No More Learning

"Tres emouvant" (very moving). The poem mentions "the burning b. t. m. of George the drill" (a West African species of baboon) as well as British novelist and essayist Daniel Defoe (ne Foe, 1660-1731). "B. t. m. " (children's language, bottom).
2 "Uebersetzungen" (translations).
3 ChattoandWindus,theHogarthPress,JonathanCape,andGraysonandGrayson had turned down or failed to respond to SB's Dream ofFair to Middling Women. Jonathan Cape was "ecoeure" (disgusted). Rupert Grayson had not yet replied.
The London weekly satirical magazine Punch was published from 1841 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2002.
4 Bronowski had suggested that SB stay with Mrs. Southon in Ampton Street. A manufacturer of safes by the name of Milner has been identified, but not of valises or briefcases.
"Pun" (Ir. colloq. , pound).
5 ReaveyhadbegunhisBureauLitteraireEuropeeninParisandwasdevelopingan office in London for his several publishing ventures (18 April 1986: notes of Emile Delavenay). Delavenay (1905-2000) was French Lecteur from the Ecole Normale Superieure at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge {1927-1929) where he met Reavey who was then a student. When Reavey went to France, Delavenay introduced Reavey to Thomas McGreevy (Emile Delavenay, Temoignage: d'un village savoyard au village mondial {1905-1991/ [La Calade: Diffusion EDISUD, 1992] 117). In his draft memoirs, Reavey says, however, that he met McGreevy through Alan Duncan (TxU).
SB facetiously gives to Desmond Maccarthy the names of English writers: Richard Savage (1697-1743), William Hazlitt (1778-1830), Charles Lamb (1775-1834), P. G. Wodehouse (ne Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, 1881-1973), John Milton (1608-1674), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863).
The Spaniards Inn on Hampstead Heath was built in 1585 as a residence for the Spanish Ambassador; it was opened as an inn in the middle of the eighteenth century by two Spanish brothers and later became well known as a pub. Nearby streets are named for it.
6 "Salut" (greetings).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
8/10/32 Cooldrinagh Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
126
8 October 1932, McGreevy
Dear Tom
Forgive me for not answering the first of your last two
letters. I did write, but it turned out such a jeremiad that
I refrained from posting it. Don't for God's sake bother your
head about the 2 quid. Frank is not in that hurry. Wait for a
flusher time. I got a few grinds and am doing a few at the moment
and will get paid one ofthese fine days, early next week probably,
and can let you have then what I owe you, which is about one
quid ten as well as I remember. It is rotten to hear things are so
difficult and that the book has slowed down again. I don't think
you would have stuck the Irish Press very long, but it would have
1
Frank had to go down to Galway on a job and he very dec­ ently stood me the trip with him and so I saw Galway at last. A grand little magic grey town full of sensitive stone and bridges and water. We went on to Mallaranny and spent a day walking on Achill right out over the Atlantic. We came back all along L. Mask and right through the mountainous Joyce's country and between L. s [sic] Mask and Corrib. Everywhere we went Croagh Patrick was standing up over everything, with an Arrarat [for Ararat] cloud always somewhere near the chapel on the summit. Altogether it was an unforgettable trip and much too short, through bog and mountain scenery that was somehow far more innocent and easy and obvious than the stealthy secret variety we have here. I would like to go back to Galway and spend a little time there. There was some damn retreat on the Saturday morning we were there so we couldn't get into the Dominican and Franciscan churches where there are supposed to be some remarkable mosaics. But we saw
127
beensomethingtobegoingonwith. Dublinstagnatesasusual. I occasionally go in on the bike for the ride and the wayside pubs, but seldom, and on the surface at least she seems unmoved by all the goingson.
8 October 1932, McGreevy
St Nicholas's which is charming and where they say Cristoforo C.
