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[ Aetat. 44-47 ]J O Y C E 607Box is a sure thing and that he has some splendid proposals from one ofthe three greatest publishing combines in Europe.With kindest regards,Sincerely yours,James Joyce 112His worries soon multiplied. A review of Anna Livia Plurabelle bySean O'Faolain in Eliot's Criterion bothered Joyce a good deal, perhapsin part because he wrongly suspected it might be a prelude to Eliot'sturning against his new work as Pound and Lewis had done. He took tohis bed, with his eyes inflamed again, and whiled away the hours duringwhich he was forbidden to work by learning Spanish from a tutor. ThenNora, whose health had been excellent for many years, was suddenlysuspected of having cancer, and the doctors recommended an operation.She went into the hospital, and Joyce, refusing to be separated from her,had a bed set up in her room so that he could stay there too. An exploratoryoperation on November 8, 1928, was followed by radium treatments;and when these were ineffective, Nora returned to the hospital inFebruary 1929, for a hysterectomy. Miss Weaver came to Paris to help,and Joyce again had a bed beside Nora's in the hospital during Februaryand most of March, when she was pronounced well. He depended uponNora to hold his life together by her loyalty and by her contempt for hisweaknesses. There was no one else to whom he spoke without deliberation.Between the two visits to the American Hospital, Joyce nursed his eyesand visited Dr. Borsch several times a week for pilocarpine treatment. Healso pursued a new idea, formed as a result of a luncheon he had hadwith H. G. Wells just before going to the hospital with Nora. It was theirfirst meeting and went unexpectedly well. He had impressed Wells, whoexpected to see 'a tall fierceaggressive man in a frieze overcoat carryinga heavy stick,' by being slender, frail, and rather supplicatory. Wells offeredto do what he could to aid this helpless creature with the ailingwife, and from the hospital Joyce energetically instructed Sylvia Beach tosend Wells all the issues of transition that contained Work in Progress.After an appropriate delay he asked Wells's help in persuading the publicto accept the new book. Wells refused most eloquently:Lou Pidou, Saint Mathieu,Grasse, A.M.Nov 23, 1928My dear Joyce,I've been studying you and thinking over you a lot. The outcome is thatI don't think I can do anything for the propaganda of your work. I've anenormous respect for your genius dating from your earliest books and I feelnow a great personal liking for you but you and I are set upon absolutely