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Nestor YOU, COCHRANE, WHAT CITY SENT FOR HIM? -- Tarentum, sir. -- Very good. Well? -- There was a battle, sir. -- Very good. Where? The boy's blank face asked the blank window. Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then? -- I forgot the place, sir. 279 B.C. -- Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the gorescarred book. -- Yes, sir. And he said: Another victory like that and we are done for. That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. -- You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? -- End of Pyrrhus, sir? -- I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. -- Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the tissues of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey. -- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay. -- Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, what is a pier. -- A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the waves. A kind of bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. With envy he watched their faces. Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle. -- Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. The words troubled their gaze. -- How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river. |
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