2
Yes, I had that letter from Reavey. He also condescended to
mention that he had heard "rumours" of my novel when speaking
to publishers and that he would have some translations for me in
3
I tell you Gilbert acknowledged Home Olga at last with assurance of
its inclusion among the suceculeries of Contempo? Hope ev[e]ry­
4
[ . . . ] Cissie has gone back to her Mann, bringing the big Ibach with her. It had all that salt air for nothing. They have found a new flat now, with twice the sun and half the rent. She says there is a chaise longue there for me. But I don't know what that means. Peggy read the transition sublimen and said for God's sake to spell pfennig with two enns next time! I had a letter from Nancy from Lot, on her way back to Paris, wanting to get
in touch. Perhaps she has some work. Titus's quick little blurb in
7
had a dish of mass before committing his indiscretion.
thenearfutureiflwaswiseenoughtokeepintouchwithhim. Did
onemaybepleased. AndthatTituswroteaboutDanteandtheL. which he says pleased him and which he proposes to run in his next number? 5 Nothing at all from Grayson. It is now well over 6 weeks since he viva voce assured me a speedy decision. I wrote him a polite note a fortnight and more ago which he did not acknowl­ edge. So by this same post he is getting a stinger and may the devil look after his own and take the hindmost and in fact do all the parlour tricks that may be necessary. I have an idea he may try and do the dirty. He has no background and I have nothing to show that he has any of my property. Titus enquired after the book and suggested my sending it to him. Better that than gar nix. But I'd rather send him the poems. Rickword never acknowledged them. 6 To hell with them all. Titus has benn [sic] a monument of courtesy compared with the most of them.
his preface to his surrealiste number might get me some clients.
128
8 October 1932, McGreevy
This obstinate sobriety in all modes here is beginning to hurt seriously, but I haven't the guts to make a dash for it again out into the cold cold world. You must manage at least one evening in Dublin if you are going through. I want very much to see you and talk over the prospects in Paris.
[. . . ]
I'm enclosing the only bit of writing that has happened to
me since Paris and that does me no particular credit as far as
I can judge. 8 I'm enchanted with Joseph Andrews, Jacques and
9
the Vicar of W. in one.
The reminiscences of Diderot interest
me very much, the ironical replis and giving away of the show
pari passu with the show, as when he executes a purely profes­
sional apostrophe to Vanity and then observes that something
had to be done to spin out a chapter that otherwise would have
been too short. And the hero is suggested admirably, almost a
physical weight on the page, all thighs and sex, palpitant, like
Aminta or a Marivaux pretendant, nothing ofthe volupte pensee
and pensante of Diderot. Such a thing never to have read! I think
10
I put pen to this
vague carmen that
is so much pleasanter easier
more'n my line nor prose
and my kakoethes or as they say evil propensity ain't got Gott sei dank no butt
what I mean is I don't love her
the very short chapters are an idea.
Can you recommend me an informative book on Dutch
painting? 11
Love ever
s/ Sam
129
8 October 1932, McGreevy
nor scape of land sea or sky
nor our Saviour particularly
I haven't signed any contract either I couldn't quite bring it off no my algos is puss in the corner I just feel fervent
ardent in a vague general way
and my lil erectile brain God help her
thuds like a butcher's sex
without the grand old British Museum
Thales and the Aretino
on the bosom of the Regent's Park the phlox
crackles under the thunder
scarlet beauty in our world dead fish adrift
all things full of gods
pressed down and bleeding a weaver bird is tangerine
the harpy is past caring
the condor likewise in his mangy boa
they stare out across monkey-hill the elephants Ireland
the light creeps down their old home canyon sucks me aloof to that old reliable
the burning b. t. m. of George the drill
ah across the way an adder
broaches her rat
white as snow
in her dazzling oven strom of peristalsis
limae labor
ah father father that art in heaven
I find me taking the Crystal Palace
for the Isles of the Blest from Primrose Hill alas I must be that kind of person
130
8 October 1932, McGreevy my quiet breath in the midst of thickets
none but the most quarried lovers
I surprise me moved by the many a funnel hinged for the obeisance to Tower Bridge
the viper's curtsey to and from the City
until at dusk a lighter
blind with pride
tosses aside the scarf of the bascules
then in the grey hold of the ambulance
throbbing on the brink ebb of sighs
then I hug me below among the people
until a guttersnipe blast his cerned eyes
demanding have I done with the Mirror
I stump off in a fearful rage under Married Men's Quarters Bloody Tower
and afar off at all speed screw me up Wren's giant bully and wish to Christ caged panting on the platform
the urn beacon aloft
that I were Daniel Defoe no less
hence in Ken Wood who shall find me
but then again as I say
who is likely to run across me in Ken Wood
my brother the fly
common house-fly
creeping out of darkness into light fastens on his place in the sun
whets his six legs
revels in his planes his poisers
it is the autumn of his life
he could not serve typhoid and mammon
131
8 October 1932, McGreevy
TIS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; includes untitled poem, later published as "Serena 1" (with the omission of the first stanza; there are variants with respect to published version); TCD, MS 10402/33.
