"Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one." (U3.136)
"Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies on green oval leaves, deeply deep," (U3.139)
"copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria?" (U3.141)
"Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once..." (U3.143)
"The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes." (U3.147)
"He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells." (U3.152)
"He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards the Pigeonhouse.
- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?
- C'est le pigeon, Joseph. " (U3.158)
(Image courtesy of the ZJJF)
- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?
- C'est le pigeon, Joseph. " (U3.158)
(Image courtesy of the ZJJF)
"Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap, lapin." (U3.163)
"He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read in Michelet." (U3.166)
"But he must send me La Vie de Jésus by M. Léo Taxil. Lent it to his friend.
- C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père.
- Il croit?
- Mon père, oui." (U3.167)
La Vie de Jésus by M. Léo Taxil was published in France in 1900. The author states in the preface: "My purpose is, by following step by step the christian legend, to bring out its ridicule and its contradictions in order to demonstrate that, from beginning to end, however one looks at it, the story of Jesus Christ, man or god, is nothing but a weave of immoral and stupid fables."
- C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père.
- Il croit?
- Mon père, oui." (U3.167)
La Vie de Jésus by M. Léo Taxil was published in France in 1900. The author states in the preface: "My purpose is, by following step by step the christian legend, to bring out its ridicule and its contradictions in order to demonstrate that, from beginning to end, however one looks at it, the story of Jesus Christ, man or god, is nothing but a weave of immoral and stupid fables."
"Schluss. He laps.
My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's name? Paysayenn. P.C.N, you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen." (U3.173)
My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's name? Paysayenn. P.C.N, you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen." (U3.173)
"Just say in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris, boul' Mich', I used to." (U3.178)
The Boulevard St. Michel is a street in the 5th arrondissement in Paris, part of the student 'Latin' quarter. This photo is taken from the Boul'Mich, looking toward the Ile de la Cité.
The Boulevard St. Michel is a street in the 5th arrondissement in Paris, part of the student 'Latin' quarter. This photo is taken from the Boul'Mich, looking toward the Ile de la Cité.
"Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c'est moi. You seem to have enjoyed yourself" (U3.179)
"Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a dispossessed." (U3.184)
"With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger toothache. Encore deux minutes. Look clock. Must get. Fermé. Hired dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O, that's all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's all right. Shake a shake. O, that's all only all right." (U3.185)
"You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: Euge! Euge!" (U3.192)