I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death.
Not to fall was too hard, too hard; and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come, falling, falling, but not yet fallen, still unfallen, but about to fall.
Although two senior Irish diplomats were in Switzerland at the time, neither attended Joyce’s funeral, and the Irish government later declined Nora’s offer to permit the repatriation of Joyce’s remains. Nora, who had married Joyce in London in 1931, survived.
His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory – if anyone remembered him.
The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect.
Poppypap’s a passport out.
He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world.
Forms passed this way and that through the dull light. And that was life.
But the surest sign that his confession had been good and that he had had sincere sorrow for his sin was, he knew, the amendment of his life. – I have amended my life, have I not? he asked himself.
Another life! A life of grace and virtue and happiness! It was true. It was not a dream from which he would wake. The past was past.
He allowed himself to think that in certain circumstances he would rob his bank but, as these circumstances never arose, his life rolled out evenly – an adventureless tale.
How beautiful must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon it with love!
She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said “I seen” and “If I had’ve known.” But what would grammar matter if he really loved her?
Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs march ing.
The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again. Life, love, voyage round your own little world.
Why was he kneeling there like a child saying his evening prayers? To be alone with his soul, to examine his conscience, to meet his sins face to face, to recall their times and manners and circumstances, to weep over them.
The journey laid a magical finger on the genuine pulse of life and gallantly the machinery of human nerves strove to answer the bounding courses of the swift blue animal.
God and morality and religion come first.
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.
A gust of wind blows in through the porch with the sound of shaken leaves. The flame of the lamp leaps.