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[ Aetat. 38 ] J O Y C E 489in refuge from all that implied. Sylvia Beach had in November 1919opened a shop under the name of Shakespeare and Company at 8 rueDupuytren, later at 12 rue de l'Odeon, across the street from AdrienneMonnier's shop. The afternoon passed amiably enough. Joyce declinedto drink until evening, and so, after refusing various wines offered by hishost, turned his glass down. Ezra Pound jocularly collected all the winebottles and ranged them in front of the teetotaler, to the diversion of therest of the company, and to Joyce's embarrassment.Most of the company gathered around another guest, Julien Benda,who was denouncing to Adrienne Monnier her friends Valery, Claudel,and Gide, while she defended them with equal vigor. Joyce withdrew toanother room and was looking at a book when Sylvia Beach, half-diffident,half-daring, approached to ask, is this the great James Joyce?' 'JamesJoyce,' he responded, holding out his hand to be shaken. She expressedher admiration for his books, and he asked her what she did in Paris.When he heard the name of her bookstore, he smiled gently and wroteit down in a little notebook which he nearsightedly held close to his eyes.He promised to come to see her, and in fact arrived at her shop the nextday. He wore, she noticed, a dark blue serge suit, a black felt hat on theback of his head, and rather dirty tennis shoes, with a twirling cane contributingan incongruously dapper element to this costume. He explainedhis situation in Paris, and asked her help in finding a flat, which shegladly promised. He was short of money, he said, and thought he hadbetter give English lessons; would she let him know of anyone who wantedthem? She would. Before he left he borrowed Riders to the Sea from herlending library. 25Sylvia Beach was delighted with her visitor, and Joyceliked her intelligent sympathy and her willingness to help him with allher energy. She and Adrienne Monnier were to be his main sources ofinformation about French literature of the nineteen-twenties; 'He listenedto all they told him,' said Jean Paulhan, 'and never said a word.' 26SylviaBeach bustled endlessly about to help the tall, thin, myopic, languid manburdened with so many cares, whom she and Adrienne referred to inprivate by two names he had given himself, 'Melancholy Jesus' and'Crooked Jesus.' 27He became the chief luminary (not only in Paris butthe world) about whom the American and English customers of Shakespeareand Company had to be kept posted.Joyce waited impatiently for money from Pinker, who was supposed toobtain it from Huebsch, and from Quinn, who was paying for Ulysses ininstallments. There were no takers for the English lessons which in desperationhe had offered to give. 28Pound had a plan 'to get the Duchessof Marlborough to apply for the position vacated by MrsM.[cCormick],'Joyce wrote Stanislaus, with whom he corresponded occasionally, but it'fell through' because 'her bloody old father W. K. Vanderbilt died herein the next street to us the day before yesterday, very inconsiderately, Ithink.' 29Pound generously put whatever spare money he had into Joyce's