1 McGreevywasworkingonhisnovel;hehadhopedtodosomewritingforTheIrish Press, but had not yet begun (SB to McGreevy, 8 November 1931, n. 4).
2 ConnemaraisadistrictinthewestofCountyGalway. Mallarannyisthetownto the east of Achill Island, the largest island off the Irish coast, west of the Curraun Peninsula. The Joyce country is to the north and west of Galway, a desolate land of rock, bog, and mountain that includes Lough Mask and Lough Corrib; it is named for the Joyce family of this region, not for James Joyce. Croagh Patrick (2,510 feet), known as the "holy mountain" because of the associations with St. Patrick; a church at its summit is a place ofpilgrimage. Ararat alludes to the mountain on which Noah's ark is said to have come to rest.
The Franciscan Friary and the Dominican church (St. Mary's on the Hill) in Galway are not notable for mosaics, but the Dominican church in nearby Claddagh has a mosaic depicting a church on a hill, a boat, and a young man and woman. Galway's St. Nicholas-of-Myra church, founded in 1320, is the largest medieval church in Ireland; while myth has it that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) prayed there before sailing to America, it is more likely he stopped in Galway during a voyage to Iceland in 1477 (Gianni Granzotto, Christopher Columbus, tr. Stephen Sartarelli [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985[ 36-37).
3 ReaveyhadmovedtoLondon. Reavey'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound.
4 StuartGilberteditedContempo(1931-1934)inChapelHill,NorthCarolina;"Home Olga," written for James Joyce's birthday in 1932, was published in the last issue of Contempo (3. 13 [February 1934] 3).
"Suceculeries" (bumsuckings).
5 Edward Titus published "Dante and the Lobster" in This Quarter 5. 2 (December
1932) 222-236.
6 SB'sstingertoGraysonisnotextant. Attheveryleast,SBwantedhismanuscript returned so that he could send it to Titus. "Gar nix" (Ger. colloq. , from "gar nichts" [nothing at all]); see also Pilling, A Companion to "Dream ofFair to Middling Women," 37.
Rickword still had the manuscript of the poems sent on 30 August 1932.
7 TheSinclairs'pianowasanIbach.
Peggy Sinclair's comment refers to SB's story "Sedendo et Quiescendo," which describes Smeraldina approaching Belacqua's train; SB writes that her platform ticket had cost "ten Pfenigs" (for "Pfennige" [pennies! ) (transition 21 [March 1932] 13).
The texts that Nancy Cunard wanted SB to translate were related to Nancy Cunard, ed. , Negro, Anthology Made by Nancy Cunard, 1931-1933 (London: Published by Nancy Cunard at Wishart and Co. , 1934).
In his introduction to the surrealist number of This Quarter, Edward Titus wrote: "We shall not speak of the difficulties experienced in putting the material placed at our disposal into English, but we cannot refrain from singling out Mr. Samuel Beckett's work for special acknowledgement. His rendering of the Eluard and Breton poems in particular is characterizable only in superlatives" ("Editorially: By the Way of Introducing This Surrealist Number," 5. 1 [September 1932] 6).
132
18 October 1932, McGreevy
8 Mostofthepoemenclosedwaspublishedas"Serena1. "
9 The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr Abraham Adams (1742) by English novelist Henry Fielding (1701-1754) is compared bySB to Jacques le fataliste et son maftre (1796; Jacques, the Fatalist), a novel by French writer Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), a novel by Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774).
10 SB refers toJoseph Andrews. Fielding's novel is divided into four books, each with short chapters; the self-referential narrator weighs his narrative choices as well as his readers' possible responses. "Replis" (foldings, meanderings). Both chapter headings and narrative interruptions point to the events before they unfold.
