Well are you conscious, or haven't you knowledge, or haven't I said it, that every story has an ending and that's the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dark is coming. My branches high are taking root. And my cold seat's gone grey. 'Viel Uhr? Filou! What time is it? It's getting late.
How far the day when I or anyone last saw Waterhouse's clock! [They took it to pieces, so they said.][It was taken to bits, or so they said.] When will they put it together again? O, my back, my back, my back! I would go then to Aix-les-Pains. Ping pong! That's the bell for Sachseläute— And Concepta de Spiritu— Pang! Take the water out of your cloths! Out with the old, and in the new! Godavari keep off the rains! And give us support! So be. Will we put them here now? Yes, we will. Flip! Put out yours on your side there and here I'll do the same. Flap! It's what I'm doing. Place! It's turning cold. The wind gets high. I'll put some stones on the hotel linen. But that it came from a married bed it would be watered and folded only. And I'll put my meatman's garment here. There's fat on it still. The road boys will all go past. Six undergarments, ten face cloths, nine to put by the fire, and this for the cold, the church house sisters' linens twelve, one baby's overall.
Mother Joseph might give it away, she said. Hose head? Other ways? Deo Gratias! Where now is all her family, say? In the land of the dead or power to come or their great name for ever and ever? All have livings! All is well! Some here, more no more, more again in a strange land. They say that same girl the Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dunders de Dunnes in Markland's Wineland, the other side of the water, take number nine in American hats. And that threaded ball so loved by Biddy went jumping till it came to rest by religion's order yesterday night with a waxlight and a flower of gold in a side branch of a wide drain of a man's-friend-in-need off Bachelor's Walk. But all there is now for the last of Meaghers in the round of the years before and between is one knee-ornament and two hooks in the front. Do you say that now? Truly I do. May Earth give peace to their hearts and minds. Ussa, Ulla, we're all of us shades. Why, haven't they said it a number of times, over and over, again and again? They did, they did. I've need, I've need! It's that soft material I've put in my ears. It almost makes the least sound quiet. Oronoko! What's your trouble? Is that great Finn the ruler himself in his coat-of-war on the high stone horse there before Hengist? Father of Waters, it is himself! Over there! Is it that? On Fallareen Common? You've Astley's theatre now in your head, where you were making your sugar-stick mouths at poor Death-white, the horse of the Peppers, till police put a top to your doings. Take that spider's mist off from your eyes, woman, and put out your washing squarely. I've had enough to do with your sort of cheap work. Flap! Ireland dry is Ireland stiff. May yours be helped, Mary, for you're fullest among women, but the weight is with me! Alas! It seemed so! Madame Angot! Were you lifting your glass then, say Mrs. Redface, in Conway's beerhouse at Carrigacurra? Was I what, loose-in-the-back? Flop! Your tail walk's Graeco-Roman but your back parts are out of the straight. Haven't I been up from the wet early morning, Martha Mary Alacoque, with Corrigan's trouble and my blood-vessels thick, my wheel-rod smashed, Alice Jane at her last, and my dog with one eye two times overturned, wetting engine cloths and making them white, now heated by turns and then again cold, I a woman whose man is no more, that my sporting son may go well-dressed, the washerman with the blue-grey trousers? You got your strange walk from the army diseased when the Duke of Clarence had the run of the town and 'twas you gave the smell to Carlow. Am I seeing right? Yes, I saw it again! Near the gold falls! My blood is ice! Forms of light! See there!
Keep down your noise, you foolish woman! What is it but a black-berry growth or that grey long-ears the old four are owners of. Are you talking of Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I am saying now, please all, the four of them, and the cry of them, that sends that go-in-the-mist and old Johnny Mac Dougal among them.
Is that the Poolbeg light-house over there, far, far, or a steamer sailing near the Kish sands or a fire I see in the undergrowth or my Garry come back from Indies? Do not go till the moon is up love. She's dead, little Eve, little Eve she's dead. We see that strange look in your eye. A meeting again, and then a parting. I'll give the place; let the hour be yours. My map is on high where the blue milk's moving. Quick, let me go. I'm going! So long! And you, take your watch, the memory flower. By night your guiding star. So safe to journey's end! What I see gets feebler among these shades.
I'll go slowly now by my way, to Moyvalley. And so will I, to Rathmines.
Ah, but she was a strange little old woman, anyhow, Anna Livia, with drops from her toes. And Dear Dirty Dublin, he, on my word, was a strange fat old father to his Danes light and dark, the female and male.
Old girl and old boy, their servants are we. Hadn't he his seven women of pleasure? And every woman her seven sticks. And every stick its seven colours. And every colour a different cry. Washing for me, a good meal for you and the chemist's account for Joe John. Before! Before! His markets were married, the cheap with the bad, like Etrurian Catholics of hatred religion in their light reds, light oranges, light yellows, light greens, and the rest of the seven the rain gives.
But in the animals' time, where was the woman? Then all that was was good. Land that is not? A number of times, coming happily back. The same and new. Vico's order but natural, free. Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle's to be. Our Norwegian Thing-seat was where Suffolk Street is, but what number of places will make things into persons? Put that into Latin, my Trinity man, out of your Sanscrit into our Aryan. _Hircus Civis Eblanensis!_ He was kind as a she-goat, to young without mothers. O, Laws! O, Laws! Hey! What, all men? What? His laughing daughters of. What?
No sound but the waters of. The dancing waters of. Winged things in flight, field-rats louder than talk. Ho! Are you not gone, ho! What Tom Malone? No sound but the noise of these things, the Liffey and all its water of. Ho, talk safe keep us! There's no moving this my foot. I seem as old as that tree over there. A story of Shaun or Shem but where? All Livia's daughters and sons. Dark birds are hearing. Night! Night! My old head's bent. My weight is like that stone you see. What may the John Shaun story be? Or who were Shem and Shaun the living sons and daughters of? Night now! Say it, say it, tree! Night night! The story say of stem or stone. By the side of the river waters of, this way and that way waters of. Night!
No comments:
Post a Comment