James Joyce's Christmas Eve, 1904

Today is Christmas Eve, which is also the title of a little known story that James Joyce wrote in late October-November 1904, intending to include it in his collection Dubliners. This was his third short story, following 'The Sisters' and 'Eveline', both published in the Irish Homestead in 1904.

Though 'Christmas Eve' was discarded by Joyce, the manuscript was kept by his brother Stanislaus.  This facsimile was published by the textual scholar Alfred Walton Litz, in Dubliners: A Facsimile of Drafts & Manuscripts,  Garland Press, 1978. I made this photocopy of it more than forty years ago. 

This is how Alfred Walton Litz describes the story in his introduction:

'In late October 1904 he began 'Christmas Eve.' What he wrote of it has been preserved in fragmentary fair copy manuscript, but he left the story in an unfinished state and recast it as, or replaced it by, 'Hallow Eve'.'  

This dating makes the story the first thing that James Joyce wrote after leaving Dublin with Nora Barnacle. He must have begun this in Trieste, while unemployed and living out of a suitcase, before moving to Pola at the end of the month.  In his mind, he was still thinking of Dublin.

Joyce's biographers don't talk about this story. John McCourt doesn't mention 'Christmas Eve' in The Years of Bloom, but says this of Joyce's first days in Trieste:

'Despite the appalling uncertainty of these days, Joyce continued to write, with a stoic determination which would rarely leave him....He was starting his life on the continent with Nora as he intended to continue it.  His writing, no matter what the turmoil around him, would always come first.'

John McCourt, The Years of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920, Liliput Press, Dublin, 2000, p9-10.

A little of that turmoil gets into the manuscript where, at the very top, you can see the paper has been used to add up sums of money.

John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley give some background to the story:

'Clay...began life as 'Christmas Eve', in which the main characters were to include Mr Callanan, based on Joyce's uncle, William Murray, and his daughter – who bore the name Katsey both in real life and in the unfinished story. However Joyce recast the narrative, telling the tale from Maria's point of view, and using John Murray, William's brother, as the basis for the main character. This later version was originally called 'Hallow's Eve'.'

John Wyse Jackson and Bernard McGinley, James Joyce's Dubliners: An Annotated Edition, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993.

In its style, 'Christmas Eve' fits Dubliners well, using what Hugh Kenner called the 'Uncle Charles Principle', in which the narrative idiom reflects the character's way of thinking and speaking. 

'...he had met many friends. These friends had been very friendly...'

But unlike in most other Dubliners stories, where the protagonists are usually thwarted or trapped, nothing disturbs Mr Callanan's complacency. He is only limited by his lack of imagination. 

'His mind was vacant. He had calculated all his expenses and discovered that all had been done well within the margin.'

Mr Callanan is a happily married man who drinks moderately (a daily pint in Swan's pub), whose seasonal shopping trip is a success (unlike Maria's in 'Clay') and who gets on well with his boss:

– He's not a bad sort after all if you know how to take him. But you mustn't rub him the wrong way.

That's the only part that Joyce reused when he wrote 'Clay':

'He told her all that went on in his office, repeating for her a smart answer which he had made to the manager. Maria did not understand why Joe laughed so much over the answer he had made but she said that the manager must have been a very overbearing person to deal with. Joe said he wasn't so bad when you knew how to take him, that he was a decent sort so long as you didn't rub him the wrong way.'

Joyce saw 'Christmas Eve' as an unsuccessful experiment, perhaps because of the lack of conflict in the story.  He went on to write 'Counterparts', in which we meet a very different solicitor's clerk, an unhappily married alcoholic, who hates his work and can't help rubbing his boss the wrong way. Perhaps 'Christmas Eve' was recast as 'Counterparts' as well as 'Clay'?

By a twist of fate, the manuscript of 'Christmas Eve' is divided between the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale (pages 1,2 and 4) and the Cornell Joyce Collection (page 3).  Thank you Alfred Walton Litz for reuniting the pages in print!

Wouldn't it make sense for Cornell to swap their lonely page for some other document in Yale's massive Joyce collection?

A JAMES JOYCE MISCELLANY

After posting this, I learned from joyceans ⱅ woke² on Twitter that 'Christmas Eve' was published in 1962, in A James Joyce Miscellany edited by Marvin Magalaner.   It was introduced by John J Slocum, who created the Joyce collection at Yale, and Herbert Cahoon, curator of the Morgan library. They say that Joyce tried to have the story published, and provide more information on its date:

'It is possible to date ''Christmas Eve" as having been written in Trieste and Pola during the eventful months of October and November, 1904. Joyce mentions it in letters to his brother, Stanislaus, dated 31 October and 19 November, 1904, which are now in the Cornell University Library. In the second letter Joyce states, "I have written about half of 'Xmas Eve'." Ellmann gives 19 January, 1905 as the date for the completion of the story; on this day Joyce mailed it to Stanislaus in Dublin. Upon the receipt of the story, Stanislaus tried but failed to place it in The Irish Homestead which had recently published three of the stories that were part of Dubliners. He may also have tried to place it with other periodicals. 

