STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown,
ungirdled, was sustained gently-behind him by the mild morning air. He held
the bowl aloft and intoned:
- Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
- Come up, Kinch. Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about
and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the
awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards
him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking
his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top
of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed
him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and
hued like pale oak.
Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the
bowl smartly.
- Back to barracks, he said sternly.
He added in a preacher's tone:
- For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul
and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A
little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.
He peered sideways up and gave a long low whistle of call, then paused
awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there
with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through
the calm.
- Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off
the current, will you?
He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering
about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A
pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.
- The mockery of it, he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek.
He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily half
way and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he
propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and lathered
cheeks and neck.
Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on.
- My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must
go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out twenty quid?
He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:
- Will he come? The jejune jesuit.
Ceasing, he began to shave with care.
- Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.
- Yes, my love?
- How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?
Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.
- God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English. Bursting with money and
indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus; you have the
real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you is the best:
Kinch, the knife-blade.
He shaved warily over his chin.
- He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is
his guncase?
- A woful lunatic, Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?
- I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the
dark with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If he
stays on here I am off.
Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down
from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.
- Scutter, he cried thickly.
He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper
pocket, said:
- Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.
Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a
dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:
- The bard's noserag. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can't you?
He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair
oakpale hair stirring slightly.
- God, he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey sweet
mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah,
Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original.
Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.
Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked
down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbour mouth of
Kingstown.
- Our mighty mother, Buck Mulligan said.
He turned abruptly his great searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's
face.
- The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't
let me have anything to do with you.
- Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.
- You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother
asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to think
of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for
her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you.
He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
smile curled his lips.
- But a lovely mummer, he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest
mummer of them all.
He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.
Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against
his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. Pain,
that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream
she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose brown
grave-clothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had
bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across the
threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by the
well-fed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green
mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding
the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits
of loud groaning vomiting.
Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.
- Ah, poor dogsbody, he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt
and few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?
- They fit well enough, Stephen answered.
Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.
- The mockery of it, he said contentedly, secondleg they should be. God
knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair
stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You look
damn well when you're dressed.
- Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey.
- He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the
smooth skin.
Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its
smokeblue mobile eyes.
- That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan,
says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Conolly Norman. General
paralysis of the insane.
He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings
abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed
and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong
wellknit trunk.
- Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard.
Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by
a crooked crack, hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face
for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.
- I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does
her all right. The aunt always keeps plain-looking servants for Malachi.
Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.
Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes.
- The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If
Wilde were only alive to see you.
Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:
- It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a Buck
Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him round the
tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrust them.
- It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly.
God knows you have more spirit than any of them.
Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The
cold steelpen.
- Cracked lookingglass of a servant. Tell that to the oxy chap
downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and thinks
you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to
Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only
work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise it.
Cranly's arm. His arm.
- And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one
that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you up your
nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll bring down
Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe.
Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces:
they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another, O, I shall expire!
Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons of his
shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with trousers
down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the tailor's shears. A scared
calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't want to be debagged! Don't you
play the giddy ox with me!
Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf
gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower on
the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.
To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.
- Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at
night.
- Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm
quite frank with you. What have you against me now?
They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on
the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly.
- Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.
- Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything.
He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,
fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety
in his eyes.
Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:
- Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's
death?
Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:
- What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and
sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?
- You were making tea, Stephen said, and I went across the landing to
get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the
drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room.
- Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.
- You said, Stephen answered, O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is
beastly dead.
A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck
Mulligan's cheek.
- Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?
He shook his constraint from him nervously.
- And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You
saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and
Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissecting room. It's a beastly thing
and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel down to pray
for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have
the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the wrong way. To me
it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She
calls the doctor Sir Peter Teazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour
her till it's over. You crossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with
me because I don't whinge like some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I
suppose I did say it. I didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother.
He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping
wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:
- I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.
- Of what, then? Buck Mulligan asked.
- Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.
Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.
- O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.
He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post,
gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew
dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt the
fever of his cheeks.
A voice within the tower called loudly:
- Are you up there, Mulligan?
- I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered.
He turned towards Stephen and said:
- Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola,
Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.
His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level
with the roof.
- Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the
moody brooding.
His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of
the stairhead:
And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery
For Fergus rules the brazen cars.
Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the
stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of
water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim
sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings
merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim
tide.
A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper
green. It lay behind him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song: I sang it
alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open:
she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside.
She was crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love's bitter
mystery.
Where now?
Her secrets: old feather fans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with
musk, a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the
sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in
the pantomime of Turko the terrible and laughed with others when he sang:
I am the boy
That can enjoy
Invisibility.
Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.
And no more turn aside and brood
Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his
brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had
approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting
for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails
reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's shirts.
In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its
loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath bent
over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.
Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On
me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured
face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their
knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum
turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat.
Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!
No mother. Let me be and let me live.
- Kinch ahoy!
Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the
staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, heard
warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.
- Dedalus, comedown, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is
apologizing for waking us last night. It's all right.
- I'm coming, Stephen said, turning.
- Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our
sakes.
His head disappeared and reappeared.
- I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch
him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.
- I get paid this morning, Stephen said.
- The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.
- If you want it, Stephen said.
- Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll have
a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns.
