The Melancholy Korean

"How do you know Trieste so well, Melancholy?"

He didn't respond.  No, he was still huffing and puffing away, focused on climbing the main hill that overlooks Trieste. Smokers, you know, don't have particularly wonderful lung capacity, and Melancholy was concentrating on the walk and didn't hear me. It didn't matter, though. By then, I knew why Melancholy had a photographic image of Trieste imprinted on his mind.  We were walking close to the the church dedicated to San Giusto (Melancholy told me later this meant "Saint Just") when it hit me. I felt like a fool for not realizing the truth sooner.

James Joyce had lived in Trieste. Of course! Dear, sweet guests. Can you understand my excitement? I nearly shouted out loud, when the lightening bolt of comprehension finally stuck me. It was so obvious. And, now, I knew exactly where we going to lunch--some horrid working man's cafe that the crazy Irishman probably liked to frequent. Melancholy, you will not be surprised to learn, preferred very nice restaurants, unless... how do I put this. Unless they fit a particular aesthetic sensibility, if that's not too precious a way of saying it. And Melancholy adored James Joyce.  Still does, of course.

Did I say frequent? Well, perhaps, more accurately, Mr. Joyce liked to get drunk in. The Irish, you know. 

I should explain before you think me a terrible snob. I'm part Irish myself, and of course I know not all Irish people are drunkards. I don't really like alcohol so much myself. And I don't like to announce this to just anyone, but since you are our guests, and such well-mannered ones--really, I should think your children must be angels, but where was I? Oh yes, I know you will not think I am boasting if I tell you that my family has a rather famous connection to Stephen Dedalus.

One of those great, great uncles, or something. (I can never understand family trees beyond the first couple generations.) Richard Best. Richard Irvine Best. Lovely name, yes? He was the director of the National Library in Dublin in the years before the war, and one of our family's great heroes.

You don't know him, do you?

He was friends with Stephen MacKenna in Paris, and they used to read Mallarmé together. Well, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of either of them. If he weren't a relation, I certainly wouldn't have known who the director of the National Library was, either, or his friends in Paris. Stephen MacKenna was a great translator of Plotinus. Actually, this is how I first met Melancholy at university. He had a friend from Chivers (that's the high school Melancholy went to, the one he attended with Dr. Coffin) who was my roommate, and while visiting him, this is during those first few heady days we were being feted as the incoming class--goodness, there were so many parties in New Haven that week, "happy, golden bygone years," and all that--but, yes, back to the story, Melancholy was visiting our room and he noticed the copy of Plotinus I had, the one signed by Stephen MacKenna, and, well, he wouldn't let me go until he heard the whole story.

That's why he became friends with me. I don't tell him that, of course, and I'm not offended. I was pleased, actually, that he knew who my great, great half cousin or whatever he is, was. It's funny how friendships form, isn't it?