At Swim-Two-Birds

by Flann O'Brien

  (At this reply ten of the judges made angry noises on the counter with the butts of their stout-glasses. Judge Shanahan put his head out through a door and issued a severe warning to the witness, advising him to conduct himself and drawing his attention to the serious penalties which would be attendant on further impudence.)

  His sensations? Is it not possible to be more precise?

  It is. He was consumed by doubts as to his own identity, as to the nature of his body and the cast of his countenance.

  In what manner did he resolve these doubts?

  By the sensory perception of his ten fingers.

  By feeling?

  Yes.

  Did you write the following: Sir Francis Thumb Drake, comma, with three inquiring midshipmen and a cabin boy, comma, he dispatched in a wrinkled Mayflower across the seas of his Braille face?

  I did.

  I put it to you that the passage was written by Mr Tracy and that you stole it.

  No.

  I put it to you that you are lying.

  No.

  Describe this man’s conduct after he had examined his face.

  He arose from his bed and examined his stomach, lower chest and legs.

  What parts did he not examine?

  His back, neck and head.

  Can you suggest a reason for so imperfect a survey?

  Yes. His vision was necessarily limited by the movement of his neck.

  (At this point Judge Shanahan entered the court adjusting his dress and said: That point was exceedingly well taken. Proceed.)

  Having examined his stomach, legs and lower chest, what did he do next?

  He dressed.

  He dressed? A suit of the latest pattern, made to measure?

  No. A suit of navy-blue of the pre-War style.

  With a vent behind?

  Yes.

  The cast-aways of your own wardrobe?

  Yes.

  I put it to you that your intention was purely to humiliate him.

  No. By no means.

  And after he was dressed in his ludicrous clothes…?

  He spent some time searching in his room for a looking-glass or for a surface that would enable him to ascertain the character of his countenance.

  You had already hidden the glass?

  No. I had forgotten to provide one.

  By reason of his doubts as to his personal appearance, he suffered considerable mental anguish?

  It is possible.

  You could have appeared to him – by magic if necessary – and explained his identity and duties to him. Why did you not perform so obvious an errand of mercy?

  I do not know.

  Answer the question, please.

  (At this point Judge Sweeny made an angry noise with a crack of his stout-glass on the counter and retired in a hurried petulant manner from the court.)

  I suppose I fell asleep.

  I see. You fell asleep.

  Conclusion of the foregoing.

  Biographical reminiscence,, part the third: The early winter in which these matters were occupying my attention was a season of unexampled severity. The prevailing wind (according to the word of Brinsley) was from die eastern point and was not infrequently saturated with a fine chilly rain. From my bed I had perceived the sodden forms of travellers lurking behind the frosted windows of the tram-tops. Morning would come slowly, decaying to twilight in the early afternoon.

  A congenital disposition predisposing me to the most common of the wasting diseases – a cousin had died in Davos – had induced in me what was perhaps a disproportionate concern for pulmonary well-being; at all events I recall that I rarely left my room for the first three months of the winter except on occasions when my domestic circumstances made it necessary for me to appear casually before my uncle attired in my grey street-coat. I was, if possible, on worse terms than ever with him, my continued failure to produce for his examination a book called Die Harzreise being a sore point. I cannot recall that I ever quitted the four walls of the house. Alexander, who had chosen a scheme of studies similar to my own, answered with my voice at lecture roll-calls.

  It was in the New Year, in February, I think, that I discovered that my person was verminous. A growing irritation in various parts of my body led me to examine my bedclothes and the discovery of lice in large numbers was the result of my researches. I was surprised and experienced also a sense of shame. I resolved at the time to make an end of my dissolute habits and composed mentally a régime of physical regeneration which included bending exercises.

  One consequence of my resolve, at any rate, was that I attended at the College every day and walked through the Green and up and down the streets, conducting conversations with my acquaintances and occasionally talking with strangers on general topics.