He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of
tune with a Cockney accent:
O, won't we have a merry time
Drinking whisky, beer and wine,
On coronation,
Coronation day?
O, won't we have a merry time
On coronation day?
Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shaving-bowl shone,
forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there all
day, forgotten friendship?
He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,
smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So I
carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the
same. A servant too. A server of a servant.
In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form
moved briskly about the hearth to and fro, hiding and revealing its yellow
glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor from the
high barbicans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of coalsmoke and
fumes of fried grease floated, turning.
- We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will
you?
Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the
hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open the
inner doors.
- Have you the key? a voice asked.
- Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked. He howled
without looking up from the fire:
- Kinch!
- It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.
The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been
set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the doorway,
looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and sat down to
wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he
carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set them down heavily
and sighed with relief.
- I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when .
But hush. Not a word more on that subject. Kinch, wake up. Bread,
butter, honey. Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and
these thy gifts. Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk.
Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from
the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.
- What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.
- We can drink it black, Stephen said. There's a lemon in the locker.
- O, damn you and your Paris fads, Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove
milk.
Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:
- That woman is coming up with the milk.
- The blessings of God on you, Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his
chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I
can't go fumbling at the damned eggs. He hacked through the fry on the dish
and slapped it out on three plates, saying:
- In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.
Haines sat down to pour out the tea.
- I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do
make strong tea, don't you?
Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old
woman's wheedling voice:
- When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I
makes water I makes water.
- By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.
Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:
- So I do, Mrs Cahill, says she. Begob, ma'am, says Mrs Cahill, God
send you don't make them in the one pot.
He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled
on his knife.
- That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five
lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of
Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.
He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his
brows:
- Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken
of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?
- I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.
- Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?
- I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the
Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.
Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight.
- Charming, he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth
and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming.
Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened
rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:
- For old Mary Ann
She doesn't care a damn,
But, hising up her petticoats...
He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.
The doorway was darkened by an entering form.
- The milk, sir.
- Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.
An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow.
- That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.
- To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure. Stephen
reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.
- The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of
the collector of prepuces.
- How much, sir? asked the old woman.
- A quart, Stephen said.
He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white
milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a
tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a
messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching
by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her toadstool,
her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed about her whom
they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old woman, names given
her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of an immortal serving her
conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common cuckquean, a messenger from the
secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, whether he could not tell: but
scorned to beg her favour.
- It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their
cups.
- Taste it, sir, she said.
He drank at her bidding.
- If we could only live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat
loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts.
Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust,
horsedung and consumptives' spits.
- Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.
- I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered.
Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice
that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman; me she slights.
To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but
her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in God's likeness, the
serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with
wondering unsteady eyes.
- Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.
- Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.
Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.
- Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?
- I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from
west, sir?
- I am an Englishman, Haines answered.
- He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak
Irish in Ireland.
- Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak
the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows.
- Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill
us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am?
- No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the
milkcan on her forearm and about to go.
Haines said to her:
- Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we?
Stephen filled the three cups.
- Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at
twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three
mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling and one and two
is two and two, sir.
Buck Mulligan sighed and having filled his mouth with a crust thickly
buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his
trouser pockets.
- Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him smiling.
Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the
thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his
fingers and cried:
- A miracle!
He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:
- Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give. Stephen
laid the coin in her uneager hand.
- We'll owe twopence, he said.
- Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good
morning, sir.
She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant:
- Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet.
He turned to Stephen and said:
- Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring
us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects
that every man this day will do his duty.
- That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your
national library today.
- Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.
He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:
- Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?
Then he said to Haines:
- The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.
- All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey
trickle over a slice of the loaf.
Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the
loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:
- I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.
Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit.
Conscience. Yet here's a spot.
- That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol
of Irish art is deuced good.
Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with
warmth of tone:
- Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.
- Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just
thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.
- Would I make money by it? Stephen asked.
Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of
the hammock, said:
- I don't know, I'm sure.
He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen
and said with coarse vigour:
- You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?
- Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the
milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think.
I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along
with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.
- I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.
Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm.
- From me, Kinch, he said.
In a suddenly changed tone he added:
- To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they
are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us
get out of the kip.
He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying
resignedly:
- Mulligan is stripped of his garments.
He emptied his pockets on to the table.
- There's your snotrag, he said.
And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie, he spoke to them,
chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and rummaged
in his trunk while he called for - a clean handkerchief. Agenbite of inwit.
God, we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green
boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict
myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of his talking
hands.
- And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said.
Stephen picked it up and put it on: Haines called to them from the
doorway:
- Are you coming, you fellows?
- I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out,
Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out with
grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:
- And going forth he met Butterly.
Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out
and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked
it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket.
At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:
- Did you bring the key?
- I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.
He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy
bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.
- Down, sir. How dare you, sir? Haines asked:
- Do you pay rent for this tower?
- Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.
- To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder.
They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:
- Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?
- Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were
on the sea. But ours is the omphalos.
- What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.
- No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas
Aquinas and the fiftyfive reasons he has made to prop it up. Wait till I
have a few pints in me first.
He turned to Stephen, saying as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his
primrose waistcoat:
- You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?
- It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.
- You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?
- Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.
It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is
Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own
father.
- What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?
Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in
loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear:
- O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!
- We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is
rather long to tell.
Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.
- The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.
- I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this
tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o'er
his base into the sea, isn't it?
Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did
not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in cheap
dusty mourning between their gay attires.
- It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.
Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.
The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the
smokeplume of the mailboat, vague on the bright skyline, and a sail tacking
by the Muglins.
- I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused.
The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father.
Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked
at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had
suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a
doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to
chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:
- I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
My mother's a jew, my father's a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So here's to disciples and Calvary.
He held up a forefinger of warning.
- If anyone thinks that I amn't divine
He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running
forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins
or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:
- Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye.
He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his
winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh wind
that bore back to them his brief birdlike cries.
Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and
said:
- We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a
believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it
somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?
- The ballad of Joking Jesus, Stephen answered.
- O, Haines said, you have heard it before?
- Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.
- You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in
the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a
personal God.
- There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.
Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a
green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.
- Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.
Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his
sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it
open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards
Stephen in the shell of his hands.
- Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or
you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a personal
God. You don't stand for that, I suppose?
- You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible
example of free thought.
He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his
side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My
familiar, after me, calling Steeeeeeeeeephen. A wavering line along the
path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that
key. It is mine, I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him the key
too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his eyes.
- After all, Haines began...
Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was
not all unkind.
- After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your
own master, it seems to me.
- I am the servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an
Italian.
- Italian? Haines said.
A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.
- And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.
- Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?
- The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and
the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.
Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he
spoke.
- I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think
like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather
unfairly. It seems history is to blame.
The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph of
their brazen bells: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: the
slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, a
chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus,
the voices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and behind their
chant the vigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her
heresiarchs. A horde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the
brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long
upon the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine,
spurning Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius
who held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken
a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits
surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting
from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, who defend her
ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their shields.
Hear, hear. Prolonged applause. Zut! Nom de Dieu!
- Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines' voice said, and I feel as one. I
don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.
That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now.
Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman,
boatman.
- She's making for Bullock harbour.
The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.
- There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way
when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today.
The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting
for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, salt
white. Here I am.
They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood
on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A
young man clinging to a spur of rock near him moved slowly frogwise his
green legs in the deep jelly of the water.
- Is the brother with you, Malachi?
- Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons.
- Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young
thing down there. Photo girl he calls her.
- Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.
Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near
the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, water
glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over
his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging loincloth.
Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines
and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips and
breastbone.
- Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur
of rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.
- Ah, go to God, Buck Mulligan said.
- Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?
- Yes.
- Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with
money.
- Is she up the pole?
- Better ask Seymour that.
- Seymour a bleeding officer, Buck Mulligan said.
He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying
tritely:
- Redheaded women buck like goats.
He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.
- My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the Uebermensch. Toothless
Kinch and I, the supermen.
He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his
clothes lay.
- Are you going in here, Malachi?
- Yes. Make room in !he bed.
The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the
middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a stone,
smoking.
- Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.
- Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. Stephen turned away.
- I'm going, Mulligan, he said.
- Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.
Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped
clothes.
- And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.
Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck
Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:
- He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake
Zarathustra.
His plump body plunged.
- We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the
path and smiling at wild Irish.
Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.
- The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.
- Good, Stephen said.
He walked along the upwardcurving path.
Liliata rutilantium.
Turnia circumdet.
Iubilantium te virginum
The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will
not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning
the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal's,
far out on the water, round.
Usurper.
Ulysses 2: Nestor
YOU, COCHRANE, WHAT CITY SENT FOR HIM?
-- Tarentum, sir.
-- Very good. Well?
-- There was a battle, sir.
-- Very good. Where?
The boy's blank face asked the blank window.
Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as
memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings of
excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry,
and time one livid final flame. What's left us then?
-- I forgot the place, sir. 279 B.C.
-- Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the
gorescarred book.
-- Yes, sir. And he said: Another victory like that and we are done
for.
That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a
hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned
upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear.
-- You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?
-- End of Pyrrhus, sir?
-- I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.
-- Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?
A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them
between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the
tissues of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud that
their eldest son was in the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey.
-- Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.
All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round
at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh more
loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay.
-- Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book,
what is a pier.
-- A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the waves. A kind of
bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.
Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench
whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All.
With envy he watched their faces. Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes:
their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in
the struggle.
-- Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. The words
troubled their gaze.
-- How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river.
For Haines's chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild
drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester
at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement
master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the
smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other too often
heard, their land a pawnshop.
Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not
been knifed to death? They are not to be thought away. Time has branded them
and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they
have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing that they never were?
Or was that only possible which came to pass? Weave, weaver of the wind.
-- Tell us a story, sir.
-- Oh, do, sir, a ghoststory.
-- Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.
-- Weep no more, Comyn said.
-- Go on then, Talbot.
-- And the history, sir?
-- After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.
A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork
of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:
-- Weep no more, woful shepherd, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor...
It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible.
Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out
into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had
read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a
delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about
me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's
darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting
her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil
brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the soul is the form of
forms. Tranquillity sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms.
Talbot repeated:
-- Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
Through the dear might...
-- Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything.
-- What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.
His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again having
just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven
hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and on mine. It
lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar
what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long look from dark eyes, a
riddling sentence to be woven on the church's looms. Ay.
Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro.
