Yes, because he never did a thing like that before, as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms Hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice, doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot, Mrs. Riordan, that he thought he had a great leg of, and she never left us a farthing, all for masses for herself and her soul. —-
Greatest miser ever was, actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit, telling me all her ailments. —-
She had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world. —-
Let us have a bit of fun first. God help the world if all the women were her sort, down on bathing-suits and low-necks, of course, nobody wanted her to wear. —-
I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice. —-
I hope I’ll never be like her, a wonder she didn’t want us to cover our faces, but she was a well-educated woman certainly, and her gabby talk about Mr. Riordan here and Mr. Riordan there. —-
I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog, smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats, especially then. —-
Still, I like that in him, polite to old women like that, and waiters and beggars too. —-
He’s not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him. —-
It’s much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean, but I suppose I’d have to dring it into him for a month, yes, and then we’d have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet, have him staying there till they throw him out, or a nun maybe, like the smutty photo he has. —-
She’s as much a nun as I’m not. Yes, because they’re so weak and puling when they’re sick, they want a woman to get well. —-
If his nose bleeds, you’d think it was O tragic, and that dying-looking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the Sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore that dress. —-
Miss Stack bringing him flowers, the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket, anything at all to get into a man’s bedroom with her old maid’s voice, trying to imagine he was dying on account of her, to never see thy face again, though he looked more like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed. —-
Father was the same. Besides, I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor, paring his corns, afraid he’d get blood poisoning. —-
But if it was a thing I was sick, then we’d see what attention, only of course, the woman hides it, not to give all the trouble they do. —-
Yes, he came somewhere, I’m sure, by his appetite anyway. —-
Love, it’s not, or he’d be off his feed thinking of her, so either it was one of those night women, if it was down there he was really, and the hotel story he made up, a pack of lies to hide it, planning it. —-
Hynes kept me, who did I meet? Ah, yes, I met, do you remember, Menton, and who else, who let me see that big babyface? —-
I saw him, and he, not long married, flirting with a young girl at Pooles Myriorama, and turned my back on him when he slinked out, looking quite conscious. —-
What harm, but he had the impudence to make up to me one time, well done to him, mouth almighty and his boiled eyes, of all the big stupoes I ever met, and that’s called a solicitor. —-
Only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed, or else, if it’s not that, it’s some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the sly. —-
If they only knew him as well as I do. Yes, because the day before yesterday, he was scribbling something, a letter, when I came into the front room for the matches to show him Dignam’s death in the paper, as if something told me, and he covered it up with the blotting paper, pretending to be thinking about business. —-
So very probably, that was it, to somebody who thinks she has a softy in him, because all men get a bit like that at his age, especially getting on to forty, he is now, so as to wheedle any money she can out of him. —-
No fool like an old fool, and thenThe usual, kissing my bottom, was to hide it, not that I care two straws who he does it with or knew before that way, though I’d like to find out, so long as I don’t have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario Terrace, padding out her false bottom to excite him. —-
Bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice. —-
I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat, without that one, when I went into the kitchen pretending he was drinking water. —-
A woman is not enough for them; it was all his fault, of course, ruining servants, then proposing that she could eat at our table on Christmas, if you please. —-
Oh no, thank you, not in my house, stealing my potatoes and the oysters, 2/6 per doz, going out to see her aunt, if you please, common robbery, so it was. —-
But I was sure he had something on with that one; it takes me to find out a thing like that. —-
He said, “You have no proof it was her.” Proof? —-
Oh yes, her aunt was very fond of oysters, but I told her what I thought of her, suggesting me to go out to be alone with her. —-
I wouldn’t lower myself to spy on them, the garters I found in her room the Friday she was out, that was enough for me, a little bit too much. —-
I saw too that her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her her week’s notice. —-
Better do without them altogether, do out the rooms myself, quicker, only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt. —-
I gave it to him anyhow, either she or me leaves the house. —-
I couldn’t even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty, barefaced liar and sloven like that one, denying it up to my face and singing about the place in the WC too, because she knew she was too well off. —-
Yes, because he couldn’t possibly do without it that long, so he must do it somewhere, and the last time he came on my bottom, when was it? —-
The night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze, going along by the Tolka, in my hand there steals another. —-
I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back, singing “the young May Moon, she’s beaming, love,” because he has an idea about him and me. —-
He’s not such a fool. He said, “I’m dining out and going to the Gaiety,” though I’m not going to give him the satisfaction in any case. —-
