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i 6 o / A M E S [ 1904 ]but your voice. I am like a fool hearing you call me 'Dear.' I offended twomen today by leaving them coolly. I wanted to hear your voice, not theirs.When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous suspicious nature.I wish I felt your head over my shoulder now. I think I will go to bed.I have been a half-hour writing this thing. Will you write something tome? I hope you will. How am I to sign myself? I won't sign anything atall, because I don't know what to sign myself. 4415 August 1904.The constraint over his nickname was connected with a constraint oversaying he was in love. With his customary candor, he analyzed his symptomsminutely for the benefit of his friends who came incredulously toinspect them. His brother Stanislaus did not care for James in the role oflover or quasi-lover, jealous a little of Miss Barnacle's dominion, butalso disconcerted to find his brother, usually so unpredictable, actingmuch like other people. That such an ill-assorted match could prosperdid not strike him as likely, but James did not ask his advice. Joyce's mostintimate friend, Vincent Cosgrave, reacted differently. He did his best totake Nora away from Joyce, telling her Joyce's love wouldn't last and thatin any case the man was mad. (In Exiles Bertha wonders aloud if herhusband is not a little mad.)* But Nora paid scant attention, and Cosgravefelt humiliated by his role of unsuccessful rival. (He was soon tobe given the fictionalname of Lynch in A Portrait, because Lynch asmayor of Galway had hanged his own son, and in Ulysses Lynch playsthe role of Judas.) 'Poor Cosgrave!' said Nora to James, not altogetherdispleased by this second conquest. Joyce's affection floweredon this flattery,and he felt confirmed in his belief that she had an extraordinarysoul.Not, however, that his habits were immediately altered or his characterregenerated. He did not stop drinking. His most public exhibitionof drunkenness occurred, in fact, on June 20, four days after his memorablefirstevening with Nora. On this night he turned up at a rehearsalof the National Theatre Society, which was then meeting in a makeshifttheater, really a large storehouse behind a grocery shop in Camden Street.After closing time, this backroom, later to be dignified as the CamdenHall, could only be reached through a long narrow passage dimly lit bya gas jet. Joyce's visits were usually tolerated by the actors because hewould entertain them by singing in the breaks during rehearsal, and Hollowayrecords that Joyce had been present ten days before when Syngeannounced to the society that he had a new play ready for them, TheWell of the Saints. Synge's productivity probably encouraged Joyce to45demonstrate splenetically his continued contempt for the Irish theater,for he arrived so drunk on June 20 that he collapsed in the passageway.Just then Vera Esposito, who was one of the actresses, came out with her* Exiles (548 [384]).