My father gave me seeds to sow.
Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel.
-- Have I heard all? Stephen asked.
-- Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir.
-- Half day, sir. Thursday.
-- Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked.
They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling.
Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling
gaily:
-- A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.
-- O, ask me, sir.
-- A hard one, sir.
-- This is the riddle, Stephen said.
The cock crew
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
Tis time for this poor soul
To go to heaven.
-- What is that?
-- What, sir?
-- Again, sir. We didn't hear.
Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence
Cochrane said:
-- What is it, sir? We give it up.
Stephen, his throat itching, answered:
-- The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.
He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries
echoed dismay.
A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:
-- Hockey!
They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly
they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and clamour
of their boots and tongues.
Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open
copybook. His tangled hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness and
through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his cheek, dull
and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent and damp as a
snail's bed.
He held out his copybook. The word Sums was written on the headline.
Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with blind
loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.
-- Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them
to you, sir.
Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.
-- Do you understand how to do them now? he asked.
-- Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to
copy them off the board, sir.
-- Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked.
-- No, sir.
Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a
snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her
heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him under foot,
a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from
her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's
prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more:
the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and
wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled under foot and had gone,
scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath
winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright
eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped
and scraped.
Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by
algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. Sargent peered
askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom:
the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field.
Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of
their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands,
traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from the
world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement,
flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness
shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend.
-- Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself?
-- Yes, sir.
In long shady strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a
word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of
shame flickering behind his dull skin. Amor matris: subjective and objective
genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and hid from
sight of others his swaddling bands.
Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My
childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or
lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony sit
in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny:
tyrants willing to be dethroned.
The sum was done.
-- It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up.
-- Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered.
He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his
copybook back to his desk.
-- You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said
as he followed towards the door the boy's graceless form.
-- Yes, sir.
In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield.
-- Sargent!
-- Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you.
He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy
field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and Mr
Deasy came stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet. When he had
reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to him. He turned his
angry white moustache.
-- What is it now? he cried continually without listening.
-- Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen cried.
-- Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I
restore order here.
And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man's voice
cried sternly:
-- What is the matter? What is it now?
Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms
closed round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his illdyed
head.
Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded
leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it
was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins,
base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their spooncase of
purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to all the
gentiles: world without end.
A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his
rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.
-- First, our little financial settlement, he said.
He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It
slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid
them carefully on the table.
-- Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.
And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen's embarrassed hand moved
over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money, cowries
and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir's turban, and this, the
scallop of Saint James. An old pilgrim's hoard, dead treasure, hollow
shells.
A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.
-- Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his
hand. These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is
for shillings, sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See.
He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.
-- Three twelve, he said. I think you'll find that's right.
-- Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy
haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.
-- No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.
Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too
of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket. Symbols soiled by greed and
misery.
-- Don't carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You'll pull it out
somewhere and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You'll find them
very handy.
Answer something.
-- Mine would be often empty, Stephen said.
The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times
now. Three nooses round me here. Well. I can break them in this instant if I
will.
-- Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You
don't know yet what money is. Money is power, when you have lived as long as
I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say?
Put but money in thy purse.
-- Iago, Stephen murmured.
He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man's stare.
-- He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet but an
Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you know
what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman's mouth?
The seas' ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: history is
to blame: on me and on my words, unhating.
-- That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets.
-- Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That's not English. A French Celt said that. He
tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.
-- I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I
paid my way.
Good man, good man.
-- I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can you feel
that? I owe nothing. Can you?
Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties.
Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings. Temple,
two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob Reynolds, half
a guinea, Kohler, three guineas, Mrs McKernan, five weeks' board. The lump I
have is useless.
-- For the moment, no, Stephen answered.
Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox.
-- I knew you couldn't, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it.
We are a generous people but we must also be just.
-- I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.
Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the
shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs: Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
-- You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice
said. I saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine.
Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty
years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your communion
denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.
Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the
splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the
planters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie down.
Stephen sketched a brief gesture.
-- I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side.
But I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are
all Irish, all kings' sons.
-- Alas, Stephen said.
-- Per vias rectas, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for
it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do so.
Lal the ral the ra
The rocky road to Dublin.
A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John.
Soft day, your honour... Day... Day... Two topboots jog dangling on to
Dublin. Lal the ral the ra, lal the ral the raddy.
-- That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus,
with some of your literary friends: I have a letter here for the press. Sit
down a moment. I have just to copy the end.
He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read
off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.
-- Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, the dictates of
common sense. Just a moment.
He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow
and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, some
times blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.
Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed
around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek heads
poised in air: lord Hastings' Repulse, the duke of Westminster's Shotover,
the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris, 1866. Elfin riders sat them,
watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing King's colours, and shouted
with the shouts of vanished crowds.
-- Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this
important question...
Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the
mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of
the canteen, over the motley slush. Even money Fair Rebel: ten to one the
field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying
caps and jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher's dame, nuzzling
thirstily her clove of orange.
Shouts rang shrill from the boys' playfield and a whirring whistle.
Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a
medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who
seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by
shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the
slain, a shout of spear spikes baited with men's bloodied guts.
-- Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.
He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up.
-- I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It's about the
foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions
on the matter.
May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of laissez faire
which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old
industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme.