In the apostrophe "OVanity! " introduced at the end ofBook I, chapter 15, the narrator writes: "Nor will it give me any Pain, if thou [Vanity] should'st prevail on theReader to censure this Digression as errantNonsense: for know to thy Confusion, that I have introduced thee for no other Purpose than to lengthen out a short Chapter; and so I return to my History" (Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews, ed. Martin C. Battestin [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967] 69-70).
SB's comparison of Joseph Andrews with the character of Arninta may refer to the pastoral play, L'Aminta (1581), by Italian author Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), or to a " pre­ tendant" (suitor) ofFrench dramatist Pierre Carlet de Charnblaine deMarivaux (1688-1763).
"Palpitant" (quivering). "Volupte pensee and pensante" (voluptuousness as thought, voluptuousness as thinking).
11 ItisnotknownifMcGreevymadeasuggestion.
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
18th Oct. 32
Cooldrinagh Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
To know you like the poem cheers me up.
1
Genuinely my
impression was that it was of little worth because it did not
represent a necessity. I mean that in some way it was 'facultatif'
and that I would have been no worse off for not having written
it. Is that a very hairless way of thinking of poetry? Quoi qu'il
2
133
en soit I find it impossible to abandon that view of the matter. Genuinely again my feeling is, more and more, that the greater part of my poetry, though it may be reasonably felicitous in its choice of terms, fails precisely because it is facultatif. Whereas
18 October 1932, McGreevy
the 3 or 4 I like, and that seem to have been drawn down against
the really dirty weather ofone ofthese fine days into the burrow
ofthe 'private life', Alba & the long Enueg & Dortmunder & even
Moly, do not and never did give me that impression of being
3
Quel est le role de la racine?
Le desespoir a rompu tous ses liens.
I'm not ashamed to stutter like this with you who are used to my wild way offailing to say what I imagine I want to say and who understand that until the gag is chewed fit to swallow or spit out the mouth must stutter or rest. And it needs a more stoical mouth than mine to rest.
There is a kind of writing corresponding with acts of fraud &
debauchery on the part of the writing-shed. The moan I have
more & more to make with mine is there - that it is nearly all
trigged up, in terrain, faute d'orifice, heat of friction and not the
spontaneous combustion of the spirit to compensate the pus &
the pain that threaten its economy, fraudulent manoeuvres to
make the cavity do what it can't do - the work of the abscess. 5
I don't know why the Jesuitical poem that is an end in itself and
justifies all the means should disgust me so much. But it does -
again - more & more. I was trying to like Mallarme again the other
day, & couldn't, because it's Jesuitical poetry, even the Swan &
6
construits. Icannotexplainverywelltomyselfwhattheyhave that distinguishes them from the others, but it is something arborescent or of the sky, not Wagner, not clouds on wheels; written above an abscess and not out ofa cavity, a statement and not a description of heat in the spirit to compensate for pus in the spirit. Is not that what Eluard means?
4
I suppose I'm a dirty low-church P. even in poetry, concerned with integrity in a surplice. I'm in mourning for the integrity of a pendu's emission of semen, what I find in Homer &
134
Herodiade.
Dante & Racine & sometimes Rimbaud, the integrity ofthe eyelids coming down before the brain knows of grit in the wind. 7
Forgive all this? Why is the spirit so pus-proof and the wind so avaricious of its grit?
I never see nor write to nor hear from nor am seen by Ethna Mace. now. 'Tis better thus! ' I incline to the opinion that when it is not possible to see people simply it is more satisfactory to wait till they tum up in the memory. I can't see her and I can't imagine her. Occasionally it happens that I remember her and then, presto! I had nothing up my sleeve nor she in her amethyst bodice. 8
The Grayson Bros. were stimulated by my multicuspid
stinker to return my MS. 'circumscribed appeal . . Gratuitous
"strength"'! What is that? I replied soliciting favour of readers[']
reports. Reply to the effect that there was no written record
of condemnation, that my book, an unusual, he might say,
privilege, had been read by 3 most distinguished readers and
discussed verbally with the Fratellacci; that their advice to me
frankly and without the least desire to wound was to lay aside
Dream altogether, forget it ever happened, be a good boy in future
9
Another scribble from Nancy from the Cunegonde on sub­ ject of touch. She has some Breton & Eluard MSS. I wrote saying it was always a pleasure to translate Eluard & Breton. 11
I'm sorry I can't enclose what I would like to in this letter, because I have not yet touche the filthy commodity. 12 As soon as I do I will.
