Complete Works of James Joyce
Page 221
And since that time the people of that town are called le chats de Beaugency.
But the bridge is there still and there are boys walking and riding and playing upon it.
I hope you will like this story.
Nonno
P.S. The devil mostly speaks a language of his own called Bellsybabble which he makes up himself as he goes along but when he is very angry he can speak quite bad French very well, though some who have heard him, say that he has a strong Dublin accent.
Other Prose Works
Nora, Joyce’s wife and muse
EPIPHANIES
These forty brief prose works are among some of Joyce’s earliest writings, which he titled ‘epiphanies’, being ‘sudden spiritual manifestations’. They form a series that originally contained at least seventy-one pieces, but sadly some have been lost. The Epiphanies are a link between Joyce’s early poetry and his early fiction, aiding us in understanding the formative stages of the writer’s art. They were written from 1901 to 1904 and they include fragmentary recordings of overheard dialogue, as well as Joyce’s own personal thoughts. He kept hold of these fragments and later drew upon them in his famous novels, often repeating specific spiritual images. Joyce regarded these enigmatical works as being “little errors and gestures - mere straws in the wind - by which people betrayed the very things they were most careful to conceal”. Therefore, the Epiphanies are, broadly speaking, sketches, objective in form and deliberately incomplete.
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
1
(Bray: in the parlour of the house
in Martello Terrace)
Mr Vance - (comes in with a stick)... O, you know,
he’ll have to apologise, Mrs Joyce.
Mrs Joyce - O yes... Do you hear that, Jim?
Mr Vance - Or else - if he doesn’t - the eagles’11
come and pull out his eyes.
Mrs Joyce - O, but I’m sure he will apologise.
Joyce - (under the table, to himself)
— Pull out his eyes,
Apologise,
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes.
Apologise,
Pull out his eyes,
Pull out his eyes,
Apologise.
2
No school tomorrow: it is Saturday night in winter: I sit by the fire. Soon they will be returning with provisions, meat and vegetables, tea and bread and butter, and white pudding that makes a noise on the pan... I sit reading a story of Alsace, turning over the yellow pages, watching the men and women in their strange dresses. It pleases me to read of their ways; through them I seem to touch the life of a land beyond them to enter into communion with the German people. Dearest illusion, friend of my youth!
In him I have imaged myself. Our lives are still sacred in their intimate sympathies. I am with him at night when he reads the books of the philosophers or some tale of ancient times. I am with him when he wanders alone or with one whom he has never seen, that young girl who puts around him arms that have no malice in them, offering her simple, abundant love, hearing and answering his soul he knows not how.
3
The children who have stayed latest are getting on their things to go home for the party is over. This is the last tram. The lank brown horses know it and shake their bells to the clear night, in admonition. The conductor talks with the driver; both nod often in the green light of the lamp. There is nobody near. We seem to listen, I on the upper step and she on the lower. She comes up to my step many times and goes down again, between our phrases, and once or twice remains beside me, forgetting to go down, and then goes down… Let be; let be... And now she does not urge her vanities - her fine dress and sash and long black stockings — for now (wisdom of children) we seem to know that this end will please us better than any end we have laboured for.
4
(Dublin: on Mountjoy Square)
Joyce - (concludes)... That’ll be forty thousand pounds.
Aunt Lillie - (titters) - O, laus!... I was like that too
...When I was a girl I was sure I’d marry a
lord... or something...
Joyce - (thinks) - Is it possible she’s comparing
herself with me?
5
High up in the old, dark-windowed house: firelight in the narrow room: dusk outside. An old woman bustles about, making tea; she tells of the changes, her odd ways, and what the priest and the doctor said I hear her words in the distance. I wander among the coals, among the ways of adventure Christ! What is in the doorway? A skull - a monkey; a creature drawn hither to the fire, to the voices: a silly creature.
- Is that Mary Ellen? -
- No, Eliza, it’s Jim -
- O O, goodnight, Jim -
- D’ye want anything, Eliza? -
- I thought it was Mary Ellen I thought you were Mary Ellen, Jim -
6
A small field of stiff weeds and thistles alive with confused forms, half-men, half-goats. Dragging their great tails they move hither and thither, aggressively. Their faces are lightly bearded, pointed and grey as india-rubber. A secret personal sin directs them, holding them now, as in reaction, to constant malevolence. One is clasping about his body a torn flannel jacket; another complains monotonously as his beard catches in the stiff weeds. They move about me, enclosing me, that old sin sharpening their eyes to cruelty, swishing through the fields in slow circles, thrusting upwards their terrific faces. Help !
