Part 17 (1/2)

--Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

--O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.

--What are you singing?

--_La ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love's Old Sweet Song_.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater.

--Would you like the window open a little?

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

--What time is the funeral?

--Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper.

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking: rumpled, s.h.i.+ny sole.

--No: that book.

Other stocking. Her petticoat.

--It must have fell down, she said.

He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she p.r.o.nounces that right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orangekeyed chamberpot.

--Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the hairpin till she reached the word.

--Met him what? he asked.

--Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail.

--Metempsychosis?

--Yes. Who's he when he's at home?

--Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That means the transmigration of souls.

--O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes.

The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. h.e.l.lo. Ill.u.s.tration.

Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals.

Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we'll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man's soul after he dies. Dignam's soul...