FINNEGANS WAKE

Protodrafts

Fair copy, November-December 1923, I.3 draft level 2

MS British Library 47472 120-132 Draft details

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Under rather a cloud indeed! Yet all they who heard or redelivered are now as much no more as were they not yet now or had they then not ever been. Of Hosty, quite a musical genius in a small way and |2possessed the owner2| of |2a an exceedingly2| nice ear, no end is known. O'Mara, somewhat depressed by things and short of cash at the time, is believed to have accepted the (Saxon) King's shilling at the conclusion of the Crimean war, enlisting under the gunname of Blanco Buckley |2after which he and Pump court saw each other no more for it seems that on the other side of the water he perished2|. Paul Horan, at the suggestion of the master in lunacy, became an inmate of an asylum in the northern counties. Sordid Sam passed away painlessly one hallowe'en night in a state of nature, propelled into the great beyond by footblows of his last mortal bedfellows, three Norwegians of the seafaring class. Shorty disappeared from the surface of his earth so entirely spoorlessly as to tickle the speculative to all but opine that it must have come to pass that this hobo man (who possessed a large amount of the humorous) had removed his latitatº to its interior. Again, was the reverend, the sodality director, that eupeptic viceflayer to whose pulpit sinning society sirens (vide the daily |2picture2| press) fortunately became so enthusiastically attached and was an objectionable ass who very occasionally wore a raffle ticket on his hat and was semiprivately convicted of malpractices with his tableknife that same cad with a pipe encountered by
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Humphrey Chimpden |2on that redletter morning |ain Maya|2|?

It is a well vouched for fact of the commonest knowledge that the shape of the average human face frequently alters with the passing of years. Hence it is no smooth matter to identify the individual in baggy pants with already an inclination in the direction of baldness who was asked by some broadfaced boardschool children over a wall to tell them that bedtime story. It was the Lord's day and the request was put to the party (a native of Ireland by his brogue which is said to have been average Dublin who had made the southeast bluffs of the sister isle his headquarters) as he paused for ten or fifteen minutes for a fragrant calabash during his weekend pastime of executing by cockshot with deadly accuracy empty bottles which had not very long before contained Reid's family stout. He rose to his feet and there in a quiet English garden |2where the joyshots rang no more2| his simple intensive language called up before the group of precocious caremakers the now |2to us2| mythical habiliments, |2the Humphrey's2| latitudinous hat, the four-in-hand bow, the gauntlet upon the hand which in an hour not for him solely evil had struck down |2the mighty mighthavebeen2| Destrelle |2of whom his nation seemed almost ready to be about to have need2|. Then in befitting words a bit duskish, flavoured
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with a smile seeing that his thoughts chiefly consisted of the cheery, he aptly sketched |2for our soontobe fathers and mothers2| the scene and, among lesser items of passing interest, the monolith rising stark from the twilit pinebarren, the angelus hour with ditchers bent upon their farm implements, the soft bell of the fallow doe advertising her milky approach as the hour was late and how brightly the great tribune outed his smokewallet and he he gives him a topping swank cheroot and he says he was to just bluggy well suck that brown boyo and spend a whole half hour in Havana. And says he: As sure as eggs is known to be what they commercially are in high British quarters my business credit will immediately stand open as straight as that neighbouring monument's fabrication before the hygienic globe (this was where the reverent sabbath bottlebreaker uncovered himself of his tir tricoloured boater, cordially inviting the adolescents whom he was wising up to do in like manner which all did so that he was able to add) globe before the great schoolmaster's eye.

The scene was never to be forgotten for later in the century one of that little band of factferreters (then an ex civil servant retired
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under the sixtyfive act) rehearsed it to a cousin of the late archdeacon |2F.X. Preserved2| Coppinger in a |2pullman pullwoman2| of our own transhibernian with one still sadder circumstance which is a prime heartskewer if ever was. For as often as the archdeacon spoke of it by request all hearing the cousin's description of that |2fellowtraveller's fellowcommuter's2| play of countenance could simply imagine themselves as |2oncetheywere2| seasiders listening to the cockshyshooter's evensong evocation of the doomed liberator, his |2manslayer's2| gunwielder protended towards the overgrown leadpencil which was soon monumentally to rise as Molyvdokondylon to be his mausoleum, while over his exculpatory features the ghost of resignation diffused a spectral appealingness similar in origin and in effect to a beam of sunshine upon a coffinplate.

