Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature) by Flann O’Brien Read Free Book Online Page B

window thinking, remembering, dreaming. Soon I go to my room to write. A cool breeze has sprung up from the west, a clean wind that plays on men at work, on boys at play and on women who seek to police the corridors, live in Stephen’s Green and feel the heat of buckshee turf. . . .
    It is a strange world, but beautiful. How hard it is, the hour of parting. I cannot call in the Guards, for we authors have our foolish pride. The destiny of Brother Barnabas is sealed, sealed for aye.
    I must write!
    These, dear reader, are my last words. Keep them and cherish them. Never again can you read my deathless prose, for my day that has been a good day is past.
    Remember me and pray for me.
    Adieu!
----
    * “Truagh sin, a leabhair bhig bháin
    Tiocfaidh lá, is ba fíor,
    Déarfaidh neach os cionn do chláir
    Ní mhaireann an lámh do scríobh.”
    [“It is a pity, beloved little book
    A day will come, to be sure,
    Someone will inscribe over your contents
    ‘The hand that wrote this lives not.’” (Trans. Jack Fennell)]
    † Who is Carruthers McDaid, you ask?

 
    John Duffy’s Brother (1940)
    by Flann O’Brien
    Strictly speaking, this story should not be written or told at all. To write it or to tell it is to spoil it. This is because the man who had the strange experience we are going to talk about never mentioned it to anybody, and the fact that he kept his secret and sealed it up completely in his memory is the whole point of the story. Thus we must admit that handicap at the beginning—that it is absurd for us to tell the story, absurd for anybody to listen to it, and unthinkable that anybody should believe it.
    We will, however, do this man one favour. We will refrain from mentioning him by his complete name. This will enable us to tell his secret and permit him to continue looking his friends in the eye. But we can say that his surname is Duffy. There are thousands of these Duffys in the world; even at this moment there is probably a new Duffy making his appearance in some corner of it. We can even go so far as to say that he is John Duffy’s brother. We do not break faith in saying so, because if there are only one hundred John Duffys in existence, and even if each one of them could be met and questioned, no embarrassing enlightenments would be forthcoming. That is because the John Duffy in question never left his house, never left his bed, never talked to anybody in his life, and was never seen by more than one man. That man’s name was Gumley. Gumley was a doctor. He was present when John Duffy was born and also when he died, one hour later.
    John Duffy’s brother lived alone in a small house on an eminence in Inchicore. When dressing in the morning he could gaze across the broad valley of the Liffey to the slopes of the Phoenix Park, peacefully. Usually the river was indiscernible but on a sunny morning it could be seen lying like a long glistening spear in the valley’s palm. Like a respectable married man, it seemed to be hurrying into Dublin as if to work.
    Sometimes recollecting that his clock was fast, John Duffy’s brother would spend an idle moment with his father’s spyglass, ranging the valley with an eagle eye. The village of Chapelizod was to the left and invisible in the depth but each morning the inhabitants would erect, as if for Mr. Duffy’s benefit, a lazy plume of smoke to show exactly where they were.
    Mr. Duffy’s glass usually came to rest on the figure of a man hurrying across the uplands of the Park and disappearing from view in the direction of the Magazine Fort. A small white terrier bounced along ahead of him but could be seen occasionally sprinting to overtake him after dallying behind for a time on private business.
    The man carried in the crook of his arm an instrument which Mr. Duffy at first took to be a shotgun or patent repeating rifle, but one morning the man held it by the butt and smote the barrels smartly on the ground as he walked, and it was then evident to Mr. Duffy—he