by Unknown
(Looks at her in silence.) Can you not guess one reason?
BERTHA
On account of me?
ROBERT
Yes. It is not pleasant for me to remain here just now.
BERTHA
(Sits down helplessly.) But this is cruel of you, Robert. Cruel to me and to him also.
ROBERT
Has he asked... what happened?
BERTHA
(Joining her hands in despair.) No. He refuses to ask me anything. He says he will never know.
ROBERT
(Nods gravely.) Richard is right there. He is always right.
BERTHA
But, Robert, you must speak to him.
ROBERT
What am I to say to him?
BERTHA
The truth! Everything!
ROBERT
(Reflects.) No, Bertha. I am a man speaking to a man. I cannot tell him everything.
BERTHA
He will believe that you are going away because you are afraid to face him after last night.
ROBERT
(After a pause.) Well, I am not a coward any more than he. I will see him.
BERTHA
(Rises.) I will call him.
ROBERT
(Catching her hands.) Bertha! What happened last night? What is the truth that I am to tell? (He gazes earnestly into her eyes.) Were you mine in that sacred night of love? Or have I dreamed it?
620
BERTHA
(Smiles faintly.) Remember your dream of me. You dreamed that I was yours last night.
ROBERT
And that is the truth — a dream? That is what I am to tell?
BERTHA
Yes.
ROBERT
(Kisses both her hands.) Bertha! (In a softer voice.) In all my life only that dream is real. I forget the rest. (He kisses her hands again.) And now I can tell him the truth. Call him.
(Bertha goes to the door of Richard’s study and knocks. There is no answer. She knocks again.)
BERTHA
Dick! (There is no answer.) Mr Hand is here. He wants to speak to you, to say goodbye. He is going away. (There is no answer. She beats her hand loudly on the panel of the door and calls in an alarmed voice.) Dick! Answer me!
(Richard Rowan comes in from the study. He comes at once to Robert but does not hold out his hand.)
RICHARD
(Calmly.) I thank you for your kind article about me. Is it true that you have come to say goodbye?
ROBERT
There is nothing to thank me for, Richard. Now and always I am your friend. Now more than ever before. Do you believe me, Richard?
(Richard sits down on a chair and buries his face in his hands. Bertha and Robert gaze at each other in silence. Then she turns away and goes out quietly on the right. Robert goes towards Richard and stands near him, resting his hands on the back of a chair, looking down at him. There is a long silence. A fishwoman is heard crying out as she passes along the road outside.)
THE FISHWOMAN
Fresh Dublin bay herrings! Fresh Dublin bay herrings! Dublin bay herrings!
621
ROBERT
(Quietly.) I will tell you the truth, Richard. Are you listening?
RICHARD
(Raises his face and leans back to listen.) Yes.
(Robert sits on the chair beside him. The fishwoman is heard calling out farther away.)
THE FISHWOMAN
Fresh herrings! Dublin bay herrings!
ROBERT
I failed, Richard. That is the truth. Do you believe me?
RICHARD
I am listening.
ROBERT
I failed. She is yours, as she was nine years ago, when you met her first.
RICHARD
When we met her first, you mean.
ROBERT
Yes. (He looks down for some moments.) Shall I go on?
RICHARD
Yes.
ROBERT
She went away. I was left alone — for the second time. I went to the vicechancellor’s house and dined. I said you were ill and would come another night. I made epigrams new and old — that one about the statues also. I drank claret cup. I went to my office and wrote my article. Then...
RICHARD
Then?
ROBERT
Then I went to a certain nightclub. There were men there — and also women. At least, they looked like women. I danced with one of them. She asked me to see her home. Shall I go on?
RICHARD
Yes.
ROBERT
I saw her home in a cab. She lives near Donnybrook. In the cab took place what the subtle Duns Scotus calls a death of the spirit. Shall I go on?
RICHARD
Yes.
ROBERT
She wept. She told me she was the divorced wife of a barrister. I offered her a sovereign as she told me she was short of money. She would not take it and wept very much. Then she drank some melissa water from a little bottle which she had in her satchel. I saw her enter her house. Then I walked home. In my room I found that my coat was all stained with the melissa water. I had no luck even with my coats yesterday: that was the second one. The idea came to me then to change my suit and go away by the morning boat. I packed my valise and went to bed. I am going away by the next train to my cousin, Jack Justice, in Surrey. Perhaps for a fortnight. Perhaps longer. Are you disgusted?
622
RICHARD
Why did you not go by the boat?
ROBERT
I slept it out.
RICHARD
You intended to go without saying goodbye — without coming here?
ROBERT
Yes.
RICHARD
Why?
ROBERT
My story is not very nice, is it?
RICHARD
But you have come.
ROBERT
Bertha sent me a message to come.