Thus the data did we possess them are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude, the testifiers too untrustworthily irreperible, but certain one thing is that ere the following winter had turned the leaves of the book of nature the shadow of the huge outlander had bulked at the bar of thrice a hundred tribunals, in manor hall as in thieves' kitchen, here sentenced before trial with Jedburgh justice, there acquitted against evidence with benefit of clergy. Big, human, erring and forgivable the unforgettable shade looms up behind all the varied judgements of
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those unrecapturable days. Three soldiers

Three soldiers of the Coldstream guards were walking in Montgomery street. One voiced an opinion in which all concurred. It was the first woman, they said. He showed himself a man afterwards. One of our coming actresses (who has been called by a noted critic a vestpocket Siddons) was interviewed in a westend beauty parlour and said, while righting her cartwheel hat, she hoped he would get a Christmas pardon and two pound parcel because the world had been unkind. Then he has been so entirely wonderful, she added. A dustman named Sevenchurches in the employ of Bullwinkle and McTigue was asked the question during the midday repast in a hashhouse and replied: We have just been discussing this case. All our fellows say he is a thorough sport. A more than usually sober taxidriver, who was hosing his runabout, |2Ginger Jane2| took a strong view. He talked as he worked and this is what he told newspapermen: Earywigger is just a plain pink joint scoundrel in private life but folks |2say all have it2| he has parliamentary |2privilege honours2|. A railway barmaid's view was thus expressed: It would be a crying shame to jail him no matter what wrongdoing went on in consequence of him enjoying such weak health. Brian Linskey, the boy curserº was questioned and gave a snappy comeback, when saying: I am for caveman sex, curse it! Them two women ought to be strangled, curse them, I say! Missioner Ida Wombwell, the seventeen year old revivalist, said concerning the incident of interfering with fusiliers and other persons using the park: That man is a brute — but a magnificent brute. Sylvia Silence, the girl detective, when supplied with
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information as to the several facts of the case, in her cosy bachelor's flat overlooking John a Dream's mewsº leaned back in her really truly easychair to query restfully: Have you thought, reporter, that sheer greatness was his tragedy? Nevertheless according to my attitude he should pay the full penalty as per section eleven of the C.L.A. act 1885. A naval rating, seated on the granite setts of our new fishmarket in silent contemplation of a kit of plaice,was encouraged by his fiancée to speak and said: I lay two bob he was to blame about the two slaveys as he had his perfect right but I also think there was someone else behind it about the three drummers.º
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Can it be that so diversified outrages were planned and partly carried out against so staunch a covenanter if it is true that any of those recorded ever took place for many are given to us by some who handle the truth but sparingly and we ought to be sorry for |2them their pricking pens2| on that account. The city of refuge whither he had fled |2from the Eastmen's land2| to forget in expiating manslaughter, the |2wastobe2| land in which by the fourth commandment with promise his days apostolic were to be long, murmured, would rise againstº with all which in them were, do him hurt, poor jink, ghostly following bodily, as were he made a curse for them, the corruptible lay quick, all saints of incorruption of an holy nation, the common or back garden castaway in red resurrection of damnation, so they might convince him of their proper sins. Businessbred to a stiff upper lip |2for all men and most occasions,2| he took nothing short of good fighting chances but for all that he or his were subjected to the terror.