  It was my custom to go into the main hall of the College and stand with my back to one of the steam-heating devices, my faded overcoat open and my cold hostile eyes flitting about the faces that passed before me. The younger students were much in evidence, formless and ugly in adolescence; others were older, bore themselves with assurance and wore clothing of good quality. Groups would form for the purpose of disputation and dissolve again quickly. There was much foot-shuffling, chatter and noise of a general or indeterminate character. Students emerging from the confinement of an hour’s lecture would grope eagerly for their cigarettes or accept one with gratitude from a friend. Clerical students from Blackrock or Rathfarnham, black clothes and bowler hats, would file past civilly and leave the building by a door opening at the back where they were accustomed to leave the iron pedal-cycles. Young postulants or nuns would also pass, their eyes upon the floor and their fresh young faces dimmed in the twilight of their hoods, passing to a private cloakroom where they would spend the intervals between their lectures in meditation and pious practices. Occasionally there would be a burst of horse-play and a sharp cry from a student accidentally hurt. On wet days there would be an unpleasant odour of dampness, an aroma of overcoats dried by body-heat. There was a dock plainly visible but the hours were told by a liveried attendant who emerged from a small office in the wall and pealed a shrill bell similar to that utilized by auctioneers and street-criers; the bell served this purpose, that it notified professors – distant in the web of their fine thought – that their discourses should terminate.

  One afternoon I saw the form of Brinsley bent in converse with a small fair-haired man who was fast acquiring a reputation in the Leinster Square district on account of the beauty of his poems and their affinity with the high-class work of another writer, Mr Pound, an American gentleman. The small man had an off-hand way with him and talked with jerks. I advanced without diffidence and learnt that his name was Donaghy. We talked together in a polished manner, utilizing with frequency words from the French language, discussing the primacy of America and Ireland in contemporary letters and commenting on the inferior work produced by writers of the English nationality. The Holy Name was often taken, I do not recollect with what advertence. Brinsley, whose education and maintenance was a charge on the rates of his native county – the product of a farthing in the pound applied for the purpose of enabling necessitous boys of promising intellect to enjoy die benefits of University learning – Brinsley said that he was prepared to give myself and Donaghy a pint of stout apiece, explaining that he had recently been paid. I rejoined that if his finances warranted such generosity, I would raise no objection, but that I (for my part) was no Rockefeller, thus utilizing a figure of speech to convey the poverty of my circumstances.

  Name of figure of speech: Synecdoche (or Autonomasia).

  The three of us walked slowly down to Grogan’s, our three voices interpkying in scholarly disputations, our faded overcoats finely open in the glint of the winter sun.

  Isn’t there a queer smell off this fellow? said Brinsley, directing his inquiring face to that of Donaghy.

  I sniffed at my person in mock appraisement.

  You’re in bad odour, said Donaghy.
<
br />   Well it’s not the smell of drink, I answered. What class of a smell is it?

  Did you ever go into a room early in the morning, asked Brinsley, where there had been a hooley the night before, with cigars and whisky and food and crackers and women’s scent? Well that’s the smell. A stale spent smell.

  There’s a hum off yourself, I said.

  We entered the tavern and ordered our dark drinks.

  To convert stout into water, I said, there is a simple process. Even a child can do it, though I would not stand for giving stout to children. Is it not a pity that the art of man has not attained the secret of converting water into stout?

  Donaghy gave a laugh but Brinsley restrained me from drinking by the weight of his hand upon my arm and named a proprietary brand of ale.

  Did you ever taste it? he asked.

  I did not, I said.

  Well that crowd have the secret if you like, he said. By God I never tasted anything like it. Did you ever try it ?

  No, said Donaghy.

  Keep away from it if you value your life.

  Here there was a pause as we savoured the dull syrup.

  We had a great feed of wine at the Inns the other night, observed Donaghy, a swell time. Wine is better than stout. Stout sticks. Wine is more grateful to the intestines, the digestive viscera, you know. Stout sticks and leaves a scum on the interior of the paunch.

  Raising my glass idly to my head, I said:

  If that conclusion Is the result of a mental syllogism, it is fallacious, being based on licensed premises.

