Complete Works of James Joyce (170 page)

Of course our low hero was a self valeter by choice of need so up he got up whatever is meant by a stourbridge clay kitchen-ette and lithargogalenu fowlhouse for the sake of akes (the umpple does not fall very far from the dumpertree) which the moromelodious jigsmith, in defiance of the Uncontrollable Birth Preservativation (Game and Poultry) Act, playing lallaryrook cookerynook, by the dodginess of his lentern, brooled and cocked and potched in an athanor, whites and yolks and yilks and whotes to the frulling fredonnance of Mas blanca que la blanca hermana and Amarilla, muy bien, with cinnamon and locusts and wild bees-wax and liquorice and Carrageen moss and blaster of Barry’s and Asther’s mess and Huster’s micture and Yellownan’s embrocation and Pinkingtone’s patty and stardust and sinner’s tears, acuredent to Sharadan’s Art of Panning, chanting, for all regale to the like of the legs he left behind with Litty fun Letty fan Leven, his cantraps of fermented words, abracadabra calubra culorum, (his oewfs … la Madame Gabrielle de l’Eglise, his avgs … la Mistress B. de B. Meinfelde, his eiers Usquadmala … la pomme de ciel, his uoves, oves and uves … la Sulphate de Soude, his ochiuri sowtay sowmmonay a la Monseigneur, his soufflosion of oogs with somekat on toyast … la MŠre Puard, his Poggadovies alla Fenella, his Frideggs … la Tricarˆme) in what was meant for a closet (Ah ho! If only he had listened better to the four masters that infanted him Father Mathew and Le PŠre Noble and Pastor Lucas and Padre Aguilar — not forgetting Layteacher Baudwin! Ah ho!) His costive Satan’s antimonian manganese limolitmious nature never needed such an alcove so, when Robber and Mum-sell, the pulpic dictators, on the nudgment of their legal advisers, Messrs Codex and Podex, and under his own benefiction of their pastor Father Flammeus Falconer, boycotted him of all mutton-suet candles and romeruled stationery for any purpose, he winged away on a wildgoup’s chase across the kathartic ocean and made synthetic ink and sensitive paper for his own end out of his wit’s waste. You ask, in Sam Hill, how? Let manner and matter of this for these our sporting times be cloaked up in the language of blushfed porporates that an Anglican ordinal, not reading his own rude dunsky tunga, may ever behold the brand of scarlet on the brow of her of Babylon and feel not the pink one in his own damned cheek.

Primum opifex, altus prosator, ad terram viviparam et cuncti-potentem sine ullo pudore nec venia, suscepto pluviali atque discinctis perizomatis, natibus nudis uti nati fuissent, sese adpropinquans, flens et gemens, in manum suam evacuavit (highly prosy, crap in his hand, sorry!), postea, animale nigro exoneratus, classicum pulsans, stercus proprium, quod appellavit deiectiones suas, in vas olim honorabile tristitiae posuit, eodem sub invocatione fratrorum gemino-rum Medardi et Godardi laete ac melliflue minxit, psalmum qui incipit: Lingua mea calamus scribae velociter scribentis: magna voce cantitans (did a piss, says he was dejected, asks to be exonerated), demum ex stercore turpi cum divi Orionis iucunditate mixto, cocto, frigorique exposito, encaustum sibi fecit indelibile (faked O’Ryan’s, the indelible ink).

Then, pious Eneas, conformant to thc fulminant firman which enjoins on the tremylose terrian that, when the call comes, he shall produce nichthemerically from his unheavenly body a no uncertain quantity of obscene matter not protected by copriright in the United Stars of Ourania or bedeed and bedood and bedang and bedung to him, with this double dye, brought to blood heat, gallic acid on iron ore, through the bowels of his misery, flashly, faithly, nastily, appropriately, this Esuan Menschavik and the first till last alshemist wrote over every square inch of the only fools-cap available, his own body, till by its corrosive sublimation one continuous present tense integument slowly unfolded all marry-voising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history (thereby, he said, reflecting from his own individual person life unlivable, trans-accidentated through the slow fires of consciousness into a divi — dual chaos, perilous, potent, common to allflesh, human only, mortal) but with each word that would not pass away the squid-self which he had squirtscreened from the crystalline world waned chagreenold and doriangrayer in its dudhud. This exists that isits after having been said we know. And dabal take dab-nal! And the dal dabal dab aldanabal! So perhaps, agglaggagglo — meratively asaspenking, after all and arklast fore arklyst on his last public misappearance, circling the square, for the deathfˆte of Saint Ignaceous Poisonivy, of the Fickle Crowd (hopon the sexth day of Hogsober, killim our king, layum low !) and brandishing his bellbearing stylo, the shining keyman of the wilds of change, if what is sauce for the zassy is souse for the zazimas, the blond cop who thought it was ink was out of his depth but bright in the main.