European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the
channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of
agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who was no
better than she should be. To come to the point at issue.
-- I don't mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on.
Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum and virus.
Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's horses at MÜrzsteg, lower
Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous offer a
fair trial, Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In every sense
of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the hospitality of
your columns.
-- I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at
the next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be
cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly
treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer to come over
here. I am trying to work up influence with the department. Now I'm going to
try publicity. I am surrounded by difficulties, by... intrigues, by...
backstairs influence, by...
He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.
-- Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the
jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the
signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation's
vital strength. I have seen it Coming these years. As sure as we are
standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction.
Old England is dying.
He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a
broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again.
-- Dying, he said, if not dead by now.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which
he halted.
-- A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew
or gentile, is he not?
-- They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can
see the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the
earth to this day.
On the steps of the Paris Stock Exchange the goldskinned men quoting
prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabbles of geese. They swarmed loud, uncouth
about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. Not
theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full slow eyes
belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew the rancours
massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and
hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside:
plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew the years of wandering and,
patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh.
-- Who has not? Stephen said.
-- What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.
He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell
sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me.
-- History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to
awake.
>From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.
What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?
-- The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All history
moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.
Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:
-- That is God.
Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!
-- What? Mr Deasy asked.
-- A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.
Mr Deasy looked down and held for a while the wings of his nose tweaked
between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free.
-- I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors
and many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no
better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years
the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the strangers to
our shore here, MacMurrough's wife and her leman O'Rourke, prince of
Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many failures but not
the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my days. But I will fight
for the right till the end.
For Ulster will fight
And Ulster will be right.
Stephen raised the sheets in his hand.
-- Well, sir, he began.
-- I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at
this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am wrong.
-- A learner rather, Stephen said.
And here what will you learn more?
Mr Deasy shook his head.
-- Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the
great teacher.
Stephen rustled the sheets again.
-- As regards these, he began.
-- Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them
published at once.
Telegraph. Irish Homestead.
-- I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two
editors slightly.
That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field,
M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the City
Arms Hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You see if you
can get it into your two papers. What are they?
-- The Evening Telegraph...
-- That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to
answer that letter from my cousin.
-- Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket.
Thank you.
-- Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I
like to break a lance with you, old as I am.
-- Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back.
He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees,
hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The
lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate; toothless
terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub me a new
name: the bullockbefriending bard.
-- Mr Dedalus!
Running after me. No more letters, I hope.
-- Just one moment.
-- Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.
Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.
-- I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of
being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that?
No. And do you know why?
He frowned sternly on the bright air.
-- Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.
-- Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.
A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a
rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his
lifted arms waving to the air.
-- She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he
stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why.
On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung
spangles, dancing coins.
Ulysses 3: Proteus
INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE VISIBLE: AT LEAST THAT IF NO MORE, thought
through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and
seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust:
coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was
aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce
against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color
che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can
put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your
eyes and see.
Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and
shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A
very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the
nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible.
Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o'er his
base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably. I am getting on nicely in
the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet
in his boots are at the end of his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid: made
by the mallet of Los Demiurgos. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount
strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them
a'.
Won't you come to Sandymount,
Madeline the mare?
Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs
marching. No, agallop: deline the mare.
Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I
open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. Basta! I will see if I can see.
See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world
without end.
They came down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer:
and down the shelving shore flabbily their splayed feet sinking in the
silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. Number
one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in the beach.
From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the
late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of her sisterhood
lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the
bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords
of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic
monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. Hello. Kinch here. Put me
on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.
Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel.
Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no,
whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to
everlasting. Womb of sin.
Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man
with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They
clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the ages He willed
me and now may not will me away or ever A lex eterna stays about him. Is
that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial?
Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring his life long on the
contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred heresiarch. In a Greek
watercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. With beaded mitre and with
crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a widowed see, with upstiffed
omophorion, with clotted hinderparts.
Airs romped around him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves.
The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of
Mananaan.
I mustn't forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half
twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile. Yes,
I must.
His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to Aunt Sara's or not? My
consubstantial father's voice. Did you see anything of your artist brother
Stephen lately? No? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with his aunt
Sally? Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And and and and tell us
Stephen, how is uncle Si? O weeping God, the things I married into. De boys
up in de hayloft. The drunken little costdrawer and his brother, the cornet
player. Highly respectable gondoliers. And skeweyed Walter sirring his
father, no less. Sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by
Christ.
I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take
me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.
-- It's Stephen, sir.
-- Let him in. Let Stephen in.
A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me.
-- We thought you were someone else.
In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over
the hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the
upper moiety.
-- Morrow, nephew.
He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the
eyes of Master Goff and Master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and common
searches and a writ of Duces Tecum. A bogoak frame over his bald head:
Wilde's Requiescat. The drone of his misleading whistle brings Walter back.
-- Yes, sir?
-- Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she?
-- Bathing Crissie, sir.
Papa's little bedpal. Lump of love.
-- No, uncle Richie...
-- Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky!
-- Uncle Richie, really...
-- Sit down or by the law Harry I'll knock you down.
Walter squints vainly for a chair.
-- He has nothing to sit down on, sir.
-- He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our Chippendale chair.
Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw air here;
the rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the better. We have
nothing in the house but backache pills.
