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf drop- ped gently over the threshhold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back anyhow. He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of num- ber seventy-five. The sun was near- ing the steeple of George’s church. Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel It more. Black conducts, reflects (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays our daily but he prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front of the sun steal a day’s march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day old- er technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker, too, old Tweedy’s big moustaches leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of car- pet shops, big man, Turko the ter- rible, seated crosslegged smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel, sherbet. Wander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, meet him. Getting on to sun- down. The shadows of the mosques along the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark lan- guage. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky moon, violet, colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass. Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the title- page. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in the north- west. He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up the flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuit- mush. Good house, however: just the end of the city traffic. For in- stance M’Auley’s down there: n. g. as position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from the cattle market to the quays value would go up like a shot. Bald head over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirt- sleeves watching the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I’m going to tell you? What’s that, Mr. O’Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they’d only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese. Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr. O’Rourke. Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the door- way : —Good day, Mr. O’Rourke. —Good day to you. —Lovely weather, sir. —’Tis all that. Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo ULYSSES 207 208 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY and behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of the competition. Gen- eral thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. Save it they can’t. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three and carry five. What is that? A bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travel- lers. Square it with the boss and we’ll split the job, see? How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Ten. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph’s, National school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee double you. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their jog- gerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom. He halted before Dlugacz’s win- dow, staring at the hanks of sau- sages, polonies, black and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind unsolved: dis- pleased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in tran- quilly the lukewarm breath of cook- ed spicy pig’s blood. A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it, too, calling the items from a slip in her hand. Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half of Denny’s sau- sages. His eyes rested on her vigor- ous hips. Woods his name is. Won- der what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack. The ferreteyed porkbutcher fold- ed the sausages he had snipped off with blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there like a stallfed heifer. He took up a page from the pile of cut sheets. The model farm at Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interest- ing: read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one, unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and his will, his soft sub- ject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging whack by whack by whack. The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red grimace. —Now, my miss, he said. She tendered a coin, smiling bold- ly, holding her thick wrist out. —Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you, please? Mr. Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she ULYSSES 209 went slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails, too. Brown scapu- lars in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glow- ed to weak pleasure within his breast. For another: a constable off duty cuddled her in Eccles’ Lane. They like them sizeable. Prime sau- sage. O please, Mr. Policeman, I'm lost in the wood. —Threepence, please. His hand accepted the moist ten- der gland and slid it into a side- pocket. Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers pocket and laid them on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by disc, into the till. —Thank you, sir. Another time. A speck of eager fire from fox- eyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze after an instant. No: better not, another time. —Good morning, he said, moving away. —Good morning, sir. No sign. Gone. What matter? He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: planters’ company. To pur- chase waste sandy tracts from Turk- ish government and plant with euca- lyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction. Orange- groves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eight marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instal- ments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15. Nothing doing. Still an idea be- hind it. He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silvered powdered olivetrees. Quiet long days: prun- ing ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste of them now. Or- anges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons, too. Wonder is poor Citron still alive in Saint Ke- vin’s parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron’s basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the per- fume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year af- ter year. They fetched high prices too Moisei told me. Arbutus place : Pleasants street: pleasant old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibral- tar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them in soil- ed dungarees. There’s whatdoyou- callhim out of. How do you? Doesn’t see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like that Norwegian captain’s. Wonder if I’ll meet him today. Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven. 210 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY A cloud began to cover the sun wholly slowly wholly. Grey. Far. No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy’s clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken crater of the world. Desolation. Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles’ Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Morning mouth bad im- ages. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow’s ex- ercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twenty-eight. Towers, Bat- tersby, North, MacArthur: parlor windows plastered with bills. Plas- ters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. Quick warm sunlight came run- ning from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the brighten- ing footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind. Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. Mrs. Marion Bloom. His quick heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs. Marion. —Poldy! Entering the bedroom he half- closed his eyes and walked through warm yellow twilight towards her tousled head. —Who are the letters for? He looked at them. Mullingar Milly. —A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you. He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees. —Do you want the blind up ? Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow. —That do? he asked, turning. She was reading the card, prop- ped on her elbow. —She got the things, she said. He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back slowly with a snug sigh. —Hurry up with that tea, she said. I’m parched. —The kettle is boiling, he said. But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed. As he went down the kitchen stairs she called: —Poldy! —What? ULYSSES 211 —Scald the teapot. On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scald- ed and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then to let water flow in. Having set it to draw, he took off the kettle and crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won’t mouse. Say they won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared pa- per fall to her and dropped the kid- ney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers, ring-wise, from the chipped eggcup. Then he slit open his letter, glanc- ing down the page and over. Thanks: new tam: Mr. Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan’s seaside girls. The tea was drawn. He filled his own mustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling. Silly Milly’s birth- day gift. Only five she was then. No, wait: four. I gave her the am- beroid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pour- ing. O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling. You are my looking glass from night to morning. I'd rather have you without a far- thing Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden. Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous old chap. Old-fashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlor. O, look what I found in Professor Good- win’s hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was. He prodded a fork into the kid- ney and slapped it over: then fitted the teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Every- thing on it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle. Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on the chair by the bedhead. —What a time you were, she said. She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs, sloping within her night- dress like a shegoat’s udder. The warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured. A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act of going he stayed to straight- en the bedspread. —Who was the letter from? he asked. Bold hand. Marion. —O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme. —What are you singing? —La ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love’s Old Sweet Song. Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater. 212 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY —Would you like the window open a little? She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking: —What time is the funeral? —Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper. Following the pointing of her fin- ger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted gray garter looped round a stocking: rumpled, shiny sole. —No: that book. Other stocking. Her petticoat. —It must have fell down, she said. He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorrei. Wonder if she pro- nounces that right: voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orange-keyed chamber- pot. —Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I want- ed to ask you. She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the hairpin till she reached the word. —Met him what? he asked. —Here, she said. What does that mean ? He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail. —Metempsychosis ? —Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home? —Metempsychosis, he said, frown- ing. It’s Greek: from the Greek. That means the transmigration of souls. —O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words. He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes. The first night after the char- ades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustra- tion. Fierce Italian with carriage- whip. Must be Ruby pride of the Ring on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Heng- ler’s. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man’s soul after he dies. Dignam’s soul. . . —Did you finish it? he asked. —Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow all the time? —Never read it. Do you want another? —Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has. She poured more tea into her cup, watching its flow sideways. Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they’ll write to Kearney, my garantor. Reincarna- tion: that’s the word. —Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body after death, that we lived be- fore. They call it reincarnation. That we all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives. ULYSSES 213 The sluggish cream wound curd- ling spirals through her tea. Better remind her of the word: metem- psychosis. An example would be better. An example? The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number of Photo Bits: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea be- fore you put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then. He turned the pages back. —Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. What they called nymphs, for example. Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, inhaling through her arched nostrils. —There’s a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire? —The kidney! he cried suddenly. He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, step- ping hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork’s legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the fork under the kidney he de- tached it and turned it turtle on its back. Only a little burned. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty brown gravy trickle over it. Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about some young student and a pic- nic? He creased out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in the gravy and raising it to his mouth. Dearest Papli. Thanks ever so much for the love- ly birthday present. It suits me splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the belle in my new tam. I got mummy’s lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr. Coghlan took one of me and Mrs. will send when developed. We did great biz yes- terday. Fair day and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Gre- ville Arms on Saturday. There is a young student conies here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells he sings Boylan’s (I was on the pop of writ- ing Blazes Boylan’s) song about those seaside girls. Tell him silly 214 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Milly sends my best respects. Must now close with fondest love. Your fond daughter, Milly. P. S. Excuse bad writing, am in a hurry. Byby. M. Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fif- teenth of the month too. Her first birthday away from home. Separa- tion. Remember the summer morn- ing she was born, running to knock up Mrs. Thornton in Denzville street. Jolly old woman. Lots of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from the first poor little Rudy wouldn’t live. Well, God is good, sir. She knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived. His vacant face stared pitying at the postscript. Excuse bad writing. Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL Cafe about the bracelet. Wouldn’t eat her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice. O well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain: very. He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin’s King that day round the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf loose in the wind with her hair. All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls. Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers pockets, jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. Pier with lamps, summer eve- ning, band, Those girls, those girls, Those lovely seaside girls. Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs. Marion. Reading lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, braiding. A soft qualm regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will hap- pen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can’t move. Girl’s sweet light lips. Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. Lips kissed, kissing kissed. Full gluey woman’s lips. Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and six return. Six weeks off however. Might work a press pass. Or through M’Coy. The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained pa- per, nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mew- ing. Wants to go out. Wait before ULYSSES 215 a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with her back to the fire too. He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening. He stood up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him. —Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I’m ready. Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the landing. A paper. He liked to read. Hope no ape comes knocking just as I’m. In the table drawer he found an old number of Titbits. He folded it under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed. Listening, he heard her voice: —Come, come, pussy. Come. He went out through the back- door into the garden: stood to listen towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The maid was in the garden. Fine morning. He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sul- phur. All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies’ kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in that corner there. Let- tuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still gardens have their draw- backs. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday. He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny, I don’t remember that. Hallstand too full. Four um- brellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago’s shopbell ring- ing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox there got away James Stephens they say. O’Brien. Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agenda what is it? Now, my miss. Enthusiast. He kicked open the crazy door. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor window. The king was in his counting-house. Nobody. Asquat, he folded out his paper turning its pages over on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit. Our prize titbit. Matcham's Master- stroke. Written by Mr. Philip Beau- foy, Playgoers’ club, London. Pay- ment at the rate of one guinea a 216 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds thirteen and six. Quietly he read, restraining him- self, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. So. Ah! Costive one tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and he envied kindly Mr. Beaufoy who had written it and received pay- ment of three pounds thirteen and six. Might manage a sketch. By Mr. and Mrs. L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for some proverb which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing. Dis- like dressing together. Nicked my- self shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I’m swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot. Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stocking calf. Morning after the bazaar dance when May’s band played Ponchielli’s dance of the hours. Explain that morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn’t pan out somehow. Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with dag- gers and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still true to life also. Day, then the night. He tore away half the prize story sharply. Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned him- self. He pulled back the jerky shaky door and came forth from the gloom into the air. In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully his black trousers, the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time is the funeral? Better find out in the paper. A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron. Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air. A third. Poor Dignam! ULYSSES 217 II. BY lorries along Sir John Roger- son’s quay Mr. Bloom walked soberly, past Windmill lane, Leask’s the linseed crusher’s, the postal tele- graph office. Could have given that address too. And past the sailor’s home. He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By Brady’s cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her bat- tered caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow. O let him! His life isn’t such a bed of roses! Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols’ the undertaker's. At eleven it is. Time enough. Dare- say Corny Kelleher bagged that job for O’Neill’s. Singing with his eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a whatyou- may call. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom. In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Ori- ental Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend, finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan. Couldn’t ask him at a funeral though. While his eyes still read blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their drop- ped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high-grade hat. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quick- ly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his waist coat pocket. So warm. His right hand once more slowly went over again: choice blend, made of the finest Cey- lon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gar- dens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sick- ness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cow- heel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, read- ing a book with a parasol open. Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s a law something 218 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirty- two feet per second, per second. Law of falling bodies; per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the earth is the weight. He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her sausages? Like that some- thing. