DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51521#0018
I added, thinking that Joe would be certain to postpone
the bringing of me back to Mayo until the thousand
pounds was in the bank, and to tempt him still more in-
sidiously I added that I had little doubt that the American
would pay on the arrival of the MS.
The invention of these lies amused me, though I never
liked telling lies, but was I lying? My conscience an-
swered faintly, only anticipating a literary success on the
strength of some poems which were admired in the cafes,
and what seemed more convincing, to myself, if not to
Joe, was the fact that I had written the text of a drama
on Martin Luther which would bring me a fortune when
played. Joe writes, I said, in ignorance of the important
position I occupy in France, and in a few days I shall get
a letter from him insisting on my return to Mayo to help
him to collect my own rents. But a week went by, then
a fortnight, and then a month without a letter from Joe,
and I began to seek for a cause for his silence, asking
myself if he had changed his mind and did not want me
in Mayo, and then if he had accepted au pied de la lettre
all that I had told him about the American publisher. Or
he might have won a big race at the Curragh and was no
longer short of money—but that cannot be, Joe is always
short of money—and walking across the room I sought
for other reasons which would account for my being left
in Paris. The agitation against rent-paying may have
died down, and I am no longer frightened that I shall not
the bringing of me back to Mayo until the thousand
pounds was in the bank, and to tempt him still more in-
sidiously I added that I had little doubt that the American
would pay on the arrival of the MS.
The invention of these lies amused me, though I never
liked telling lies, but was I lying? My conscience an-
swered faintly, only anticipating a literary success on the
strength of some poems which were admired in the cafes,
and what seemed more convincing, to myself, if not to
Joe, was the fact that I had written the text of a drama
on Martin Luther which would bring me a fortune when
played. Joe writes, I said, in ignorance of the important
position I occupy in France, and in a few days I shall get
a letter from him insisting on my return to Mayo to help
him to collect my own rents. But a week went by, then
a fortnight, and then a month without a letter from Joe,
and I began to seek for a cause for his silence, asking
myself if he had changed his mind and did not want me
in Mayo, and then if he had accepted au pied de la lettre
all that I had told him about the American publisher. Or
he might have won a big race at the Curragh and was no
longer short of money—but that cannot be, Joe is always
short of money—and walking across the room I sought
for other reasons which would account for my being left
in Paris. The agitation against rent-paying may have
died down, and I am no longer frightened that I shall not