Máirín is to go back to college again? She’ll get on fine this time. Oh! She wasn’t sent home at all the last time; she came home of her own accord! The creature was homesick? You don’t know what she’s going to be? … A schoolmistress, I suppose … That’s all you heard about her? …
Pádraig has a lot of cattle on the land. More power to him! …
Tomás Inside has moved out of his own house? … The leaking roof shifted him … It should have shifted him a long time ago. That’s what he said: “By the docks, the drop was hitting me between my gob and my eye, no matter where in the house I moved the bed to. I think I’ll go rubbing shoulders with the gentry for the rest of my life” … He came to Pádraig’s house for two nights and then moved permanently into Nell’s? The land is left to Nell, so … You don’t know whether he signed it over to her or not. Only Mannion the Counsellor would know that! … It’s of no damn interest what you’ll know more exactly in a week’s time! It’s what you know now! … Tomás Inside said that: “Nell was much more good-natured than Caitríona. I prefer to stay in Nell’s where I’ll be rubbing shoulders with the gentry. None of the gentry go near Caitríona’s.” Tomás Inside’s blenny-head will make a fine sight indeed for gentry! … “The gentry have the best of tobacco and they have fine women around them.” That little pussface will soon give him his bellyful of women. If she feels any ailment coming on she’ll get the St. John’s Gospel from the priest and make Tomás Inside hit the road. A pity there isn’t some good soul above ground to alert the poor unfortunate! How the world has changed! Tomás Inside the grinner rubbing shoulders with the gentry …
Lord Cockton came fishing to Nell’s place every day this year. He was able to bring the car up to her door … The priest brings the car to her door too … Ababúna! Lord Cockton brought that bedraggled head out in the car … Brought her to Headland Harbour to take the air. He has little respect for his car, putting bitches like her into it …
The priest’s sister was up there fowling too. Was she wearing trousers or a dress, then? … Trousers … Herself and Lord Cockton were fowling together. Isn’t it a wonder the priest wouldn’t stop them! I suppose the same Lord Cockton is a black heretic. There was a lot of talk that she was going to marry the Wood of the Lake schoolmaster … Oh! Here we go! You’ll know exactly in a week’s time! We’ll have to get you permission to go back up above again for a week …
You think the marriage has been abandoned? I thought the Wood of the Lake master was a decent man and that he didn’t touch a drop … What did you say? My ears are stuffed … That she’s keeping company with Road-End’s son? That the priest’s sister is keeping company with Road-End’s son! By God, it’s a funny world! …
Road-End’s son warned Lord Cockton: not to go fowling with her any more unless he himself was there with them… Seáinín Liam’s son heard him say that to him …
What’s this? Where are you? … They’re carrying you off … They know now this isn’t your grave … God speed you, my friend! Even though you’re related to Big Brian you can speak pleasantly to a person. Not like that useless lump, Red-haired Tom …
6
— … Me giving a word for each pint to the Gaelic Enthusiast …
— … The Big Butcher often told me he had great regard for me on account of the regard his father had for my father …
— … And me down to my last shilling …
— I wonder is the Small Master down to his last shilling now …
— … “I laid an egg! I laid an egg! …”
— C’est l’histoire des poules, n’est-ce pas?
— … Honest, Dotie. My mind is extremely sluggish this past while. I am as much in need of culture as the head of corn is in need of sunlight. But there’s no culture at all here now. It’s a crying shame for the Big Master. When a person comes to the graveyard he should leave the futile pettiness of life above behind him and use his time to develop his mind. I often tell the Master that but it’s no use. He can’t talk of anything now but the Schoolmistress and Billyboy the Post. Something has to be done to rescue him. Honest, Dotie. We don’t have that many cultured people that we can afford to do without any one of them. He must be prevented from imitating Caitríona Pháidín’s scolding. Words like “bitch” and “hussy” and “snot-face” are forever on his lips now. Caitríona is a bad influence on him. That one belongs down in the Wastelands of the Half-Guinea …
— Mangy Nóirín …
— Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóróg …
— Yep, Dotie. I mean to go ahead on my own and found a cultural society. I think a lot can be done to improve the minds of the people here and to give breadth and scope to their cultural feelings. A wide range of subjects will be discussed, from political matters to communications, economics, science, learning, education, and so on. But they’ll be discussed in a proper and academic manner, irrespective of sex, race or religion. No one who’s accepted into the society will be hindered from expressing their views, and the only qualification for membership will be a love of culture …
— Do you think it was the yeast of culture germinating in me that made me take up the pot-hook and strike …
— De grâce, Dotie. “God forgives the big sins, but it is we who cannot forgive ourselves the little sins,” as Eustasia said to Mrs. Crookshank when they were fighting over Harry. We’ll aim to broadcast information about other aspects of life — foreign affairs in particular — and by so doing give various groups of people an understanding of each other. We’ll have debates regularly, lectures, soirées, Question Time, Symposium, a Prestigious Periodical, Colloquium, Discussion, Summer School, Weekends, and Information Please for the Half-Guinea Regions. This society will be a great asset to the cause of wide-ranging culture and peace. This type of society is called a Rotary. Cultured people such as the Earl are involved with the Rotary …
— And sailors …
— Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóróg …
— Yep, Dotie. I will. But that’s a good example of the sort of opinion that has to be obliterated by the shining light of the Rotary. Caitríona is not the only one who has a mind like that. If she were, one wouldn’t mind, but the perception is quite common. Sailors are an interesting group. Only a narrow uncultivated mind would criticize them …
— Only for those knives they have, Nóróg …
— De grâce, Dotie. That’s another perception that has to be abolished …
— Who else will be in Rotary, Nóróg?
— I’m not exactly sure yet. Yourself, Dotie. The Big Master. Peadar the Pub. Siúán the Shop …
— The poet …
— The devil pierce him, the cheeky brat …
— … But you haven’t read The Golden Stars, Nóróg?
— No infernal odds, old man! You won’t be accepted. Honest! You are decadent! …
— Bríd Terry should be admitted. She was at the pictures in Brightcity once …
— Faith then, I was there myself with the young fellow, the time we bought the colt …
— Hold on now. I’m a writer …
— You can’t be admitted. If you’re admitted we’ll rip the graveyard apart. You insulted Columkille.
— … It’s no use reading it. I won’t listen to your Setting of the Sun. Honest! I won’t … It’s no use pressing me: I won’t listen. I have a very liberal mind, but nevertheless a certain level of decorum has to be maintained … I’m a woman … I won’t. Honest! … You won’t be admitted. Your work is Joycean … You won’t change my mind. I’ll not listen to The Setting of the Sun. You have a low-down mind to have written a thing like that … You’re working on The Dream of the Dinosaur … I won’t listen. The Dream of the Dinosaur. A right Joycean galoot.12 You’re a very low specimen of humanity … You won’t be admitted till you learn every word of the Sixty-One Sermons off by heart …