RICHARD
But for that...?
ROBERT
But for that I should not have come.
RICHARD
Did it strike you that if you had gone without coming here I should have understood it — in my own way?
ROBERT
Yes, it did.
RICHARD
What, then, do you wish me to believe?
ROBERT
I wish you to believe that I failed. That Bertha is yours now as she was nine years ago, when you — when we — met her first.
RICHARD
Do you want to know what I did?
ROBERT
No.
RICHARD
I came home at once.
ROBERT
Did you hear Bertha return?
RICHARD
No. I wrote all the night. And thought. (Pointing to the study.) In there. Before dawn I went out and walked the strand from end to end.
623
ROBERT
(Shaking his head.) Suffering. Torturing yourself.
RICHARD
Hearing voices about me. The voices of those who say they love me.
ROBERT
(Points to the door on the right.) One. And mine?
RICHARD
Another still.
ROBERT
(Smiles and touches his forehead with his right forefinger.) True. My interesting but somewhat melancholy cousin. And what did they tell you?
RICHARD
They told me to despair.
ROBERT
A queer way of showing their love, I must say! And will you despair?
RICHARD
(Rising.) No.
(A noise is heard at the window. Archie’s face is seen flattened against one of the panes. He is heard calling.)
ARCHIE
Open the window! Open the window!
ROBERT
(Looks at Richard.) Did you hear his voice, too, Richard, with the others — out there on the strand? Your son’s voice. (Smiling.) Listen! How full it is of despair!
ARCHIE
Open the window, please, will you?
ROBERT
Perhaps, there, Richard, is the freedom we seek — you in one way, I in another. In him and not in us. Perhaps...
RICHARD
Perhaps...?
ROBERT
I said perhaps. I would say almost surely if...
RICHARD
If what?
ROBERT
(With a faint smile.) If he were mine.
(He goes to the window and opens it. Archie scrambles in.)
ROBERT
Like yesterday — eh?
624
ARCHIE
Good morning, Mr Hand. (He runs to Richard and kisses him:) Buon giorno, babbo.
RICHARD
Buon giorno, Archie.
ROBERT
And where were you, my young gentleman?
ARCHIE
Out with the milkman. I drove the horse. We went to Booterstown. (He takes off his cap and throws it on a chair.) I am very hungry.
ROBERT
(Takes his hat from the table.) Richard, goodbye. (Offering his hand.) To our next meeting!
RICHARD
(Rises, touches his hand.) Goodbye.
(Bertha appears at the door on the right.)
ROBERT
(Catches sight of her: to Archie.) Get your cap. Come on with me. I’ll buy you a cake and I’ll tell you a story.
ARCHIE
(To Bertha.) May I, mamma?
BERTHA
Yes.
ARCHIE
(Takes his cap.) I am ready.
ROBERT
(To Richard and Bertha.) Goodbye to pappa and mamma. But not a big goodbye.
ARCHIE
Will you tell me a fairy story, Mr Hand?
ROBERT
A fairy story? Why not? I am your fairy godfather.
(They go out together through the double doors and down the garden. When they have gone Bertha goes to Richard and puts her arm round his waist.)
BERTHA
Dick, dear, do you believe now that I have been true to you? Last night and always?
RICHARD
(Sadly.) Do not ask me, Bertha.
BERTHA
(Pressing him more closely.) I have been, dear. Surely you believe me. I gave you myself — all. I gave up all for you. You took me — and you left me.
RICHARD
When did I leave you?
BERTHA
You left me: and I waited for you to come back to me. Dick, dear, come here to me. Sit down. How tired you must be!
625
(She draws him towards the lounge. He sits down, almost reclining, resting on his arm. She sits on the mat before the lounge, holding his hand.)
BERTHA
Yes, dear. I waited for you. Heavens, what I suffered then — when we lived in Rome! Do you remember the terrace of our house?
RICHARD
Yes.
BERTHA
I used to sit there, waiting, with the poor child with his toys, waiting till he got sleepy. I could see all the roofs of the city and the river, the Tevere. What is its name?
RICHARD
The Tiber.
BERTHA
(Caressing her cheek with his hand.) It was lovely, Dick, only I was so sad. I was alone, Dick, forgotten by you and by all. I felt my life was ended.
RICHARD
It had not begun.
BERTHA
And I used to look at the sky, so beautiful, without a cloud and the city you said was so old: and then I used to think of Ireland and about ourselves.
RICHARD
Ourselves?
BERTHA
Yes. Ourselves. Not a day passes that I do not see ourselves, you and me, as we were when we met first. Every day of my life I see that. Was I not true to you all that time?
RICHARD
(Sighs deeply.) Yes, Bertha. You were my bride in exile.
BERTHA
Wherever you go, I will follow you. If you wish to go away now I will go with you.