7
It is time to go away now - breakfast is ready. I’ll say another prayer... I am hungry; yet I would like to stay here in this quiet chapel where the mass has come and gone so quietly Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! Tomorrow and every day after I hope I shall bring you some virtue as an offering for I know you will be pleased with me if I do. Now, goodbye for the present O, the beautiful sunlight in the avenue and O, the sunlight in my heart!
8
Dull clouds have covered the sky. Where three roads meet and before a swampy beach a big dog is recumbent. From time to time he lifts his muzzle in the air and utters a prolonged sorrowful howl. People stop to look at him and pass on; some remain, arrested, it may be, by that lamentation in which they seem to hear the utterance of their own sorrow that had once its voice but is now voiceless, a servant of laborious days. Rain begins to fall.
9
(Mullingar: a Sunday in July:
Noon)
Tobin - (walking noisily with thick boots and
tapping the road with his stick)... O
there’s nothing like marriage for
making a fellow steady. Before I came
here to the Examiner I used knock about
with fellows and boose... Now I’ve a
good house and I go home in the
evening and if I want a drink
well, I can have it... My advice to
every young fellow that can afford it
is: marry young.
10
(Dublin: in the Stag’s Head,
Dame Lane)
O’Mahony - Haven’t you that little priest that
writes poetry over there - Fr Russell?
Joyce - O, yes...I hear he has written verses.
O’Mahony - (smiling adroitly)...Verses, yes...that’s
the proper name for them...
11
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s,
Belvedere Place)
Joyce - I knew you meant him. But you’re wrong
about his age.
Maggie Sheehy - (leans forward to speak seriously). Why,
how old is he?
Joyce - Seventy-two.
Maggie Sheehy - Is he?
12
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s, Belvedere
Place)
O’Reilly - (with developing seriousness)...Now
it’s my turn, I suppose (quite
seriously)...Who is your favourite
poet?
(a pause)
Hanna Sheehy - German?
O’Reilly - Yes.
(a hush)
Hanna Sheehy -..I think Goethe
13
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s, Belvedere
Place)
Fallon - (as he passes) - I was told to congratulate
you especially on your performance.
Joyce - Thank you.
Blake - (after a pause)..I’d never advise anyone
to...O, it’s a terrible life!...
Joyce - Ha.
Blake - (between puffs of smoke) - of course...it
looks all right from the outside...to
those who don’t know...But if
you knew...it’s really terrible. A
bit of candle, no...dinner, squalid
...poverty. You’ve no idea simply...
14
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s, Belvedere
Place)
Dick Sheehy - What’s a lie? Mr Speaker, I must ask...
Mr Sheehy — Order, order!
Fallon — You know it’s a lie!
Mr Sheehy — You must withdraw, sir.
Dick Sheehy - As I was saying...
Fallon - No, I won’t.
Mr Sheehy - I call on the honourable member
for Denbigh... Order, order!...
15
[In Mullingar: an evening
in autumn]
The Lame Beggar - {gripping his stick)...It was
you called out after me yesterday.
The Two Children - (gazing at him)...No, sir.
The Lame Beggar - O, yes it was, though...(moving
his stick up and down)...But
mind what I’m telling you...
D’ye see that stick?
The Two Children - Yes, sir.
The Lame Beggar — Well, if ye call out after me
any more I’ll cut ye open with
that stick. I’ll cut the livers
out o’ye...(explains himself)
... D’ye hear me? I’ll cut ye
open. I’ll cut the livers and
the lights out o’ye.
16
A white mist is falling in slow flakes. The path leads me down to an obscure pool. Something is moving in the pool; it is an arctic beast with a rough yellow coat. I thrust in my stick and as he rises out of the water I see that his back slopes towards the croup and that he is very sluggish. I am not afraid but, thrusting at him often with my stick drive him before me. He moves his paws heavily and mutters words of some language which I do not understand.
17
(Dublin: at Sheehy’s, Belvedere
Place)
Hanna Sheehy - O, there are sure to be great crowds.
Skeffington - In fact it’ll be, as our friend
Jocax would say, the day of the
rabblement.
Maggie Sheehy - (declaims) - Even now the
rabblement may be standing
by the door!
18
(Dublin, on the North Circular
Road: Christmas)
Miss O’Callaghan - (lisps) - I told you the name,
The Escaped Nun.
Dick Sheehy — (loudly) - O, I wouldn’t read
a book like that...I must
ask Joyce. I say, Joyce, did
you ever read The Escaped
Nun?
