Summerford was
described
by Peter Wait as a "'clever, amusing rather feckless character'" (Maureen Duffy, A Thousand Capricious Chances: A History of the Methuen List, 1889-1989 [London: Methuen.
Samuel Beckett
ButIdon'tknowanyJunyersorLun;:ats.
1 Ofcourse
your letter made me wish very much to be there. The sensation of taking root, like a polypus, in a place, is horrible, living on a kind of mucous [for mucus] of conformity. And in this of all places. The mind is in league with one's nature, or family's nature, it pops up and says 'egal'. I'd love to see Beaufret en militaire, looking some thing between the drummer and the mascot. Thomas in his testi monial credited me with 'tres precieuses amities. '2 I seem to have squandered them all. Sean O'Sullivan asked me would I like a
153
23 {April 1933}, McGreevy
than this evening. Your S.
23 {April 1933}, McGreevy
ticket for Academy vernissage for a friend. And then: 'Oh I forgot, you don't go in for that luxury. '3 Luxury is the word. Gide seems to be making a whirl ofgaiety out ofhis last days. Perhaps he hopes to end where Dostoievski began, with a 'Pauvres Gens'. I had heard ofVoyage au bout de la nuit and admired the title. Are you sure it isn't Pelorson's! 4 It's like his phrase.
Seumas O'S. returned the short story at last - [? remarking]
that he was behind the times, which was the only place where
he could be 'reasonably happy' and that was his 'great secret'!
Not so secret. I thought of sending it to the Adelphi. 5 Is that
entirely ridiculous? I don't know. I wrote another (zig zag
acquis! ) and a poem having passed the Alba in the street, on
which occasion my salute was function ofLeventhal's. It requires
care not to take a serious view of these accidents. Easter was
endless, Father and Frank away in Wales. On Saturday I went off
for the day on the bike, through Malahide & round the estuary
6
Lovely walk this morning with Father, who grows old with a very graceful philosophy. Comparing bees & butterflies to elephants & parrots & speaking of indentures with the leveller. Barging through hedges and over the walls with the help ofmy shoulder, blaspheming and stopping to rest under colour of admiring the view. I'll never have any one like him.
Mindful ofAlfieri I tried to read Plutarch, but in vain. Mindful ofAlfieri! And Berkeley's Commonplace Book, which Hone rec ommended as a beginning, and which is full ofprofound things, and at the same time ofa foul (& false) intellectual canaillerie, enough to put you against reading anything more. I wish I could
154
toPortraneandbackbySwords. Thepennypleasureofhorning in the gloaming. On Monday with Mother to the Botanic Gardens. All very deliberately agreeable & faute de mieux. 7
[. . . ]
23 [April 1933}, McGreevy
go into the library and work at Heraclitus & Co. , but I never go
8
others, who won't go out unless praised or accompanied. I send
Dream. . toGollancz. Hewillbe'mostdelightedtohaveitread. '! ! 9
10
11
into town except to buy coffee. I understand Boss Sinclair, &
Frank's all right. Rien ne presse et lui pelote.
Love to Angelo. Eat a Parmentier to my health. again soon.
Write
Love ever
Sam no likely quarters we might share?
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/42. Dating: McGreevy in Paris; Seumas O'Sullivan has returned the short story.
1 McGreevy was in Paris, staying at the Ecole Normale Superieure (McGreevy to Charles Prentice, Tuesday [11 April 1933), from 45 Rue d'Ulm, Paris 5). Among friends of McGreevy in Paris were Jean Lur�at and the Catalonian painter Joan Junyer (ne Junyer y Pascual, 1904-1994).
"A l'arrivee" (on arrival).
2 "Egal" (all square); "en militaire" (in uniform); "tres precieuses amities" (very valuable friendships).
The testimonial from Jean Thomas was written on 22 July 1932 and is included below as an enclosure with SB's letter of 29 July 1937 to the University of Cape Town.
3 SeanO'Sullivan•(1906-1964),Irishportraitartist. TheRoyalHibernianAcademy has no record of the date of the "vernissage" (private view) of their exhibition in 1933 (Ella Wilkinson, Royal Hibernian Academy and Library, Dublin).
4 InDecember1932,GallimardbeganpublicationofOeuvrescompletesd'AndreGide and, by April 1933, the first three volumes had appeared Uean Prevost, "Les oeuvres d'Andre Gide (Tomes I, II, et III)," Notre Temps (16 April 1933) 121; Claude Martin, Gide [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1963 and 1995) 211).
SB's suggested connection between Gide and the Dostoevsky of Pauvres Gens (1846; Poor Folks) may well be based on Gide's recent reflections on poverty in Africa (Voyage au Congo, 1927, and Retour du Tchad, 1928; translated together as Travels in the Congo).
Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932; Journey to the End of the Night) by French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine (ne Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, 1894-1961).
5 TheAdelphi(1923-1955)wasfoundedbyJohnMiddletonMurry(1889-1957)who was Editor until August 1930 and thereafter remained a regular contributor. The Adelphi published work by D. H. Lawrence (ne David Herbert Richards Lawrence, 1885-1930), whom McGreevy knew through Aldington.
155
23 [April 1933}, McGreevy
6 "Zigzagacquis"(zig-zagmomentum).
In More Pricks Than Kicks the character of Alba (associated withEthnaMaccarthy) appears in "What a Misfortune" as well as in "A Wet Night," an episode that was written for Dream ofPair to Middling Women; Alba also figures in "Draff"; however, this was written later in 1933.
The poem is "SaniesI. "Malahide is south of Portrane, and the town of Swords lies to the west ofMalahide (for discussion and images: O'Brien, The Beckett Country, 239-240). Pilling suggests that the story may be "Fingal," in which Portrane also figures (A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 42).
In 1933Easter fell on 16 April.
7 TheNationalBotanicGardens,Glasnevin. "Faute de mieux" (for want of anything better).
8 Plutarch (c. 46 - c. 120). George Berkeley, Berkeley's Commonplace Book, ed. G. A. Johnston (London: Faber and Faber, 1931). The philosophical notes of George Berkeley (1685-1753) towards his "New Principle," or idealism, were made as an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin in the early 18th century and contain many local Dublin references.
"Canaillerie" (cheap rubbish).
The work of Heraclitus ofEphesus (c. 535 - c. 475 BC) and other Greek pre-Socratics interested SB. SB's systematic study of philosophy may have begun in 1930; he con tinued it by reading philosophy at the BritishMuseum in the summer of 1932 (see 4 August 1932) and later. His notes and sources are recorded in TCD, MS 10967; for description: Frost and Maxwell, "TCD, MS 10967: History of Western Philosophy," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 16 (2006) 67-89.
9 TheJettertoSBfromtheLondonpublishersVictorGollanczLtd. hasnotbeenfound.
10 "Rien ne presse et lui pelote" (No hurry, and he is womanizing).
11 "Parmentier" is a dish made from mashed potatoes and minced meat, more formally "un hachis parmentier. "
THOMAS M cGREEVY PARI S
May 13 [1933]
Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
I am delighted to hear that you have started something
again. Is it the old novel again or another? 1 You seem to be working under difficulties. Could you not find somewhere bet ter than the Mahieu. Down in the far corner of the Cluny would
156
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
be better and the coffee is better there too and there are no Alans,
populistes or Serbs. I remember one Sunday afternoon you were
out at Ville d'Avray trying to write a bit of the Belacqua there and
failing to find a word and then going back to the hotel and doing
no better there. 2 This writing is a bloody awful grind. I did two
more 'short stories', bottled climates, comme �a. sans conviction,
because one has to do something or perish with ennui. Now I
have five. 3 But I don't think I could possibly invite a publisher to
wipe his arse with less than a dozen. Hone rang up one day to
introduce a young man from Methuen, Mr Colin Summerford,
whose peace of mind apparently depended on his standing me
4
available, not having come back from Titus, nor yet from
Gollancz. Methuen! 5 They publish Wilhelmina Stitch so I suppose
they can afford to take a chance, at least in the summer
when Lucas is too busy at Lord[']s to bother. I gave him the
poems and a couple of stories and he bowed me away hoping
6
[for Stephens] who it appears is on to an Academy anthology.
That ought to be lovely. He says Stevens is a great poet, Strict
Joy hot stuff by heaven, and a great philosopher. He seemed to
have seen the whole bordel over here from Gogarty to
frog-hopping Curtis. 7 He was very pale, elegant and graceful,
knew Brigit, Richard, Douglas, Pino, Derek, Michael, Charles,
Eliot (nice man but bad poet) et en etait tres evidemment. I'll
get no more than I've got, viz. , lobster and Capsule Chablis,
8
week in town and then came home. It was all right till next day and the next and the next and the next, which I spent in bed with pus pouring out into foments through the stitches. The
157
lunch at the Shelboume. He wanted the book, but it was not
that good would come. I think he came over with Stevens
from Mr Summerford.
