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The Complete Works of   JAMES JOYCE

Page 119

by James Joyce


  And whereas distracted (for was not just this in effect which had just caused that the effect of that which it had caused to oc-cur?) the four justicers laid their wigs together, Untius, Mun — cius, Punchus and Pylax but could do no worse than promulgate their standing verdict of Nolans Brumans whereoneafter King, having murdered all the English he knew, picked out his pockets and left the tribunal scotfree, trailing his Tommeylommey’s tunic in his hurry, thereinunder proudly showing off the blink patch to his britgits to prove himself (an’t plase yous!) a rael genteel. To the Switz bobbyguard’s curial but courtlike: Commodore valley O hairy, Arthre jennyrosy?: the firewaterloover returted with such a vinesmelling fortytudor ages rawdownhams tanyouhide as would the latten stomach even of a tumass equinous (we were prepared for the chap’s clap cap, the accent, but, took us as, by surprise and now we’re geshing it like gush gash from a burner!) so that all the twofromthirty advocatesses within echo, pulling up their briefs at the krigkry: Shun the Punman!: safely and soundly soccered that fenemine Parish Poser, (how dare he!) umprumptu right-oway hames, much to his thanks, gratiasagam, to all the wrong donatrices, biss Drinkbattle’s Dingy Dwellings where (for like your true venuson Esau he was dovetimid as the dears at Bottome) he shat in (zoo), like the muddy goalbind who he was (dun), the chassetitties belles conclaiming: You and your gift of your gaft of your garbage abaht our Farvver! and gaingridando: Hon! Verg! Nau! Putor! Skam! Schams! Shames!

  And so it all ended. Artha kama dharma moksa. Ask Kavya for the kay. And so everybody heard their plaint and all listened to their plause. The letter! The litter! And the soother the bitther! Of eyebrow pencilled, by lipstipple penned. Borrowing a word and begging the question and stealing tinder and slipping like soap. From dark Rasa Lane a sigh and a weep, from Lesbia Looshe the beam in her eye, from lone Coogan Barry his arrow of song, from Sean Kelly’s anagrim a blush at the name, from I am the Sullivan that trumpeting tramp, from Suffering Duf-ferin the Sit of her Style, from Kathleen May Vernon her Mebbe fair efforts, from Fillthepot Curran his scotchlove machree-ther, from hymn Op. 2 Phil Adolphos the weary O, the leery, O, from Samyouwill Leaver or Damyouwell Lover thatjolly old molly bit or that bored saunter by, from Timm Finn again’s weak tribes, loss of strenghth to his sowheel, from the wedding on the greene, agirlies, the gretnass of joyboys, from Pat Mullen, Tom Mallon, Dan Meldon, Don Maldon a slickstick picnic made in Moate by Muldoons. The solid man saved by his sillied woman. Crackajolking away like a hearse on fire. The elm that whimpers at the top told the stone that moans when stricken. Wind broke it. Wave bore it. Reed wrote of it. Syce ran with it. Hand tore it and wild went war. Hen trieved it and plight pledged peace. It was folded with cunning, sealed with crime, uptied by a harlot, undone by a child. It was life but was it fair? It was free but was it art? The old hunks on the hill read it to perlection. It made ma make merry and sissy so shy and rubbed some shine off Shem and put some shame into Shaun. Yet Una and Ita spill famine with drought and Agrippa, the propastored, spells tripulations in his threne. Ah, furchte fruchte, timid Danaides! Ena milo melo-mon, frai is frau and swee is too, swee is two when swoo is free, ana mala woe is we! A pair of sycopanties with amygdaleine eyes, one old obster lumpky pumpkin and three meddlars on their slies. And that was how framm Sin fromm Son, acity arose, finfin funfun, a sitting arrows. Now tell me, tell me, tell me then!

  What was it?

  A .......... !

  ? ..........0!

