God's curse
God's
curse
In Brief
Tapping his way up Clare Street after a long
day of trudging, the blind piano tuner is nearly knocked
down by the deranged Farrell and hurls memorable invective at
whoever could be so careless or cruel: "— God's curse on
you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder nor I am,
you bitch's bastard!" "Nor" here clearly means "than." There
is biblical precedent for the curse, but nothing very
Christian about the picture of two disabled men colliding on
the sidewalk.
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Sam Slote and his partners cite a highly relevant verse in
Deuteronomy: "Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander
out of his way" (27:18). This applies exactly to the
situation, and Farrell's action perhaps deserves righteous
rebuke. But any such reaction is surely tempered by the pathos
and bizarre comedy of two blind men (one literal, one
metaphorical) running into one another on the pavement––rather
like the only two cars in Kansas City colliding in 1901.
Farrell suffers from disability just as unmerited as the
boy's, and it
has made him feral. The boy draws Bloom's compassion in
Lestrygonians and Miss Douce's in Sirens, but
he responds to his mistreatment in Wandering Rocks as
"sourly" as any other human being might. Far from inviting
tender sympathy, Joyce makes both of these unfortunates hard
to like.
There is Beckettian zaniness and just a hint of Grand Guignol
horror in the confrontation. Shakespeare mines the same
material in King Lear when the blind Gloucester asks
mad Tom to lead him to the Dover cliffs: "'Tis the time's
plague, when madmen lead the blind" (4.1.46). But instead of
the emotional power of Shakespeare's scene Joyce gives a
coolly indifferent presentation. His madman takes no care of
the blind, and the sightless one, far from eliciting pity,
screams out defiance. Farrell's "fierce word," Coactus
volui, has nothing on "you bitch's bastard."
![](/images/for-chapter/10/thumbnail/blindboy.jpeg)
Photo supplied by the Iowa Department of the Blind. Source: wcblind.org.