I had the neck done with a local anaesthetic last Wednesday
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
stitches are out now and the cut is healing and the discharges are nearly over but I have no confidence that it wont come back again. The doctor says he hopes it[']s all right.
Last Wednesday week also, in the early morning, Peggy
died at Wildungen near Kassel, quite peacefully after a fit of
coughing in a sleeping-draught sleep. I did not hear from Cissie
but from Sally here in Dublin. Her German fiance was with her
9
tothelastandisreportedtobeinconsolable. Shehadjustbeen up to Kassel to see the doctor and had been told that she was better and that she could lie out in the sun, so they all had great hopes of her getting quite well. It appears that she and her fiance had lately been indulging in regular paroxysms of plans of what they would do when they were married. She has been cremated.
Mr Sean Cagney threatens me with distrainment if I don't fork up 5 guineas in a week. But how can he distrain when I have no effects? And what would be the good of his taking me to court when he would have to pay the costs himself? So that is the next little bit of excitement, a visit to Mr Cagney to beg for a respite. He can't make my father responsible and the bumtraps can't enter my father's house. And as far as I know he can't have me put in prison for debt. 10
Two queer dreams the same night: flying down hill on the
bike with Rudmose-Brown in a panic on the step, and trying
desperately and in vain, missing trains etc. , to begin a long walk
11
I'm going to hold on to it till I see you! I'm so terrified of getting sick away and everything seems so dead against being abroad that even if I succeeded in placing something and getting some money I don't think I would bother my arse to move. Here at
158
by the sea with Jack Yeats.
I owe you something out of the 50 fs. , but I'm so broke that
13 May {1933}, Mccreery
home they encourage my endeavours to build myself up on stout, and I feel that for stout my world is better lost than for
12
Lib. , Egal. , and Frat. , and quarts de Vittel.
They don't say any
thing about my getting a job and I begin to be impervious to
their inquietude. It's an ill cyst blows nobody any good. I find it
more and more difficult to write and I think I write worse and
worse in consequence. But I have still hopes ofits all coming in a
gush like a bloody flux. Here's a poem. I showed it to Leventhal.
One long spittle, he said pleasantly. But I had to laught [sic] all
the same. He thought funds ways home had something to do
with paying her tram fare! I think I like Leventhal better and
13
Sometimes I ride to Enniskerry on Sunday afternoon and meet
him in the Enniskerry Arms and do the bona fide till it's Mahlzeit
time with pa and ma. And it[']s quite pleasant, the ride to
Enniskerry and the booze and the ride home through the Scalp,
and it's quite pleasant to reach home halfscrewed and eat a little
14
your translations for him? 15
I went to the Academy. Literally nothing there. The best is a
Leo* Whelan clock that Sir Neville Wilkinson took for a warm ing-pan. 16
Tocher's play is on and seems to be a sad affair by all
better. He bought me a yellow shirt for my birthday.
and go to sleep[. ] Everything quite pleasant and pleasantly null. Glad to hear the Churches are back. Have you not begun
17
Frank pelote and plays golf and develops his capacity for
18
19
159
accounts.
holding whisky which is already quite remarkable. Herzlichste Gri. isse to the Bowsprit ifyou see him.
Love ever and write soon again[. ] s/ Sam
* Or maybe an Atty one.
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
WEG DU EINZIGE!
all the livelong way this day of sweet showers from Portrane on the seashore
Donabate sad swans of Turvey Swords
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a reiter [for ritter] with pommeled scrotum atra cura on
the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission tires bleeding voiding zeep the high road
all heaven in my sphincter
mfrihiiiiiiide now
potwalloping now through the promenaders
this trusty all-steel this super-real
bound for home like a good boy
where I was born with a clunk with the green of the larches oh to be back in the caul now with no trusts
no fingers no spoilt loves
belting along in the meantime clutching the bike
the billows of the nubile the cere wrack
pot valiant grotesque waisted in rags hatless
for mama and papa chicken and ham
luke Grave too say the word
happy days snap the stem shed a tear
this day Spy Wedinsday [for Wednesday] seven pentades past oh the larches the pain pulled like a cork
the penis took the day off up hill and down dale
with a ponderous fawn from the Liverpool London and Globe back the shadows lengthen the sycamores are sobbing
to roly-poly oh to me a spanking boy
160
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
buckets of fizz childbed is thirsty work
for the midwife he is gory
for the proud parent he washes down a gob of gladness
for footsore Achates also he pants his pleasure
sparkling beestings for me
tired now hair gums ebbing ebbing home
good as gold now in the thirties the husks forgotten
oh yes and suave
suave urbane beyond good and evil
biding my time without rancour you may take your oath distraught merry courting the sneers of these fauns these smart
nymphs
clipped as to one trouser-end like a pederast
sucking in my bloated lantern behind a Wild Woodbine cinched to death in a filthy slicker
flinging the proud Swift forward breasting the sea of Stiirmers
I see main verb at last
her whom alone in the accusative
I have ever dismounted to love
moving towards me dauntless alma on the face of the waters dauntless daughter of desires in the old black and flamingo get along with you now take the six the seven the eight or the
little single-decker
home to your prison your parlour in Sandymount
or take the Blue Line for all I care home to the cob of your web in
Sandymount
your ma expects you anny minute
I know her she is still then she gets up then too the tiger in our hearts is smiling that funds ways home
161
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
TIS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; AN side 2; T env to Monsieur Thomas McGreevy, Ecole Norrnale Superieure, 45 Rue d'illm, Paris Se; pm 13-5-33, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/49. Dating: see n. 17.
1 McGreevyhadputasidehisnovelinJanuary;hewrotetohisagentJamesPinker fromTarberton24January1933:"Ihavefinallyabandonedefforttowriteanovelnow. It may be that I will come back to it but I must start out and try to make money some other way for the time being [ . . . J am going to try and get back to Paris and see if there are any small pickings to be had there" (JEN, Pinker collection).
2 Cafe Mahieu (more commonly known as Cafe le Mahieu) situated on the Boulevard St. -Michel at Rue Soufflot. near the Place Edmond Rostand. The Cafe de Cluny was at the comer of Boulevard St. -Gerrnain and Boulevard St. -Michel. SB refers to Alan Duncan and others whose conversation was often political. SB wrote part of Dream ofPair to Middling Women in the Cafe de Cluny.
American writer Henry Church (1880-1947) and his German-born wife, Barbara (n. d. ), lived at 1, Avenue Halphen, Ville d'Avray, in a neoclassical home ("Villa Church") which was augmented and renovated by Swiss architect Le Corbusier (ne Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965). Richard Aldington had introduced McGreevy to the Churches (Thomas McGreevy, "Richard Aldington as Friend," TCD, MS 10402/7996/1, 8-11).
3 Five of the stories for More Pricks Than Kicks had been written: "Dante and the Lobster," "Fingal," "Ding-Dong," "Walking Out," and possibly "Yellow," "What a Misfortune," or "Love and Lethe" (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 43; Pilling, Beckett before Godot, 96). The newest were "Ding-Dong" and "Fingal. "
"Comme ,;:a, sans conviction" (just like that, without conviction).
4 ColinSummerford(1908-1989)representedLondonpublisherMethuen;SBmet him with Joseph Hone at the Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St. Stephen's Green.
Summerford was described by Peter Wait as a "'clever, amusing rather feckless character'" (Maureen Duffy, A Thousand Capricious Chances: A History of the Methuen List, 1889-1989 [London: Methuen. 1989] 95).
5 ManuscriptsofDreamofFairtoMiddlingWomenwerestillwithEdwardTitusand Gollancz.
6 MethuenpublishedtheverseofWilhelminaStitch(neeRuthCollie,1889-1936), often two or three books a year: e. g. Tapestries (1931), Through Sunny Windows (1931). E. V. Lucas (ne Edward Verrall Lucas, 1868-1938) was a director of Methuen and Company. Lord's is a cricket ground in central London, and headquarters of the MCC, then the governing body of English cricket.
7 Summerford had come to Dublin with Irish poet James Stephens (1880-1950) who had written StrictJoy: Poems (1931). Stephens had proposed to Methuen an anthology of writing by the members of the Irish Academy of Letters. "The project was not com pleted, partially due to the difficulty in obtaining material from all the writers involved" (Letters of]ames Stephens, ed. Richard J. Finneran [London: Macmillan, 1974] 274-275).
SB refers to the members of the Irish Academy of Letters, including Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957) and Edmund Curtis, as the "bordel" (literally, brothel). Denis Devlin• (1908-1959) wrote to McGreevy, 10 November 1933: "Won't Stephen[s]'s
162
13 May [1933), McGreevy
Irish anthology be absurd without us four? " (SB, McGreevy, Devlin, and Brian Coffey' [1905-1995]; TCD, MS 8112/2).
