THERE was no
hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed
the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and
night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly.
If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the
darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse.
He had often said to me: "I am not long for this world," and I had
thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at
the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded
strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it
sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me
with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly
work.
Old Cotter was
sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt
was serving my stirabout
he said, as if returning to some former remark of his:
"No, I
wouldn't say he was exactly... but there was something queer... there was
something strange about him. I'll tell you my opinion...."
He began to puff
at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tiresome old fool!
When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and
worms; but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the
distillery.
"I have my
own theory about it," he said. "I think it was one of those... peculiar
cases.... But it's hard to say...."
James Joyce, 1915 |
He began to puff
again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and
said to me:
"Well, so
your old friend is gone, you'll be sorry to hear."
"Who?"
said I.
"Father
Flynn."
"Is he
dead?"
"Mr. Cotter
here has just told us. He was passing by the house."
I knew that I
was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested
me. My uncle explained to old Cotter.
"The
youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind
you; and they say he had a great wish for him."
"God have
mercy on his soul," said my aunt piously.
Old Cotter
looked at me for a while. I felt that his little small black eyes were
examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He
returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the fireplace.
"I wouldn't
like children of mine," he said, "to have too much to say to a man
like that."
"How do you
mean, Mr. Cotter?" asked my aunt.
"What I
mean is," said old Cotter, "it's bad for children. My idea is: let a
young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be... Am I
right, Jack?"
"That's my
principle, too," said my uncle. "Let him learn to box his corner.
That's what I'm always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. Why, when I was
a boy every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that's
what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large.... Mr. Cotter
might take a pick of that leg mutton," he added to my aunt.
"No, no,
not for me," said old Cotter.
My aunt brought
the dish from the safe and put it on the table.
"But why do
you think it's not good for children, Mr. Cotter?" she asked.
"It's bad
for children," said old Cotter, "because their minds are so impressionable.
When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect...."
I crammed my
mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old
red-nosed imbecile!...
Vocabulary
Gnomon: The
geometric figure that remains after a parallelogram has been removed.
Euclid: (fl. 300
BC), also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often
referred to as the "Father of Geometry".
Simony: It is
the act of selling church offices and roles.
Stirabout: a
kind of porridge orginally made in Ireland.
Rosicrucianism:
a philosophical secret society said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by
Christian Rosenkreuz.
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