from “Nestor”
    

[...]
    
    Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their spooncase of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to all the gentiles: world without end.
    A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.
    —First, our little financial settlement, he said.
    He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid them carefully on the table.
    —Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.
    And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen’s embarrassed hand moved over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money, cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir’s turban, and this, the scallop of Saint James. An old pilgrim’s hoard, dead treasure, hollow shells.
    A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.
    —Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand. These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is for shillings, sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See.
    He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.
    —Three twelve, he said. I think you’ll find that’s right.
    —Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.
    —No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.
    Stephen’s hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket. Symbols soiled by greed and misery.
    —Don’t carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You’ll pull it out somewhere and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You’ll find them very handy.
    Answer something.
    —Mine would be often empty, Stephen said.
    The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times now. Three nooses round me here. Well. I can break them in this instant if I will.
    —Because you don’t save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don’t know yet what money is. Money is power, when you have lived as long as I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse.
    —Iago, Stephen murmured.
    He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man’s stare.
    —He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet but an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman’s mouth?
    The seas’ ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating.
    —That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets.
    —Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That’s not English. A French Celt said that. He tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.
    —I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I paid my way.
    Good man, good man.
    —I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel that? I owe nothing. Can you?
    Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties. Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings. Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob Reynolds, half a guinea, Kohler, three guineas, Mrs McKernan, five weeks’ board. The lump I have is useless.
    —For the moment, no, Stephen answered.
    Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox.
    —I knew you couldn’t, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it. We are a generous people but we must also be just.
    —I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.
    Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs: Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
    —You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connell’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.
    Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the planters’ covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie down.
    Stephen sketched a brief gesture.
    —I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are all Irish, all kings’ sons.
    —Alas, Stephen said.
    —Per vias rectas, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do so.

A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John. Soft day, your honour… Day… Day… Two topboots jog dangling on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra, lal the ral the raddy.
    —That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, with some of your literary friends: I have a letter here for the press. Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end.
    He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.
    —Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, the dictates of common sense. Just a moment.
    He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, some times blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.
    Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek heads poised in air: lord Hastings’ Repulse, the duke of Westminster’s Shotover, the duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris, 1866. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing King’s colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds.
    —Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this important question…
    Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of the canteen, over the motley slush. Even money Fair Rebel: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher’s dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.
    Shouts rang shrill from the boys’ playfield and a whirring whistle.
    Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother’s darling who seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, a shout of spear spikes baited with men’s bloodied guts.
    —Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.
    He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up.
    —I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It’s about the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions on the matter.
    May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of laissez faire which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue.
    —I don’t mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on.
    Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch’s preparation. Serum and virus. Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor’s horses at Mürzsteg, lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous offer a fair trial, Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the hospitality of your columns.
    —I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with the department. Now I’m going to try publicity. I am surrounded by difficulties, by… intrigues, by… backstairs influence, by…
    He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.
    —Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the signs of a nation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation’s vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction. Old England is dying.
    He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again.
    —Dying, he said, if not dead by now.

    His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which he halted.
    —A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or gentile, is he not?
    —They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the earth to this day.
    On the steps of the Paris Stock Exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabbles of geese. They swarmed loud, uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew the years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh.
    —Who has not? Stephen said.
    —What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.
    He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me.
    —History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
    From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal. What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?
    —The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.
    Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:
    —That is God.
    Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
    —What? Mr Deasy asked.
    —A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.
    Mr Deasy looked down and held for a while the wings of his nose tweaked between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free.
    —I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough’s wife and her leman O’Rourke, prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my days. But I will fight for the right till the end.