8 BrigitPatmore,RichardAldington,EnglishwriterNormanDouglas(1868-1952), Italian publisher and writer Pino Orioli (1884-1942), Brigit's sons Derek Patmore (1908-1972) and Michael Patmore (1911-? ), Charles Prentice, T. S. Eliot.
"Et en etait tres evidemment" (and very clearly was one of them).
9 PeggySinclairdiedoftuberculosison3May1933;althoughnotformallyengaged, her "fiance" was Heiner Starcke.
10 SeanCagney,Collectorofincometax,41KildareStreet,Dublin.
Bumtrap (or bum-trap, slang for bailiff) (see C. J. Ackerley, Demented Particulars: The Annotated Murphy, 2nd rev. edn. [Tallahassee, FL: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004] 59).
11 "Onthestep"(slang,inahurry).
12 "Liberte,Egalite,andFraternite"(Liberty,EqualityandFraternity),mottoofthe French Republic. "Quarts de Vittel" (quarter-liter bottles of Vittel, a French mineral water).
13 "Inquietude"(worry).
"Weg du Einzige! " was published, with many changes, in Echo's Bones as "Sanies 1. " "Weg du Einzige" (Away you one and only). The closing Jines of the poem ("and let the tiger go on smiling / in our hearts that funds ways home") are linked by Lawrence Harvey to a limerick which suggests closure on a love affair (Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 148-149).
14 TheScalp,arockygap,isabout2milesnorthofEnniskerry,southofDublin. The Enniskerry Arms (known also as the Enniskerry, Powerscourt, and Leinster Arms Hotel) is a public house there.
SB wrote "<time> Mahlzeit time"; "Mahlzeit" (meal).
15 HenryChurch'splayswerepublishedinFrench:LesClowns(1922),Vasthi(1929), Barnum (1934), and L 'Indifferente (1934; Indifference); McGreevy translated Clowns in 1929, Barnum in the autumn of 1932, and worked on the translations of the others through 1933 (see letters from Henry Church to Thomas McGreevy, TCD, MS 8119/3-5; TCD, MS 8021-8023, 8189; Susan Schriebman, 5 January 2007).
16 In the annual exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin painter Michael Leo Whelan (1892-1956) had several portraits and three interior scenes The Letter, Adagio Cantabile, and a drawing entitled Aida - but none with a clock. SB uses an asterisk after Whelan's name to point to his autograph P. S. , also marked with an asterisk: the words "or maybe an Atty one. " The reference to "Atty" is unclear.
Sir Neville Wilkinson (1869-1940) was illster King of Arms, Dublin Castle, from 1908 to 1940.
17 A Bride for the Unicom by E. W. Tocher (pseud. of William Denis Johnston, 1901-1984), which opened on 9 May 1933 at the Gate Theatre, broke with realistic staging and was called a "courageous experiment" (The Irish Times 10 May 1933: 6). Johnston used the pseudonym through 1934, after which time the early plays (Rhapsody in Green [1928; retitled and performed as The Old Lady Says No, 1929], The Moon in the Yellow River [1931], and A Bridefor the Unicom [1933]) appeared under his given name.
163
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
18 "Pelote" (is womanizing).
19 "HerzlichsteGriisse"(mostcordialgreetings).
THOMAS McGREEVY PARIS
2/7/33 Cooldrinagh Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
Father died last Monday afternoon after an illness lasting
just under a week, and was buried the following Wednesday morning in a little cemetery on the Greystones side of Bray
1
Head,betweenthemountainsandthesea. MotherandInursed him while he was ill. The doctor saw him the morning he died and told us that he was much better. I was so delighted that I got into the brightest clothes I could find. The doctor was scarcely out of the house before he collapsed. I fear he suffered a great deal before he died about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We were all with him. He was very beautiful when it was all over. I thought Mother would go to pieces, but she was and is wonderful. It is a very blank silent house now.
It is too soon to know how things will work out. We would all like to remain on here, but it may not be possible. Frank will carry on the office. 2 My position of course is vaguer than ever. For the moment I answer the endless letters on her behalf and look after her as well as I can. Frank is up to his eyes in matters connected with the office and the estate, and it appears that I can be of no help to him. A brother of my Mother, living in England, of whom she is very fond, came over for the funeral and is staying with us until Tuesday next. 3
164
He was in his sixty first year, but how much younger he
seemed and was. Joking and swearing at the doctors as long as
he had breath. He lay in the bed with sweet pea all over his face,
making great oaths that when he got better he would never do a
stroke ofwork. He would drive to the top ofHowth and lie in the
bracken and fart. His last words were "Fight fight fight" and "What
4
TLS; 1 leaf. 1 side; TCD, MS 10402/52.
1 William Beckett died on 26 June 1933; he was buried in Redford Protestant
Cemetery, south ofBray, Co. Wicklow (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 166-167).
2 FrankBecketthadalreadybeenworkingatBeckettandMedcalf.
3 Edward Price Roe (known to SB as UncleNed, 1869 - c. 1952); he was now living in Nottinghamshire, having returned to England from Africa where he had been "an accountant with the British Central Africa Company in Blantyre inNyasaland (now
Malawi)" (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 44, 621).
4 Howth,thehillabovethedistrictofHowthonthenorthsideofDublinBay.
SB substitutes "memoire" (memory) for "esprit" in the expression "esprit de l'escalier" (an inspired afterthought that comes to one only after leaving, that is, on the stairs).
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
9/10/33 6 Clare Street Dublin
My dear Tom
Many thanks for Beatrice, Giotto & then Lungamo news.
Indeed I wish to God I could join you there, but for this year at
165
a morning". All the little things come back - memoire de l'escalier. I can't write about him, I can only walk the fields and climb
the ditches after him. God love thee.
s/ Sam
9 October 1933, McGreevy
9 October 1933, McGreevy
leastIneednotthinkofgettingaway. [. . . ]SometimesI'mjustfit
2
I'm afraid I didn't get much kick out of Coffey & Devlin,
their pockets full ofcalm precious poems. It was pleasant to hear
the Paris news, what films were on and the latest 10% of
Surrealisme. I gave them the Enueg and we went to the Gallery
(grosse erreur) and we had a drink and I haven't seen them since.
Coffey seemed to find the Enueg highly delighting amusing
delighting. Devlin didn't know what an algum tree was and I
couldn't enlighten him. They also had pockets full of French
4
The Income Tax sow-gelders are dunning me for enormous
sums, notices in scarlet ink and threats to distrain & proceed regard
less of costs. I go and see Mr Cagney, cagne cagneuse, and say that
the whole thing is a tissue ofmisrepresentation, that I never earned
so much in my life, that anyhow I can't pay and have no chattels and
no costs and that if they proceed they must do so without me; Mr
Cagney scowls, sneers at my unemployed condition & makes a note
of it. 5 I met Michael Farrell and he destroyed me with an endless
disparaging hyperbole on his own bland suspension between the
vulgaritiesofgreattalentandtherootsintheanusofgeniusnow&
then. The little tubercular tot in the cot buttons across its double
brested pilche [for double-breasted pilch], the little cheeks meet on
the inside, the accumulated wisdom of the world unites the little
6
1
society for the family noose & sometimes I'm like this poem. Chatto's took a short book of short stories called More Pricks Than Kicks, and paid me 25 pounds less 25% advance on royal ties, which cheered me up for a time. 3
jeunes [for jaunes], "lac des mains" and all the usual. I'm a kranky man & I don't like anyone.
lips like a zip fastener, and Mr Farrell is glad he is a doctor.
In a moment of gush I applied for a job of assistant at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and got Charles Prentice &
166
& April I would recover my 6 pounds 10 from Chatlos. won't come off & I don't expect it to.