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it at each saunter- ing step against his trouserleg. Care- less air: just drop in to see. Per second, per second. Per second for every second it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one. In. He handed the card through the brass grill. —Are there any letters for me? he asked. While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruit- ing poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably. Went too far last time. The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a letter. He thanked and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope. Henry Flower, Esq, P. O. Westland Row, City. Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket, reviewing again the soldiers on pa- rade. Where’s old Tweedy’s regi- ment? Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he’s a grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Red coats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne’s letter about taking them off O’Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Grif- fith’s paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with disease: over- seas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King’s own. Never see him dressed up as a fire- man or a bobby. A mason, yes. He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a fore- finger felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will pay a lot of heed, I don’t think. His fingers drew forth the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Some- thing pinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No. M’Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when you. —Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to? —Hello, M’Coy. Nowhere in particular. —How’s the body? —Fine. How are you? —Just keeping alive, M’Coy said. His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect: ULYSSES 219 —Is there any ... no trouble I hope ? I see you’re. . . . —O no, Mr. Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today. —To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time ? A photo it isn’t. A badge maybe. E. . . eleven, Mr. Bloom an- swered. —I must try to get out there, M’Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard it last night. Who was telling, me? Holohan. You know Hoppy? —I know. Mr. Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The hon- ourable Mrs. and Brutus is an hon- ourable man. Once take the starch out of her. —I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway’s we were. Doran, Lyons in Conway’s. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. Drawing hack his head and gazing far from beneath his veiled eyelids Hoppy saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps. Talk- ing of one thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side will she get up? —And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said. Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he fostering over that change for? Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to her bow. —Why? I said. What’s wrong with him? I said. Proud: rich: silk stockings. —Yes, Mr. Bloom said. He moved a little to the side of M’Coy’s talking head. Getting up in a minute. —What’s wrong with him? he said. He’s dead, he said. And, faith, he filled up. Is it Paddy Dig- nam? I said. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch. Yes, he said. He’s gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow. Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch! A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. Lost it. Curse your noisy pug- nose. Feels locked out of it. Par- adise and the peri. Always happen- ing like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace street hallway Mon- day was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at? 220 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY —Yes, yes, Mr. Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone. —One of the best, M’Coy said. The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her hat in the sun: flicker, flick. —Wife well, I suppose? M’Coy’s changed voice said. —O yes, Mr. Bloom said. Tip- top, thanks. He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly: What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss. —My missus has just got an en- gagement. At least it’s not settled yet. Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I’m off that, thanks. Mr. Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness: —My wife, too, he said. She’s going to sing at a swagger affair in the Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twenty-fifth. —That so? M’Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who’s get- ting it up ? Mrs. Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope. Love’s Old Sweet Song Comes lo-ve’s old . . . —It’s a kind of a tour, don’t you see? Mr. Bloom said thoughtfully. Sweeeet song. There’s a committee formed. Part shares and part prof- its. M’Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble. —O well, he said. That’s good news. He moved to go. —Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around. —Yes, Mr. Bloom said. —Tell you what, M’Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral, will you? I’d like to go but I mightn’t be able, you see. There’s a drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I’m not there, will you? —I’ll do that, Mr. Bloom said, moving to get off. That’ll be all right. —Right, M’Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I’d go if I pos- sibly could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M’Coy will do. —That will be done, Mr. Bloom answered firmly. Didn’t catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I’d like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cow- ley lent him his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that good day to this. Mr. Bloom, strolling toward ULYSSES 221 Burnswick street, smiled. My mis- sus has just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don’t you know? In the same boat. Soft- soaping. Give you the needle that would. Can’t he hear the difference? Think he’s that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn’t get worse. Suppose she wouldn’t let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife. Wonder is he after me? Mr. Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multi- coloured hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane’s Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery’s summer sale. No, he’s going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight: Mrs. Bandman Palmer. Like to see her in that again. Hamlet she played last night. Male imperson- ator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide? Poor papa ! How he used to talk about Kate Bateman in that! Out- side the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was: sixty- five. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By Mosen- thal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about where the old blind Abraham rec- ognises the voice and puts his fingers on his face. —Nathan’s voice! His son’s voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his father and left the God of his father. Every word is so deep, Leopold. Poor papa! Poor man! I’m glad. I didn’t go into the room to look at his face. That day! O dear! O dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was the best for him. Mr. Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn’t met that M’Coy fellow. He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet oaten reek. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nose- bags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded too. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating. He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the news- paper he carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer. He passed the cabman’s shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies, all weathers, all places, time or set- down, no will of their own. Voglio e non. Like to give the man odd cigar- ette. Sociable. Shout a few flying syllables as they pass. He hummed : La ci darem la mano La la lala la la. He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements. With careful 222 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame’s school. She liked mignonette. Mrs. Ellis’s. And Mr. ? He opened the letter within the newspaper. A flower. I think it’s a. A yel- low flower with flattened petals. Not annoyed then? What does she say? Dear Henry: I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real meaning of that word. Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do some- thing for you. Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Re- member if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are ex- hausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling. I have such a bad headache today and write by return to your longing Martha. P. S. Do tell me what kind of per- fume your wife uses. I want to know. He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then, walking slowly forward, he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cac- tus if you don’t please poor forget- menot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s perfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket. Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Won- der did she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time. Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it. Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes some- ULYSSES 223 where: pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without thorns. Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in the Coombe, linked together in the rain. 0, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers: She didn’t know what to do To keep it up To keep it up. It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife use? Now could you make out a thing like that. To keep it up. Martha, Mary. I saw that pic- ture somewhere I forget now old master or faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mys- terious. To keep it up. Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there: quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper: fruit, olives, lovely cool wa- ter out of the well stonecold like the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the trottingmatchcs. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest. Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swift- ly in shreds and scattered them to- ward the road. The shreds fluttered away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank. Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the same way. Simple bit of pa- per. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, four- pence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gal- lon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter. What am I saying barrels? Gal- lons. About a million barrels all the same. An incoming train clanked heavi- ly above his head, coach after coach. Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pool- ing swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth. He had reached the open back- door of All Hallows. Stepping into the porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M’Coy for a pass to Mullingar. Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J. on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save China’s mil- lions. Wonder how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an heresy for them. Prayers for the ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank 224 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same. Convert Dr. William J. Walsh, D. D., to the true religion. Buddha their god ly- ing on his side in the museum. Tak- ing it easy with hand under his cheek. Joss-sticks burning. Not like Ecce Home. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks! Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguished looking. Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of that Father Far- ley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’re taught that. He’s not go- ing out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose. The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere. Something going on: some sodal- ity. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music. That woman at mid- night mass. Seventh heaven. Wo- men knelt in the benches with crim- son halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altar rails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals cotton to it. He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated him- self in its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought to have hats mod- elled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, wait- ing for it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it’s that sort of bread : unleavened shew- bread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it’s called. There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hoky- poky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’m sure of that. Not so lone- ly. In our confraternity. Then come but a bit spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year. He saw the priest stow the com- munion cup away, well in, and kneel ULYSSES 225 an instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know what to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I. N. R. I. ? No: I. H. S. Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in. Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the com- munion every morning. This very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plot- ting that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always some- thing shiftylooking about them. They’re not straight men of business either. O no she’s not here: the flower: no, no. By the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge. The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what they are used to Guin- ness’s porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley’s Dublin hop bit- ters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s gin- ger ale (aromatic). Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they’d have one old booser worse than an- other coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is. Mr. Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any mu- sic. Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music they want- ed. Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up: Quis est homo? Some of that old sacred music is splendid. Mercadante: seven last words. Mozart’s twelfth mass: the Gloria in that. Those old popes were keen on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too chanting, regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was com- ing it a bit thick. What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses. Con- noisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feel anything after. Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh don’t they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it. 226 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr. Bloom glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy an- swered each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a card: —O God, our refuge and our strength. . . . Mr. Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloria, and immaculate virgin. Joseph her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha ? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gal- lery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salva- tion army blatant imitation. Re- formed prostitute will address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they work the whole show. And don’t they rake in the money too? Bequests also: to the P. P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors. Monasteries and con- vents. The priest in the Fermanagh will case in the witness box. No browbeating him. He had his an- swer pat for everything. Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it. The priest prayed: —Blessed Michael, archangel, de- fend us in the hour of conflict. Be our safeguard against the wicked- ness and snares of the devil (may God restrain him, we humbly pray) : and do thou, O prince of the heaven- ly host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other wicked spirits who wan- der through the world for the ruin of souls. The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women remained behind: thanks- giving. Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate perhaps. Pay your Easter duty. He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the time. Woman enjoy it. An- noyed if you don’t. Why didn’t you tell me before. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there’s a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south. He passed, discreetly button- ing, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott’s dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourning my- self. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time. Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day. He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O well, poor fellow, it’s not his fault. When was it I got it made up last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been or the sec- ond. O he can look it up in the prescriptions book. The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philoso- pher’s stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excite- ment. Lethargy then. Why? Re- action. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All this alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor whack. He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. What to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Love- philtres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever of nature. —About a fortnight ago, sir? —Yes, Mr. Bloom said. He waited by the counter, inhal- ing the keen reek of drugs, the dusty dry smell of sponge and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches and pains. —Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr. Bloom said, and then orangeflower water. It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax. —And white wax also, he said. Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her eyes, Spanish, smelling her- self, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skin- food. One of the old queen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d’Espagne. That orangeflower. Pure curd soap. ULYSSES 227 228 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Time to get a bath round the corner. Hammam. Turk- ish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all day. Funeral be rather glum. —Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a bottle? —No, Mr. Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day and I’ll take one of those soaps. How much are they? —Fourpence, sir. Mr. Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax. —I’ll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny. —Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you come back. —Good, Mr. Bloom said. He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the coolwrappered soap in his left hand. At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said: —Hello, Bloom, what’s the best news? Is that today’s? Show us a minute. Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am. Bantam Lyons’ yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’ soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling. —I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam Lyons said. Where the devil is it? He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the pa- per and get shut of him. —You can keep it, Mr. Bloom said. —Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Ban- tam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the second. —I was just going to throw it away, Mr. Bloom said. Bantam Lyons raised his eyes sud- denly and leered weakly. —What’s that? his sharp voice said. —I say you can keep it, Mr. Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away that moment. Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets back on Mr. Bloom’s arms. —I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks. He sped off towards Conway’s corner. God speed scut. Mr. Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hot- bed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt. He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a mosque redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cy- clist doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something to catch the eye. There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands: might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr. Hornblower? How do you do, sir? Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weath- er. Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skulls we were a-cracking when M’Carthy took the floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sus- tained, buoyed lightly upward, lem- onyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. III. MARTIN Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr. Power stepped in after him, curving his height with care. —Come on, Simon. —After you, Mr. Bloom said. Mr. Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: —Yes, yes. —Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom. Mr. Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to after him and slammed it tight till it shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose white-flatten- ed against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extra- ordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipper- slappers for fear he’d wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs. Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job. All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I 230 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY am sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity. All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer: then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace. They waited still, their knees jog- ging, till they had turned and were passing along the tramtracks. Tri- tonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the doorframes. —What way is he taking us? Mr. Power asked through both win- dows. —Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street. Mr. Dedalus nodded, looking out. —That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died out. All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road past Waterly lane. Mr. Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat. —There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. —Who is that? —Your son and heir. _—Where is he? Mr. Dedalus said, stretching over, across. The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerv- ing back to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr. Dedalus fell back, saying: —Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates! No, Mr. Bloom said. He was alone. —Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr. Dedalus said, the Goulding faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, the wise child that knows her own father. Mr. Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the bottleworks. Dodder bridge. Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in Stamer street with Igna- tius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit. —He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr. Dedalus snarled. That Mulli- gan is a contaminated bloody double- dyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His bless- ed mother I’ll make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or what- ever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. He cried above the clatter of the wheels. —I won’t have her nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’s son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely. He ceased. Mr. Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr. Power’s mild face and Martin Cun- ningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son. I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn German too. —Are we late? Mr. Power asked. —Ten minutes, Martin Cunning- ham said, looking at his watch. Molly. Milly. Same thing water- ed down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be a woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life. Life. The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying. —Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr. Power said. —He might, Mr. Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Do you follow me? He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away crustcrumbs from under his thighs. —What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs? —Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr. Power said. All raised their thighs, eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the seats. Mr. Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned down- ward and said: —Unless I’m greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin? —It struck me too, Martin Cun- ningham said. Mr. Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite clean. But I wish Mrs. Flem- ing had darned these socks better. Mr. Dedalus sighed resignedly. —After all, he said, it’s the most natural thing in the world. —Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of his beard gently. —Yes, Mr. Bloom answered. He’s behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes. —And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr. Power asked. —At the cemetery, Martin Cun- ningham said. —I met M’Coy this morning, Mr. Bloom said. He said he’d try to come. The carriage halted short. —What’s wrong? —We’re stopped. —Where are we? 232 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Mr. Bloom put his head out of the window. —The grand canal, he said. Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convul- sions. Shame really. Got off light- ly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’s dogs usually are. A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now. —The weather is changing, he said quietly. —A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said. —Wanted for the country, Mr. Power said. There’s the sun again coming out. Mr. Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurl- ed a mute curse at the sky. —It’s as uncertain as a child, he said. —We’re off again. The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard. —Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leon- ard taking him off to his face. —O draw him out, Martin, Mr. Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear him, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of The Croppy Boy. —Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. His singing of that simple ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the whole course of my experience. —Trenchant, Mr. Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And the retrospective arrangement. —Did you read Dan Dawson’s speech? Martin Cunningham asked. —I did not then, Mr. Dedalus said. Where is it? —In the paper this morning. Mr. Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change for her. —No, no, Mr. Dedalus said quickly. Later on, please. Mr. Bloom’s glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scan- ning the deaths. Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton, Urbridge. Inked char- acters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the Lit- tle Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month’s mind Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. It is now a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him on high. I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it in the bath? He patted his waistcoat pocket. There all right. Dear Henry fled. Before my pa- tience are exhausted. National school. Meade’s yard. The. hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats. A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr. Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent some- thing automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the new invention? Antient concert rooms. Nothing- on there. A man in a buff suit with a crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law, perhaps. They went past the bleak pulpit of Saint Mark’s, under the railway bridge, past the Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings. Eugene Strat- ton. Mrs. Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see Leah tonight, I wonder. I said I. Or the Lily of Killarney? Elster Grimes Opera company. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. Fun on the Bristol. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a drink or two. As broad as it’s long. He’s coming in the afternoon. Pier songs. Plasto’s. Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust. Who was he? —How do you do ? Martin Cun- ningham said, raising his palm to his brow in salute. —He doesn’t see us, Mr. Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do? —Who? Mr. Dedalus asked. —Blazes Boylan, Mr. Power said. There he is airing himself. Just that moment I was thinking. Mr. Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed. Mr. Bloom reviewed the nails of bis left hand, then those of his right hand. The nails, yes. Is there any- thing more in him that they she sees? Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just looking at them: well pared. And after: think- ing alone. Body getting a bit softy. I would notice that from remember- ing. What causes that I suppose the skin can’t contract quickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck. He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant glance over their faces. Mr. Power asked: —How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom ? —O very well, Mr. Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It’s a good idea, you see. . . . —Are you going yourself? —Well no, Mr. Bloom said. In TWO WORLDS MONTHLY 234 point of fact I have to go down to the county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other. —Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. —Have you good artists? —Louis Werner is touring her, Mr. Bloom said. O yes, we’ll have all topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact. —And Madame, Mr. Power said, smiling. Last but not least. Mr. Bloom unclasped his hands In a gesture of soft politeness and clasped them. Smith O'Brien. Some- one has laid a bunch of flowers there. Woman. Must be his death- day. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by Farrell’s statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his mouth opening: oot. —Four bootlaces for a penny. Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. Same house as Molly’s namesake. Tweedy, crown solicitor for Water- ford. Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decencY. Mourning too. Terrible comedown, poor Wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake. O'Callaghan on his last legs. And Madame. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs. Fleming is in to clean. Doing her hair, humming: voglio e non vorrei. No: vorrei e non. Looking at the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. Mi trema un poco il. Beautiful on that tre her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that. His eyes passed lightly over Mr. Power’s goodlooking face. Greyish over the ears. Madame: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way. Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury’s. Or the Moira, was it? They passed under the huge- cloaked Liberator’s form. Martin Cunningham nudged Mr. Power. —Of the tribe of Reuben, he said. A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner of Elvery’s elephant house showed them a curved hand open on his spine. —In all his pristine beauty, Mr. Power said. Mr. Dedalus looking after the stumping figure and said mildly: —The devil break the hasp of your back. Mr. Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as the carriage passed Gray’s statue. —We have all been there, Mar- tin Cunningham said broadly. His eyes met Mr. Bloom’s eyes. He caressed his beard, adding: ULYSSES 235 —Well, nearly all of us. Mr. Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions’ faces. —That’s an awfully good one that’s going the rounds about Reu- ben J. and the son. —About the boatman? Mr. Power asked. —Yes. Isn’t it awfully good? —What is that? Mr. Dedalus asked, I didn’t hear it. —There was a girl in the case, Mr. Bloom began, and he deter- mined to send him to the isle of Man out of harm’s way but when they were both. . . . —What? Mr. Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it? —Yes, Mr. Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried to drown. . . . —Drown Barabbas! Mr. Deda- lus cried. I wish to Christ he did! Mr. Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. —No, Mr. Bloom said, the son himself. . . . Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely. —Reuben J. and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on their way to the isle of Alan boat and the young chiseller sudden- ly got loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey. —For God’s sake! Mr. Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead? —Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father on the quay. More dead than alive. Half the town was there. —Yes, Mr. Bloom said. But the funny part is. . . . —And Reuben J., Martin Cun- ningham said, gave the boatman a florin for saving his son’s life. A stifled sigh came from under Mr. Power’s hand. —O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin. —Isn’t it awfully good? Mr. Bloom said eagerly. —One and eightpence too much, Mr. Dedalus said drily. Mr. Power’s choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. Nelson’s pillar. —Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny! —We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said. Mr. Dedalus sighed. —Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn’t grudge us a laugh. Many a good one he told himself. —The Lord forgive me! Mr. Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and he was in his usual health that I’d be driving after him like this. He’s gone from us. —As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr. Dedalus said. He went very suddenly. —Breakdown, Martin Cunning- ham said. Heart. He tapped his chest sadly. Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent colouring it. 236 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Mr. Power gazed at the pass- ing houses with rueful apprehen- sion. —He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said. —The best death, Mr. Bloom said. Their wide open eyes looked at him. —No suffering, he said. A mo- ment and all is over. Like dying in sleep. No-one spoke. Death side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents, temperance hotel, Falconer’s rail- way guide, civil service college, Gill’s, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the late Father Mathew. Founda- tion stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart. White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bach- elors. Dun for a nun. —Sad. Martin Cunningham said. A child. A dwarf’s face mauve and wrin- kled like little Rudy’s was. Dwarf’s body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant nothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. If not the man. Better luck next time. —Poor little thing, Mr. Dedalus said. It’s well out of it. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns. —In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said. —But the worst of all, Mr. Pow- er said, is the man who takes his own life. Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back. —The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr. Power added. —Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We must take a charitable view of it. —They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr. Dedalus said. —It is not for us to judge, Mar- tin Cunningham said. Mr. Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunning- ham’s large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. Like Shakespeare s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy on that here or infanticide. Refuse Christian burial. They used to drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’t broken al- ready. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday morning start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have looked a sight ULYSSES 237 that night, Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about the place and capering with Martin’s um- brella : —And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The geisha. He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones. That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through the slats of the Venetian blinds. The coroner’s ears, big and hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son Leopold. No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns. The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones. —We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said. —God grant he doesn’t upset us on the road, Mr. Power said. —I hope not, Martin Cunning- ham said. That will be a great race tomorrow in Germany. The Gor- don Bennett. —Yes, by Jove, Air. Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith. As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has any- body here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead march from Saul. He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The Mater Misericordiae. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for the dying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs. Riordan died. They look terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He’s gone over to the lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other. The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. —What’s wrong now? A divided drove of branded cat- tle passed the windows, lowing slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear. —Emigrants, Mr. Power said. —Huuuh! the drover’s voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks. Huuuh! out of that! Thursday of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them about twenty-seven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roast beef for old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter is lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughter- houses for tanneries, soap, marga- rine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train at Clonsilla. 238 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY The carriage moved on through the drove. —I can’t make out why the cor- poration doesn’t run a tramline from the parkgate to the quays, Mr. Bloom said. All those animals could be taken in trucks down to the boats. —Instead of blocking up the thor- oughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite right. They ought to. —Yes, Mr. Bloom said, and an- other thing I often thought is to have municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all. Don’t you see what I mean? —O that be damned for a story, Mr. Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon diningroom. —A poor lookout for Corny, Mr. Power added. —Why? Mr. Bloom asked, turn- ing to Mr. Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decent than galloping two abreast? —Well, there’s something in that, Mr. Dedalus granted. —And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that when the hearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road. —That was terrible, Mr. Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fell about the road. Terrible! —First round Dunphy’s, Mr. Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Ben- nett cup. —Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously. Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s up now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. The sphinc- ter loose. Seal up all. -Dunphy's, Mr. Power an- nounced as the carriage turned right. Dunphy’s corner. Mourning coaches drawn up drowning their grief. A pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull up here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. Elixir of life. But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in the knocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. De- pends on where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It would be better to bury them in red: a dark red. In silence they drove along Phibs- borough road. An empty hearse trotted by, coming from the ceme- tery: looks relieved. Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his drop- ping barge between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a slack- tethered horse. Aboard of the Bugabu. Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudehoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mul- lingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crook, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady’s. Developing waterways. James M’Cann’s hobby to row me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camp- ing out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. '' Perhaps I will without writing. Come as a surprise, Leix- lip, Clonsilla. Dropping down, lock by lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lift- ed his brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam. They drove on past Brian Bo- roimbe house. Near it now. I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr. Power said. —Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr. Dedalus said. —How is that? Martin Cunning- ham said. Left him weeping I sup- pose. —Though lost to sight, Mr. Ded- alus said, to memory dear. The carriage stered left for Fin- glas road. The stonecutter’s yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. Passed. On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary the sexton’s, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dust- brown yawning boot. After life’s journey. Gloomy gardens then went by, one by one: gloomy houses. Mr. Power pointed. —That is where Childs was mur- dered, he said. The last house. —So it is, Mr. Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said. —The crown had no evidence, Air. Power said. —Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. That’s the max- im of the law. Better for ninety- nine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be wrongfully condemned. They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenant- less, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully con- demned. Murder. The murder- er’s image in the eye of the murder- ed. They love reading about it. Man’s head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out. Cramped in this carriage. She mightn’t like me to come that way without letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once. Never forgive you after. Fifteen. The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark pop- lars, rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sus- ULYSSES 239 240 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY taining vain gestures on the air. The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cun- ningham put out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his knee. He stepped out. Mr. Power and Mr. Dedalus followed. Change that soap now. Mr. Bloom’s hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner hand- kerchief pocket. He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspa- per his other hand still held. Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the same. Pall- bearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. Be- yond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Slimnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. Dog- biscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out. He followed his companions. Mr. Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy. Where is that child’s funeral dis- appeared to? A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the funeral silence a creaking wagon on which lay a granite block. The wagoner march- ing at their head saluted. Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, press- ing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here every day. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world every- where every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in the world. Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Lean- jawed harpy, hard woman at a bar- gain, her bonnet awry. Girl’s face stained with dirt and tears, holding the woman’s arm looking up at her for a sign to cry. Fish’s face, blood- less and livid. The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So much dead weight. Felt heavier my- self stepping out of that bath. First the stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy fol- lowed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the brother- in-law. All walked after. Martin Cunningham whispered: —I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom. —What? Mr. Power whispered How so? —His father poisoned himself. Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the Queen’s hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare. Anniversary. —O God! Mr. Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned him- self ! He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes fol- lowed toward the cardinal’s mauso- leum. Speaking. —Was he insured? Mr. Bloom asked. —Never better. How are all in Cork’s own town? —I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy. —And how is Dick, the solid man? —Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered. —By the holy Paul! Mr. Deda- lus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald? —Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lam- bert said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them go- ing till the insurance is cleared up. —Yes, yes, Mr. Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front? —Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife’s brother. John Henry Menton is behind. He put down his name for a quid. —I’ll engage he did, Mr. Deda- lus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world. —How did he lose it? Ned Lam- bert asked. Liquor, what? —Many a good man’s fault, Mr. Dedalus said with a sigh. They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr. Bloom stood behind the boy with the wreath, looking down at his sleek combed hair and the slender furrow- ed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and recognise - for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings to ULYSSES 241 —I believe so, Mr. Kernan an- swered, but the policy was heavily mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane. —How many children did he leave? —Five. Ned Lambert says he’ll try to get one of the girls into Todd’s. —A sad case, Mr. Bloom said gently. Five young children. —A great blow to the poor wife, Mr. Kernan added. —Indeed yes, Mr. Bloom agreed. Has the laugh at him now. He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had outlived him, lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you’ll soon follow him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry an- other. Him? No.' Yet who knows after? Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and lie no more in her warm bed. —How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven’t seen you for a month of Sundays. 242 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head? After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened light. The coffin lay on its bier be- fore the chancel four tall yellow candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, beckon- ed to the boy to kneel. The mourn- ers knelt here and there in praying desks. Mr. Bloom stood behind near the font and, when all had knelt dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. A server, bearing a brass bucket with something in it, came out through a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him tidying his stole with one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad’s belly. Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook. They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with a fluent croak. Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Domine nomine. Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular Chris- tian. Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways. —Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Re- quiem mass. Crape weepers. Black edged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swell- ed after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers for in- stance : they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Brown. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hun- dred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you’re a goner. My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better. The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy’s bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were before you rested. It’s all written down: he has to do it. —Et ne nos inducas in tentation- em. The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that of course. . . . Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a fresh batch: middle- aged men, old women, children, wo- men dead in childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded business men, consumptive girls with little spar- row’s breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam now. —In paradisum. Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over every- body. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something. The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny Kelleher opened the side- doors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in- law. All followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr. Bloom came last, folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the barrow along a lane of sepulchres. The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I must’nt lilt here. —The O’Connell circle, Mr. Ded- alus said about him. Mr. Power’s soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone. —He’s at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O’. But his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon! —Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr. Dedalus said. I’ll soon be stretched beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes. Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little in his walk. Mr. Power took his arm. _—She’s better where she is, he said kindly. _—I suppose so, Mr. Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in heaven if there is a heaven. Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. —Sad occasions, Mr. Kernan be- gan politely. Mr. Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head. —The others are putting on their hats, Mr. Kernan said. I suppose we can do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place. They covered their heads. —The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don’t you think? Mr. Kernan said with re- proof. Mr. Bloom nodded gravely, look- ing in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret eyes. Secret searching eyes. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We are the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else. Mr. Kernan added: —The service of the Irish church, used in Mount Jerome, is simpler, more impressive, I must say. Mr. Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing. Mr. Kernan said with solemnity: —I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man’s inmost heart. —It does, Mr. Bloom said. Your heart perhaps but what 244 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY price the fellow in the six feet by two with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side. —Everything went off A 1, he said. What? He looked on them from his drawling eyes. Policeman’s shoul- ders. With your tooraloom toora- loom. —As it should be, Mr. Kernan said. —What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said. Mr. Kernan assured him. —Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Men- ton asked. I know his face. Ned Lambert glanced back. —Bloom, he said, Madam Ma- rion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the soprano. She’s his wife. —O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for some time. She was a finelook- ing woman. I danced with her, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s, in Roundtown. And a good armful she was. He looked behind through the others. —What is he ? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationery line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls. Ned Lambert smiled. —Yes, he was, he said, in Wis- dom Hely’s. A traveller for blot- tingpaper. —In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like that for? She had plenty of game in her then. —Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads. John Henry Menton’s large eyes stared ahead. The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touch- ed their caps. —John O'Connell, Mr. Power said, pleased. He never forgets a friend. Mr. O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr. Dedalus said: —I am come to pay you another visit. —My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don’t want your custom at all. Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham’s side, puzzling two keys at his back. —Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe? —I did not, Martin Cunningham said. They bent their silk hats in con- cert and Hynes inclined his ear. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watch chain and spoke in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. —They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing about in the fog they found the grave, sure enough. One of the drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue of our Saviour the widow had got put up. The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He resumed: —And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, Not a bloody bit like the man, says he. That’s not Mul- cahy, says he, whoever done it. Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, ac- cepting the dockets given him, turn- ing them over and scanning them as he walked. —That’s all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. —I know, Hynes said, I know that. —To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It’s pure good- heartedness: damn the thing else. Mr. Bloom admired the care- taker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on good terms with him. De- cent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort. Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out, no passout checks. Habeat corpus. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha ? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting bread. That’s the first sign when the hairs come out grey and temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Won- der how he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death. Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be a de- scendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d kiss all right if properly keyed up. Women in Turkish grave- yards. Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving gnawing their vitals. Molly wanting to do it at the win- ULYSSES 245 246 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY dow. Eight children he has any- way. He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or kneeling you couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up some day above ground in a land- slip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too, trim grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chi- nese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in the earth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the Christian boy. Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse gentleman, epicure, invalu- able for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately de- ceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With thanks. I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpse manure, bones, flesh, nails, charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink, decompos- ing. Rot quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, treacle oozing out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on themselves. But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he look at life. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a. m. this morning: 11 p. m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what’s in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De mortals nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to im- agine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary no- tice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. —How many have you for to- morrow? the caretaker asked. —Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven. The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, step- ping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its nose on the brink, loop- ing the bands round it. Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He doesn’t know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the mackintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know? Now, I’d give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he could. Still he’d have to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No ants too. First thing strikes any- body. Bury the dead. Say Robin- son Crusoe was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Fri- day buries a Thursday if you come to look at it. 0, poor Robinson Crusoe, How could you possibly do so? Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding let it down that way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow’s. They’re so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The Irishman’s house is his coffin. Embalming in catacombs, mummies, the same idea. Mr. Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. Twelve. I’m thirteen. No. The chap in the mackintosh is thir- teen. Death’s number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the chapel, that I’ll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen. Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fel- low he was once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It’s dyed. His wife I forgot he’s not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him. The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty. Pause. If we were all suddenly somebody else. Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away. Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the black open space. Mr. Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. Well cut frock- coat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. Well it is a long rest. Feel no more. It’s the moment you feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can’t believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven’t yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. De- lirium all you hid all your life. The ULYSSES 247 248 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow? Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he’s doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing him a wo- man. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee? Bam! ex- pires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you. Don’t forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they fol- low: dropping into a hole one after the other. We are praying now for the re- pose of his soul. Hoping you’re well and not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire of purgatory. Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy’s warning. Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor mamma, and little Rudy. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on the coffin. Mr. Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time? Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead of course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there’s no. The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves without show. Mr. Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way deftly through the maze of graves. Quiet- ly, sure of his ground, he traversed the dismal fields. Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he knows them all. No: coming to me. —I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your christian name? I'm not sure. —L, Mr. Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M’Coy’s name too. He asked me to. —Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman _ once. So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good idea a postmortem for doc- tors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley, you’re my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw to that, M’Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. —And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was over there in the. . . . He looked around. —Mackintosh. Yes I saw him, Mr. Bloom said. Where is he now? —M’Intosh, Hynes said, scrib- bling. I don’t know who he is. Is that his name? He moved away, looking about him. —No, Mr. Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes! Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord, what became of him? A seventh gravedigger came be- side Mr. Bloom to take up an idle spade. —O, excuse me! He stepped aside nimbly. Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over. A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath against a cor- ner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthly spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shoul- dered weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just. The mourners moved away slow- ly, without aim, by devious paths, staying awhile to read a name on a tomb. —Let us go round by the chief’s grave, Hynes said. We have time. —Let us, Mr. Power said. They turned to the right, follow- ing their slow thoughts. With awe Mr. Power’s blank voice spoke: —Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled with stones. That one day he will come again. Hynes shook his head. —Parnell will never come again, he said. He’s there, all that was mortal of him. Peace to his ashes. Mr. Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland’s hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coal- shoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls’ day. Twenty- seventh I’ll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death’s door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. Alore inter- esting if they told you what they were. So and so, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the pound. Or a wo- man’s with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. Eulogy in a coun- ULYSSES 249 250 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY try churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. Old Dr. Mur- ren’s. The great physician called him home. Well it’s God’s acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Ex- presses nothing. Immortelles. A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu ! Not a budge out of him. Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave. The Sacred Heart that is: show- ing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket of fruit but he said no be- cause they ought to have been afraid of the boy. Apollo that was. How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful de- parted. As you are now so once were we. Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the house. After din- ner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather Kraahraark! Hel- lohellohello amawfully glad kraark awfullygladaseeragain hellohello am- arawf kopthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn’t remember the face after fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died when I was in Wisdom Hely’s. Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop. He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he goes. An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles. An old stager: greatgrand- father: he knows the ropes. The grey alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good hidingplace for treasure. Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery, Robert Emmet was buried here by torch- light, wasn’t he? Making his rounds. Tail gone now. One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that the Chi- nese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime fever pits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drown- ing they say is the pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But be- ing brought back to life no. Can't bury in the- air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about -whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground commu- nication. We learned that from them. Wouldn’t be surprised. Reg- ular square feed for them. Flies come before he’s well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn’t care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips. The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was here was Mrs. Sinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to get at fresh buried fe- males or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely. Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton. John Henry, solici- tor, commissioner for oaths and affi- davits. Dignam used to be in his office. Mat Dillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that evening on the bowl- ing green because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Ploey Dillon linked under the lilac- tree, laughing. Fellow always like that mortified if women are by. Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably. —Excuse me, sir, Mr. Bloom said beside them. They stopped. —Your hat is a little crushed, Mr. Bloom said, pointing. John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving. —There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also. John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again. —It’s all right now, Martin Cun- ningham said. John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment. —Thank you, he said shortly. They walked on towards the gates. Mr. Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a few paces so as not to over- hear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could wind a sappyhead like ULYSSES 251 252 TWO WORLDS MONTHLY that round his little finger without his seeing it. Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. Get the pull over him that way. Thank you. How grand we are this morning. (ULYSSES began in Number One of Two Worlds Monthly. The third, instalment will appear in the next number.) Song By HEINRICH HEINE (Translated by Ezra Pound.) And have you thoroughly kissed my lips? There was no particular haste. And are you not ready when evening's come? There’s no particular haste. You’ve got the whole night before you, Heart’s-all-beloved-my-own; In an uninterrupted night one can Get a great deal of kissing done. TWO WORLDS MONTHLY Devoted to the Increase of the Gaiety of Nations EDITED BY SAMUEL ROTH Offers, in coming issues and further instalments of ULYSSES................................by JAMES JOYCE A Literary Holiday.......................by Samuel Roth Twelve Great Passions..................by J. A. Brendon Intimate Glimpses of Anatole France. .by J. J. Brousson Jimmy and the Desperate Woman. .by D. H. 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