into.”
“You can get rid of him before then,” said Celia.
“That is not possible,” said Murphy.
“Then I’ll bring it round,” said Celia.
“You mustn’t do that,” said Murphy.
“Why don’t you want to see me?” said Celia.
“How often have I to tell you,” said Murphy, “I—”
“Listen to me,” said Celia. “I don’t believe in your funny old chap. There isn’t any such animal.”
Murphy said nothing. The self that he tried to love was tired.
“I’ll be with you at nine,” said Celia, “and I’ll have it with me. If you’re not there—”
“Yes,” said Murphy. “Suppose I have to go out?”
“Goodbye.”
He listened for a little to the dead line, he dropped the receiver on the floor, he fastened his hand back to the strut, he worked up the chair. Slowly he felt better, astir in his mind, in the freedom ofthat light and dark that did not clash, nor alternate, nor fade nor lighten except to their communion, as described in section six. The rock got faster and faster, shorter and shorter, the iridescence was gone, the cry in the mew was gone, soon his body would be quiet. Most things under the moon got slower and slower and then stopped, a rock got faster and faster and then stopped. Soon his body would be quiet, soon he would be free.
2
Age.
Unimportant.
Head.
Small and round
Eyes.
Green.
Complexion.
White.
Hair.
Yellow.
Features.
Mobile.
Neck.
13¾″.
Upper arm.
11″.
Forearm.
9½″.
Wrist.
6″.
Bust.
34″.
Waist.
27″.
Hips, etc.
35″.
Thigh.
21¾″.
Knee.
13¾″.
Calf.
13″.
Ankle.
8¼″.
Instep.
Unimportant.
Height.
5′ 4″.
Weight.
123 lbs.
She stormed away from the callbox, accompanied delightedly by her hips, etc. The fiery darts encompassing her about of the amorously disposed were quenched as tow. She entered the saloon bar of a Chef and Brewer and had a sandwich of prawn and tomato and a dock glass of white port off the zinc. She then made her way rapidly on foot, followed by four football pool collectors at four shillings in the pound commission, to the apartment in Tyburnia of her paternal grandfather, Mr. Willoughby Kelly. She kept nothing from Mr. Kelly except what she thought might give him pain, i.e. next to nothing.
She had left Ireland at the age of four.
Mr. Kelly’s face was narrow and profoundly seamed with a lifetime of dingy, stingy repose. Just as all hope seemed lost it burst into a fine bulb of skull, unobscured by hair. Yet a little while and his brain-body ratio would have sunk to that of a small bird. He lay back in bed, doing nothing, unless an occasional pluck at the counterpane be entered to his credit.
“You are all I have in the world,” said Celia.
Mr. Kelly nestled.
“You,” said Celia, “and possibly Murphy.”
Mr. Kelly started up in the bed. His eyes could not very well protrude, so deeply were they imbedded, but they could open, and this they did.
“I have not spoken to you of Murphy,” said Celia, “because I thought it might give you pain.”
“Pain my rump,” said Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kelly fell back in the bed, which closed his eyes, as though he were a doll. He desired Celia to sit down, but she preferred to pace to and fro, clasping and unclasping her hands, in the usual manner. The friendship of a pair of hands.
Celia’s account, expurgated, accelerated, improved and reduced, of how she came to have to speak of Murphy, gives the following.
When her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Quentin Kelly died, which they did clinging warmly to their respective partners in the ill-fated Morro Castle, Celia, being an only child, went on the street. While this was a step to which Mr. Willoughby Kelly could not whole-heartedly subscribe, yet he did not attempt to dissuade her. She was a good girl, she would do well.
It was on the street, the previous midsummer’s night, the sun being then in the Crab, that she met Murphy. She had turned out of Edith Grove into Cremorne Road, intending to refresh herself with a smell of the Reach and then return by Lot’s Road, when chancing to glance to her right she saw, motionless in the mouth of Stadium Street, considering alternately the sky and a sheet of paper, a man. Murphy.
“But I beseech you,” said Mr. Kelly, “be less beastly circumstantial. The junction for example of Edith Grove, Cremorne Road and Stadium Street, is indifferent to me. Get up to your man.”
She halted—“Get away!” said Mr. Kelly—set herself off in the line that his eyes must take on their next declension and waited. When his head moved at last, it was to fall with such abandon on his breast that he caught and lost sight of her simultaneously. He did not immediately hoist it back to the level at which she could be assessed in comfort, but occupied himself with his sheet. If on his eyes’ way back to the eternities she were still in position, he would bid them stay and assess her.
“How