But it
9 October 1933, McGreevy
Jack Yeats to act as referees. I think I'd be happy there for a time
among the pigeons and not too far from the French charmers in
the Garrick. Apart from my conoysership that can just separate
Uccello from a handsaw I could cork the post as well [as]
another. 7 Also ifl took up residence in England between now
8
Glad to hear the novel grows. Are you going down to Tarbert to finish it or have you found a room in Dublin? 9 Do let me know your plans. I have to do another story for More Pricks, Belacqua redivivus, and I'm as stupid as a goat. If only I could get the poems off now I'd be crowned. Nissssscht m666666glich! Ce qu'il est sentimentique! 10
11
on Butt Bridge take thought for yer buzzum
the mixed declension of those mammae
cock up thine arse there is no other word for it cock her up well to the tulips that droop in the west swoon on the arch-gasometer
on Misery Hill brand-new pale livid
oh a most ferocious West African baboon's swoon on the lil puce
house of prayer
Tante belle case. Give my love to San Miniato. Yours ever
s/ Sam
gape at this pothook of beauty on this palate it is final if you like
come down her she is paradise and then plush hymens on your eyeballs
167
9 October 1933, McGreevy
something Heart of Mary
the Bull and Pool Beg that will never meet not in this world
whereas dart away through the cavorting scapes bucket o'er Victoria Bridge that's the idea
slow down slink down the Ringsend Road Irishtown Sandymount puzzle find the Hell Fire the Merrion Flats scored with a thrillion sigmas Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour His Finger
girls taken strippin that's the idea
on the Bootersgrad breakwind and water
the tide making the dun gulls in a panic
the sands quicken in your old heart
hide yourself not in the Rock keep on the move keep on the move
TIS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; enclosed draft of poem published as"Serena 3" in Echo's Bones; T env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, c/o Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son, Via Tomabuoni, Florence, Italy; pm 9-10-33, Dublin [on verso, pm 12-XI, Florence]; TCD, MS 10402/55.
1 HavingtraveledtherefromAustriaon28SeptembertomeetHenryChurchand his wife Barbara, McGreevy was now with them in Florence (McGreevy to his mother, 23 September 1933, TCD MS 10381/59). In Florence, Lungamo is the name given to the road along the Amo River. Giotto (ne Giotto di Bondone, c. 1267-1337) designed the Campanile (bell tower) of the Duomo; his frescos are in Santa Croce Church in Florence. It is likely that McGreevy sent SB picture postcards with related images, and that one depicted Dante's Beatrice.
2 Thepoemisadraftof"Serena3. "
3 SB wrote to McGreevy: "I had been working at the short stories and had done about half or two thirds enough when it suddenly dried up and I had to leave it there. Perhaps I may get it going again now. But it is all jigsaw and I am not interested" (22 June 1933, TCD, MS 10402/51). Also in this letter, SB reported that Edward Titus had finally replied and returned Dream of Fair to Middling Women: "A most soothing letter from Titus at last, who finds himself forced to slide with the dollar, and abandon his Quarter and Mannekins" [for Manikin]. By the end of July, SB wrote to McGreevy from the"top room, 6 Clare St, where I've rigged up a rudimentary appartment [sic] where I pretend to work" (25 Uuly 1933], TCD, MS 10402/52); before 6 September, he submitted his stories to Charles Prentice:"I sent 10 contes, about 60,000 words, to Charles" (SB to McGreevy, 7 September 1933, TCD, MS 10402/54). "Contes" (stories).
168
Having had no pos11:tve response to Dream of Fair to Middling Women, SB may have decided to use selections from it to fill out the stories written for the new collection, initially called Draff. He sent it to Charles Prentice by 6 September: on 25 September Prentice wrote that "Chatto's would be delighted to publish the stories," although he asked for a livelier title for the book, "something tripping and conversational" (Prentice to SB, 6 September 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 149/420, and 25 September 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/134-135).
SB offered More Pricks Than Kicks as a new title and held out the possibility of adding another story or two to the book, according to Prentice's response of 29 September 1933: "Another 10,000 words, or even 5,000 for that matter, would, I am certain, help the book, and it would be lovely ifyou could manage to reel them out"(UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/196-197).
4 DenisDevlinwrotetoMcGreevyabouttheirmeetingswithSB:
We have seen Sam Beckett twice in the last few days. He has been charming to us and we talked for hours about Paris and poetry: I was delighted to hear his account of the meeting with Breton and Eluard; Breton impressed him and Eluard inspires affection; which is proper; I think I shall like him. I am discovering him slowly; and according to his movement of course, which is hesitating like a shy horse. He likes using only the essential phrase which makes conversation between him and Brian very amusing. ([23 September 1933], TCD, MS 8112/1)
Coffey and Devlin had proposed to publish poems by McGreevy, SB, and themselves as Christmas cards. SB had written to McGreevy: "About your poem scheme, I suppose I could cast before them the canal Enueg, they might know where Parnell Bridge was and the Fox & Geese, but to tell you the truth I'm not very keen" (7 September [1933], TCD, MS 10402/54). Devlin reported to McGreevy that SB "did promise us his quietest piece and gave it with an air of(and phrase of ) 'There; I understand perfectly your difficulties. Commercial, Christmas, Holy Ireland'. What must the others be like! However I like it and we can publish it in perfect safety for its surprise is not sexual nor theological" (23 September 1933, TCD, MS 8112/1). The series did not materialize. The poem "Enueg 1" is the one rejected by Dublin Magazine (see [27 November 1931], n. 2).
An algum tree: Juniperus excelsa or Grecian juniper.
"Jaunes" (a kind of cigarette): "lac des mains," reference obscure.
5 "Cagnecagneuse,"aplayon"cagne"(literally,knock-kneed,worn-outhorse);the English equivalent of the phrase might be "Cag the nag," with reference to Mr. Cagney the tax collector.
6 Irish novelist and journalist Michael Farrell (1899-1962) studied Medicine at the National University and Trinity College Dublin. His five-volume novel Thy Tears Might Cease was Farrell's life's work; he could not bear to cut the novel, which was posthumously edited by Monk Gibbon to 100,000 words and published in 1963.
7 SB's application to the National Gallery (London) for the position of Assistant has not been found; the advertisement called for "a special knowledge of Art History and Study" with preference given "to those with proficiency in Foreign Languages"
(The Times 8 and 11 September 1933: 3d). Prentice wrote to SB on 4 October: "I do hope that your application to the Nat. Gall. will come off with a bang. [. . . ] They
169
9 October 1933, McGreevy
6 December 1933 [for 5 December 1933}, McGreevy
haven't written to me yet in my capacity of 'referee"' (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/245). The Garrick Theatre on Charing Cross Road was situated behind the National Gallery.
Florentine painter Paolo Uccello (ne Paolo di Dono, 1397-1475); a play on Hamlet's line where he claims to know a "hawk from a hand-saw" (Hamlet, II. ii. 379); "uccello" (bird).
8 Along with the countersigned contract for More Pricks Than Kicks, Prentice sent SB the advance on royalties with the income tax deducted, as he was required to do for non-resident writers; he post-dated the cheque, to "fall within the next six-months report. If you come to live in England before April 5th, we shall pay you the balance of £6. 5. 0. , but if you don't I'll send you the usual voucher regarding the deduction of Income Tax" (4 October 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/245). Prentice's calculation is not correct.
9 McGreevyreturnedtoParisbriefly,staying"longenoughtoverifyvariousmat ters concerned with work," and then he went on to London. His plan was to settle in Dublin by mid-November: "I must not bury myself in Tarbert at first, shall have to make Dublin my headquarters for some time, but will get home when I can, at Christmas if not before" (McGreevy to his mother, 23 September 1933, TCD, MS 10381/59). He was still in London in mid-November: "I must stay on in London till I make sure of having plenty of work to keep me going when I go to Ireland" (McGreevy to his mother, 19 November 1933, TCD, MS 10381/62).
10 Thestorybecame"Echo'sBones"(NhD,Harveycollection). PrenticewrotetoSB: "From the tone of your postcard, I infer that the 10,000 yelps will soon be parcelled up and on their way to Holyhead. Good for Belacqua" (2 November 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 151/138; SB's postcard to Prentice has not been found).
"Redivivus" (brought back to life). Belacqua has to be brought back to life because he dies in the final story of the collection, "Draff. "
Before 22 June, SB had sent Dream to Methuen, but had had no response.
"Nissssscht mi:ii:ii:ii:ii:ii:iglich" (from "nicht mi:iglich" [not possible]) was part of the comic routine of the Swiss clown, Grock (ne Charles Adrien Wettach, 1880-1959).
"Ce qu'il est sentimentique! " (How sentimantic he is! ); "sentimentique" is a port manteau word combining "sentimental" and "romantique. "
11 "Tantebellecose"(allgoodthings).
Although SB may refer to the town of San Miniato, which is approximately 25 miles from Florence, more probably he refers to the Florentine church of San Miniato al Monte.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
6/12/33 [for 5 December 1933]
170
6 Clare Street Dublin
6 December 1933 {for 5 December 1933}, McGreevy
My dear Tom
I haven't been up to anything let alone taper a la, why I
1
couldn't tell you.