Talking with a French woman here, Mme. Redmond, married to a Doctor, I was advised to address myself to Mr Blumenfeld,
135
18 October 1932, McGreevy
and compose what I was well-fitted to compose - a best-seller. When I had done that they would be interested to hear from me again.
So I dried my eyes and sent it off to Titus, who has not acknowledged it yet. I tremble lest I should push him too far. 10
18 October 1932, McGreevy
editor of Daily Express, who is a bussom friend of hers and to
whom she would be most happy to give me a letter ofintroduction
overflowing with boniments of all kinds. Acting on same I com­
posed last night an irresistible document. I may post it to-day - and
13
They are doing Romeo & Juliet at the Gate when they have
finished idealizing Wilde's husband. I lacked the spunk to go to Peer
Gynt. Such wonderful lighting, my dear, all coming from behind
instead of in front. Imagine that! And Grieg without mercy. 15
16
I may not.
of minuses is beginning to bow me down. I walk immeasurably & unrestrainedly, hills and dales, all day, and back with a couple of pints from the Powerscourt Arms under my Montpamasse belt through the Homer dusk. Often very moving and it helps to swamp the usual palpitations. But I disagree with you about the gardenish landscape. The lowest mountains here terrify me far more than anything I saw in Connemara or Achill. Or is it that a garden is more frightening than a waste? I walked across Prince William's Seat, a low mountain between the Glencullen & Glencree rivers, and was reduced almost to incontinence by the calm secret hostility. I ran down into Enniskerry. 14
My cuticle urges me to hibernate here, but the weight
Donagh Bryan is dead. Sam
Love ever.
ALS; 2 leaves. 4 sides: McGreevy. TCD. MS 10402/34.
1 Withhisletterof8October1932. SBhadsentMcGreevyanuntitledpoem. later published (without the first stanza) as '"Serena 1. ""
2 "Facultatif"" (optional).
""Quoi qu"il en soit"" (Whatever the case).
3 The poems "Alba. "" "Enueg 1. "" and "Dortmunder" were published in Echo"s Bones ([18]. [12-15], and [191). "Moly"" was published under the title ""Yoke of Liberty"' (Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 314; as "Moly,"" this poem is in the archives of Poetry Magazine (ICU) and in the A. J. Leventhal collection (TxU).
"Construits" (deliberately constructed).
136
4 SB alludes to the work of Richard Wagner.
These lines are from a poem by French surrealist poet Paul Eluard (1895-1952), "L'Invention" (Paul Eluard, Capitale de la douleur [Paris: Gallimard. 1964] 12-13); they are translated by SB as "What is the role of the root'? / Despair has broken all his bonds" (Paul Eluard, Thorns of Thunder: Selected Poems, tr. Samuel Beckett, Denis Devlin, David Gascoyne et al. , ed. George Reavey [London: Europa Press and Stanley Nott, 1936] 8).
5 "Terrain" (soil or ground); "faute d'orifice" (for want of an orifice).
6 PoemsofStephaneMallarme(1842-1898). "Swan"referstothesonnet,"Levierge,le vivace et le be! aujourd'hui" (The Virgin, Beautiful and Lively Day) (Oeuvres completes, I, ed. Bertrand Marchal, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallirnard, 1998] 36-37; "Sonnet" in Stephane Mallarrne, New and Collected Poems, tr. Roger Fry, with commentaries by Charles Mauron, The New Classics Series [New York: New Directions Books, 1951] 67). Mallarme·s "Herodiade" exists in several forms (Oeuvres completes, I, 17-22, 85-89, 135-152).
7 P. is Protestant. "Pendu" (hanged man).
8 Ethna Maccarthy. "Tis better thus" may allude to the play All for Love by John Dryden (1631-1700); referring to Antony, who is dead, Cleopatra says: "And, oh! 'tis better far to have him thus. / Than see him in her arms" Uohn Dryden, All for Love and The Spanish Fryar, ed. William Strunk, Jr. [Boston, D. C. Heath and Company, 1911] 144).
