1n6xZiV

[ Aetat. 21-22 ] J O Y C E 161mother; walking through the passage she stumbled over something andheard with astonishment its maudlin grunts. Hastily retreating she informedFrank and William Fay, the company's directors, of the presenceof the obstacle. They crowded in with candles and identified the prostrateform. After a slight scuffle Joyce was evicted and the door slammed andbolted behind him. From outside came the sound of his heavy ashplantbanging on the door and his voice shouting, 'Open the door at once,Fay. You can't keep us out of your bawdy house. We know you.' Thediminutive Fays, reinforced by George Roberts and Seumas O'Sullivan,opened the door and quietly informed Joyce that it was the refined MissEsposito who had stumbled into him. Joyce was put down a little, andRoberts, with the help of another actor, Dossie Wright, took him home. 46But as soon as he recovered his wits he revenged himself by a poem:O, there are two brothers, the Fays,Who are excellent players of plays,And, needless to mention, allMost unconventional,Filling the world with amaze.But I angered those brothers, the Fays,Whose ways are conventional ways,For I lay in my urineWhile ladies so pure inWhite petticoats ravished my gaze.J.A.J.* 47A second unsavory episode took place later that night or soon after. Joyce(not as yet committed to Nora Barnacle or to monogamy) spoke to ayoung woman in St. Stephen's Green, not realizing that she was accompanied.Her escort came forward and, while Cosgrave stood by hands inpockets, left Joyce, after a skirmish, with 'black eye, sprained wrist,sprained ankle, cut chin, cut hand.' 48Next day Joyce lamented to Curran,'For one role at least I seem unfit—that of man of honour.' 49Hedescribed to Gogarty how he had fallen, as he said, 'the second time' (thefirst being at birth into original sin), and had received the 'gift of an angrylover.' He added (in a parody of Yeats's 'The Folly of Being Comforted'),'And little shadows come about my eyes.' Drawing his bloodied handkerchieffrom his pocket, Joyce found an even more exalted comparison:'This reminds me of Veronica.' 50If Dublin report can be trusted, 51there was another aspect of the fracaswhich in retrospect became important. Joyce was said to have been dusted*The incident is recalled in Ulysses (217 [279]), where Joyce makes it occur before June16. Buck Mulligan chaffs Stephen, 'O, the night in the Camden Hall when the daughtersof Erin had to lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured,multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!' Stephen replies, The most innocent son of Erinfor whom they ever lifted them.'He was reconciled later to the Fays, and in 1926 W. G. Fay produced Exiles.