  Two laughs in unison, these were my rewards. I frowned and drank unheedingly, savouring the dull oaten after-taste of the stout as it lingered against my palate. Brinsley tapped me sharply on the belly.

  Gob you’re getting a paunch, he said.

  Leave my bag alone, I answered. I protected it with my hand.

  We had three drinks in all in respect of each of which Brinsley paid a sixpence without regret.

  The ultimate emptors: Meath County Council, rural rating authority.

  The sun was gone and the evening students – many of them teachers, elderly and bald – were hurrying towards the College through the gathering dusk on foot and on pedal-cycles. We dosed our coats closely about us and stood watching and talking at the corner. We went eventually to the moving pictures, the three of us, travelling to the centre of the city in the interior of a tramcar.

  The emptors: Meath County Council.

  Three nights later at about eight o’clock I was alone in Nassau Street, a district frequented by the prostitute class, when I perceived a ramrod in a cloth cap on the watch at the corner of Kildare Street As I passed I saw that the man was Kelly. Large spits were about him on the path and the carriage-way. I poked him in a manner offensive to propriety and greeted his turned face with a facetious ejaculation:

  How is the boy! I said.

  My hard man, he answered.

  I took cigarettes from my pocket and lit one for each of us, frowning. With my face averted and a hardness in my voice, I put this question in a casual manner:

  Anything doing?

  O God no, he said. Not at all, man. Come away for a talk some where.

  I agreed. Purporting to be an immoral character, I accompanied him on a long walk through the environs of Irishtown, Sandymount and Sydney Parade, returning by Haddington Road and the banks of the canal.

  Purpose of walk: Discovery and embracing of virgins.

  We attained nothing on our walk that was relevant to the purpose thereof but we filled up the loneliness of our souls with the music of our two voices, dog-racing, betting and offences against chastity being the several subjects of our discourse. We walked many miles together on other nights on similar missions – following matrons, accosting strangers, representing to married ladies that we were their friends, and gratuitously molesting members of the public One night we were followed in our turn by a member of the police force attired in civilian clothing. On the advice of Kelly we hid ourselves in the interior of a church until he had gone. I found that the walking was beneficial to my health.

  The people who attended the College had banded themselves into many private associations, some purely cultural and some concerned with the arrangement and conduct of ball games. The cultural societies were diverse in their character and aims and measured their vitality by the number of hooligans and unprincipled persons they attracted to their deliberations. Some were devoted to English letters, some to Irish letters and some to the study and advancement of the French language. The most important was a body that met every Saturday night for the purpose of debate and disputation; its meetings, however, were availed of by many hundreds of students for shouting, horseplay, singing and the use of words, actions and gestures contrary to the usages of Christians. The society met in an old disused lecture theatre capable of accommodating the seats of about two hundred and fifty persons. Outside the theatre there was a spacious lobby or ante-room and it was here that the rough boys would gather and make their noises. One gas-jet was the means of affording light in the lobby and when a paroxysm of fighting and roaring would be at its height, the light would be extinguished as if by a supernatural or diabolic agency and the effect of the darkness in such circumstances afforded me many moments of physical and spiritual anxiety, for it seemed to me that the majority of the persons present were possessed by unclean spirits. The lighted rectangle of the doorway to the debate-hall was regarded by many persons not only as a receptacle for the foul and discordant speeches which they addressed to it, but also for many objects of a worthless nature – for example spent cigarette ends, old shoes, the hats of friends, parcels of damp horse dung, wads of soiled sacking and discarded articles of ladies’ clothing not infrequently the worse for wear. Kelly on one occasion confined articles of his landlady’s small-clothes in a neatly done parcel of brown paper and sent it through a friend to the visiting chairman, who opened it coram populo (in the presence of the assembly), and examined the articles fastidiously as if searching among them for an explanatory note, being unable to appraise their character instantaneously for two reasons, his failing sight and his station as a bachelor.

  Result of overt act mentioned: Uproar and disorder.

