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.