  So there you are now there they were, when all was over again, the four with them, setting around upin their judges’ chambers, in the muniment room, of their marshalsea, under the suspices of Lally, around their old traditional tables of the law like Somany Solans to talk it over rallthesameagain. Well and druly dry. Suffering law the dring. Accourting to king’s evelyns. So help her goat and kiss the bouc. Festives and highajinks and jintyaun and her beetyrossy bettydoaty and not to forget now a’duna o’darnel. The four of them and thank court now there were no more of them. So pass the push for port sake. Be it soon. Ah ho! And do you remember, Singabob, the badfather, the same, the great Howdoyoucallem, and his old nickname, Dirty Daddy Pantaloons, in his monopoleums, behind the war of the two roses, with Michael Victory, the sheemen’s preester, before he caught his paper dispillsation from the poke, old Minace and Minster York? Do I mind? I mind the gush off the mon like Bal-lybock manure works on a tradewinds day. And the O’Moyly gracies and the O’Briny rossies chaffing him bluchface and playing him pranks. How do you do, todo, North Mister? Get into my way! Ah dearome forsailoshe! Gone over the bays! When ginabawdy meadabawdy! Yerra, why would he heed that old gasometer with his hooping coppin and his dyinboosycough and all the birds of the southside after her, Minxy Cunningham, their dear divorcee darling, jimmies and jonnies to be her jo? Hold hard. There’s three other corners to our isle’s cork float. Sure, ’tis well I can telesmell him H2 C E3 that would take a township’s breath away! Gob and I nose him too well as I do meself, heaving up the Kay Wall by the 32 to II with his limelooking horse — bags full of sesameseed, the Whiteside Kaffir, and his sayman’s effluvium and his scentpainted voice, puffing out his thundering big brown cabbage! Pa! Thawt I’m glad a gull for his pawsdeen fiunn! Goborro, sez he, Lankyshied! Gobugga ye, sez I! O breezes! I sniffed that lad long before anyone. It was when I was in my farfather out at the west and she and myself, the redheaded girl, firstnighting down Sycomore Lane. Fine feelplay we had of it mid the kissabetts frisking in the kool kurkle dusk of the lushiness. My perfume of the pampas, says she (meaning me) putting out her netherlights, and I’d sooner one precious sip at your pure mountain dew than enrich my acquaintance with that big brewer’s belch.

  And so they went on, the fourbottle men, the analists, ungu-am and nunguam and lunguam again, their anschluss about her whosebefore and his whereafters and how she was lost away away in the fern and how he was founded deap on deep in anear, and the rustlings and the twitterings and the raspings and the snappings and the sighings and the paintings and the ukukuings and the (hist!) the springapartings and the (hast!) the bybyscutt-lings and all the scandalmunkers and the pure craigs that used to be (up) that time living and lying and rating and riding round Nunsbelly Square. And all the buds in the bush. And the laugh- ing jackass. Harik! Harik! Harik! The rose is white in the darik! And Sunfella’s nose has got rhinoceritis from haunting the roes in the parik! So all rogues lean to rhyme. And contradrinking themselves about Lillytrilly law pon hilly and Mrs Niall of the Nine Corsages and the old markiss their besterfar, and, arrah, sure there was never a marcus at all at all among the manlies and dear Sir Armoury, queer Sir Rumoury, and the old house by the churpelizod, and all the goings on so very wrong long before when they were going on retreat, in the old gammeldags, the four of them, in Milton’s Park under lovely Father Whisperer and making her love with his stuffstuff in the languish of flowers and feeling to find was she mushymushy, and wasn’t that vely both of them, the saucicissters, a drahereen o machree !, and (peep !) meeting waters most improper (peepette!) ballround the garden, trickle trickle trickle triss, please, miman, may I go flirting? farmers gone with a groom and how they used her, mused her, licksed her and cuddled. I differ with ye ! Are you sure of your-self now? You’re a liar, excuse me! I will not and you’re an — other! And Lully holding their breach of the peace for them. Pool loll Lolly! To give and to take! And to forego the pasht! And all will be forgotten! Ah ho! It was too too bad to be falling out about her kindness pet and the shape of O O O O O O O O Ourang’s time. Well, all right, Lelly. And shakeahand. And schenkusmore. For Craig sake. Be it suck.

  Well?