All'erta!
He drones bars of Ferrando's aria de sortita. The grandest number,
Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen.
His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the
air, his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees.
This wind is sweeter.
Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you
had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of them,
Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's library
where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? The
hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind ran from
them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon, his eyeballs
stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine faces. Temple, Buck
Mulligan, Foxy Campbell. Lantern jaws. Abbas father, furious dean, what
offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! Descende, calve, ut ne nimium
decalveris. A garland of grey hair on his comminated head see him me
clambering down to the footpace (descende), clutching a monstrance,
basiliskeyed. Get down, bald poll! A choir gives back menace and echo,
assisting about the altar's horns, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving
burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of
kidneys of wheat.
And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating
it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx.
Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own cheek.
Dringdringl Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that, invincible
doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain.
Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his second bell the
first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and, rising, heard (now I am
lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang in diphthong.
Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were
awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might
not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the
fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the wet street.
O si, certo! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned round a squaw.
More tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth tram alone crying to the
rain: naked women! What about that, eh?
What about what? What else were they invented for?
Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young.
You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly,
striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell
no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read
his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember
your epiphanies on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you
died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone
was to read them there after a few thousand year, a mahamanvantara. Pico
della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange
pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once...
The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a
damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered
pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome
sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath.
He coasted them, walking warily. A porter-bottle stood up, stogged to its
waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken
hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away
chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two
crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners.
Human shells.
He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there?
Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand
towards the Pigeonhouse.
-- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?
-- C'est le pigeon, Joseph.
Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar
MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he
lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap,
lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read
in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de JÉsus by M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to
his friend.
-- C'est tordant, vows savez. Moi je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas
en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire À mon pÈre.
-- Il croit?
-- Mon pÈre, oui.
Schluss. He laps.
My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want
puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other devil's
name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: physiques, chimiques et naturelles.
Aha. Eating your groatsworth of mou en civet, fleshpots of Egypt, elbowed by
belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural tone: when I was in Paris,
boul' Mich', I used to. Yes, used to carry punched tickets to prove an alibi
if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of the
seventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other
fellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c'est moi. You seem
to have enjoyed yourself.
Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a
dispossessed. With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging door
of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger toothache.
Encore deux minutes. Look clock. Must get. FermÉ. Hired dog! Shoot him to
bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls all brass buttons.
Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O, that's all right.
Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's all right. Shake a shake. O,
that's all only all right.
You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery
Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from
their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: Euge! Euge! Pretending to speak broken
English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the slimy pier
at Newhaven. Comment? Rich booty you brought back; Le Tutu, five tattered
numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge, a blue French telegram,
curiosity to show:
-- Mother dying come home father.
The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't.
Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt
And I'll tell you the reason why.
She always kept things decent in
The Hannigan famileye.
His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by
the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone
mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is there,
the slender trees, the lemon houses.
Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of
farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the air.
Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the kerchiefed
housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hands. In Rodot's Yvonne
and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth
chaussons of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the pus of flan breton.
Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased pleasers, curled conquistadores.
Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers
smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his white.
About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. Un demi setier! A
jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me at his beck.
Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, nous, Irlande,
vous savez? Ah oui! She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Your
postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew
once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well:
slainte! Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling
gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy's
fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes,
conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our
crimes our common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. His
fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his
secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen
Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. Vieille ogresse with the dents
jaunes. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, La Patrie, M. Millevoye, FÉlix Faure,
know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, bonne À tout faire, who rubs
male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. Moi faire, she said. Tous les
messieurs. Not this Monsieur, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most
private thing. I wouldn't let my brother, not even my own brother, most
lascivious thing. Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.
The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose tobacco
shreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw facebones
under his peep of day boy's hat. How the head centre got away, authentic
version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil orangeblossoms, drove out the
road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes.
Disguises, clutched at, gone, not here.
Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell
you, I'll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he
prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of
Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the
fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, Egan of
Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day's stations, the dingy
printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps short night
in, rue de la Goutte-d'Or, damascened with flyblown faces of the gone.
Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy without her
outcastman, madame, in rue GÎt-le-Coeur, canary and two buck lodgers. Peachy
cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young thing's. Spurned and undespairing.
Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. Mon
fils, soldier of France. I taught him to sing. The boys of Kilkenny are
stout roaring blades. Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that. Old
Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow's castle on the Nore. Goes like this. O,
O. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand.
O, O the boys of
Kilkenny...
Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them.
Remembering thee, O Sion.
He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots.
The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of seeds
of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, am I? He
stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the quaking soil. Turn
back.
Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in
new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the barbicans
the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet are sinking,
creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep blue
night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, their pushedback chairs, my
obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned platters. Who to clear it? He
has the key. I will not sleep there when this night comes. A shut door of a
silent tower entombing their blind bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer.
Call: no answer. He lifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the
mole of boulders. Take all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms.
So in the moon's midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable
silvered, hearing Elsinore's tempting flood.
The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back
then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge and
eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a grike.
A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the
gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. Un coche ensablÉ, Louis Veuillot called
Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted
here. And there, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren of weasel rats.
Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones. Heavy of the past.
Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one bang on the ear. I'm the bloody well
gigant rolls all them bloody well boulders, bones for my steppingstones.
Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloods odz an Iridzman.
A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be master
of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away,
walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, two. The two
maries. They have tucked it safe among the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you.
No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?
Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter sun. Danevikings, torcs of
tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of gold. A
school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting, hobbling in the
shallows. Then from the starving cagework city a horde of jerkined dwarfs,
my people, with flayers' knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery
whalemeat. Famine, plague and slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts
my waves. I moved among them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling,
among the spluttering resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me.
The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I
just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Terribilia meditans. A primrose
doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the
bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The Bruce's brother,
Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York's false scion, in
breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel,
with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings' sons.
Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved men from drowning and you
shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san
Michele were in their own house. House of... We don't want any of your
medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he did? A boat would be near, a
lifebuoy. NatÜrlich, put there for you. Would you or would you not? The man
that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden's rock. They are waiting for him
now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong
swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at
Clongowes. Can't see! Who's behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the
tide flowing quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sands quickly,
shell cocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet I want his life still to be
his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of
horror of his death. I... With him together down... I could not save her.
Waters: bitter death: lost.
A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet.
Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on
all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made off
like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a lowskimming
gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He turned, bounded
back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a field tenney a buck,
trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of the tide he halted with
stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at the
wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented towards his feet, curling,
unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from
farther out, waves and waves.
Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping,
soused their bags, and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped
running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again
reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as
they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from his
jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a calf's
gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked round it,
brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffing rapidly like a dog all over
the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground,
moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody. Here lies poor dogsbody's body.
-- Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel.
The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless
kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk
back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped,
dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He
trotted forward and, lifting his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt
rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His hindpaws then scattered sand:
then his forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he buried there, his
grandmother. He rooted in the sand, dabbling delving and stopped to listen
to the air, scraped up the sand again with a fury of his claws, soon
ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in spouse-breach, vulturing the dead.
After he woke me up last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open
hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it.
That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against
my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red
carpet spread. You will see who.
Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet
out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler
strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the ruffian and
his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and shellgrit
crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face her hair trailed. Behind her
lord his helpmate, bing awast, to Romeville. When night hides her body's
flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway where dogs have mired.
Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts.
Buss her, wap in rogue's rum lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell. A
shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. Fumbally's lane that night: the
tanyard smells.
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
Couch a hogshead with me then.
In the darkmans clip and kiss.
Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, frate porcospino.
Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: thy quarrons dainty
is. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber on their
girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets.
Passing now.
A side-eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit I
am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming
sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps,
trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in her wake.
Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, oinopa ponton, a winedark
sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep the wet sign calls her hour,
bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled. Omnis caro ad
te veniet. He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails
bloodying the sea, mouth to her mouth's kiss.
Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.
No. Must be two of em. Glue 'em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss.
His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her womb.
Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched:
ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring
wayawayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's
letter. Here. Thanking you for hospitality tear the blank end off. Turning
his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and scribbled words.
That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library counter.
His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till
the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining
in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his
augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea,
unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw
this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless,
would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere
will read these written words? Signs on a white field. Somewhere to someone
in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne took the veil of the
temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with coloured emblems hatched on
its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: yes, that's right. Flat I see,
then think distance, near, far, flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now. Falls
back suddenly, frozen in stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my
words dark. Darkness is in our souls, do you not think? Flutier. Our souls,
shame-wounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover
clinging, the more the more.
She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue
hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of the
ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges Figgis'
window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you were going to
write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the braided jess of her
sunshade. She lives in Leeson park, with a grief and kickshaws, a lady of
letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she wears those
curse of God stays suspenders and yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool.
Talk about apple dumplings, piuttosto. Where are your wits?
Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me
soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad
too. Touch, touch me.
He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the
scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes.
That is Kevin Egan's movement I made nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. Et
vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona. Alo! Bonjour, welcome as the flowers in
May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing
sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal noon. Among
gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the tawny waters leaves
lie wide. Pain is far.
And no more turn aside and brood.
His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs
nebeneinander: He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein another's
foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in tripudium, foot I
dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's shoe went on you: girl
I knew in Paris. Tiens, quel petit pied! Staunch friend, a brother soul:
Wilde's love that dare not speak its name. He now will leave me. And the
blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all.
In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering
greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float away.
I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing chafing against the low rocks,
swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourworded
wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid
seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop,
slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling,
widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.
Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and
sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying
and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: lifted, flooded
and let fall. Lord, they are weary: and, whispered to, they sigh. Saint
Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the fullness
of their times, diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit. To no end
gathered: vainly then released, forth flowing, wending back: loom of the
moon. Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in
her courts, she draws a toil of waters.
Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one he
said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose
drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising
saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing landward, a pace a pace a porpoise.
There he is. Hook it quick. Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. We
have him. Easy now.
Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a
spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God
becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain.
Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from
all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his
green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun.
A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: beware of imitations. Just
you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, Lucifer,
dico, qui nescit occasum. No. My cockle hat and staff and his my sandal
shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.
