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556 / A M E S [1923-1926]Weaver, this time of £12,000, making £21,000 in all that she had so fargiven to Joyce. He wrote to her on July 5,Your extraordinary munificence to me and especially the manner inwhich it is conferred are, I imagine, unique in the history of literature.Your new gift to me of such a huge sum reduces me to a state of stupor.But this is also partly on account of the whirligig my head is in. Out ofthat of course I shall find my own way but how impossible the task wouldbe but for your generosity! Well, I shall go forward in my own stumblingfashion, stumbling and bumping into importunate objects and hope toarrive at the next full stop in the semblance of a human creature still. 8When in August the Joyces returned to Paris, they were able to stay thistime at a better lodging, the Victoria Palace Hotel at 6 rue Blaise Desgoffes.On September 17, Joyce, now flat-hunting,wrote her that 'Thewild hunt still continues in the Paris jungle, stampede of omnibuses andtrumpets of taxi-elephants etc and in this caravanserei peopled by Americanloudspeakers I compose ridiculous prose writing on a green suitcasewhich I bought in Bognor.' 9His children, though they rarely figureinhis correspondence, were equally dislocated. Lucia was transferred fromschool to school, as later from career to career.* Giorgio worked in theBanque Nationale du Credit on the corner of the Rue Lafitte and theGrands Boulevards, but disliked the long tedious hours, and eventually,like his father before him, gave up banking as a career. (His father alwayssought Giorgio's financialadvice, however, because of this brief experience.)He decided to embark seriously on a singing career instead, asfriends who admired his bass voice had often suggested. He thereforeentered the Schola Cantorum where he studied for several years. Joycewas pleased and suggested to Ezra Pound, whose opera Villon was soonto be performed, that Giorgio sing in it; but this plan fell through.At the Schola Cantorum, Giorgio, or George (as he now preferred tobe called) made friends with Arthur Laubenstein, a young American organistwho at firstannoyed him by not recognizing the name of Joyce.Laubenstein began to coach him and eventually was brought into thefamily circle. Joyce found the young man agreeable, and took to conversingwith him about his favorite subjects, which at that moment wereastronomy and the Jesuits, on neither of which Laubenstein had muchinformation. Joyce would question him, too, about elements in theEpiscopal liturgy, or note down some American expressions, such as 'Hell'sbells,' 'Sufferin' bald-headed Moses,' or 'Adam and Eve on a raft' (forpoached eggs on toast), which he declared he would make use of. Theymet as often as three evenings a week, and on subsequent nights Joyce* In the summer of 1923 Lucia went to a summer camp north of Paris with a friend,Helen Kieffer, daughter of John Quinn's law partner. One day King Alfonso of Spainpaid the camp a visit, and all the girls were presented to him. Joyce said jokingly thatthis momentary encounter had turned Lucia's head, and referred in Finnegans Wake(304) to 'the glorifires of being presainted maid to majesty.'