  Well, even should not the framing up of such figments in the evidential order bring the true truth to light as fortuitously as a dim seer’s setting of a starchart might (heaven helping it!) uncover the nakedness of an unknown body in the fields of blue or as forehearingly as the sibspeeches of all mankind have foli-ated (earth seizing them!) from the root of some funner’s stotter all the soundest sense to be found immense our special
mentalists now holds (securus iudicat orbis terrarum) that by such playing possum our hagious curious encestor bestly saved his brush with his posterity, you, charming coparcenors, us, heirs of his tailsie. Gundogs of all breeds were beagling with renounced urbiandor- bic bugles, hot to run him, given law, on a scent breasthigh, keen for the worry. View! From his holt outratted across the Juletide’s genial corsslands of Humfries Chase from Mullinahob and Peacockstown, then bearing right upon Tankardstown, the outlier, a white noelan which Mr Lþwensteil Fitz Urse’s basset beaters had first misbadgered for a bruin of some swart, led bayers the run, then through Raystown and Horlockstown and, louping the loup, to Tankardstown again. Ear canny hare for doubling through Cheeverstown they raced him, through Loughlinstown and Nutstown to wind him by the Boolies. But from the good turn when he last was lost, check, upon Ye Hill of Rut in full winter coat with ticker pads, pointing for his rooming house his old nordest in his rolltoproyal hessians a deaf fuch — ser’s volponism hid him close in covert, miraculously ravenfed and buoyed up, in rumer, reticule, onasum and abomasum, upon (may Allbrewham have his mead!) the creamclotted sherriness of cinnamon syllabub, Mikkelraved, Nikkelsaved. Hence hounds hied home. Preservative perseverance in the reeducation of his intestines was the rebuttal by whilk he sort of git the big bulge on the whole bunch of spasoakers, dieting against glues and gra-vies, in that sometime prestreet protown. Vainly violence, viru — lence and vituperation sought wellnigh utterly to attax and a — bridge, to derail and depontify, to enrate and inroad, to ongoad and unhume the great shipping mogul and underlinen overlord.

  But the spoil of hesitants, the spell of hesitency. His atake is it ashe, tittery taw tatterytail, hasitense humponadimply, heyhey-heyhey a winceywencky.

  Assembly men murmured. Reynard is slow!

