Joyce, James--Barnacle, Nora.

(i) Short affirmative telegram sent to Joyce, answering simply "Si Nora",  addressed to "James Joyce 44 Fontenoy Street, Dublin, Ireland", 138 x 230mm, folded to size 39 x 28mm, 21 [?]November 1909 creased at folds, contained in:



(ii) a white leather wristlet, crudely formed from white kid leather, probably taken from a lady's glove, with central pouch fastened by a single button (probably taken from a lady's chemise or glove), embroidered to the edges and opening in deep purple silk, lined and interlined in two shades of purple silk, and fastened by two brass necklace clasps, white kid grey with use, silk fragile and fragmenting to the reverse commensurate with heavy and frequent use, slight worm damage to one strap, two small green stains 



white leather and purple satin-lined  pocket attached to wrist strap, with clasps, 290mm when fully extended, ?21 November 1909, some tears, worn and slightly stained

nora says yes to joyce: a deeply evocative keepsake and love-token preserved--and to be worn on his body-- by Joyce.

The wristlet in which the telegram is preserved, was almost certainly made by Nora herself: the humble materials, and rather school-girl proficiency of the embroidery, in addition to the fact that it has been heavily worn, all suggest that it was made as a love-token from Nora to Joyce, to be worn next to the skin. It may well be that Nora made this token, or love-relic, out of the white leather glove Joyce confesses to having slept with on the night of 11 July 1904 (see below). He speaks of behaving in similar fashion with Nora's telegram received in late November 1909: quite probably the telegram in this lot (also see below).

The precise answer Nora is giving Joyce in this telegram remains slightly unclear. The time, late November 1909, is a crucial turning point after Nora's threat to leave him had been rescinded, but before Joyce has regained his confidence to address her in the familiar ways which would lead--instigated by Nora--to a second, much more explicit erotic correspondence.

In late October, shortly after arriving in Dublin for the second time that year, Joyce wrote to Nora telling her of all the presents he intended to bring back for her, including a fine set of sable furs (?25 October, 1909, see Selected Letters, p.172). He was trying to make up for the row they had had just as he had left Trieste: she had called him an "imbecile" for coming home very late.  On 27 October he declares she is to have an ensemble of coat to reach nearly to the hem of the skirt and--as Brenda Maddox notes, thus recreating the colours he had associated with Gretta Conroy in "The Dead"--also lined with dark blue or bronze satin, with its collar, belt and cuffs to be made of blue leather. Nora and Joyce shared a very keen interest in each other's wardrobe, and a love of fur:  Joyce seemed to believe in its healing, as well as its erotic properties (see Maddox, p.136). For a few further weeks the correspondence continued routinely, punctuated by Joyce's strong avowals of love, in which he declared that he was held entirely in her power. But then everything changed when Stanislaus telegramed with a demand for £4 in the face of a writ from their landlord because of Joyce's failure to pay the rent. Nora was now disgusted with his false promises and his inability to care and house his family. She was leaving him and returning to Galway with the children. Joyce responded with a self-flaggellating and imploring letter. It was true he was a swine and a wretch, had lost her esteem and had worn down her love: she should therefore abandon him and take the children away (see letter of 18 November, Selected Letters, p.177) He also agreed to pay her two thirds of his income, and he paid the rent. Nora's anger vanished, and she in her turn wrote two strongly apologetic letters, recorded in Joyce's letter to her of 19 November. It was in the same letter that Joyce famously compared Nora's soul, name and eyes to blue wild-flowers growing in a rain-drenched hedge.

At this point Nora defintely sent Joyce a telegram--it may well have been the present lot--as is recorded by his letter to her of 22 November. There he records that her telegram had lain on his chest during the course of the night, that when writing to her he had suffered the pits of despair and believed he had entirely lost her esteem and love, and that he was waiting for her letter written after the sending of the telegram.

Joyce's physical attachment to anything that had touched or emanted from Nora--whether it was a letter, telegram, or an item or clothing--is well attested to in their correspondence. A few weeks after meeting her in 1904, for instance, he stole one of Nora's gloves and took it to bed with him. He told her that it lay beside him all night, unbuttoned, but that apart from that it behaved itself with propriety, in the manner of its owner (?12 July 1904, Selected Letters, p.22). He acted similarly with her  telelgram mentioned in his 22 November 1909 letter: quite possibly the telegram in this lot.

Almost immediately after the 21 November telegram, after Joyce had surrendered to all her demands and castigated himself for his worthlessness, Nora initiated a new series of letters intended to accomplish or inspire sexual gratification on both sides. She wrote to him from Trieste on around 28 November declaring that she was longing to be fucked by him. Joyce placed the letter on the table in front of him, fixing his eyes on the word which was like the sexual act itself: "brief, brutal, irresistible and devilish" (his letter to her, 2 December 1909, Selected Letters, p.180). He replied in a frenzy of obscenity.Their correspondence "entered an extraordinary phase. He always seemed to be inviting her to lead the way, as when he said he imagined things so dirty that he would not write them until she wrote them first" (op.cit., p. 140). For the first (previously lost)  letter Joyce wrote to Nora in this second, much more explicit series, see lot 201.

Few of Nora's letters to Joyce from this period--or any period at all, for that matter--have survived. As for the single word that comprises its contents, it is difficult to think of a more apt one to summarise Nora and Joyce's lifetime affair and marriage, or one that resonates more completely with Joyce's own fictional creation Molly Bloom, largely inspired by Nora herself. It is the same "yes" that Nora gave to Joyce on their first meeting on 16 June 1904 in Nassau Street (she would agree to meet him later), the yes she replied when he asked her to elope with him to the continent,  the yes of acceptance--she would still stick with him--in the face of his rejection of all the Irish Church and State had to offer, and so on; and of course it is the final "yes" of Molly Bloom's sleepy solilquy which ends UIysses ("...his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.""), the colossal affirmation of love, fertility and life in all its forms (and however transient and temporary) over history, hatred and violence (however endemic and brutal).