God's curse

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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."