FINNEGANS WAKE

Protodrafts

3rd fair copy, August 1923, II.4§1 (FH V) draft level 2

MS British Library 47481 97-98 Draft details

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As slow their ship, the sea being slight, upon the face of waters moved by courtesy of God that handsome brineburnt sixfooter Gaelic, rugger and soccer champion and the dinkum belle of Lucalizod quite charming in her oceanblue brocade and an overdress of net darned with gold well in advance of the newest fashion exhibits bunnyhugged scrumptiously in when it was dark whilst they dissimulated themself on the eighteen inch loveseat behind the chieftaness stewardess's cabin whilst also with sinister dexterity he alternately rightandlefthandled fore and aft, on and offside her palpable rugby and association bulbs. She, after a cough, murmurously then gave her firm order for tootsweet if he wouldn't please mind some but though not too much of the |2six2| best national poetry quotations reflecting on the situation,º so long as it was a stroke or two above it's a fine night and yon moon shines bright and all to that, the plain fact of the matter being that being a natural born lover of nature in all her moods and senses by the light of the moon, of the silvery moonº she longed to spoon before her honeyoldmoon at the same time drinking in long draughts of purest air serene and revelling in the great outdoors. That mouth of mandibles vowed to pure beauty promptly elocutionised to her a favourite lyrical bloom bellclear in iambic decasyllabic hexameter:

— Rollon thoudeep anddark blueo ceanroll!

|2Lord Lady2|, it was just too gorgeous for words, the whole sensation. The sea, of a lovely tint embellished by the best charms of nature, with its wellmannered wavelets (the |2dirty2| horrid rude ones from the Belfast and Lagan Lough neighbourhood being very properly locked up in cubbyhole) looked really awfully pretty at the mid hour of night and more especially he being emphatically the right man in the right place, the weather conditions could not possibly have been improved upon. Praises be to fair sea. Her rôle was to roll onthedark blueo ceanroll that rolled on round the round roll that Robert Roly rolled round. Breathtaking beauty, Ireland's bonniest,
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she did but gaze while from his altitude of one yard onehundredandthirtytwo lines his deepseapeepers gazed O gazed O dazedcrazedgazed into her darkblue rolling ocean orbs.

— Thanks ever so much, she |2said sighed2|, thrilled by that olive throb of his |2throat nude neck2|, |2and ever so much again2| for that tiny quote. It |2sort of2| made everything ever so much more delightful. How |2perfectly2| sweet of you!

Nothing if not amorous, he, rosecrumpler, thrilldriver, |2sighinspirer,2| having prealably dephlegmatised his guttur of that ticklish frog in the throat, his useful arm getting busy on the touchline due south of her western shoulder, uttered what was to follow with grand passion from his toploftical voicebox:

— Isolde!

By elevation of eyelids t'ward her dear coolun that She invoked insinuated desideration of his more declaration.

He was instant and he declared:

— Isolde! O Isolde! Sister soul and hand! When theeuponthus |2sir2| Tristan |2oculises binoculises2| his most unwitting ego most subconsciously senses the deprofundity of multimathematical immaterialities whereby in the pancosmic urge the allimmanence of That Which Itself is Itself Alone exteriorates on this here our plane in disunited solid, liquid and gaseous bodies in pearlwhite passionpanting intuitions of reunited selfhood in the higherdimensional selfless Allself.

Hear, O hear, all ye caller herring! Silent be, O Moyle! Milky Way, strew dim light!

Right here a pretty thing happened. When her flattering hand of pure diversion mayhap had jessaminely at the just right moment shut his duckhouse the vivid girlº deaf with love, (You know her, that angel being, one of passion's fadeless wonderwomen! You dote on her! You love her to death!) with a queer little cry reunited milkymouthily his her |2and |anow thena|2| their disunited lips when tonguetasting the golden opportunity of a lifetime quick as greased pigskin the Armorican champion with one virile tonguethrust drove the advance messenger of love flash past the double line of |2ivoryclad eburnean2| forwards rightjingbangshot into the goal of her gullet.
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Now, I am just putting it direct to you as one manowoman to another, what the blankety blank diggings do you for example candidly suppose that she, a strapping young |2modern2| old |2ancient2| Irish princess, a good eighteen hands high and scaling nine stone twelve paddock weight in her madapolam smock with nothing under her hat but red hair and solid ivory not forgetting a firstrate pair of bedroom eyes of the most unholy hazel cared at that precise psychoanalytical moment about tiresome old King Mark that tiresome old milkless ram with his duty peck and his bronchial |2troubles tubes2|, the tiresome old ourangoutan beaver in his tiresome old twentytwoandsixpenny shepherd's plaid trousers? Not as much as a pinch of henshit and that's the meanest thing now was ever known since Adam was in the boy's navy. No, heaven knows, far from it, if the unvarnished truth must be told at the very first blush lovingly she lovegulped her American's pulpous propeller and both together in the most fashionable weather they all went off a lulliloving a dither me die me dandy O after which, believing in safety first, before the regulation ten seconds were up volatile Brittany considerately allowed his farfamed sparking plug chokegrip to relax and precautiously withdrew the instrument of rational speech from the procathedral of amorous seductiveness.

— I'm right glad I ran on to you, Tris, you fascinator you! |2said she Miss Erin said2|, when she had won free, laughing at the same time delightfully in dimpling bliss, being awfully bucked by her gratifying experience of the love embrace from a highly continental bigtimer |2the2| like |2of2| him possessed of a handsome face well worth watching with an interesting tallow complexion from which great things veryº expected as a film star for she fully realised that he was evidently a notoriety in the poetry department as well for he never saw her |2to2| drink an
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orange but he offered |2to bring2| her a porringer and to cut a long story short taking him by and large the onliest boy of her choice meant pretty well everything to her just then, her beau ideal of a true girl's friend with red blood in his veins neither big ugly nor small nice.

Over them the winged ones screamed shrill glee: seahawk, seagull, curlew and plover, kestrel and capercailzie. All the birds of the sea they trolled out rightbold when they smacked of the big |2kiss of Tristan with Isolde kuss of Trustan with Usolde2|.

So sang seaswans:

— Three quarks for Muster Mark
Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark
But O Wreneagle Almighty wouldn't |2it un2| be a sky of a lark
To see that old buzzard whooping about for |2his uns2| shirt in the dark
And he hunting round for |2his uns2| speckled trousers around by Palmerston Park.
Hohohoho moulty Mark
You're the rummest old rooster ever flopped out of a Noah's ark
And you think you're cock of the wark.
Fowls up Tristy's the spry young spark
That'll tread her and wed her and bed her and red her
Without even winking the tail of a feather
And that's how that chap's going to make his money and mark.