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558 / A M E S [1923-1926]mornings a wealthy woman was holding private Henry Purcell concerts,and persuaded Antheil to enter with him uninvited. They had a carefullyprepared scenario, devised by Joyce, of what each would say to the attendantat the door. But at the third concert, Antheil bragged later, thehostess noticed and encouraged them to leave.Antheil concocted a magnificent plan for an electric opera which woulduse the Cyclops episode of Ulysses as libretto. As Al Laney of the NewYork Herald of Paris describes it, 14the opera was to have for orchestratwelve electric pianos hooked to a thirteenth which played the masterroll; on this would be recorded also drums, steel xylophones, and variousblare instruments. The score was to be run off at top speed, with crescendosand diminuendos achieved by switching pianos on and off. The singers,seated below the stage and out of sight, would sing into microphonesattached to loud speakers on the stage, and a corps de ballet would presentthe action in pantomime. The idea fascinated Joyce, but Antheil disappointedhim by turning to other work.During October 1923, Joyce and John Quinn met for the firsttime.The encounter had been carefully arranged, with an eye to future patronage,by Ezra Pound, who had also issued an invitation to Ford MadoxFord. A few minutes before Quinn's arrival Natalie Barney dropped infor a visit, but was hastily put to flight. 15When the four men were atlast gathered, a photograph was taken which showed Quinn severe, Fordagape, Pound sinister, Joyce relaxed and opaque. Joyce's attitude towardthe New York lawyer was skeptical: he had never wholly accepted Quinn'spractical methods in the Little Review case, feeling that a chance for abrilliant defense of his book had been muffed, and he now began toregret the price at which he had sold Quinn the Ulysses manuscript.These feelings were not allayed when Quinn announced he would disposeof his whole collection at auction the following winter. He offeredto turn over to Joyce half the expected purchase price for his manuscript,which he estimated at $2000—a sum that seemed to the author far toolow. Joyce maintained an 'unenthusiastic silence,' but to indicate he hadno ill will, offered to read Quinn parts of his new book. Quinn said hewas pressed for time, but promised to return next summer to hear them. 16The Pounds had invited other guests for later in the day, Hemingwayamong them. While Hemingway shadowboxed in another room, Fordtook Joyce aside and asked him to contribute something to the new transatlanticreview, a monthly edited by Ford which was to appear for thefirst time in January 1924. Ford said that the review's backers had stipulatedat firstthat no work by Joyce be published in it, but had given waywhen he refused to undertake the editorship with that condition. 17Joycesaid ironically that it was a pity Ford had not been in time to ask Proustfor a contribution, i have been told,' he said, 'that a single sentence ofProust would fill a whole magazine. Not that I have read any of him tospeak of. My eyes won't let me read any work of other people; I can