9 Although Charles Prentice wrote to Richard Aldington that he had heard Grayson and Grayson were going to publish Dream of Fair to Middling Women, they did not (5 September 1932, ICSo, Aldington 68/6/8). SB's letters to Grayson and Grayson are not extant. "Fratellacci" (wretched brothers).
10 SB sent Dream ofFair to Middling Women to Edward Titus, who was Editor of This Quarter from 1929 through 1932, and Editor of the Black Manikin Press from mid-1926 to spring 1932.
11 CunardwrotetoSBfromCuneges. intheDordogne. conflatedbySBwithCunegonde, a character in Candide ou l'optimisme (1759) by Voltaire (ne Fran,;:ois-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778). SB translated "Murderous Humanitarianism" by the "Surrealist Group" in Paris, a group which included Andre Breton and Paul Eluard (Cunard, ed. , Negro, Anthology, 574-575). Although SB writes to McGreevy that Cunard plans to send him "Eluard & Breton," as she does in December 1932 (21 November 1932, TCD, MS 10402/38), there is no indication that SB translated other work by either writer for Cunard. He had translated their writing for the surrealist number of This Qj. ulrter (see 13 [September 1932], n. 9).
12 "Touche" (got my hands on).
13 Mme. Marie Redmond (nee Robinson, known as Elsie, 1885-1976), married to Dr. H. E. Redmond (1882-1951), was born in Paris of English parents and had grown up there. In Dublin she was the "go to" person for French lessons and taught SB. In later years, she would say, "That Beckett fellow has done quite well, it seems" (Annick O'Meara, 17 October 2007).
Ralph D. Blumenfeld (1864-1948), the American-born Editor of the Daily Express (London) from 1902 to 1932, was a family friend of Mme. Redmond's parents.
"Boniments" (sales talk or puffs).
14 PrinceWilliam'sSeatisapromontorysouthofDublinontheWicklowWay;the town of Enniskerry lies north of it in the direction of Foxrock.
137
18 October 1932, McGreevy
18 October 1932, McGreevy
15 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) opened at Dublin's Gate Theatre on 1 November 1932. Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband had played there from 18 October; prior to that, from 27 September to 15 October, the Gate produced a revival of Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). Hilton RobertEdwards (1903-1982), a founder of the Gate Theatre, had directed the original production in October 1928; his revival was "improved" with the scenic concept of light coming from the back of the stage (The Irish Times 29 September 1932: 4).
Incidental Music to Peer Gynt for SoloVoices, Orchestra and Chorus, op. 23, by Norwegian composerEdvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907).
16 J. D. O. Bryan (known as Donagh, 1903-1932), a gold medalist and Research Prizeman in History at Trinity College Dublin, was appointed as Assistant Lecturer in History there in January 1931; he died on 9 October 1932.
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
4th Nov. [for 3 November 1932]
Cooldrinagh, Foxrock,
Co. Dublin.
My dear Tom
Because the morning is balmy and the wind in the south­
west I can come out of the grate and sit at the table and write a
letter. Though there is little news. The work I did for Ruddy has
not yet been paid. I was waiting to write till it would be, but I see
no signs of any money forthcoming, and I can't bring myself to
write & ask him for it. I sent my Dream to Titus about 3 weeks
1
ago,buthavehadnoacknowledgment. Thereisnothingatall to be done here, in this house. Sitting about all day from one room to another & moving cautiously about the parish, regret­ ting that my old friend obstipation excludes me from more frequent enjoyment of the seats in rosewood. I tried once or twice to get something started, but as soon as a word goes down out it must come. So I gave it up. I got a letter of introduction to Blumenfeld of the Daily Express and wrote him a begging letter. He regretted rather coarsely to be unable -- I nearly applied for
138
4 November [for 3 November 1932}, McGreevy
an [sic] job as teacher ofFrench in Technical School in Bulawayo,
S. Rhodesia, but a few minutes consideration equipoised so per­
fectly the pros & cons that as usual I found myself constrained to
2
I had a letter from George Reavey with a poem out ofhis new
Quixote Series. Better than his usual, at least more amusing. He is
full ofplans & Editors & publishers & literary agencies. He might
3
And yourself? You were sad when you wrote last. I was glad
to hear the Lun;:at deal concluded. I have heard nothing about
4
The Income Tax bastards have been after me, sending up the local sergeant to see what I am at and spying in the office in Clare
6
I push the bike up into the mountains in the late afternoon
to the Lamb Doyle's or Glencullen or Enniskerry and have a pint
and then free wheel home to TomJones. Yes, as you say, as far as
he goes. But he's the best ofthem. I like the short chapters more
& more and the ironical chapter-titles. His burlesque is rather
clumsy but his serious mood is very distinguished. Somehow
7
better. I'm enclosing a photo that I thought you would like and
donothing. Butnearlyanythingwouldbeagratefulchangeafter these slow months oftepid eviration, with the mind in slush.
