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[ Aetat. 39-40 ] J O Y C E 515does, anyhow. O rats! It's just a fool thing, style. I just shoot it off like: Ifhe aint done it, where's the use? Guess I'm through with that bunch.(With apologies to Mr Robert McAlmon)(Re-enter Hamlet)* 7 1During the spring of 1921 Valery Larbaud was an pccasional drinkingcompanion. Ernest Hemingway appeared, bearing a letter of introductionfrom Sherwood Anderson, who had met Joyce once or twice the previousyear; Samuel Roth, the future pirate of Ulysses, wrote to announce hishonest admiration. Sisley Huddleston was often about, but complainedto McAlmon that Joyce's conversation was dull and his jokes were damp. 72On a few occasions, however, even the blase Huddleston was pleased:one night at his house, a cantatrice was singing when a moth flewstraightfor her open mouth; she stopped suddenly, and Joyce broke the embarrassedsilence by murmuring, 'The desire of the moth for the star!' 73Wyndham Lewis was much in Paris and would often join Joyce at theGipsy Bar near the Pantheon or at a small cafe. Alcohol helped to makethem companionable, though they often disagreed. So, when Lewis objectedto the cathedral at Rouen because of its heavily encumbered facade,which he described as 'a fussy multiplication of accents, demonstratinga belief in the virtue of quantity,' and argued against Gothic for' "its scholasticism in stone": the dissolving of the solid shell,' Joyce remarkedthat he liked this multiplication of detail and added, 'As a matterof fact, I do something of that sort in words.' 74Or they would get oninevitably to national traits, Joyce insisting that the Irish and the Jewishdestinies were much alike. Lewis countered that the Irish were pugnacious.'Would you say they were pugnacious?' asked Joyce in suddenperplexity, 'of course, I know very little about them.' Lewis, unabashed,said", 'Yes.' 'That's not been my experience—,' Joyce said slowly andthoughtfully, 'a very gentle race.' 75As they sat at the cafe, Lewis invariably invited the same two localprostitutes to sit with them. The women were given plenty to drink, butotherwise received little attention. Once, when Lewis broke precedent bya lapse of decorum with one of them, Joyce solemnly called him toorder, 'Remember you are the author of The Ideal Giant.' The conductorof the little cafe orchestra interested Joyce, and he asked the older prostituteto tell him something about the man. She said curtly, '17 a quaranteans. II est vieux.' Joyce, nearing forty himself, said, 'Esf-ce quequarante ans est vieux?' Then he pedantically pointed out that for theRomans one was junior until fifty.As he became drunker he would quoteVerlaine or Dante and the girls listened to him with big eyes. 'Qu'est-cequ'il dit, le poete?' they asked Lewis. One night Lewis and Joyce knockedat the bar door after closing time and were asked to identify themselves.* That is, Joyce himself.