Joyce - I observe that a certain
phenomenon happens about
this hour.
Dick Sheehy — What phenomenon?
Joyce - O...the stars come out.
Dick Sheehy - (to Miss O’Callaghan)..Did you
ever observe how...the
stars come out on the end
of Joyce’s nose about this
hour?...(she smiles)..Because
I observe that phenomenon.
19
(Dublin: in the house in
Glengariff Parade: evening)
Mrs Joyce - (crimson, trembling, appears at the
parlour door)...Jim!
Joyce - (at the piano)...Yes?
Mrs Joyce - Do you know anything about the
body?...What ought I do?...There’s
some matter coming away from
the hole in Georgie’s stomach...
Did you ever hear of that happening?
Joyce - (surprised)...I don’t know...
Mrs Joyce - Ought I send for the doctor, do you
think?
Joyce - I don’t know What hole?
Mrs Joyce - (impatient)...The hole we all have
here (points)
Joyce - (stands up)
20
They are all asleep. I will go up now He lies on my bed where I lay last night: they have covered him with a sheet and closed his eyes with pennies... Poor little fellow! We have often laughed together - he bore his body very lightly... I am very sorry he died. I cannot pray for him as the others do Poor little fellow! Everything else is so uncertain!
21
Two mourners push on through the crowd. The girl, one hand catching the woman’s skirt, runs in advance. The girl’s face is the face of a fish, discoloured and oblique-eyed; the woman’s face is small and square, the face of a bargainer. The girl, her mouth distorted, looks up at the woman to see if it is time to cry; the woman, settling a flat bonnet, hurries on towards the mortuary chapel.
22
(Dublin: in the National Library)
Skeffington - I was sorry to hear of the death of
your brother...sorry we didn’t
know in time to have been at
the funeral
Joyce - O, he was very young...a boy...
Skeffington - Still it hurts...
23
That is no dancing. Go down before the people, young boy, and dance for them... He runs out darkly-clad, lithe and serious to dance before the multitude. There is no music for him. He begins to dance far below in the amphitheatre with a slow and supple movement of the limbs, passing from move- ment to movement, in all the grace of youth and distance, until he seems to be a whirling body, a spider wheeling amid space, a star. I desire to shout to him words of praise, to shout arrogantly over the heads of the multitude ‘See! See!’ His dancing is not the dancing of harlots, the dance of the daughters of Herodias. It goes up from the midst of the people, sudden and young and male, and falls again to earth in tremulous sobbing to die upon its triumph.
24
Her arm is laid for a moment on my knees and then withdrawn, and her eyes have revealed her - secret, vigilant an enclosed garden - in a moment. I remember a harmony of red and white that was made for one like her, telling her names and glories, bidding her arise as for espousal, and come away, bidding her look forth, a spouse, from Amana and from the mountain of the leopards. And I remember that response whereunto the perfect tenderness of the body and the soul with all its mystery have gone: Inter ubera mea commorabitur.
25
The quick light shower is over but tarries, a cluster of diamonds, among the shrubs of the quadrangle where an exhalation arises from the black earth. In the colonnade are the girls, an April company. They are leaving shelter, with many a doubting glance, with the prattle of trim boots and the pretty rescue of petticoats,
under umbrellas, a light armoury, upheld at cunning angles. They are returning to the convent - demure corridors and simple dormitories, a white rosary of hours - having heard the fair promises of Spring, that well- graced ambassador
Amid a flat rain-swept country stands a high plain building, with windows that filter the obscure daylight. Three hundred boys, noisy and hungry, sit at long tables eating beef fringed with green fat and vegetables that are still rank of the earth.
26
She is engaged. She dances with them in the round - a white dress lightly lifted as she dances, a white spray in her hair; eyes a little averted, a faint glow on her cheek. Her hand is in mine for a moment, softest of merchandise.
- You very seldom come here now. -
- Yes I am becoming something of a recluse. -
- I saw your brother the other day He is
very like you. -
- Really? -
She dances with them in the round - evenly, discreetly, giving herself to no one. The white spray is ruffled as she dances, and when she is in shadow the glow is deeper on her cheek.
27
Faintly, under the heavy summer night, through the silence of the town which has turned from dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs upon the Dublin road. Not so faintly now as they come near the bridge; and in a moment as they pass the dark windows the silence is cloven by alarm as by an arrow. They are heard now far away - hoofs that shine amid the heavy night as diamonds, hurrying beyond the grey, still marshes to what journey’s end - what heart - bearing what tidings?