prove useful before he dies. Nothing further from Nancy Cunard.
it,butthenIdonothavetheoccasion. TheGalleryisclosedfor re-hanging. I have not seenJ. B. Y. Those Sat. afternoons chez lui are rather dreadful. To-morrow afternoon I am having 3/- worth of Gods to hear Horowitz at the Royal. The programme is interesting. 5
St. So far no formal demand. Anyhow I cant pay them anything.
I expected more from TomJones.
Dear Tom this is a very white kind ofletter but I cant do any
another poem.
God love you
8
Sam
139
4 November [for 3 November 1932}, McGreevy
this seps of a world
see-saw she is blurred in sleep
she is fat she is half dead the rest is freewheeling part the black shag the pelt
is ashen woad
snarl and howl in the wood wake all the birds hound the whores out of the fems
this damfool twilight threshing in the brake bleating to be bloodied
this crapulent hush
tear its heart out
in her dreams she leaps again9
way back in the good old dark old days
in the womb of her dam panting
in the claws of the Pins in the stress of her hour
the womb writhes bagful offerrets
first come first served no queuing up in the womb the light fails it is time to lie down
Clew Bay vat of xanthic flowers
Croagh Patrick waned Hindu to spite the pilgrims she is ready to lie down above all the islands of glory straining now this Sabbath evening of garlands
with a yo-heave-ho of able-bodied swans
out from the doomed land their reefs of tresses whales in Blacksod Bay dancing
as to the sound of a trumpet
in a hag she drops her young
the asphodels come running the flags after cloppety-clop all night she drops them
till dawn the trollop fillips the clots of love
from her infamous finger
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4 November (for 3 November 1932], McGreevy
she wakes whining
she was deep in heat when Pavlov came
with a cauter and a metronome he came
toiling on bottom gear through the celtic mizzle to where stiff with nits
blotch and pearly ticks she lay
her hot snout pointing south
vermifuge quotha from this time forth
and donnerwetter she'll wet on my tomb
she took me up on to a high watershed
whence like the rubrics of a childhood
lo Meath shining through a chink in the mountains posses of larches there is no going back on
a rout of tracks and streams fleeing to the sea kindergartens of steeples and then the harbour like a woman making to cover her breasts
and left me
with whatever trust of panic we went out
with so much shall we return
there shall be no loss of panic between a man and his dog bitch though he be
sodden packet of Players
it is only a dream
muzzling the cairn
the light randy slut can't be easy this clonic world
all these phantoms shuddering out of focus
it is better to close the eyes
all the chords of the earth broken like a bad pianist's
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4 November {for 3 November 1932}, McGreevy
the toads abroad again on their rounds
sidling up to their snares
the fairy-tale of Meath ended
say your prayers now and go to bed
your prayers before the lamps start to sing behind the larches here at these knees of stone
then to bye-bye on the bones
ALS; 3 leaves, 5 sides; letterhead; enclosure TMS 2 leaves, 2 sides ("this seps of a world"); the photo is not extant with this letter; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq. , Tarbert, Keny; pm 3-11-32, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/35. Dating: SB misdates the letter a day later than the postmark.
1 Rudmose-Brown. SB sent Dream ofFair to Middling Women to Edward Titus before 18 October 1932.
2 NeitherSB'slettertoRalphBlumenfeldnorBlumenfeld'sreplyhasbeenfound. Bulawayo, S. Rhodesia, is now Bulawayo (alt. Buluwayo), Zimbabwe.