  One feared for his days. Did there yawn? ’Twas his stom-mick. Eruct? The libber. A gush? From his visuals. Pung? De — livver him, orelode! He had laid violent hands on himself, it was brought in Fugger’s Newsletter, lain down, all in, fagged out, with equally melancholy death. For the triduum of Saturnalia his goatservant had paraded hiz willingsons in the Forum while the jenny infanted the lass to be greeted raucously (the Yardstat-ed) with houx and epheus and measured with missiles too from a hundred of manhood and a wimmering of weibes. Big went the bang: then wildewide was quiet: a report: silence: last Fama put it under ether. The noase or the loal had dreven him blem, blem, stun blem. Sparks flew. He had fled again (open shun-shema!) this country of exile, sloughed off, sidleshomed via the subterranean shored with bedboards, stowed away and ankered in a dutch bottom tank, the Arsa, hod S.S. Finlandia, and was even now occupying, under an islamitic newhame in his seventh generation, a physical body Cornelius Magrath’s (badoldkarak-ter, commonorrong canbung) in Asia Major, where as Turk of the theater (first house all flatty: the king, eleven sharps) he had bepiastered the buikdanseuses from the opulence of his omni-box while as arab at the streetdoor he bepestered the bumbashaws for the alms of a para’s pence. Wires hummed. Peacefully general astonishment assisted by regrettitude had put a term till his exis-tence: he saw the family saggarth, resigned, put off his remain — ders, was recalled and scrapheaped by the Maker. Chirpings crossed. An infamous private ailment (vulgovarioveneral) had claimed endright, closed his vicious circle, snap. Jams jarred. He had walked towards the middle of an ornamental lilypond when innebriated up to the point where braced shirts meet knic-kerbockers, as wangfish daring the buoyant waters, when rod — men’s firstaiding hands had rescued un from very possibly several feel of demifrish water. Mush spread. On Umbrella Street where he did drinks from a pumps a kind workman, Mr Whitlock, gave him a piece of wood. What words of power were made fas between them, ekenames and auchnomes, acnomina ecnumina? That, O that, did Hansard tell us, would gar ganz Dub’s ear wag in every pub of all the citta! Batty believes a baton while Hogan hears a hod yet Heer prefers a punsil shapner and Cope and Bull go cup and ball. And the Cassidy — Craddock rome and reme round e’er a wiege ne’er a waage is still immer and immor awagering over it, a cradle with a care in it or a casket with a kick behind. Toties testies quoties questies. The war is in words and the wood is the world. Maply me, willowy we, hickory he and yew yourselves. Howforhim chirrupeth evereach- bird! From golddawn glory to glowworm gleam. We were lowquacks did we not tacit turn. Elsewere there here no concern of the Guinnesses. But only the ruining of the rain has heard. Estout pourporteral ! Cracklings cricked. A human pest cycling (pist!) and recycling (past!) about the sledgy streets, here he was (pust!) again! Morse nuisance noised. He was loose at large and (Oh baby!) might be anywhere when a disguised ex-nun, of huge standbuild and masculine manners in her fairly fat forties, Carpulenta Gygasta, hattracted hattention by harbitrary conduct with a homnibus. Aerials buzzed to coastal listeners of an oertax bror collector’s budget, fullybigs, sporran, tie, tuft, tabard and bloody antichill cloak, its tailor’s (Baernfather’s) tab reading V.P.H., found nigh Scaldbrothar’s Hole, and divers shivered to think what kaind of beast, wolves, croppis’s or four-penny friars, had devoured him. C. W. cast wide. Hvidfinns lyk, drohneth svertgleam, Valkir lockt. On his pinksir’s postern, the boys had it, at Whitweekend had been nailed an inkedup name and title, inscribed in the national cursives, accelerated, regres-sive, filiform, turreted and envenomoloped in piggotry: Move up. Mumpty! Mike room for Rumpty! By order, Nickekellous Plugg; and this go, no pentecostal jest about it, how gregarious his race soever or skilful learned wise cunning knowledgable clear profound his saying fortitudo fraught or prudentiaproven, were he chief, count, general, fieldmarshal, prince, king or Myles the Slasher in his person, with a moliamordhar mansion in the Breffnian empire and a place of inauguration on the hill of Tully-mongan, there had been real murder, of the rayheallach royghal raxacraxian variety, the MacMahon chaps, it was, that had done him in. On the fidd of Verdor the rampart combatants had left him lion with his dexter handcoup wresterected in a pureede paumee bloody proper. Indeed not a few thick and thin well-wishers, mostly of the clontarfminded class, (Colonel John Bawle O’Roarke, fervxamplus), even ventured so far as to loan or beg copies of D. Blayncy’s trilingual triweekly, Scatterbrains’ Aftening Posht, so as to make certain sure onetime and be satisfied of their quasicontribusodalitarian’s having become genuinely quite beetly dead whether by land whither by water. Transocean atalaclamoured him; The latter! The latter! Shall their hope then be silent or Macfarlane lack of lamentation? He lay under leagues of it in deep Bartholoman’s Deep.

  Achdung! Pozor! Attenshune! Vikeroy Besights Smucky Yung Pigeschoolies. Tri Paisdinernes Eventyr Med Lochlanner Fathach I Fiounnisgehaven. Bannalanna Bangs Ballyhooly Out Of Her Buddaree Of A Bullavogue.

  But, their bright little contemporaries notwithstanding, on the morrowing morn of the suicidal murder of the unrescued ex-patriate, aslike as asnake comes sliduant down that oaktree onto the duke of beavers, (you may have seen some liquidamber exude exotic from a balsam poplar at Parteen-a-lax Limestone. Road and cried Abies Magnifica! not, noble fir?) a quarter of nine, imploring his resipiency, saw the infallible spike of smoke’s jutstiff punctual from the seventh gable of our Quintus Centimachus’ porphyroid buttertower and then thirsty p.m. with oaths upon his lastingness (En caecos harauspices ! Annos longos patimur !) the lamps of maintenance, beaconsfarafield innerhalf the zuggurat, all brevetnamed, the wasting wyvern, the tawny of his mane, the swinglowswaying bluepaw, the outstanding man, the lolllike lady, being litten for the long (O land, how long!) lifesnight, with suffusion of fineglass transom and leadlight panes.

