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2l8 / A M E S [ 1905-1906 ]"This morning—strange to say, for it never happens to me—I hadn'ta cent. I went to the director and told him how things were. I asked himfor an advance on my pay. This time the keys of the safe weren't rusted(as they usually are), but the director refused, calling me a bottomlesswell. I told him to go and drown himself in it, and took myself off. Nowwhat am I to do? Wretch that I am. My wife is no good at anythingexcept producing babies and blowing bubbles. Fine then, we'll never dieof hunger; the Italian proverb says, "Children constitute wealth." That'sall very well, but Giorgio's feet are bursting through his shoes, and mywife goes on blowing bubbles. If I'm not careful, she'll follow up Georgethe First by unloading a second male successor for the dynasty. No, no,Nora, this game doesn't suit me. So long as there are bistros in Trieste,I'm afraid your man will have to pass his nights away from home, flappingaround like a rag in the breeze.'Italian literature begins with Dante and finisheswith Dante. That'smore than a little. In Dante dwells the whole spirit of the Renaissance. Ilove Dante almost as much as the Bible. He is my spiritual food, the restis ballast. I don't like Italian literature because the mentality of the degenerateItalian writers is dominated entirely by these four elementarythemes: beggared orphans and hungry people (will these Italians neverstop being hungry?), battlefields, cattle, and patriotism. Italians have astrange way of going through the gymnastics of patriotic ambition. Theywant to impose, by their fists,the recognition of their intellectual superiorityto other peoples. Humanism, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo,Titian, Michelangelo, Galileo: quite so, all very fine people. But I'veyet to findan Italian who was able to silence me by saying, "Shut up,you fool! The one immortal work for which the Italians are responsibleis the foundation of the Roman church." Why, even I declare that theRoman church is manifold in its bigness—big as a church and as . . .shall we say ... a whore. You could say no less of a hussy who offersherself among perfumes, songs, flowers,and music, sadly mourning insilken robes on a throne.' 10Here, in Chaplinesque caricature, are most of Joyce's central preoccupations:his financialneed, his family, his country, his irreligion, hislove of literature. Wives make cuckolds; Italy is, except for the church, afraud, and the church is an old whore; Ireland is horrible but unforgettable.His remarks are bitter, but they are also funny. It is easy to forget,in the midst of his descriptions of his troubles in letters, how repugnantto his personality 'Celtic' melancholy remained. There were long eveningsat home with the Francinis when Francini—a small man—wouldhoist himself into Giorgio's baby carriage and, with shrill cries, be wheeledwildly around the house by an equally tipsy Joyce while their consortsand Stanislaus looked on with patience and some amusement. 11Or Joycewould make off to a tavern kept by a Sicilian, who had a way of standingwith neck twisted and one foot up which made Joyce nickname him il