One tall man, humping a suspicious parcel, when returning late by the old spot had a barking revolver placed to his face by an unknown assailant (masked) against whom he had been jealous. More than that when the waylayer (not a Lucalizodite), mentioning that he had a loaded pistol which left only two alternatives as either
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he would surely shoot him or, failing of that, bash in his face beyond recognition, pointedly asked what business he had with the fender he was answered by the aggravated assaulted that that was for him to find out. But how transparently untrue! Six feet one is not |2a2| tall, not at all. Was it supposedly to explode or to force an entrance that the |2heavily built2| man in a butcherblue blouse from a men's wear store with a bottle of single stout in his possession, seized by the town guard in H.C.E.'s very gateway, was there in the gateway? How |2true truetoned2| on first time of hearing his statement that he had had a lot too much to drink and was only falling up against the |2gate gatepier which he took for a rubbingpost with only peaceable intentions2|. Yet how lamely proceeds his then explanation that he was merely trying to open the bottle of stout by hammering it against the gate for the boots in the place, Maurice Behan, who hastily threw on a pair of pants and came down in his socks without coat or collar, attracted by the noise of gunplay, said he was |2surprised2| safe in bed when wakened up out of the land of byelo by hearing hammering emanating from the gate. This battering all over the door and sideposts, he always said, was not in the very remotest like a bottle of stout which would not rouse him out of rest but far more like |2undue noise from foreign musical instruments or2| the overture to the last day, if anything.
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Notice a fellow who calls on his skirt. Note his sleek hair, so elegant, tableau vivant. He vows her to be his own honeylamb, swears they will be pals, by Sam, and share good times way down west in a |2guaranteed2| happy lovenest when May moon shines but that guy he's not so |2clean2| dippy between sweet you and I (not on your life, boy! not in these trousers! not by a large jugful!) for someplace on the sly that guy has his girl number two and he would like to canoodle her too some part of the time for he is downright fond of his own number one but O he's fair mashed on peachy number two so that if he could only canoodle the two all three wouldº genuinely happy, the two numbers, that is, with their mutual chappy (for he is simply shamming dippy) if they were afloat in a dreamlifeboat, his tippy canoe, his tippy up and down dippy tiptoptippy canoodle canyou. With this our friends the fender and the bottle at the gate seem on a parallel basis, bearing several of the earmarks of a plot for there is in fact no use putting a tooth on it a thing of that sort and the amount of that sort of thing which was going on |2among a certain set of individuals2| was simply stupendous.
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Whether or noº next morning |2the postman it was the postman's2| (officially called lettercarrier) |2handed in strange fate to hand in2| an envelope superscribed to Humpty, pot and gallows King. The coffin, at first sight naturally taken for a fender, had been removed from |2the2| hardware premises |2of Oetzmann and Nephews2|, a noted house of the middle east which, as an ordinary everyday transaction, continued to supply funeral requisites of every needed description. In the companion case, continuing, long Laddy Cummins, the guard and a conscientious scripturereader to boot, swore |2on the witness stand2| before the proper functionary that the butcher in the blouse after delivering some carcasses |2on behalf of Messrs Eastman, victuallers,2| went and kicked at the door and, when challenged about this on his solemn oath by the imputed, said simply: I am on my oath. You did, as I stressed before. You are deeply in error, sir, let me then tell you, denied MacPartland (the meatman's family name)º
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This outrage was thought to have been instigated by either or both of the rushy hollow heroines|2. It is a horrible thing to have to say2| but one shortly after drank carbolic with all her life before her while her sister-in-love, one day when doing chores that she stripped wellº soon found her fruitful hat too small for her and rapidly took to necking, partying and selling her spare time in the haymow and in lumber closets. But a very little thought should allow the facts to fall in and take up their due places. If violence to life, limb and chattels has as often as not been the expression, direct or through a male agent, of offended womanhood has not levy of blackmail from the rem farthest ages followed |2a whispered an impressive private2| reputation for |2strange whispered2| sins.

First, a gateway there was for one thing for the suroptimist had bought and enlarged that shack under fair rental of one yearly sheep, value of sixpence, and one small yearly pig, value of eightpence, to grow old and happy in for the remaining years and when everything was got up for the purpose he put a gate on the place |2by no means as some pretend a bedstead in lieu of a gate to keep out donkeys2| and just thenabouts the gate was locked on him on purpose by his faithful people to keep him inside in case he felt like sticking out his chest too far and tempting gracious providence by a stroll, unaccostomed as he was yet to being freely clodded. It ought to be always remembered in connection with what has gone before that there was a commercial stopping in the |2hotel Rum and Puncheon2| earlier than that and he missed six pounds fifteen and found his coat disturbed. The gate business was
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in fact a tissue of threats and abuse and after this sort. Humphrey's unsolicited visitor|2, after having blown some quaker oats |aina| through the keyhole to attract attention,2| promised through the gate outside which he was, first, that he would break his head for him, next, that he would break the gate over his head the same way he would crack a nut with a monkeywrench and, last of all, that he would give him his (Humphrey's) blood to drink. He demanded |2drink alcohol2| to begin with and then went on at a great rate abusing him from ten up to one in the afternoon without even a |2lunch luncheonette2| interval. Earwicker, longsuffering, under restraint in the sitting out corner of his conservatory, his thermos flask by his side, compiled a long list (now feared lost) to be kept on file of all the abusive names he was called (informer, old fruit, yellow whigger, wheatears, goldy goat, bogside beauty, York's porker, funnyface, white elephant, |2Dirty Butter, Ireland's Eighth Wonderful Wonder, Hoary Hairy Hoax, Big Bloody Murderer, Midnight Sunburst, Swad Puddlefoot,2| gouty ghibellino, loose Luther, muddle the plan, guineapig's bastard, boose in the bed, mister fatmeat) but did not otherwise respond beyond such sedentarity, though it was as easy as kisshands for him to reach for the hello grip and ring up Crumlin exchange, because, as he explained, touching his wounded feelings in the future, the dominican mission was on at the time and he thought it might reform him. The more than considerably unpleasant bullocky before he rang off
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off pegged a few stones all of a size but possibly his seeing the seriousness of what he might have done |2had he really carried out his terrible intention2| made him leave down the stones and, having sobered up a bit, |2he this backblocks boor2| left the scene after exhorting |2him Earwicker or Mr Earwicker2| to come outside out of that so as he could burst him all up or if he didn't he didn't know what he wouldn't do to him after which he proceeded in the direction of the deaf and dumb institution |2about ten or eleven minutes walk away2|.º