Perhaps it was the weather which has been
fiendish, irresistible cold and damp. I was rejoiced to hear from
you though sad also at the impression I got that you were very
sad. However a letter from Charles this morning stating you in
2
goodformandwiththeprospectsofwork. Thatisgoodnews. Indeed I wish to God I were in London - for a change or en passant - and that we could serve some of this time together again. I thought of apprenticing myself to some advertising firm in London. At least it would get me out of here for a bit and it might be entertaining. Or perhaps there is a faculty of advertis ing in London by this time.
your letter made me wish very much to be there. The sensation of taking root, like a polypus, in a place, is horrible, living on a kind of mucous [for mucus] of conformity. And in this of all places. The mind is in league with one's nature, or family's nature, it pops up and says 'egal'. I'd love to see Beaufret en militaire, looking some thing between the drummer and the mascot. Thomas in his testi monial credited me with 'tres precieuses amities. '2 I seem to have squandered them all. Sean O'Sullivan asked me would I like a
153
23 {April 1933}, McGreevy
than this evening. Your S.
23 {April 1933}, McGreevy
ticket for Academy vernissage for a friend. And then: 'Oh I forgot, you don't go in for that luxury. '3 Luxury is the word. Gide seems to be making a whirl ofgaiety out ofhis last days. Perhaps he hopes to end where Dostoievski began, with a 'Pauvres Gens'. I had heard ofVoyage au bout de la nuit and admired the title. Are you sure it isn't Pelorson's! 4 It's like his phrase.
Seumas O'S. returned the short story at last - [? remarking]
that he was behind the times, which was the only place where
he could be 'reasonably happy' and that was his 'great secret'!
Not so secret. I thought of sending it to the Adelphi. 5 Is that
entirely ridiculous? I don't know. I wrote another (zig zag
acquis! ) and a poem having passed the Alba in the street, on
which occasion my salute was function ofLeventhal's. It requires
care not to take a serious view of these accidents. Easter was
endless, Father and Frank away in Wales. On Saturday I went off
for the day on the bike, through Malahide & round the estuary
6
Lovely walk this morning with Father, who grows old with a very graceful philosophy. Comparing bees & butterflies to elephants & parrots & speaking of indentures with the leveller. Barging through hedges and over the walls with the help ofmy shoulder, blaspheming and stopping to rest under colour of admiring the view. I'll never have any one like him.
Mindful ofAlfieri I tried to read Plutarch, but in vain. Mindful ofAlfieri! And Berkeley's Commonplace Book, which Hone rec ommended as a beginning, and which is full ofprofound things, and at the same time ofa foul (& false) intellectual canaillerie, enough to put you against reading anything more. I wish I could
154
toPortraneandbackbySwords. Thepennypleasureofhorning in the gloaming. On Monday with Mother to the Botanic Gardens. All very deliberately agreeable & faute de mieux. 7
[. . . ]
23 [April 1933}, McGreevy
go into the library and work at Heraclitus & Co. , but I never go
8
others, who won't go out unless praised or accompanied. I send
Dream. . toGollancz. Hewillbe'mostdelightedtohaveitread. '! ! 9
10
11
into town except to buy coffee. I understand Boss Sinclair, &
Frank's all right. Rien ne presse et lui pelote.
Love to Angelo. Eat a Parmentier to my health. again soon.
Write
Love ever
Sam no likely quarters we might share?
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/42. Dating: McGreevy in Paris; Seumas O'Sullivan has returned the short story.
1 McGreevy was in Paris, staying at the Ecole Normale Superieure (McGreevy to Charles Prentice, Tuesday [11 April 1933), from 45 Rue d'Ulm, Paris 5). Among friends of McGreevy in Paris were Jean Lur�at and the Catalonian painter Joan Junyer (ne Junyer y Pascual, 1904-1994).
"A l'arrivee" (on arrival).
2 "Egal" (all square); "en militaire" (in uniform); "tres precieuses amities" (very valuable friendships).
The testimonial from Jean Thomas was written on 22 July 1932 and is included below as an enclosure with SB's letter of 29 July 1937 to the University of Cape Town.
3 SeanO'Sullivan•(1906-1964),Irishportraitartist. TheRoyalHibernianAcademy has no record of the date of the "vernissage" (private view) of their exhibition in 1933 (Ella Wilkinson, Royal Hibernian Academy and Library, Dublin).
4 InDecember1932,GallimardbeganpublicationofOeuvrescompletesd'AndreGide and, by April 1933, the first three volumes had appeared Uean Prevost, "Les oeuvres d'Andre Gide (Tomes I, II, et III)," Notre Temps (16 April 1933) 121; Claude Martin, Gide [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1963 and 1995) 211).
SB's suggested connection between Gide and the Dostoevsky of Pauvres Gens (1846; Poor Folks) may well be based on Gide's recent reflections on poverty in Africa (Voyage au Congo, 1927, and Retour du Tchad, 1928; translated together as Travels in the Congo).
Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932; Journey to the End of the Night) by French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine (ne Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, 1894-1961).
5 TheAdelphi(1923-1955)wasfoundedbyJohnMiddletonMurry(1889-1957)who was Editor until August 1930 and thereafter remained a regular contributor. The Adelphi published work by D. H. Lawrence (ne David Herbert Richards Lawrence, 1885-1930), whom McGreevy knew through Aldington.
155
23 [April 1933}, McGreevy
6 "Zigzagacquis"(zig-zagmomentum).
In More Pricks Than Kicks the character of Alba (associated withEthnaMaccarthy) appears in "What a Misfortune" as well as in "A Wet Night," an episode that was written for Dream ofPair to Middling Women; Alba also figures in "Draff"; however, this was written later in 1933.
The poem is "SaniesI. "Malahide is south of Portrane, and the town of Swords lies to the west ofMalahide (for discussion and images: O'Brien, The Beckett Country, 239-240). Pilling suggests that the story may be "Fingal," in which Portrane also figures (A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 42).
In 1933Easter fell on 16 April.
7 TheNationalBotanicGardens,Glasnevin. "Faute de mieux" (for want of anything better).
8 Plutarch (c. 46 - c. 120). George Berkeley, Berkeley's Commonplace Book, ed. G. A. Johnston (London: Faber and Faber, 1931). The philosophical notes of George Berkeley (1685-1753) towards his "New Principle," or idealism, were made as an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin in the early 18th century and contain many local Dublin references.
"Canaillerie" (cheap rubbish).
The work of Heraclitus ofEphesus (c. 535 - c. 475 BC) and other Greek pre-Socratics interested SB. SB's systematic study of philosophy may have begun in 1930; he con tinued it by reading philosophy at the BritishMuseum in the summer of 1932 (see 4 August 1932) and later. His notes and sources are recorded in TCD, MS 10967; for description: Frost and Maxwell, "TCD, MS 10967: History of Western Philosophy," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 16 (2006) 67-89.
9 TheJettertoSBfromtheLondonpublishersVictorGollanczLtd. hasnotbeenfound.
10 "Rien ne presse et lui pelote" (No hurry, and he is womanizing).
11 "Parmentier" is a dish made from mashed potatoes and minced meat, more formally "un hachis parmentier. "
THOMAS M cGREEVY PARI S
May 13 [1933]
Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
I am delighted to hear that you have started something
again. Is it the old novel again or another? 1 You seem to be working under difficulties. Could you not find somewhere bet ter than the Mahieu. Down in the far corner of the Cluny would
156
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
be better and the coffee is better there too and there are no Alans,
populistes or Serbs. I remember one Sunday afternoon you were
out at Ville d'Avray trying to write a bit of the Belacqua there and
failing to find a word and then going back to the hotel and doing
no better there. 2 This writing is a bloody awful grind. I did two
more 'short stories', bottled climates, comme �a. sans conviction,
because one has to do something or perish with ennui. Now I
have five. 3 But I don't think I could possibly invite a publisher to
wipe his arse with less than a dozen. Hone rang up one day to
introduce a young man from Methuen, Mr Colin Summerford,
whose peace of mind apparently depended on his standing me
4
available, not having come back from Titus, nor yet from
Gollancz. Methuen! 5 They publish Wilhelmina Stitch so I suppose
they can afford to take a chance, at least in the summer
when Lucas is too busy at Lord[']s to bother. I gave him the
poems and a couple of stories and he bowed me away hoping
6
[for Stephens] who it appears is on to an Academy anthology.
That ought to be lovely. He says Stevens is a great poet, Strict
Joy hot stuff by heaven, and a great philosopher. He seemed to
have seen the whole bordel over here from Gogarty to
frog-hopping Curtis. 7 He was very pale, elegant and graceful,
knew Brigit, Richard, Douglas, Pino, Derek, Michael, Charles,
Eliot (nice man but bad poet) et en etait tres evidemment. I'll
get no more than I've got, viz. , lobster and Capsule Chablis,
8
week in town and then came home. It was all right till next day and the next and the next and the next, which I spent in bed with pus pouring out into foments through the stitches. The
157
lunch at the Shelboume. He wanted the book, but it was not
that good would come. I think he came over with Stevens
from Mr Summerford.
