— … A bald-faced mare. She was the best. It was no bother to her to pull a ton and a half …
— … By the oak of this coffin, Nóra Sheáinín, I gave Caitríona the pound …
— … “Mártan Sheáin Mhóir had a daughter
And she was as broad as any man
She’d stand away up on a height …”
— … Oh! To hell with your England and her markets. Worried you are about the few pence you have in the bank. Hitler is my darling! …
— … Now Cóilí, I am a writer. I have read fifty books for every book you have read. I’ll have the law on you, Cóilí, if you suggest that I’m not a writer. Did you read my last book, The Jellyfish’s Vision? … You did not, Cóilí? … I beg your pardon, Cóilí. I’m very sorry. I had forgotten that you cannot read … It is a mighty powerful story, Cóilí … And I have three and a half novels, two and a half plays and nine and a half translations sent to An Gúm,18 and another short story and a half, The Setting Sun. It is my greatest regret that The Setting Sun was not in print before I died …
If you intend to take up writing, Cóilí, remember that it is taboo for An Gúm to publish anything that a daughter would hide from her father … I beg your pardon, Cóilí. I am sorry. I thought you intended to write. But for fear you should ever experience that divine urge … There is not a single Irish speaker who does not feel it at some time of life … The elements on these western shores are to blame, they say … I’ll give you a few bits of advice. Now, Cóilí, don’t be unmannerly. It is a moral obligation on every Irish speaker to find out if he has the gift of writing, especially the gift of short-story writing, of drama and of poetry … These last two gifts are much commoner even than the gift of short-story writing, Cóilí. Poetry, for example. All you have to do is start writing from the bottom of the page up … or else start writing from right to left, but that is not nearly as poetic as the other way …
I beg your pardon, Cóilí. I am extremely sorry. I forgot that you cannot read or write … But the short story, Cóilí … I will explain it to you like this. You have drunk a pint of porter, have you not? … Indeed, I understand … You often drank a pint of porter … Never mind how many you drank, Cóilí …
— I drank two score pints and two, one after the other …
— I know that … Wait a minute now … Good man! Let me speak … Cóilí, have an ounce of sense and let me speak … You have seen the head on a pint of porter. Froth, is it not? Worthless dirty froth. And yet, the more of it there is the greedier people are for the pint. And when a person is gulping the pint he’ll drink it dregs and all, insipid though it be. Do you see now, Cóilí, the beginning and middle and end of the short story? … Mind you don’t forget, Cóilí, that the end must leave a bitter taste in your mouth, the taste of the divine hangover, the urge to steal fire from the gods, the longing for another bite at the forbidden fruit … Look at the way I would have ended The Re-Setting Sun, which I was working on when I dropped dead with a spasm of writer’s cramp:
“After the girl had uttered that fateful word, he turned on his heel and went out of the stuffy room into the evening air. The western sky was darkened by thick clouds pressing in from the sea. And a little hang-dog sun was going to ground behind Old Village Hill …” That is the tour de force, Cóilí: “little hang-dog sun going to ground”; and I may as well remind you that after the last word the final line must be generously sprinkled with dots, writer’s dots as I call them … But perhaps you would have the patience, Cóilí, to listen while I read you the whole work …
— Hold on now, my good man. I’ll tell you a story: “Long long ago there were three men …”
— Cóilí! Cóilí! There’s no artistry in that story: “Long long ago there were three men …” That’s a hackneyed beginning … Now, Cóilí, hold on a minute. Allow me to speak. I consider myself a writer …
— Shut your mouth, you windbag. Go ahead, Cóilí …
—“Long long ago, and a long time ago it was, there were three men. There were three men long ago …”
— Yes, Cóilí …
—“There were three men long ago … Indeed there were three men long ago. Apart from that, we don’t know what became of them …”
— … “And by my book,19 Jack the Scológ20 …”
— … Five times eleven is fifty-five; five times thirteen … five times thirteen … we don’t learn that one at all … Now then, Master, don’t I remember them! … Five times seven, is that your question, Master? Five times seven is it? … five times seven … seven … hold on a tick now … five times one is five …
6
— … But I don’t understand it, Muraed. Honest Engine,21 I don’t. She gave me a bad name with the Big Master, Caitríona Pháidín did. I wouldn’t mind but I never did anything to deserve it. You well know, Muraed, I never interfere in anybody’s business, being always busy with culture. And I have a fine flashy cross over me too. Smashing, as the Big Master says. To insult me, Muraed! …
— It’s time you were well used to Caitríona’s tongue, Nóra Sheáinín …
— But honest, Muraed …
— … “Like an eel in a net Caitríona was set
To grab by the hair Nóra Sheáinín.”
— But she’s forever getting at me, time after time. I don’t understand it. Honest …
— … “Ere the morning grew old Nóra Sheáinín came over,
Into Tríona she tore in the guise of a shark …”
— “My fine gentle daughter, if she married your Pádraig,
Her dowry put order and shape on your shack …”
— “Caitríona, you’re shameless, you’re mean and outrageous,
You tried to defame me and ruin my name …”
— … Her lies, Muraed! Honest to God! I wonder what she said to Dotie … Dotie! … Dotie! … What did Caitríona Pháidín say to you about me? …
— God bless us and save us forever and ever. I don’t know who ye are at all. Isn’t it a pity they didn’t take my earthly remains back east of Brightcity and lay me down with my own people in Temple Brennan, on the fair plains of East Galway …
— Dotie! I told you before, that sort of talk is “sentimental drivel.” What did Caitríona say? …
— She said the most vindictive thing I’ve ever heard, about her own sister Nell. “May no corpse come into the graveyard ahead of her!” she said. You wouldn’t hear talk like that on the fair plains of East Galway …
— Dotie! But what did she say about me? …
— About your daughter …
— … “She had no bodice or a wedding garment
But what I bought her from out my purse …”
— She said you were of the Filthy-Feet Breed and infested with fleas …
— Dotie! De grâce …
— That sailors used to be …
— Parlez-vous français, Madame, Mademoiselle …
— Au revoir! Au revoir! …
— Mais c’est splendide. Je ne savais pas qu’il y avait une …
— Au revoir. Honest, Muraed, if Dotie didn’t know me she’d have believed those lies … Dotie! “Sentimentality” again. You are my fellow-navigator on the boundless sea of culture, Dotie. You should be able to filter every misjudgement and every prejudice out of your mind, as Clicks put it in Two Men and a Powder-puff …