RICHARD
I will remain. It is too soon yet to despair.
BERTHA
(Again caressing his hand.) It is not true that I want to drive everyone from you. I wanted to bring you close together — you and him. Speak to me. Speak out all your heart to me. What you feel and what you suffer.
RICHARD
I am wounded, Bertha.
626
BERTHA
How wounded, dear? Explain to me what you mean. I will try to understand everything you say. In what way are you wounded?
RICHARD
(Releases his hand and, taking her head between his hands, bends it back and gazes long into her eyes.) I have a deep, deep wound of doubt in my soul.
BERTHA
(Motionless.) Doubt of me?
RICHARD
Yes.
BERTHA
I am yours. (In a whisper.) If I died this moment, I am yours.
RICHARD
(Still gazing at her and speaking as if to an absent person.) I have wounded my soul for you — a deep wound of doubt which can never be healed. I can never know, never in this world. I do not wish to know or to believe. I do not care. It is not in the darkness of belief that I desire you. But in restless living wounding doubt. To hold you by no bonds, even of love, to be united with you in body and soul in utter nakedness — for this I longed. And now I am tired for a while, Bertha. My wound tires me.
(He stretches himself out wearily along the lounge. Bertha holds his hand, still speaking very softly.)
BERTHA
Forget me, Dick. Forget me and love me again as you did the first time. I want my lover. To meet him, to go to him, to give myself to him. You, Dick. O, my strange wild lover, come back to me again!
(She closes her eyes.)
The Poetry Collections
Joyce in Sussex, 1923
EARLY POETRY
CONTENTS
Et Tu, Healy
O fons Bandusiae
Are you not weary of ardent ways
I only ask you to give me your fair hands
La scintille de l’allumette
A voice that sings
Scalding tears shall not avail
Yea, for this love of mine
We will leave the village behind
Gladly above
After the tribulation of dark strife
Told sublimely in the language
Love that I can give you, lady
Wind thine arms round me
Where none murmureth
Lord, thou knowest my misery
Thunders and sweeps along
Though there is no resurrection from the past
And I have sat amid the turbulent crowd
Gorse-flower makes but sorry dining
That I am feeble, that my feet
The grieving soul. But no grief is thine
Let us fling to the winds all moping and madness
Hands that soothe my burning eyes
Now a whisper... now a gale
O, queen, do on thy cloak
Requiem eternam dona ei, Domine
Of thy dark life, without a love, without a friend
I intone the high anthem
Some are comely and some are sour
Flower to flower knits
In the soft nightfall
Discarded, broken in two
The Holy Office
Gas from a Burner
Alas, how sad the lover’s lot
O, it is cold and still - alas!
She is at peace where she is sleeping
I said: I will go down to where
Though we are leaving youth behind
Come out to where youth is met
Et Tu, Healy
My cot alas that dear old shady home
Where oft in youthful sport I played
Upon thy verdant grassy fields all day
Or lingered for a moment in thy bosom shade.
His quaint
-perched aerie on the crags of Time
Where the rude din of this . . . century
Can trouble him no more.
O fons Bandusiae
A translation of Horace’ Odes, III 13
Brighter than glass Bandusian spring
For mellow wine and flowers meet,
The morrow thee a kid shall bring
Boding of rivalry and sweet
Love in his swelling horns. In vain
He, wanton offspring, deep shall stain
Thy clear cold streams with crimson rain.
The raging dog star’s season thou,
Still safe from in the heat of day,
When oxen weary of the plough
Yieldst thankful cool for herds that stray.
Be of the noble founts! I sing
The oak tree o’er thine echoing
Crags, thy waters murmuring.
Are you not weary of ardent ways
Are you not weary of ardent ways,
Lure of the fallen seraphim?
Tell no more of enchanted days.
Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze
And you have had your will of him.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Above the flame the smoke of praise
Goes up from ocean rim to rim.
Tell no more of enchanted days.
Our broken cries and mournful lays
Rise in one eucharistic hymn.
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
While sacrificing hands upraise
The chalice flowing to the brim,
Tell no more of enchanted days.
And still you hold our longing gaze
With languorous look and lavish limb!
Are you not weary of ardent ways?
Tell no more of enchanted days.
I only ask you to give me your fair hands
I only ask you to give me your fair hands.
Ah, dearest, this one grace, it will be the last.
How fast are they fled, halcyon days, how fast.
Nor you nor I can arrest time’s running sands.
Enough that we have known the pleasure of love
Albeit pleasure, fraught with an heartfelt grief.
Though our love season hath been marvellous
Yet we have loved and told our passion — (ending.])Then fade the uncertain day and come the night.
La scintille de l’allumette
La scintille de l’allumette
Qui se cachait entre vos mains
A ensorcelé ma cigarette —