  When I attended these meetings I maintained a position where I was not personally identified, standing quietly without a word in the darkness. Conclusion of the foregoing.

  Further extract from my Manuscript on the subject of Mr Trellis’s Manuscript on the subject of John Furrisker, his first steps in life and his first meeting with those who were destined to become his firm friends; the direct style: He remarked to himself that it was a nice pass when a. man did not know the shape of his own face. His voice startled him. It had the accent and intonation usually associated with the Dublin lower or working classes.

  He commenced to conduct an examination of the walls of the room he was in with a view to discovering which of them contained a door or other feasible means of egress. He had completed the examination of two of the walls when he experienced an unpleasant sensation embracing blindness, hysteria and a desire to vomit – the last a circumstance very complex and difficult of explanation, for in the course of his life he had never eaten. That this visitation was miraculous was soon evidenced by the appearance of a supernatural cloud or aura resembling steam in the vicinity of the fireplace. He dropped on one knee in his weakness and gazed at the long gauze-like wisps of vapour as they intermixed and thickened about the ceiling, his eyes smarting and his pores opening as a result of the dampness. He saw faces forming faintly and resolving again without perceptible delay. He heard the measured beat of a good-quality timepiece coming from the centre of the cloud and then the form of a chamber-pot was evidenced to his gaze, hanging without support and invested with a pallid and indeed ghostly aspect; it was slowly transformed as he watched it until it appeared to be the castor of a bed-leg, magnified to roughly 118 diameters. A voice came from the interior of the cloud.

  Are you
there, Furriskey? it asked.

  Furriskey experienced the emotion of fear which distorted for a time the character of his face. He also experienced a return of his desire for enteric evacuation.

  Yes sir, he answered.

  Biographical reminiscence, part the fourth: The further obtrusion of my personal affairs at this stage is unhappily not entirely fortuitous. It happens that a portion of my manuscript containing an account (in the direct style) of the words that passed between Furriskey and die voice is lost beyond retrieval. I recollect that I abstracted it from the portfolio in which I kept my writings – an article composed of two boards of stout cardboard connected by a steel spine containing a patent spring mechanism – and brought it with me one evening to the College in order that I might obtain the opinion of Brinsley as to its style and the propriety of the matters which were the subject of the discussion set out therein. In the many mental searches which I conducted subsequently in an effort to ascertain where the manuscript was mislaid in the first instance, I succeeded in recalling the circumstances of my meeting and dialogue with Brinsley with perfection of detail and event.

  Attired in my grey street-coat, I entered the College in the early afternoon by the side-portal and encountered a group of four ladies in the passage to the main hall. I recall that I surmised that they were proceeding to an undergound cloakroom or lavatory for the purpose of handwash or other private act. A number of male students, the majority of whom were unacquainted with me, were present in the hall in die vicinity of the steam-heaters, conversing together in low tranquil tones. I inspected the features of each but could not identify the face of Brinsley. I saw, however, a man who I knew was acquainted with him, a Mr Kerrigan, a slim young man of mous-tached features usually attired in inexpensive clothing. He came forward quickly when he saw me and enunciated and answered an obscene conundrum. He then looked away and frowned, waiting intently for my laugh. I gave this without reluctance and asked where Mr Brinsley was. Kerrigan said that he had seen him going in the direction of the billiard-hall, he (Kerrigan) then walking away from me with a strange sidewise gait and saluting in a military fashion from the distance. The billiard-hall referred to was in the basement of the building and separated by a thin wall from another hall containing gentlemen’s retiring rooms. I halted at the doorway of the billiard-hall. Fifty youths were present, some moving at the conduct of their games in the murk of the tobacco smoke, a hand or a face pallidly illuminated here or there in the strong floods of light which were pouring from green containers on the flat of the tables. The maj ority of those present had accommodated themselves in lazy attitudes on chairs and forms and occupied themselves in an indolent inspection of the balls. Brinsley was present, eating bread from a paper in his pocket and following the play of a small friend called Morris with close attention, making comments of a derisive or facetious character.