Petty constable Sistersen of the Kruis–Kroon-Kraal it was, the parochial watch, big the dog the dig the bog the bagger the dugger the begadag degabug, who had been detailed from pollute stoties to save him, this the quemquem, that the quum, from the ligatureliablous effects of foul clay in little clots and mobmauling on looks, that wrongcountered the tenderfoot an eveling near the livingsmeansuniumgetherum, Knockmaree, Comty Mea, reeling more to the right than he lurched to the left, on his way from a protoprostitute (he would always have a (stp!) little pigeoness somewhure with his arch girl, Arcoiris, smockname of Mergyt) just as he was butting in rand the coyner of bad times under a hideful between the rival doors of warm bethels of worship through his boardelhouse fongster, greeting for grazious oras as usual: Where ladies have they that a dog meansort herring? Sergo, search me, the incapable reparteed with a selfevitant subtlety so obviously spurious and, raising his hair, after the grace, with the christmas under his clutcharm, for Portsymasser and Purtsymessus and Pertsymiss and Partsymasters, like a prance of findingos, with a shillto shallto slipny stripny, in he skittled. Swikey! The allwhite poors guardiant, pulpably of balltossic stummung, was literally astundished over the painful sake, how he burstteself, which he was gone to, where he intent to did he, whether you think will, wherend the whole current of the after-noon whats the souch of a surch hads of hits of hims, urged and staggered thereto in his countryports at the caledosian capacity for Lieutuvisky of the caftan’s wineskin and even more so, during, looking his bigmost astonishments, it was said him, aschu, fun the concerned outgift of the dead med dirt, how that, arrahbejibbers, conspuent to the dominical order and exking noblish permish, he was namely coon at bringer at home two gallonts, as per royal, full poultry till his murder. Nip up and nab it!

Polthergeistkotzdondherhoploits ! Kick? What mother? Whose porter? Which pair? Why namely coon? But our undilligence has been plutherotested so enough of such porterblack lowneess, too base for printink! Perpending that Putterick O’Purcell pulls the coald stoane out of Winterwater’s and Silder Seas sing for Harreng our Keng, sept okt nov dez John Phibbs march! We cannot, in mercy or justice nor on the lovom for labaryntos, stay here for the residence of our existings, discussing Tamstar Ham of Ten-man’s thirst.

JUSTIUS (to himother): Brawn is my name and broad is my nature and I’ve breit on my brow and all’s right with every fea-ture and I’ll brune this bird or Brown Bess’s bung’s gone bandy. I’m the boy to bruise and braise. Baus!

Stand forth, Nayman of Noland (for no longer will I follow you obliquelike through the inspired form of the third person singular and the moods and hesitensies of the deponent but ad-dress myself to you, with the empirative of my vendettative, pro — vocative and out direct), stand forth, come boldly, jolly me,- move me, zwilling though I am, to laughter in your true colours ere you be back for ever till I give you your talkingto! Shem Macadamson, you know me and I know you and all your she-meries. Where have you been in the uterim, enjoying yourself all the morning since your last wetbed confession? I advise you to conceal yourself, my little friend, as I have said a moment ago and put your hands in my hands and have a nightslong homely little confiteor about things. Let me see. It is looking pretty black against you, we suggest, Sheem avick. You will need all the elements in the river to clean you over it all and a fortifine popespriestpower bull of attender to booth.

