Episode 2 - Nestor - Page 2

fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass? Weave, weaver of the wind.

-- Tell us a story, sir.

-- Oh, do, sir, a ghoststory.

-- Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.

-- Weep no more, Comyn said.

-- Go on then, Talbot.

-- And the history, sir?

-- After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.

A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:

-- Weep no more, woful shepherd, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor...

It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquillity sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms.

Talbot repeated:

-- Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Through the dear might...

-- Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything.

-- What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.

His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again having just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven on the church's looms. Ay.

Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro.
My father gave me seeds to sow.

Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel.

-- Have I heard all? Stephen asked.

-- Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir.

-- Half day, sir. Thursday.

-- Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked.

They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling. Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling gaily:

-- A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.

-- O, ask me, sir.

-- A hard one, sir.

-- This is the riddle, Stephen said.

The cock crew
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.