Murphy Read Online Free PDF

apes?’
    ‘You may sneer,’ said Neary, ‘and you may scoff, but the fact remains that all is dross, for the moment at any rate, that is not Miss Dwyer. The one closed figure in the waste without form, and void! My tetrakyt!’
    Of such was Neary’s love for Miss Dwyer, who loved a Flight-Lieutenant Elliman, who loved a Miss Farren of Ringsakiddy, who loved a Father Fitt of Ballinclashet, who in all sincerity was bound to acknowledge a certain vocation for a Mrs. West of Passage, who loved Neary.
    ‘Love requited,’ said Neary, ‘is a short circuit,’ a ball that gave rise to a sparkling rally.
    ‘The love that lifts up its eyes,’ said Neary, ‘being in torments; that craves for the tip of her little finger, dipped in lacquer, to cool its tongue – is foreign to you, Murphy, I take it.’
    ‘Greek,’ said Murphy.
    ‘Or put it another way,’ said Neary; ‘the single, brilliant, organised, compact blotch in the tumult of heterogeneous stimulation.’
    ‘Blotch is the word,’ said Murphy. 
    ‘Just so,’ said Neary. ‘Now pay attention to this. For whatever reason you cannot love—But there is a Miss Counihan, Murphy, is there not?’
    There was indeed a Miss Counihan.
    ‘Now say you were invited to define let us say your commerce with this Miss Counihan, Murphy,’ said Neary. ‘Come now, Murphy.’
    ‘Precordial,’ said Murphy, ‘rather than cordial. Tired. Cork County. Depraved.’
    ‘Just so,’ said Neary. ‘Now then. For whatever reason you cannot love in my way, and believe me there is no other, for that same reason, whatever it may be, your heart is as it is. And again for that same reason—’
    ‘Whatever it may be,’ said Murphy.
    ‘I can do nothing for you,’ said Neary.
    ‘God bless my soul,’ said Murphy.
    ‘Just so,’ said Neary. ‘I should say your conarium has shrunk to nothing.’
    *
    He worked up the chair to its maximum rock, then relaxed. Slowly the world died down, the big world where Quid pro quo was cried as wares and the light never waned the same way twice; in favour of the little, as described in section six, where he could love himself.
    A foot from his ear the telephone burst into its rail. He had neglected to take down the receiver. If he did not answer it at once his landlady would come running to do so, or some other lodger. Then he would be discovered, for his door was not locked. There was no means of locking his door. It was a strange room, the door hanging off its hinges, and yet a telephone. But its last occupant had been a harlot, long past her best, which had been scarlet. The telephone that she had found useful in her prime, in her decline she found indispensable. For the only money she made was when a client from the old days rang her up. Then she was indemnified for having been put to unnecessary inconvenience. 
    Murphy could not free his hand. Every moment he expected to hear the urgent step of his landlady on the stairs, or of some other lodger. The loud calm crake of the telephone mocked him. At last he freed a hand and seized the receiver, which in his agitation he clapped to his head instead of dashing to the ground.
    ‘God blast you,’ he said.
    ‘He is doing so,’ she replied. Celia.
    He laid the receiver hastily in his lap. The part of him that he hated craved for Celia, the part that he loved shrivelled up at the thought of her. The voice lamented faintly against his flesh. He bore it for a little, then took up the receiver and said:
    ‘Are you never coming back?’
    ‘I have it,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t I know,’ said Murphy.
    ‘I don’t mean that,’ she said, ‘I mean what you told me—’
    ‘I know what you mean,’ said Murphy.
    ‘Meet me at the usual at the usual,’ she said. ‘I’ll have it with me.’
    ‘That is not possible,’ said Murphy. ‘I expect a friend.’
    ‘You have no friends,’ said Celia.
    ‘Well,’ said Murphy, ‘not exactly a friend, a funny old chap I ran into.’
    ‘You can get rid of him