   At this writing, a complete manuscript of "Christmas Eve" is not known to have survived nor has any portion of a manuscript of "Clay." This incomplete fair copy of "Christmas Eve" (and there may have been more of this present narrative) was probably retained by Joyce and passed into the keeping of Stanislaus, as did many of Joyce's manuscripts and books, when the Joyce family moved from Trieste to Paris in 1920.'  

You can read  A James Joyce Miscellany online here, but I've transcribed the text of the story below:

CHRISTMAS EVE 

Mr Callanan felt homely. There was a good fire burning in the grate and he knew that it was cold outside. He had been about town all day shopping with Mrs Callanan and he had met many friends. These friends had been very friendly, exchanging the compliments of the season, joking with Mrs Callanan about her number of parcels, and pinching Katsey's cheek. Some said that Katsey was like her mother but others said she was like her father — only better- looking: she was a rather pretty child. The Callanans — that is, the father and mother and Katsey and an awkward brother named Charlie — had then gone into a cake-shop and taken four cups of coffee. After that the turkey had been bought and safely tucked under Mr Callanan's arm. As they were making for their crowded tram Mr Callanan's 'boss' passed and saluted. The salute was generously returned. 

     — That's the 'boss'. He saluted — did you see? — 

     — That man? — 

     — Ah, he's not a bad sort after all if you know how to take him. But you mustn't rub him the wrong way. — 

     There was wood in the fire. Every Christmas Mr Callanan got a present of a small load of wooden blocks from a friend of his in a timber-yard near Ringsend. Christmas would not have been Christmas without a wood-fire. Two of these blocks were laid crosswise on the top of the fire and were beginning to glow. The brave light of the fire lit up a small, well-kept room with bees-waxed borders arranged cleanly round a bright square carpet. The table in the middle of the room had a shaded lamp upon it. The shade set obliquely sprayed the light of the lamp upon one of the walls, revealing a gilt-framed picture of a curly-headed child in a nightdress playing with a collie. The picture was called ''Can't you talk?" 

A print of 'Can't you talk?' by George Augustus Holmes

      Mr Callanan felt homely but he had himself a more descriptive phrase for his condition: he felt mellow. He was a blunt figure as he sat in his arm-chair; short thick legs resting together like block pipes, short thick arms hardly crossing over his chest, and a heavy red face nestling upon all. His scanty hair was deciding for grey and he looked a man who had come near his comfortable winter as he blinked his blue eyes thoughtfully at the burning blocks. His mind was vacant. He had calculated all his expenses and discovered that all had been done well within the margin. This discovery had resulted in a mood of general charity and in particular desire for some fellow-spirit to share his happiness, some of his old cronies, one of the right sort. Someone might drop in: Hooper perhaps. Hooper and he were friends from long ago and both had been many years in the same profession. Hooper was a clerk in a solicitor's office in Eustace St and Mr Callanan was a clerk in a solicitor's office close by on Wellington Quay.* They used often meet at Swan's public-house where each went every day at lunch-time to get a fourpenny snack and a pint and when they met they compared notes astutely for they were legal rivals. But still they were friends and could forget the profession for one night. Mr Callanan felt he would like to hear Hooper's gruff voice call in at the door "Hello Tom! How's the body?" The kettle was put squatting on the fire to boil for punch and soon began to puff. Mr Callanan stood up to fill his pipe and while filling it he gave a few glances at Katsey who was diligently stoning some raisins on a plate. Many people thought she would turn out a nun but there could be no harm in having her taught the typewriter; time enough after the holidays. Mr Callanan began to toss the water from tumbler to tumbler in a manner that suggested technical difficulties and just at that moment Mrs Callanan came in from the hall. 

     — Tom! here's Mr Hooper! — 

     — Bring him in! Bring him in! I wouldn't doubt you, Paddy, when there's punch going —

     — I'm sure I'm in the way . . . busy night with you, Mrs Callanan . . . — 

     — Not at all, Mr Hooper. You're as welcome as the flowers in May. How is Mrs Hooper? 

     — Ah! we can't complain. Just a touch of the old trouble, you know . . . indigestion — 

     — Nasty thing it is! She is quite strong otherwise? — 

     — O, yes, tip-top — 

     — Well, sit down, my hearty and make yourself at home — 

     — I'll try to, Tom — 

Do you think this is 'unfinished'?  This ending feels like a satisfactory resolution to me.

What might have happened in the rest of the story?

*I looked up Wellington Quay in Thom's 1904 Dublin Directory, and found that lots of solicitors had their offices there, at number 13 and 21.

The picture 'Can't you talk?' was identified by Harald Beck in Joyce Online Notes (Thanks for this to Mary Lawton on Twitter, who also commented, 'The best part of this story is how Joyce describes Callanan in the armchair and nods to Harry Clifton’s "As Welcome as the Flowers in May” or one of its other titles “The Jolly Old Mill.”)