I had the neck done with a local anaesthetic last Wednesday
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
stitches are out now and the cut is healing and the discharges are nearly over but I have no confidence that it wont come back again. The doctor says he hopes it[']s all right.
Last Wednesday week also, in the early morning, Peggy
died at Wildungen near Kassel, quite peacefully after a fit of
coughing in a sleeping-draught sleep. I did not hear from Cissie
but from Sally here in Dublin. Her German fiance was with her
9
tothelastandisreportedtobeinconsolable. Shehadjustbeen up to Kassel to see the doctor and had been told that she was better and that she could lie out in the sun, so they all had great hopes of her getting quite well. It appears that she and her fiance had lately been indulging in regular paroxysms of plans of what they would do when they were married. She has been cremated.
Mr Sean Cagney threatens me with distrainment if I don't fork up 5 guineas in a week. But how can he distrain when I have no effects? And what would be the good of his taking me to court when he would have to pay the costs himself? So that is the next little bit of excitement, a visit to Mr Cagney to beg for a respite. He can't make my father responsible and the bumtraps can't enter my father's house. And as far as I know he can't have me put in prison for debt. 10
Two queer dreams the same night: flying down hill on the
bike with Rudmose-Brown in a panic on the step, and trying
desperately and in vain, missing trains etc. , to begin a long walk
11
I'm going to hold on to it till I see you! I'm so terrified of getting sick away and everything seems so dead against being abroad that even if I succeeded in placing something and getting some money I don't think I would bother my arse to move. Here at
158
by the sea with Jack Yeats.
I owe you something out of the 50 fs. , but I'm so broke that
13 May {1933}, Mccreery
home they encourage my endeavours to build myself up on stout, and I feel that for stout my world is better lost than for
12
Lib. , Egal. , and Frat. , and quarts de Vittel.
They don't say any
thing about my getting a job and I begin to be impervious to
their inquietude. It's an ill cyst blows nobody any good. I find it
more and more difficult to write and I think I write worse and
worse in consequence. But I have still hopes ofits all coming in a
gush like a bloody flux. Here's a poem. I showed it to Leventhal.
One long spittle, he said pleasantly. But I had to laught [sic] all
the same. He thought funds ways home had something to do
with paying her tram fare! I think I like Leventhal better and
13
Sometimes I ride to Enniskerry on Sunday afternoon and meet
him in the Enniskerry Arms and do the bona fide till it's Mahlzeit
time with pa and ma. And it[']s quite pleasant, the ride to
Enniskerry and the booze and the ride home through the Scalp,
and it's quite pleasant to reach home halfscrewed and eat a little
14
your translations for him? 15
I went to the Academy. Literally nothing there. The best is a
Leo* Whelan clock that Sir Neville Wilkinson took for a warm ing-pan. 16
Tocher's play is on and seems to be a sad affair by all
better. He bought me a yellow shirt for my birthday.
and go to sleep[. ] Everything quite pleasant and pleasantly null. Glad to hear the Churches are back. Have you not begun
17
Frank pelote and plays golf and develops his capacity for
18
19
159
accounts.
holding whisky which is already quite remarkable. Herzlichste Gri. isse to the Bowsprit ifyou see him.
Love ever and write soon again[. ] s/ Sam
* Or maybe an Atty one.
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
WEG DU EINZIGE!
all the livelong way this day of sweet showers from Portrane on the seashore
Donabate sad swans of Turvey Swords
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a reiter [for ritter] with pommeled scrotum atra cura on
the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission tires bleeding voiding zeep the high road
all heaven in my sphincter
mfrihiiiiiiide now
potwalloping now through the promenaders
this trusty all-steel this super-real
bound for home like a good boy
where I was born with a clunk with the green of the larches oh to be back in the caul now with no trusts
no fingers no spoilt loves
belting along in the meantime clutching the bike
the billows of the nubile the cere wrack
pot valiant grotesque waisted in rags hatless
for mama and papa chicken and ham
luke Grave too say the word
happy days snap the stem shed a tear
this day Spy Wedinsday [for Wednesday] seven pentades past oh the larches the pain pulled like a cork
the penis took the day off up hill and down dale
with a ponderous fawn from the Liverpool London and Globe back the shadows lengthen the sycamores are sobbing
to roly-poly oh to me a spanking boy
160
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
buckets of fizz childbed is thirsty work
for the midwife he is gory
for the proud parent he washes down a gob of gladness
for footsore Achates also he pants his pleasure
sparkling beestings for me
tired now hair gums ebbing ebbing home
good as gold now in the thirties the husks forgotten
oh yes and suave
suave urbane beyond good and evil
biding my time without rancour you may take your oath distraught merry courting the sneers of these fauns these smart
nymphs
clipped as to one trouser-end like a pederast
sucking in my bloated lantern behind a Wild Woodbine cinched to death in a filthy slicker
flinging the proud Swift forward breasting the sea of Stiirmers
I see main verb at last
her whom alone in the accusative
I have ever dismounted to love
moving towards me dauntless alma on the face of the waters dauntless daughter of desires in the old black and flamingo get along with you now take the six the seven the eight or the
little single-decker
home to your prison your parlour in Sandymount
or take the Blue Line for all I care home to the cob of your web in
Sandymount
your ma expects you anny minute
I know her she is still then she gets up then too the tiger in our hearts is smiling that funds ways home
161
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
TIS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; AN side 2; T env to Monsieur Thomas McGreevy, Ecole Norrnale Superieure, 45 Rue d'illm, Paris Se; pm 13-5-33, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/49. Dating: see n. 17.
1 McGreevyhadputasidehisnovelinJanuary;hewrotetohisagentJamesPinker fromTarberton24January1933:"Ihavefinallyabandonedefforttowriteanovelnow. It may be that I will come back to it but I must start out and try to make money some other way for the time being [ . . . J am going to try and get back to Paris and see if there are any small pickings to be had there" (JEN, Pinker collection).
2 Cafe Mahieu (more commonly known as Cafe le Mahieu) situated on the Boulevard St. -Michel at Rue Soufflot. near the Place Edmond Rostand. The Cafe de Cluny was at the comer of Boulevard St. -Gerrnain and Boulevard St. -Michel. SB refers to Alan Duncan and others whose conversation was often political. SB wrote part of Dream ofPair to Middling Women in the Cafe de Cluny.
American writer Henry Church (1880-1947) and his German-born wife, Barbara (n. d. ), lived at 1, Avenue Halphen, Ville d'Avray, in a neoclassical home ("Villa Church") which was augmented and renovated by Swiss architect Le Corbusier (ne Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965). Richard Aldington had introduced McGreevy to the Churches (Thomas McGreevy, "Richard Aldington as Friend," TCD, MS 10402/7996/1, 8-11).
3 Five of the stories for More Pricks Than Kicks had been written: "Dante and the Lobster," "Fingal," "Ding-Dong," "Walking Out," and possibly "Yellow," "What a Misfortune," or "Love and Lethe" (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 43; Pilling, Beckett before Godot, 96). The newest were "Ding-Dong" and "Fingal. "
"Comme ,;:a, sans conviction" (just like that, without conviction).
4 ColinSummerford(1908-1989)representedLondonpublisherMethuen;SBmet him with Joseph Hone at the Shelbourne Hotel, 27 St. Stephen's Green.
Summerford was described by Peter Wait as a "'clever, amusing rather feckless character'" (Maureen Duffy, A Thousand Capricious Chances: A History of the Methuen List, 1889-1989 [London: Methuen. 1989] 95).
5 ManuscriptsofDreamofFairtoMiddlingWomenwerestillwithEdwardTitusand Gollancz.
6 MethuenpublishedtheverseofWilhelminaStitch(neeRuthCollie,1889-1936), often two or three books a year: e. g. Tapestries (1931), Through Sunny Windows (1931). E. V. Lucas (ne Edward Verrall Lucas, 1868-1938) was a director of Methuen and Company. Lord's is a cricket ground in central London, and headquarters of the MCC, then the governing body of English cricket.
7 Summerford had come to Dublin with Irish poet James Stephens (1880-1950) who had written StrictJoy: Poems (1931). Stephens had proposed to Methuen an anthology of writing by the members of the Irish Academy of Letters. "The project was not com pleted, partially due to the difficulty in obtaining material from all the writers involved" (Letters of]ames Stephens, ed. Richard J. Finneran [London: Macmillan, 1974] 274-275).
SB refers to the members of the Irish Academy of Letters, including Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957) and Edmund Curtis, as the "bordel" (literally, brothel). Denis Devlin• (1908-1959) wrote to McGreevy, 10 November 1933: "Won't Stephen[s]'s
162
13 May [1933), McGreevy
Irish anthology be absurd without us four? " (SB, McGreevy, Devlin, and Brian Coffey' [1905-1995]; TCD, MS 8112/2).
