Maria Jolas

Joyce did, on occasions, enjoy gaiety.

He liked to give parties.

These were occasions more than often organised by Joyce himself when we would meet together and on those occasions I would see Beckett.

I'm obliged to say that he was something of a spectator.

He would sit quietly, spoke very quietly.

Generally, he was involved in dialogue rather than in general conversation.

Although there was a feeling of warmth and sympathy,

practically never any actual demonstration of his own enjoyment, as there was, shall we say, with Joyce, who liked to sing and, as I say, dance and so forth.

Well, that has been sort of a morbid point of interest on the part of a good many people who since have delved deeper than it seems to me is almost decent into Joyce's own life and in that of everybody around him.

I have been frequently asked whether or not there was an engagement

to be married between Lucio Joyce and Sam Beckett, and my honest answer is that I don't think there was.

but I do know that the presence of Beckett, along with other young men in Joyce's household, was frequent, and that Lucia was extremely friendly with them all, and that it just happens that Sam is the one who has survived.

Sam is the one who, during the...

terrible war years, after Joyce's death, was the first to return to France, he realized that Lucia was entirely isolated from her mother and her brother and other friends who could have been assistants to her.

And he took it upon himself to see that she did have some contact with her past.

And I think that he has been, in fact I know because I'm in contact with her myself and I hear from her and I know that he is frequently mentioned as having sent her this or that and has continued through across the years

to show her the kindness that her father or her mother would have shown her.