3 Reaveysentoneofthefollowingpoems,writtenin1932fortheQuixoticseries: "Adios Prolovitch," "Hie Jacet," "Squirearchy," or "Perquisition" (George Reavey, Quixotic Perquisitions: First Series [London: Europa Press, 1939] 11-12, 17-23).
4 McGreevyhadmadethearrangementsfortheSocietyofFriendsoftheNational Collections oflreland to acquire Decorative Landscape (1932) by Jean Lun;at (see McGreevy to Dermod O'Brien, TCD, McGreevy, MSS 8126/47-48). Sarah Purser (1848-1943), Chairman of the Society. expressed reservations: '"I am a little nervous about its acceptance and reception by our rather arriere public"' (letter to McGreevy quoted in Patricia Boylan, All Cultivated People: A History of the United Arts Club, Dublin [Gerrards Cross, Bucks. , UK: Colin Smythe, 1988] 187-188). The painting (no. 709) was kept in storage until the new Municipal Gallery of Modem Art opened in Charlemont House on 19 June 1933 (now known as the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; see Elizabeth Mayes and Paula Murphy, eds. . Images and Insights [Dublin: Hugh Lane Gallery of Modem Art. 1993] 258-259).
"I do not have the occasion" (Gallicism for "I do not have the opportunity").
5 TheNationalGalleryofIreland.
"Chez lui" (at-homes); SB often lamented that other people were present.
The gods: cheap seats in top gallery.
On 5 November 1932, Russian-born American pianist Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989)
gave a recital in Dublin's Theatre Royal. The program included the Organ Toccata in C, BWV 564, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), arranged for piano by German­ born Italian composer Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni (1866-1924); "Flight of the Bumble Bee" from the opera The Tale of Tzar Saltan by Russian composer Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908); a fantasia based on the opera Carmen by
142
4 November [for 3 November 1932}, McGreevy
French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875) (possibly Horowitz's own "Variations on a Theme from Carmen"); a Sonata in E-flat major by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809); "Funerailles" from Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, second version (Sl73, no. 7), by Franz Liszt (1811-1886); "Variations on a Theme by Paganini," op. 35, and two of the three Intermezzos for Piano, op. 117, byJohannes Brahms (1833-1897); the Pastorale and "Toccata" from Trois pieces, op. 48, by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963); Stravinsky's "Danse Russe" from the ballet Petrouchka; and Etude in F major, op. 10, no. 8, and Barcarolle in F-sharp major, op. 60, by Frederic Chopin (1810-1849).
SB wrote to McGreevy:
The Horowitz concert was very remarkable and yet somehow unsatisfac­ tory. The Haydn Sonata was unspeakable and coming so early on put me in a bad temper for the rest of the programme. He played with great intelligence, especially the Brahms Intermezzi, affecting to feel his way through them. The Poulenc Pastorale & Toccata were charming. Still & all I was glad to get away before the torrent of encores and into the Scotch House. (11 November 1932, TCD, MS 10402/37)
6 BeckettandMedcalf,6ClareStreet.
7 Lamb Doyles, an inn on the Hill of Stepaside near the base of the Three Rock Mountains, Co. Wicklow. Glencullen and Enniskerry are towns at the southern edge of Co. Dublin in the Wicklow hills.
Henry Fielding's novel The History of Tam Jones, a Foundling (1748).
8 A "white kind of letter" (Gallicism for a "blank, colorless" letter). This poem, untitled here, is an early draft of "Serena 2" (Echo's Bones, [28-301). The photo has not been identified.
9 SBwrote"<wakesagain>leaps. "
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
6/11/32
Cooldrinagh, Foxrock
Co. Dublin.
DearReavey
Herewith 2 Prepuscules d'un Gueux_
I dont know yet how things are with my book. If you think
you could place a truss of poems for me you are very welcome
2
to see them.
sometime. But I don't think that is likely.
Let me know. Perhaps I may get to Paris myself
143
1
6 November 1932, Reavey
Best of luck in your new venture. Yours
Sam Beckett
Thanks for the Quix poem. I liked it very much.
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; letterhead; env to Monsieur George Reavey, Bureau Litteraire Europeen, 13 Rue Bonaparte, Paris 6! !