8 BrigitPatmore,RichardAldington,EnglishwriterNormanDouglas(1868-1952), Italian publisher and writer Pino Orioli (1884-1942), Brigit's sons Derek Patmore (1908-1972) and Michael Patmore (1911-? ), Charles Prentice, T. S. Eliot.
"Et en etait tres evidemment" (and very clearly was one of them).
9 PeggySinclairdiedoftuberculosison3May1933;althoughnotformallyengaged, her "fiance" was Heiner Starcke.
10 SeanCagney,Collectorofincometax,41KildareStreet,Dublin.
Bumtrap (or bum-trap, slang for bailiff) (see C. J. Ackerley, Demented Particulars: The Annotated Murphy, 2nd rev. edn. [Tallahassee, FL: Journal of Beckett Studies Books, 2004] 59).
11 "Onthestep"(slang,inahurry).
12 "Liberte,Egalite,andFraternite"(Liberty,EqualityandFraternity),mottoofthe French Republic. "Quarts de Vittel" (quarter-liter bottles of Vittel, a French mineral water).
13 "Inquietude"(worry).
"Weg du Einzige! " was published, with many changes, in Echo's Bones as "Sanies 1. " "Weg du Einzige" (Away you one and only). The closing Jines of the poem ("and let the tiger go on smiling / in our hearts that funds ways home") are linked by Lawrence Harvey to a limerick which suggests closure on a love affair (Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 148-149).
14 TheScalp,arockygap,isabout2milesnorthofEnniskerry,southofDublin. The Enniskerry Arms (known also as the Enniskerry, Powerscourt, and Leinster Arms Hotel) is a public house there.
SB wrote "<time> Mahlzeit time"; "Mahlzeit" (meal).
15 HenryChurch'splayswerepublishedinFrench:LesClowns(1922),Vasthi(1929), Barnum (1934), and L 'Indifferente (1934; Indifference); McGreevy translated Clowns in 1929, Barnum in the autumn of 1932, and worked on the translations of the others through 1933 (see letters from Henry Church to Thomas McGreevy, TCD, MS 8119/3-5; TCD, MS 8021-8023, 8189; Susan Schriebman, 5 January 2007).
16 In the annual exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin painter Michael Leo Whelan (1892-1956) had several portraits and three interior scenes The Letter, Adagio Cantabile, and a drawing entitled Aida - but none with a clock. SB uses an asterisk after Whelan's name to point to his autograph P. S. , also marked with an asterisk: the words "or maybe an Atty one. " The reference to "Atty" is unclear.
Sir Neville Wilkinson (1869-1940) was illster King of Arms, Dublin Castle, from 1908 to 1940.
17 A Bride for the Unicom by E. W. Tocher (pseud. of William Denis Johnston, 1901-1984), which opened on 9 May 1933 at the Gate Theatre, broke with realistic staging and was called a "courageous experiment" (The Irish Times 10 May 1933: 6). Johnston used the pseudonym through 1934, after which time the early plays (Rhapsody in Green [1928; retitled and performed as The Old Lady Says No, 1929], The Moon in the Yellow River [1931], and A Bridefor the Unicom [1933]) appeared under his given name.
163
13 May {1933}, McGreevy
18 "Pelote" (is womanizing).
19 "HerzlichsteGriisse"(mostcordialgreetings).
THOMAS McGREEVY PARIS
2/7/33 Cooldrinagh Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
Father died last Monday afternoon after an illness lasting
just under a week, and was buried the following Wednesday morning in a little cemetery on the Greystones side of Bray
1
Head,betweenthemountainsandthesea. MotherandInursed him while he was ill. The doctor saw him the morning he died and told us that he was much better. I was so delighted that I got into the brightest clothes I could find. The doctor was scarcely out of the house before he collapsed. I fear he suffered a great deal before he died about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We were all with him. He was very beautiful when it was all over. I thought Mother would go to pieces, but she was and is wonderful. It is a very blank silent house now.
It is too soon to know how things will work out. We would all like to remain on here, but it may not be possible. Frank will carry on the office. 2 My position of course is vaguer than ever. For the moment I answer the endless letters on her behalf and look after her as well as I can. Frank is up to his eyes in matters connected with the office and the estate, and it appears that I can be of no help to him. A brother of my Mother, living in England, of whom she is very fond, came over for the funeral and is staying with us until Tuesday next. 3
164
He was in his sixty first year, but how much younger he
seemed and was. Joking and swearing at the doctors as long as
he had breath. He lay in the bed with sweet pea all over his face,
making great oaths that when he got better he would never do a
stroke ofwork. He would drive to the top ofHowth and lie in the
bracken and fart. His last words were "Fight fight fight" and "What
4
TLS; 1 leaf. 1 side; TCD, MS 10402/52.
1 William Beckett died on 26 June 1933; he was buried in Redford Protestant
Cemetery, south ofBray, Co. Wicklow (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 166-167).
2 FrankBecketthadalreadybeenworkingatBeckettandMedcalf.
3 Edward Price Roe (known to SB as UncleNed, 1869 - c. 1952); he was now living in Nottinghamshire, having returned to England from Africa where he had been "an accountant with the British Central Africa Company in Blantyre inNyasaland (now
Malawi)" (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 44, 621).
4 Howth,thehillabovethedistrictofHowthonthenorthsideofDublinBay.
SB substitutes "memoire" (memory) for "esprit" in the expression "esprit de l'escalier" (an inspired afterthought that comes to one only after leaving, that is, on the stairs).
THOMAS McGREEVY FLORENCE
9/10/33 6 Clare Street Dublin
My dear Tom
Many thanks for Beatrice, Giotto & then Lungamo news.
Indeed I wish to God I could join you there, but for this year at
165
a morning". All the little things come back - memoire de l'escalier. I can't write about him, I can only walk the fields and climb
the ditches after him. God love thee.
s/ Sam
9 October 1933, McGreevy
9 October 1933, McGreevy
leastIneednotthinkofgettingaway. [. . . ]SometimesI'mjustfit
2
I'm afraid I didn't get much kick out of Coffey & Devlin,
their pockets full ofcalm precious poems. It was pleasant to hear
the Paris news, what films were on and the latest 10% of
Surrealisme. I gave them the Enueg and we went to the Gallery
(grosse erreur) and we had a drink and I haven't seen them since.
Coffey seemed to find the Enueg highly delighting amusing
delighting. Devlin didn't know what an algum tree was and I
couldn't enlighten him. They also had pockets full of French
4
The Income Tax sow-gelders are dunning me for enormous
sums, notices in scarlet ink and threats to distrain & proceed regard
less of costs. I go and see Mr Cagney, cagne cagneuse, and say that
the whole thing is a tissue ofmisrepresentation, that I never earned
so much in my life, that anyhow I can't pay and have no chattels and
no costs and that if they proceed they must do so without me; Mr
Cagney scowls, sneers at my unemployed condition & makes a note
of it. 5 I met Michael Farrell and he destroyed me with an endless
disparaging hyperbole on his own bland suspension between the
vulgaritiesofgreattalentandtherootsintheanusofgeniusnow&
then. The little tubercular tot in the cot buttons across its double
brested pilche [for double-breasted pilch], the little cheeks meet on
the inside, the accumulated wisdom of the world unites the little
6
1
society for the family noose & sometimes I'm like this poem. Chatto's took a short book of short stories called More Pricks Than Kicks, and paid me 25 pounds less 25% advance on royal ties, which cheered me up for a time. 3
jeunes [for jaunes], "lac des mains" and all the usual. I'm a kranky man & I don't like anyone.
lips like a zip fastener, and Mr Farrell is glad he is a doctor.
In a moment of gush I applied for a job of assistant at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and got Charles Prentice &
166
& April I would recover my 6 pounds 10 from Chatlos. won't come off & I don't expect it to.
But it
9 October 1933, McGreevy
Jack Yeats to act as referees. I think I'd be happy there for a time
among the pigeons and not too far from the French charmers in
the Garrick. Apart from my conoysership that can just separate
Uccello from a handsaw I could cork the post as well [as]
another. 7 Also ifl took up residence in England between now
8
Glad to hear the novel grows. Are you going down to Tarbert to finish it or have you found a room in Dublin? 9 Do let me know your plans. I have to do another story for More Pricks, Belacqua redivivus, and I'm as stupid as a goat. If only I could get the poems off now I'd be crowned. Nissssscht m666666glich! Ce qu'il est sentimentique! 10
11
on Butt Bridge take thought for yer buzzum
the mixed declension of those mammae
cock up thine arse there is no other word for it cock her up well to the tulips that droop in the west swoon on the arch-gasometer
on Misery Hill brand-new pale livid
oh a most ferocious West African baboon's swoon on the lil puce
house of prayer
Tante belle case. Give my love to San Miniato. Yours ever
s/ Sam
gape at this pothook of beauty on this palate it is final if you like
come down her she is paradise and then plush hymens on your eyeballs
167
9 October 1933, McGreevy
something Heart of Mary
the Bull and Pool Beg that will never meet not in this world
whereas dart away through the cavorting scapes bucket o'er Victoria Bridge that's the idea
slow down slink down the Ringsend Road Irishtown Sandymount puzzle find the Hell Fire the Merrion Flats scored with a thrillion sigmas Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour His Finger
girls taken strippin that's the idea
on the Bootersgrad breakwind and water
the tide making the dun gulls in a panic
the sands quicken in your old heart
hide yourself not in the Rock keep on the move keep on the move
TIS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; enclosed draft of poem published as"Serena 3" in Echo's Bones; T env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, c/o Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son, Via Tomabuoni, Florence, Italy; pm 9-10-33, Dublin [on verso, pm 12-XI, Florence]; TCD, MS 10402/55.
