At Swim-Two-Birds

Orlick begins a new draft of the manuscript. Trellis wakes up in a palatial building on the bank of the Dublin Grand Canal. He spends most of his days inside and pays “no attention to the law of God” (139), telling lurid stories and impious poems to corrupt young people. Furriskey interrupts to suggest that they truncate the list of Trellis’s sins by including a simple catalog. In the story, Trellis looks out the window and sees a saint in his garden. Trellis attacks the saint and tears up his book of prayers. The saint curses Trellis. However, Orlick stops writing, worrying that they are “on the wrong track again” (140). He decides to ask Fergus the Pooka for help. The other characters agree but they want Orlick to hurry because they worry about Trellis waking up and uncovering their scheme. They wonder whether they could give Trellis an awkward boil for the time being.

Orlick makes another start on the manuscript. This time, Trellis wakes up and finds the Pooka MacPhellimey in his room. Much to Trellis’s annoyance, he has a boil on his back that he can’t quite reach. Fergus, also to Trellis’s annoyance, doesn’t have a cure. The Pooka says that he has been sent to inflict “a wide variety of physical scourges, torment, and piteous blood-sweats” (142) upon Trellis. Furriskey is impressed. Shanahan and Lamont delight in Orlick’s calls for patience as he continues to write. The Pooka begins to torment Trellis, who throws himself out the window and onto the cobbled street below. Fergus floats down to the badly injured Trellis, who hurls insults at the Pooka. Shanahan interrupts to request new and inventive ways to torment Trellis. To allow for a piece of ceiling to fall on Trellis—per Shanahan’s request—Orlick describes how Trellis and the Pooka go back into the house, where a piece of the ceiling falls on Trellis’s head. Then, they return to the street, which is soaked in Trellis’s blood.

Furriskey interrupts again because he is worries that they’re “going a bit too hard” (145) on Trellis. Orlick, beginning to anger, insists that he has everything under control. The Pooka uses his magic to make Trellis “filled with a restless tottering unquiet and with a disgust for the places he knew and a desire to go where he never was” (146). As Trellis desperately dashes around, the Pooka follows him. Orlick pauses the story to use the bathroom. While he’s away, the other characters worry that they’re giving Trellis a rest that will allow him to recuperate. They decide to continue writing without Orlick. The story switches back to Trellis and Fergus, though Shanahan’s style of narration is notably blunter than Orlick’s prose. The Pooka kicks Trellis in the face and then transforms him into a rat. Furriskey takes over the narration, in which a terrier chases and catches Trellis the rat. As Orlick is about to return, Lamont takes over and quickly writes that all the characters are just as they were when Orlick left. When Orlick returns, however, he suggests a new idea that will lift their tale “to the highest plane of great literature” (148). In his new idea for the story, Trellis will be put on trial for his crimes. The others agree, but Shanahan insists that “the fancy stuff is kept down” (149).

Orlick returns to the manuscript. The injured, feeble Trellis sleeps in a tree, and Fergus sleeps in a tent because, he explains, he’s delicate. The next day, the Pooka and Trellis meet Paul Shanahan, “the eminent philosopher, wit and raconteur” (150). Furriskey must assure Shanahan that “raconteur” isn’t an insult. In the story, Shanahan is soon joined by Furriskey and Lamont, both of whom—the manuscript explains in detail—are fine, upstanding men. They debate scientific knowledge and its practical usage. They share curious facts and notable dates, to each other’s delight. Then, they introduce themselves to the Pooka as justices of the Peace. Given that Trellis is a “fugitive from justice” (155), Fergus explains, the three men should place him on trial.

Trellis regains consciousness in a large hall “in very poor condition” (156). Overlooking him are 12 kings, each sitting on his own throne and each drinking a pint of porter. The Pooka appears beside Trellis and explains that each of the kings is one of the fictional characters that Trellis trapped in the Red Swan Hotel and that they will soon reach a judgment on Trellis’s crimes. Two Greek men from another novel—Timothy Danaos and Dona Ferentes—will act as Trellis’s defense. The first witness is Slug, who describes the “considerable mental anguish” (158) of being made to be a character in Trellis’s writing. Trellis’s attempts to cross-examine the witness are dismissed. Next, William Tracy is called to the stand. Tracy describes how Trellis borrowed a female character from his work and then returned her “in a certain condition” (160), meaning that she was pregnant. Tracy was forced to invent a husband for this woman and her son, which adversely affected his work because “the character was clearly superfluous and impaired the artistic integrity” (160) of his story. Tracy also accuses Trellis of plagiarizing one of his stories. The next witness is the Good Fairy, who doesn’t stay for long. Next, the court calls Paul Shanahan as a witness. Shanahan describes how he was in Trellis’s employment for “many years” (162), but his many talents were often ignored, and he was punished with lice whenever he challenged Trellis. Next, a short-horn cow takes the stand and, thanks to the Pooka, is given the power of speech. The cow is unsatisfied with her professional relationship with Trellis. During cross-examination, Trellis tries to discredit the cow as a witness, but he’s stopped and the cow exits the court. By this time, several characters are slumped over in their thrones, drunk on porter. The next witness is Lamont, who describes how Trellis “violently assaulted” (165) Lamont’s sister, who died soon after.

At this point, Orlick lays down his pen and begins to read the legend printed on the back of his copybook. The men debate whether they can safely leave Trellis where he is while they sleep. Lamont and Shanahan propose that they skip ahead to the verdict as they’ve “heard enough evidence” (166). Orlick is unsure what will happen to them (as Trellis’s characters) if they try to execute Trellis. Orlick agrees to have one more witness and then “get down to business” (167).

The student returns home after passing his final examination with a creditable margin of honor. His uncle wishes to speak with him. The student, pleased with his success, sits in his room and delays to annoy his uncle. He reads footnotes about the morality and dangers of smoking tobacco and drinking tea. He reads the index of a poetry book and an extract from the poem. The student finishes his delaying tactics and goes to talk to his uncle, who sits beside the fire with Mr. Corcoran. After a long speech describing the evils of idleness, the uncle congratulates his nephew on passing his exams. Mr. Corcoran also congratulates the student. They present the student with a secondhand watch to celebrate the occasion. The student, surprised by his uncle’s well-intentioned sentimentality, returns to his room.

In the manuscript, a servant named Teresa at the Red Swan Hotel discovers that Trellis’s room is empty. Entering the room to tidy, she lights the fire using pieces of paper that are “littered here and there about the floor” (172) having been blown about by an open window. These are the pages of Trellis’s manuscript that “made and sustained the existence of Furriskey and his true friends” (173). As the pages burn, someone knocks at the door, and Teresa admits a disheveled, damp, and discolored Trellis. He walks immediately into his room and complains of feeling tired and ill.

In the conclusion to the student’s book, the narrator questions the fine line between sanity and insanity. The narrator asks if, like Sweeny and Hamlet, Trellis was “mad” and then provides examples of the numerous ways in which different people can be driven to apparent madness by seemingly insignificant things like numbers, cloth, or bicycles.