Complete Works of James Joyce

by Unknown

  Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to him, described by the narrator as A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums?

  It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms (e.g. My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the Thief of Time) composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy or Doctor Dick or Heblon’s Studies in Blue, to a publication of certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday, 21 June (S. Aloysius Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m.

  Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other frequently engaged his mind?

  What to do with our wives.

  What had been his hypothetical singular solutions?

  Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial activity as pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled: social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity: courses of evening instruction specially designed to render liberal instruction agreeable.

  What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution?

  In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned the implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by false analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), alias (a mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture).

  What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things?

  The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment.

  How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance?

  Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other’s ignorant lapse.

  With what success had he attempted direct instruction?

  She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated with error.

  What system had proved more effective?

  Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest.

  Example?

  She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat.

  Accepting the analogy implied in his guest’s parable which examples of postexilic eminence did he adduce?

  Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, author of More Nebukim (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there arose none like Moses (Maimonides).

  What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by Stephen?

  That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher, name uncertain.

  Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a selected or rejected race mentioned?

  Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist).

  What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts by guest to host and by host to guest?

  By Stephen: suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin (walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care).

  By Bloom: Kkifeloch, harimon rakatejch m’baad l’zamatejch (thy temple amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate).

  How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages made in substantiation of the oral comparison?

  By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior literary style, entituled Sweets of Sin (produced by Bloom and so manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1, 4, and 100.

  Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical?

  Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary.

  What points of contact existed between these languages and between the peoples who spoke them?

  The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara), Massor, Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, Book of Kells: their dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary’s Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve’s tavern): the proscription of their national costumes in penal laws and jewish dress acts: the restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution.

  What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, ethnically irreducible consummation?

  Kolod balejwaw pnimah

  Nefesch, jehudi, homijah.

  Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich?

  In consequence of defective mnemotechnic.

  How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency?

  By a periphrastic version of the general text.

  In what common study did their mutual reflections merge?

&
nbsp; The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic). Did the guest comply with his host’s request?

  Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters.

  What was Stephen’s auditive sensation?

  He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation of the past.

  What was Bloom’s visual sensation?

  He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a future.

  What were Stephen’s and Bloom’s quasisimultaneous volitional quasisensations of concealed identities?

  Visually, Stephen’s: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted by Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair. Auditively, Bloom’s: The traditional accent of the ecstasy of catastrophe.

  What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with what exemplars?

  In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage modern or Shakespearean: exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian Osmond Tearle (died 1901), exponent of Shakespeare.

  Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange legend on an allied theme?

  Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream plus cocoa, having been consumed.

  Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend.

  Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all

  Went out for to play ball.

  And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played

  He drove it o’er the jew’s garden wall.

  And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played

  He broke the jew’s windows all.

  How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part?

  With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew he heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window.

  Recite the second part (minor) of the legend.

  Then out there came the jew’s daughter

  And she all dressed in green.

  “Come back, come back, you pretty little boy,

  And play your ball again.”

  “I can’t come back and I won’t come back

  Without my schoolfellows all.

  For if my master he did hear

  He’d make it a sorry ball.”

  She took him by the lilywhite hand

  And led him along the hall

  Until she led him to a room

  Where none could hear him call.

  She took a penknife out of her pocket

  And cut off his little head.

  And now he’ll play his ball no more

  For he lies among the dead.

  How did the father of Millicent receive this second part?

  With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew’s daughter, all dressed in green.

  Condense Stephen’s commentary.

  One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting.

  Why was the host (victim predestined) sad?

  He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him should by him not be told.

  Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still?

  In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy.

  Why was the host (secret infidel) silent?

  He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism.

  From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not totally immune?

  From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain, sleeping.

  Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member of his family?

  Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent (Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an exclamation of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night attire with a vacant mute expression.

  What other infantile memories had he of her?

  15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks her moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo, tlee: a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark, she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British navy.

  What endemic characteristics were present?

  Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct line of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals.

  What memories had he of her adolescence?

  She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke’s lawn, entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the 15th anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year not stated).

  Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him?

  Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped.

  What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly, if differently?

  A temporary departure of his cat.

  Why similarly, why differently?

  Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male

  (Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the habitation.

  In other respects were their differences similar?

  In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness.

  As?

  Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake in Stephen’s green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf mousewatching cat).

  Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and consequences of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair (cf earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in passivity, in economy, in the inst
inct of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences were similar.

  In what way had he utilised gifts (1) an owl, (2) a clock, given as matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her?

  As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and the shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, videlicet, 5 5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression.

  In what manners did she reciprocate?

  She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part.

  What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make to Stephen, noctambulist?

  To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of his host and hostess.

  What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation of such an extemporisation?

  For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation.

  Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew’s daughter?