God knows he’s changed in a way, not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat, unless paid some nice-looking boy to do it since I can’t do it myself. —-
A young boy would like me. I’d confuse him a little, alone with him, if we were. —-
I’d let him see my garters, the new ones, and make him turn red looking at him, seduce him. —-
I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek, doing that frigging, drawing out the thing by the hour, question and answer, “Would you do this, that, and the other, with the coalman?” —-
Yes, with a bishop, yes, I would, because I told him about some Dean or Bishop was sitting beside me in the Jews’ Temples gardens when I was knitting that woolen thing, a stranger to Dublin, what place was it, and so on, about the monuments, and he tired me out with statues, encouraging him, making him worse than he is. —-
“Who is in your mind now? Tell me, who are you thinking of? Who is it? Tell me his name. Who? —-
Tell me who. The German Emperor, is it?” —-
Yes, imagine I’m him, think of him, can you feel him trying to make a whore of me, what he never will, he ought to give it up now, at this age of his life, simply ruination for any woman, and no satisfaction in it, pretending to like it till he comes, and then finish it off myself anyway, and it makes your lips pale. —-
Anyhow, it’s done now, once and for all, with all the talk of the world about it, people make. —-
It’s only the first time, after that, it’s just the ordinary, do it and think no more about it. —-
Why can’t you kiss a man without going and marrying him first? —-
You sometimes love too wildly when you feel that way, so nice all over you, you can’t help yourself. I wish some man or other would take me sometime. —-
When he’s there and kiss me in his arms, there’s nothing like a kiss, long and hot, down to your soul, almost paralyzes you. —-
Then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan. “He touched me, father.” —-
And what harm if he did? “Where?” And I said on the canal bank like a fool. —-
“But whereabouts on your person, my child?” “On the leg, behind, high up, was it?” —-
“Yes, rather high up.” “Was it where you sit down?” —-
“Yes.” O Lord, couldn’t he say bottom right out and have done with it? —-
What has that got to do with it? And did you, whatever way he put it, I forget. “No, father.” —-
And I always think of the real father. What did he want to know for, when I already confessed it to God? —-
He had a nice fat hand, the palm moist, always. —-
I wouldn’t mind feeling it, neither would he, I’d say, by the bullneck in his horsecollar. —-
I wonder did he know me in the box. I could see his face, he couldn’t see mine, of course. —-
He’d never turn or let on. Still, his eyes were red when his father died. —-
They’re lost for a woman, of course. Must be terrible when a man cries, let alone them. —-
I’d like to be embraced by one in his vestments, and the smell of incense off him like the pope. —-
Besides, there’s no danger with a priest if you’re married. He’s too careful about himself. —-
Then give something to H.H. the pope for a penance. I wonder, was he satisfied with me? —-
One thing I didn’t like, his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall, though I laughed. —-
I’m not a horse or an ass, am I? I suppose he was thinking of his father. —-
I wonder, is he awake thinking of me, or dreaming, am I in it? —-
Who gave him that flower he said he bought. —-
He smelt of some kind of drink, not whisky or stout, or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick their bills up with, some liquor. —-
I’d like to sip those rich-looking green and yellow expensive drinks those stage-door johnnies drink with the opera hats. —-
I tasted one with my finger dipped out of that American that had the squirrel, talking stamps with father. —-
He had all he could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time we took the port and potted meat. —-
It had a fine salty taste, yes, because I felt lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped straight into bed, till that thunder woke me up as if the world was coming to an end. —-
God be merciful to us, I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish, when I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary, like those awful thunderbolts in Gibraltar. —-
And they come and tell you there’s no God, what could you do if it was running and rushing about? —-
Nothing, only make an act of contrition. —-
The candle I lit that evening in Whitefriars Street Chapel for the month of May, see, it brought its luck, though he’d scoff if he heard, because he never goes to church, mass, or meeting. —-
He says, “Your soul? You have no soul inside, only grey matter,” because he doesn’t know what it is to have one. —-
Yes, when I lit the lamp, yes, because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has. —-
I thought the vein, or whatever the dickens they call it, was going to burst, though his nose is not so big. —-
After I took off all my things with the blinds down, after my hours dressing and perfuming, and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar, standing all the time. —-
He must have eaten oysters, I think, a few dozen. He was in great singing voice. —-
No, I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of that, to make you feel full up. —-
He must have eaten a whole sheep after. What’s the idea, making us like that, with a big hole in the middle of us, like a stallion driving it up into you, because that’s all they want out of you, with that determined vicious look in his eye. —-
I had to half-shut my eyes. Still, he hasn’t such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull it out and do it on me, considering how big it is, so much the better in case any of it wasn’t washed out properly the last time. —-
I let him finish it in me, nice invention they made for Women, for him to get all the pleasure, but if someone gave them a touch of it themselves, they’d know what I went through with Milly. Nobody would believe, cutting her teeth too, and Mina Purefoy’s husband, give us a swing out of your whiskers, filling her up with a child or twins once a year as regular as the clock, always with a smell of children off her, the one they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock of hair on it. —-