Let us pry. We thought, would and did. Cur, quicquid, ubi, quando, quomodo, quoties, quibus auxiliis? You were bred, fed, fostered and fattened from holy childhood up in this two easter island on the piejaw of hilarious heaven and roaring the other place (plunders to night of you, blunders what’s left of you, flash as flash can!) and now, forsooth, a nogger among the blankards of this dastard century, you have become of twosome twiminds forenenst gods, hidden and discovered, nay, condemned fool, anarch, egoarch, hiresiarch, you have reared your disunited king-dom on the vacuum of your own most intensely doubtful soul. Do you hold yourself then for some god in the manger, Sheho-hem, that you will neither serve not let serve, pray nor let pray? And here, pay the piety, must I too nerve myself to pray for the loss of selfrespect to equip me for the horrible necessity of scan-dalisang (my dear sisters, are you ready?) by sloughing off my hope and tremors while we all swin together in the pool of So-dom? I shall shiver for my purity while they will weepbig for your sins. Away with covered words, new Solemonities for old Badsheetbaths! That inharmonious detail, did you name it? Cold caldor! Gee! Victory! Now, opprobro of underslung pipes, johnjacobs, while yet an adolescent (what do I say?), while still puerile in your tubsuit with buttonlegs, you got a hand-some present of a selfraising syringe and twin feeders (you know, Monsieur Abgott, in your art of arts, to your cost as well as I do (and don’t try to hide it) the penals lots I am now poking at) and the wheeze sort of was you should (if you were as bould a stroke now as the curate that christened you, sonny douth-the-candle!) repopulate the land of your birth and count up your progeny by the hungered head and the angered thousand but you thwarted the wious pish of your cogodparents, soph, among countless occasions of failing (for, said you, I will elenchate), adding to the malice of your transgression, yes, and changing its nature, (you see I have read your theology for you) alternating the morosity of my delectations — a philtred love, trysting by tantrums, small peace in ppenmark — with sensibility, sponsibility, passi-bility and prostability, your lubbock’s other fear pleasures of a butler’s life, even extruding your strabismal apologia, when legibly depressed, upon defenceless paper and thereby adding to the already unhappiness of this our popeyed world, scribblative! — all that too with cantreds of countless catchaleens, the man-nish as many as the minneful, congested around and about you for acres and roods and poles or perches, thick as the fluctuant sands of Chalwador, accomplished women, indeed fully edu-canded, far from being old and rich behind their dream of arri — visme, if they have only their honour left, and not deterred by bad weather when consumed by amorous passion, struggling to pos-sess themselves of your boosh, one son of Sorge for all daughters of Anguish, solus cum sola sive cuncties cum omnibobs (I’d have been the best man for you, myself), mutely aying for hat natural knot, debituary vases or vessels preposterous, for what would not have cost you ten bolivars of collarwork or the price of one ping pang, just a lilt, let us trillt, of the oldest song in the wooed woodworld, (two-we! to-one!), accompanied by a plain gold band! Hail! Hail! Highbosomheaving Missmisstress Morna of the allsweetheartening bridemuredemeanour! Her eye’s so glad-some we’ll all take shares in the —— groom!

Sniffer of carrion, premature gravedigger, seeker of the nest of evil in the bosom of a good word, you, who sleep at our vigil and fast for our feast, you with your dislocated reason, have cutely foretold, a jophet in your own absence, by blind poring upon your many scalds and burns and blisters, impetiginous sore and pustules, by the auspices of that raven cloud, your shade, and by the auguries of rooks in parlament, death with every disaster, the dynamitisation of colleagues, the reducing of records to ashes, the levelling of all customs by blazes, the return of a lot of sweetempered gunpowdered didst unto dudst but it never stphruck your mudhead’s obtundity (O hell, here comes our funeral! O pest, I’ll miss the post!) that the more carrots you chop, the more turnips you slit, the more murphies you peel, the more onions you cry over, the more bullbeef you butch, the more mutton you crackerhack, the more potherbs you pound, the fiercer the fire and the longer your spoon and the harder you gruel with more grease to your elbow the merrier fumes your new Irish stew.

O, by the way, yes, another thing occurs to me. You let me tell you, with the utmost politeness, were very ordinarily designed, your birthwrong was, to fall in with Plan, as our nationals should, as all nationists must, and do a certain office (what, I will not tell you) in a certain holy office (nor will I say where) during certain agonising office hours (a clerical party all to yourself) from such a year to such an hour on such and such a date at so and so much a week pro anno (Guinness’s, may I remind, were just agulp for you, failing in which you might have taken the scales off boilers like any boskop of Yorek) and do your little thruppenny bit and thus earn from the nation true thanks, right here in our place of burden, your bourne of travail and ville of tares, where after a divine’s prodigence you drew the first watergasp in your life, from the crib where you once was bit to the crypt you’ll be twice as shy of, same as we, long of us, alone with the colt in the curner, where you were as popular as an armenial with the faithful, and you set fire to my tailcoat when I hold the paraffin smoker under yours (I hope that chimney’s clear) but, slackly shirking both your bullet and your billet, you beat it backwards like Boulanger from Galway (but he combed the grass against his stride) to sing us a song of alibi, (the cuthone call over the greybounding slowrolling amplyheaving metamorphoseous that oozy rocks parapangle their preposters with) nomad, mooner by lamplight, antinos, shemming amid everyone’s repressed laughter to conceal your scatchophily by mating, like a thorough-paste prosodite, masculine monosyllables of the same numerical mus, an Irish emigrant the wrong way out, sitting on your crooked sixpenny stile, an unfrillfrocked quackfriar, you (will you for the laugh of Scheekspair just help mine with the epithet?) semi-semitic serendipitist, you (thanks, I think that describes you) Europasianised Afferyank!