1351
August 17th 1919
Dear Mr. Joyce
Many thanks for your letter[1]
and for the translation of your play Exiles which reached me
a
day or two before I came here. Though I have forgotten nearly all the little
German I ever knew I am very glad to have it and it is an added satisfaction
that you should have given it to me on the day of its first production
—
at the Munich Schauspielhaus.[2] The
two papers with the notices also reached me and I made out the gist of them
with the help of a dictionary. The play seems to have puzzled the audience.
I do not know why you should have been surprised that it interested me
— though I think you have more scope in a novel with its freer form
— in spite of the difficulties you have set yourself in
Ulysses:
the necessity of compressing all the wanderings into the compass of one
day.
[3] It is odd that your mention of
any person in it should have such a fatal effect!
[4]
I enclose a letter from a Mr. Boynan to whom I have replied that you
lately had negotiations with someone else (Mr. Bazilo) but that I did not
know whether anything had been finally arranged but would ask you. Will
you therefore either write to Mr. Boynan yourself or let me know what to
say? I have kept his address. I think I shall be staying on here till
September 2nd — to spend my birthday with my brother's family at
the
sea instead of in London by myself as for several years past. | With many
kind regards | Yours sincerely
