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[ Aetat. 27 ] J O Y C E277began to sing. 'Did you recognize that?' he asked James, who replied,'Yes, of course, it's the aria sung by Alfredo's father in Traviata.'* JohnJoyce said nothing more, but his son knew that peace had been made. 4Joyce was not long in seeking out Vincent Cosgrave, who thought him(as Joyce reported to Stanislaus) 'in splendid health.' 5Cosgrave quicklynotified Gogarty that Joyce was in town, and on July 29 Gogarty senthim a note inviting him to lunch in an almost supplicatory fashion: 'Docome if you can or will, I am looking forward to see you with pleasure.There are many things I would like to discuss and a plan or two to divertyou. You have not yet plumbed all the deeps of poetry. There is Broderickthe Bard! Of whom more anon.' 6He sent the note round with hisman and his motor, and asked Joyce to come at once for a talk. Joycewas either out or made excuses, for his firstmeeting with Gogarty tookplace accidentally in Merrion Square. He remained convinced of Gogarty'sbasic cruelty and hostility, manifested, he felt, long ago by histhreat to break Joyce's spirit by making him drink, and by his expulsionof Joyce from the tower. So in spite of the letters they had exchangedduring the intervening years, he now passed Gogarty without speaking. 7Gogarty ran after him, took him by the arm, and made a speech whichJoyce described to Stanislaus as long and confused. He looked Joyce overwith a medical eye and said, 'Jaysus, man, you're in phthisis.' He insistedthat Joyce come to his impressive house in Ely Place. 'He made me goin,' Joyce wrote his brother, 'and rambled on.' 8Joyce walked to the baywindow and looked out at the handsome garden, is this your revenge?'he inquired. 'Revenge on what?' asked Gogarty, puzzled. 'The public, ofcourse.' 9The implication was that Gogarty had pretended to embraceconventions he had once scornfully combatted.t But Gogarty continuedto try to win Joyce over. 'He invited me to go down to Enniskerry in hismotor and lunch with him and wife. I declined. I was very quiet andsober.' The sobriety was no doubt intended to remind Gogarty that Joyce'sspirit was unbroken. 'He offered me grog, wine, coffee, tea: but I tooknothing.' Joyce was unconcessive: 'To everything I said "You have yourlife. Leave me to mine." ' 10One source of Gogarty's goodwill was his anxiety over what Joyce intendedto write about him. 'He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that ofhis,' Joyce wrote in a notebook later, 11and used the phrase in Ulysses.The Irish fili used to strike terror by threatening to write satirical versesabout those who offended them, and Joyce's coolly announced intentionof describing the tower episode put Gogarty in some trepidation. In theend Gogarty said, 'blushing' (as Joyce noticed), 'Well do you really want'This aria is sung by Germont to his son when he discovers his son's beloved, Violetta,is dying: 'Don't torture me more . . . My soul is too eaten by remorse. Her words strikeme like lightning. Ah, foolish old man! Only now I see the harm I did.'t In Exiles (555 [389]) Richard recalls that he and Robert had once planned to make theirhouse 'the hearth of a new life.'