  Wherefore let it hardly by any being thinking be said either or thought that the prisoner of that sacred edifice, were he an Ivor the Boneless or an Olaf the Hide, was at his best a onestone par-able, a rude breathing on the void of to be, a venter hearing his own bauchspeech in backwords, or, more strictly, but tristurned initials, the cluekey to a worldroom beyond the roomwhorld, for scarce one, or pathetically few of his dode canal sammenlivers cared seriously or for long to doubt with Kurt Iuld van
Dijke (the gravitational pull perceived by certain fixed residents and the capture of uncertain comets chancedrifting through our sys-tem suggesting an authenticitatem of his aliquitudinis) the canoni — city of his existence as a tesseract. Be still, O quick! Speak him dumb! Hush ye fronds of Ulma!

  Dispersal women wondered. Was she fast?

  Do tell us all about. As we want to hear allabout. So tellus tel-las allabouter. The why or whether she looked alottylike like ussies and whether he had his wimdop like themses shut? Notes and queries, tipbids and answers, the laugh and the shout, the ards and downs. Now listed to one aneither and liss them down and smoothen out your leaves of rose. The war is o’er. Wimwim wimwim! Was it Unity Moore or Estella Swifte or Varina Fay or Quarta Quaedam? Toemaas, mark oom for yor ounckel! Pig-eys, hold op med yer leg! Who, but who (for second time of asking) was then the scourge of the parts about folkrich Luca-lizod it was wont to be asked, as, in ages behind of the Homo Capite Erectus, what price Peabody’s money, or, to put it bluntly, whence is the herringtons’ white cravat, as, in epochs more cainozoic, who struck Buckley though nowadays as then-times every schoolfilly of sevenscore moons or more who know — her intimologies and every colleen bawl aroof and every red — flammelwaving warwife and widowpeace upon Dublin Wall for ever knows as yayas is yayas how it was Buckleyself (we need no blooding paper to tell it neither) who struck and the Russian generals, da! da!, instead of Buckley who was caddishly struck by him when be herselves. What fullpried paulpoison in the spy of three castles or which hatefilled smileyseller? And that such a vetriol of venom, that queen’s head affranchisant, a quiet stinkingplaster zeal could cover, prepostered or postpaid! The lounge — lizards of the pumproom had their nine days’ jeer, and pratsch — kats at their platschpails too and holenpolendom beside, Szpasz — pas Szpissmas, the zhanyzhonies, when, still believing in her owenglass, when izarres were twinklins, that the upper reaches of her mouthless face and her impermanent waves were the better half of her, one nearer him, dearer than all, first warming creature of his early morn, bondwoman of the man of the house, and murrmurr of all the mackavicks, she who had given his eye for her bed and a tooth for a child till one one and one ten and one hundred again, O me and O ye ! cadet and prim, the hungray and anngreen (and if she is older now than her teeth she has hair that is younger than thighne, my dear!) she who shuttered him after his fall and waked him widowt sparing and gave him keen and made him able and held adazillahs to each arche of his noes, she who will not rast her from her running to seek him till, with the help of the okeamic, some such time that she shall have been after hiding the crumbends of his enormousness in the areyou looking-for Pearlfar sea, (ur, uri, uria!) stood forth, burnzburn the gorg — gony old danworld, in gogor’s name, for gagar’s sake, dragging the countryside in her train, finickin here and funickin there, with her louisequean’s brogues and her culunder buzzle and her litde bolero boa and all and two times twenty curlicornies for her headdress, specks on her eyeux, and spudds on horeilles and a circusfix riding her Parisienne’s cockneze, a vaunt her straddle from Equerry Egon, when Tinktink in the churchclose clinked Steploajazzyma Sunday, Sola, with pawns, prelates and pookas pelotting in her piecebag, for Handiman the Chomp, Esquoro, biskbask, to crush the slander’s head.

 

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