Jesus, Jack, the child is a black, the last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and bawling, you couldn’t hear your ear, supposed to be healthy. —-
Not satisfied till they have us swollen out like elephants, or I don’t know what, supposing I risked having another, not off him though. —-
Still, if he was married, I’m sure he’d have a fine strong child, but I don’t know. —-
Poldy has more spunk in him, yes, that’d be awfully jolly. —-
I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him off. —-
Well, he can think what he likes now, if that’ll do him any good. —-
I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene, he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpson’s housewarming, and then he wanted to ram it down my neck on account of not liking to see her a wallflower. —-
That was why we had the stand-up row over politics, he began it, not me, when he said about Our Lord being a carpenter. —-
At last, he made me cry, of course, a woman is so sensitive about everything. —-
I was fuming with myself after for giving in, only for I knew he was gone on me, and the first socialist he said. —-
He was, he annoyed me so much I couldn’t put him into a temper. —-
Still, he knows a lot of mixed-up things, especially about the body and the insides. —-
I often wanted to study up that myself, what we have inside us in that family physician. —-
I could always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded and watch him after that. —-
I pretended I had on a coolness with her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked, “Who are you going to?” —-
and I said, “Over to Floey,” and he made me the present of Lord Byron’s poems and the three pairs of gloves, so that finished that. —-
I could quite easily get him to make it up any time, I know how. —-
I’d even, supposing he got in with her again and was going out to see her somewhere, I’d know if he refused to eat the onions. —-
I know plenty of ways, ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going out. —-
1 kiss then would send them all spinning. However, alright, well seen then, let him go to her. —-
She, of course, would only be too delighted to pretend she’s mad in love with him. —-
That I wouldn’t so much mind. I’d just go to her and ask her, “Do you love him?” —-
and look her square in the eyes. She couldn’t fool me, but he might imagine he was, and make a declaration with his plabbery kind of a manner to her, like he did to me, though I had the devil’s own job to get it out of him, though I liked him for that. —-
It showed he could hold in and wasn’t to be got for the asking. —-
He was on the pop of asking me too, the night in the kitchen. —-
I was rolling the potato cake, “There’s something I want to say to you,” only for I put him off, letting on I was in a temper with my hands and arms full of pasty flour. —-
In any case, I let out too much the night before, talking of dreams, so I didn’t want to let him know more than was good for him. —-
She used to be always embracing me, Josie, whenever he was there, meaning him, of course, glauming me over, and when I said I washed up and down as far as possible, asking me, “Did you wash possible?” —-
The women are always egging on to that, putting it on thick when he’s there. —-
They know by his sly eye, blinking a bit, putting on the indifferent when they come out with something, the kind he is, what spoils him. —-
I don’t wonder in the least because he was very handsome at that time, trying to look like Lord Byron. I said I I liked, though he was too beautiful for a man, and he was a little before we got engaged. —-
Afterwards, though, she didn’t like it so much. —-
The day I was in fits of laughing with the giggles, I couldn’t stop, about all my hairpins falling one after another with the mass of hair I had. —-
“You’re always in great humour,” she said. —-
Yes, because it grigged her because she knew what it meant, because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us, not all, but just enough to make her mouth water, but that wasn’t my fault. —-
She didn’t darken the door much after we were married. —-
I wonder what she’s got like now, after living with that dotty husband of hers. —-
She had her face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her. —-
She must have been just after a row with him because I saw, on the moment, she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk about him to run him down. —-
What was it she told me? Oh yes, that sometimes he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him. —-
Just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that, that might murder you any moment. —-
What a man. Well, it’s not the one way everyone goes mad. —-
Poldy, anyway, whatever he does, always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in, wet or shine, and always blacks his own boots too, and he always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like that, and now he’s going about in his slippers to look for £10,000 for a postcard, up up, O Sweetheart May. Wouldn’t a thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction? —-
Actually, too stupid even to take his boots off. Now, what could you make of a man like that? —-
I’d rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex. —-
Of course, he’d never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do. —-
Know me, come sleep with me, yes, and he knows that too, at the bottom of his heart. —-
Take that, Mrs. Maybrick, that poisoned her husband, for what? —-
I wonder, in love with some other man, yet it was found out on her. —-
Wasn’t she the downright villain to go and do a thing like that? —-
Of course, some men can be dreadfully aggravating, drive you mad, and always the worst word in the world. —-
What do they ask us to marry them for, if we’re so bad as all that comes to? —-
Yes, because they can’t get on without us. —-
White arsenic she put in his tea, off flypaper, wasn’t it? I wonder why they call it that. —-
If I asked him, he’d say it’s from the Greek, leave us as wise as we were before. —-
She must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged. —-
Oh, she didn’t care, if that was her nature, what could she do? —-
Besides, they’re not brutes enough to go and hang a woman, surely are they?