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262 J A M E S [ 1907-1909 ]The publication of Chamber Music brought no financialchange. Royaltieswere not to be paid until 300 copies were sold, and by July 24,1908, only 127 out of 507 were gone; by 1913 the number was still lessthan 200. But the Irish musician G. Molyneux Palmer wrote Joyce in39July 1909 to ask permission to set some of the lyrics to music, and Joyceslowly came to think better of them again. He liked Palmer's firstsettingsand urged him to continue, adding a rare note of explanation: 'The centralsong is XIV after which the movement is all downwards until XXXIVwhich is vitally the end of the book. XXXV and XXXVI are tailpiecesjust as I and III are preludes.' 40He was nevertheless discontented again with his life in Trieste. Havingfailed to persuade the Corriere della Sera to send him to Dublin, he tookan even less plausible notion into his head, and early in July wrote to theSouth Africa Colonisation Society for a position. 41They had no vacancy.He would probably have moved somewhere, whether to Afghanistan orTimbuctoo, if all movement had not suddenly become impossible. Thenew disaster was rheumatic fever, which afflicted him in mid-July, possibly,he suspected, as an aftermath of his carefree nights in Roman andTriestine gutters. 42He had to be put in the city hospital, and remainedthere into August. He was not fully recovered until well into September.Long afterwards he said that Nora had taken in washing to make endsmeet, but Stanislaus reported, probably more accurately, that the burdenof support shifted entirely to him and made the summer 'a hell' for him. 43Artifoni came to offer his solicitude, and promised Joyce the Scuola Berlitzwould pay the expenses of his illness. On the strength of this commitmentStanislaus borrowed heavily from the school, expecting the debtto be cancelled, but it was not. 44Some days after Joyce was hospitalized Nora's labor began, and shetoo went to the hospital. The baby was born on July 26 in the pauperward, 'almost born on the street,' as she admitted later. 4SIt was St. Anne'sday, and so, since Anne was also the name of Nora's mother, 46theyadded Anna to the first name of Lucia, the patron saint of eyesight,which Joyce had decided on earlier. When Nora left the hospital she wasgiven twenty crowns in charity. 47This child was to affect Joyce's lifemuch more deeply than he would have believed possible. But the immediatedisruption was serious enough: the household was in turmoil, Joycesick, Stanislaus surly, Nora weak and nursing, Lucia crying, Giorgiorambunctious.By the time Joyce had recovered, Artifoni had leased the Scuola Berlitzto two of its employees, a French and a German teacher, and hadalso made over Stanislaus's debt to them, much to his indignation. Joycedecided at once that the new management would not suit him, and leftthe school without notice. 48For several years he had meditated givingprivate lessons, and he now offered them at ten crowns a lesson ($2.00,8/—). This was seven crowns more than Artifoni would have turned back