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[ Aetat. 24-25 ] J O Y C E 229the shame of being the last in Europe." ' 27The quotation did not winthe official over. Once Joyce had a more legitimate tantrum: a cab-driverwho was whipping his horse accidentally caught Giorgio just under theeye with the end of his lash, and raised a welt which did not disappearfor some days. But most of Joyce's anger was born of impatience, as whenon December 3 he declared the 'chief pastime and joke' of Henry James's'subtle Romans' to be 'the breaking of wind rereward. . . . However, itis an expletive which I am reserving for the day when I leave the eternalcity as my farewell and adieu to it.'* 28This was his firsthint that hewould not stay in Rome, and his attacks on the city became quickly moreand more virulent. Four days later he remarked, i am damnably sick ofItaly, Italian and Italians, outrageously, illogically sick.' He went ongrudgingly, i hate to think that Italians ever did anything in the way ofart. But I suppose they did.' Then, as if he had conceded too much, hewrote in the margin, 'What did they do but illustrate a page or so of theNew Testament!' 29 He was weary of their 'bello and 'bellezza,'' t 30 andcarried on his irritation to Ulysses, where Bloom, on hearing some cabmentalk Italian, comments on their 'beautiful language' and 'Bella Poetria,'t 32only to be assured by Stephen that they were haggling obscenelyover money. When Stanislaus took James to task for his blanket repudiationof Italy, he retorted, 'Do you imagine you are corresponding withthe indifferential calculus that you object to my vituperation on Italy andRome. What the hell else would I do?' 33Joyce blamed Rome not only for his material insecurity but for hisfailure to write anything. He did, however, revise the two stories in Dublinerswhich he considered weakest, 'A Painful Case' and 'After the Race,'near the beginning of his Roman sojourn, in August, and in Novemberhe went to the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele to check the details of theVatican Council of 1870 which he had used in 'Grace.' He sent Stanislausthis version of what he had found out: 'Before the finalproclamationmany of the clerics left Rome as a protest. At the proclamation when thedogma [of papal infallibility] was read out the Pope said "Is that all right,gents?" All the gents said "Placet" but two said "Non placet." But thePope "You be damned! Kissmearse! I'm infallible!" ' 34The story 'Grace'employed the tripartite division of the Divine Comedy, beginning withthe Inferno of a Dublin bar, proceeding to the Purgatorio of a drunkard'sconvalescence, and ending in the Paradiso of a highly secularized Dublinchurch. 35He proceeded from that to conceive of another story with amock-heroic, mythic background, 'The Last Supper,' to deal with Joe* In fact, he reserved it for the end of the Sirens episode, where the rhetorical, patrioticlast words of Emmet's speech in the dock have a carminative effect upon Bloom,t Yet once, hearing for the first time the famous Neapolitan song, 'Guard'u mare comebello,' played by a man on a barrel organ, Joyce followed him for hours through theRoman streets."X A humorous corruption oi'poesia' (poetry), perhaps by blending with 'porcheria' (filth).