1 HavingtraveledtherefromAustriaon28SeptembertomeetHenryChurchand his wife Barbara, McGreevy was now with them in Florence (McGreevy to his mother, 23 September 1933, TCD MS 10381/59). In Florence, Lungamo is the name given to the road along the Amo River. Giotto (ne Giotto di Bondone, c. 1267-1337) designed the Campanile (bell tower) of the Duomo; his frescos are in Santa Croce Church in Florence. It is likely that McGreevy sent SB picture postcards with related images, and that one depicted Dante's Beatrice.
2 Thepoemisadraftof"Serena3. "
3 SB wrote to McGreevy: "I had been working at the short stories and had done about half or two thirds enough when it suddenly dried up and I had to leave it there. Perhaps I may get it going again now. But it is all jigsaw and I am not interested" (22 June 1933, TCD, MS 10402/51). Also in this letter, SB reported that Edward Titus had finally replied and returned Dream of Fair to Middling Women: "A most soothing letter from Titus at last, who finds himself forced to slide with the dollar, and abandon his Quarter and Mannekins" [for Manikin]. By the end of July, SB wrote to McGreevy from the"top room, 6 Clare St, where I've rigged up a rudimentary appartment [sic] where I pretend to work" (25 Uuly 1933], TCD, MS 10402/52); before 6 September, he submitted his stories to Charles Prentice:"I sent 10 contes, about 60,000 words, to Charles" (SB to McGreevy, 7 September 1933, TCD, MS 10402/54). "Contes" (stories).
168
Having had no pos11:tve response to Dream of Fair to Middling Women, SB may have decided to use selections from it to fill out the stories written for the new collection, initially called Draff. He sent it to Charles Prentice by 6 September: on 25 September Prentice wrote that "Chatto's would be delighted to publish the stories," although he asked for a livelier title for the book, "something tripping and conversational" (Prentice to SB, 6 September 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 149/420, and 25 September 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/134-135).
SB offered More Pricks Than Kicks as a new title and held out the possibility of adding another story or two to the book, according to Prentice's response of 29 September 1933: "Another 10,000 words, or even 5,000 for that matter, would, I am certain, help the book, and it would be lovely ifyou could manage to reel them out"(UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/196-197).
4 DenisDevlinwrotetoMcGreevyabouttheirmeetingswithSB:
We have seen Sam Beckett twice in the last few days. He has been charming to us and we talked for hours about Paris and poetry: I was delighted to hear his account of the meeting with Breton and Eluard; Breton impressed him and Eluard inspires affection; which is proper; I think I shall like him. I am discovering him slowly; and according to his movement of course, which is hesitating like a shy horse. He likes using only the essential phrase which makes conversation between him and Brian very amusing. ([23 September 1933], TCD, MS 8112/1)
Coffey and Devlin had proposed to publish poems by McGreevy, SB, and themselves as Christmas cards. SB had written to McGreevy: "About your poem scheme, I suppose I could cast before them the canal Enueg, they might know where Parnell Bridge was and the Fox & Geese, but to tell you the truth I'm not very keen" (7 September [1933], TCD, MS 10402/54). Devlin reported to McGreevy that SB "did promise us his quietest piece and gave it with an air of(and phrase of ) 'There; I understand perfectly your difficulties. Commercial, Christmas, Holy Ireland'. What must the others be like! However I like it and we can publish it in perfect safety for its surprise is not sexual nor theological" (23 September 1933, TCD, MS 8112/1). The series did not materialize. The poem "Enueg 1" is the one rejected by Dublin Magazine (see [27 November 1931], n. 2).
An algum tree: Juniperus excelsa or Grecian juniper.
"Jaunes" (a kind of cigarette): "lac des mains," reference obscure.
5 "Cagnecagneuse,"aplayon"cagne"(literally,knock-kneed,worn-outhorse);the English equivalent of the phrase might be "Cag the nag," with reference to Mr. Cagney the tax collector.
6 Irish novelist and journalist Michael Farrell (1899-1962) studied Medicine at the National University and Trinity College Dublin. His five-volume novel Thy Tears Might Cease was Farrell's life's work; he could not bear to cut the novel, which was posthumously edited by Monk Gibbon to 100,000 words and published in 1963.
7 SB's application to the National Gallery (London) for the position of Assistant has not been found; the advertisement called for "a special knowledge of Art History and Study" with preference given "to those with proficiency in Foreign Languages"
(The Times 8 and 11 September 1933: 3d). Prentice wrote to SB on 4 October: "I do hope that your application to the Nat. Gall. will come off with a bang. [. . . ] They
169
9 October 1933, McGreevy
6 December 1933 [for 5 December 1933}, McGreevy
haven't written to me yet in my capacity of 'referee"' (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/245). The Garrick Theatre on Charing Cross Road was situated behind the National Gallery.
Florentine painter Paolo Uccello (ne Paolo di Dono, 1397-1475); a play on Hamlet's line where he claims to know a "hawk from a hand-saw" (Hamlet, II. ii. 379); "uccello" (bird).
8 Along with the countersigned contract for More Pricks Than Kicks, Prentice sent SB the advance on royalties with the income tax deducted, as he was required to do for non-resident writers; he post-dated the cheque, to "fall within the next six-months report. If you come to live in England before April 5th, we shall pay you the balance of £6. 5. 0. , but if you don't I'll send you the usual voucher regarding the deduction of Income Tax" (4 October 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/245). Prentice's calculation is not correct.
9 McGreevyreturnedtoParisbriefly,staying"longenoughtoverifyvariousmat ters concerned with work," and then he went on to London. His plan was to settle in Dublin by mid-November: "I must not bury myself in Tarbert at first, shall have to make Dublin my headquarters for some time, but will get home when I can, at Christmas if not before" (McGreevy to his mother, 23 September 1933, TCD, MS 10381/59). He was still in London in mid-November: "I must stay on in London till I make sure of having plenty of work to keep me going when I go to Ireland" (McGreevy to his mother, 19 November 1933, TCD, MS 10381/62).
10 Thestorybecame"Echo'sBones"(NhD,Harveycollection). PrenticewrotetoSB: "From the tone of your postcard, I infer that the 10,000 yelps will soon be parcelled up and on their way to Holyhead. Good for Belacqua" (2 November 1933, UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 151/138; SB's postcard to Prentice has not been found).
"Redivivus" (brought back to life). Belacqua has to be brought back to life because he dies in the final story of the collection, "Draff. "
Before 22 June, SB had sent Dream to Methuen, but had had no response.
"Nissssscht mi:ii:ii:ii:ii:ii:iglich" (from "nicht mi:iglich" [not possible]) was part of the comic routine of the Swiss clown, Grock (ne Charles Adrien Wettach, 1880-1959).
"Ce qu'il est sentimentique! " (How sentimantic he is! ); "sentimentique" is a port manteau word combining "sentimental" and "romantique. "
11 "Tantebellecose"(allgoodthings).
Although SB may refer to the town of San Miniato, which is approximately 25 miles from Florence, more probably he refers to the Florentine church of San Miniato al Monte.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
6/12/33 [for 5 December 1933]
170
6 Clare Street Dublin
6 December 1933 {for 5 December 1933}, McGreevy
My dear Tom
I haven't been up to anything let alone taper a la, why I
1
couldn't tell you.
Perhaps it was the weather which has been
fiendish, irresistible cold and damp. I was rejoiced to hear from
you though sad also at the impression I got that you were very
sad. However a letter from Charles this morning stating you in
2
goodformandwiththeprospectsofwork. Thatisgoodnews. Indeed I wish to God I were in London - for a change or en passant - and that we could serve some of this time together again. I thought of apprenticing myself to some advertising firm in London. At least it would get me out of here for a bit and it might be entertaining. Or perhaps there is a faculty of advertis ing in London by this time.
