Solitary Hotel
- mrymntcpw
- Aug 15, 2021
- 1 min read
Solitary hotel in mountain pass Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit In dark corner young man seated Young woman enters Restless. Solitary. She sits She goes to window. She stands She sits. Twilight. She thinks On solitary hotel-paper she writes She thinks. She writes. She sighs Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out He comes from his dark corner He seizes solitary paper He holds it towards fire Twilight. He reads. Solitary What? In sloping, upright and backhands Queen's hotel, Queen's hotel, Queen's ho-...
-James Joyce
Confirmed with Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922, page 637.
Note: This is a prose selection (contrary to popular belief that this is a poem). Line breaks added arbitrarily. The first fourteen lines as appear here are actually all one paragraph in the original. This excerpt is from Part III, Episode 17, Ithaca.
Another Time in Same Solitary Hotel
Solitary hotel in mountain pass Autumn. Twilight. Candle lit. In dark corner old man seated.
Young woman enters Restless. Solitary. She sits.
Young man enters Resolute. Solitary.
He goes to window. He stands She watches. Twilight.
She thinks. She smiles.
On solitary hotel-paper she writes
She thinks. She writes. She sighs. She smiles.
She leaves solitary hotel paper. She hurries out.
He turns from his window He seizes solitary paper He holds it towards candlelight He reads. Solitary What? In sloping, upright and backhands
He smiles. He drops paper. He hurries out.
The old man comes from his dark corner.
He picks up solitary paper. He reads. He thinks. He smiles.
He remembers. Tango.
Queen's hotel, Queen's hotel, Queen's ho-...
CPW
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