He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying
still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their
end. By the way next when is it? Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the
glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn Tennyson, gentleman
poet. GiÀ. For the old hag with the yellow teeth. And Monsieur Drumont,
gentleman journalist. GiÀ. My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder? Feel. That
one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that
money? That one. Toothless Kinch, the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or
does it mean something perhaps?
My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?
His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one.
He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
carefully. For the rest let look who will.
Behind. Perhaps there is someone.
He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the
air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees,
homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.
Ulysses 4:Calypso
MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH THE INNER ORGANS OF BEASTS and fowls.
He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver
slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked
grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly
scented urine.
Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting
her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the
kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a
bit peckish.
The coals were reddening.
Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like
her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the
hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout
stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a
leg of the table with tail on high.
-- Mkgnao!
-- O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.
The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the
table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writing-table. Prr. Scratch my
head. Prr.
Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly, the lithe black form. Clean to see:
the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail,
the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.
-- Milk for the pussens, he said.
-- Mrkgnao! the cat cried.
They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we
understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Wonder
what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.
-- Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the
chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.
Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.
-- Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.
She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively
and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the
dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured
warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.
-- Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.
He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped
three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they
can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind
of feelers in the dark, perhaps.
He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with
this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a
mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a
pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower,
then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? To lap
better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No.
On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by
the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she
likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.
He said softly in the bare hall:
-- I am going round the corner. Be back in a minute.
And when he had heard his voice say it he added:
-- You don't want anything for breakfast?
A sleepy soft grunt answered:
-- Mn.
No. She did not want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,
as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must
get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any
little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah
yes, of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. Got a short knock. Hard
as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from
the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that
corner in stamps. Now that was farseeing.
His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat,
and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback
pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. The
sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's high grade
ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip of paper.
Quite safe.
On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.
In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No
use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the
halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently
over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back
anyhow.
He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number
seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a warm
day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts,
reflects (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in that light suit.
Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy
warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers
yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young.
Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front
of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day
older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate,
sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's big moustaches leaning on a long
kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark
caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged
smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented
with fennel, sherbet. Wander along all day. Might meet a robber or two.
Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques along the
pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, the
evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches from her doorway.
She calls her children home in their dark language. High wall: beyond
strings twanged. Night sky moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters.
Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of these instruments what do you call
them: dulcimers. I pass.
Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track
of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What
Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule
sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland.
He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in
the northwest.
He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the
flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs
of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the end of the
city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as position. Of
course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from the cattle
market to the quays value would go up like a shot.
Bald head over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an
ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he Is, sure enough, my bold
Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned
curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee
with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going to tell you? What's
that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an eight
o'clock breakfast for the Japanese.
Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor
Dignam, Mr O'Rourke.
Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the
doorway:
-- Good day, Mr O'Rourke.
-- Good day to you.
-- Lovely weather, sir.
-- 'Tis all that.
Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the
county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and
behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of
the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without
passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three
and carry five. What is that? A bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the
wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers.
Square it with the boss and we'll split the job, see?
How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels
of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Ten. Fifteen. He passed Saint
Joseph's, National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps
memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee double you.
Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their joggerfry.
Mine. Slieve Bloom.
He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages,
polonies, black and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his
mind unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with
forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of
cooked spicy pig's blood.
A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He
stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the
items from a slip in her hand. Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half
of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his name
is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldfish. New blood. No followers allowed.
Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack
it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack.
The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with
blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there like a stallfed heifer.
He took up a page from the pile of cut sheets. The model farm at
Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium.
Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle
cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: read it nearer, the
blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young white heifer. Those
mornings in the cattlemarket the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep,
flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the
litter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one,
unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending
his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt
swinging whack by whack by whack.
The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime
sausages and made a red grimace.
-- Now, my miss, he said.
She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.
-- Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,
please?
Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went
slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the morning.
Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the shop
in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his nose: they
never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars
in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glowed to weak
pleasure within his breast. For another a constable off duty cuddled her in
Eccles Lane. They like them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman,
I'm lost in the wood.
-- Threepence, please.
His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.
Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them on
the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by
disc, into the till.
-- Thank you, sir. Another time.
A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze
after an instant. No: better not: another time.
-- Good morning, he said, moving away.
-- Good morning, sir.
No sign. Gone. What matter?
He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:
planter's company. To purchase vast sandy tracts from Turkish government and
plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction.
Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eight marks and
they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons.
Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. Every year you get a
sending of the crop. Your name entered for life as owner in the book of the
union. Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments.
Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.
Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.
He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silvered powdered
olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning ripening. Olives are packed in jars,
eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste
of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder
is poor Citron still alive in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky with the
old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair.
Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils
and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the
same, year after year. They fetched high prices too Moisel told me. Arbutus
place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times. Must be without a flaw, he
said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant.
Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book,
navvies handling them in soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of.
How do you? Doesn't see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His
back is like that Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today.
Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven.
A cloud began to cover the sun wholly slowly wholly. Grey. Far.
No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead
sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those
waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining
down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead
sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first
race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by the
neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to
captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now
it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the
world.
Desolation.
Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he
turned into Eccles Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his
veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am
here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin
again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick
houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only
twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered
with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume
of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.
Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim
sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl
with gold hair on the wind.
Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stopped and gathered
them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quick heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs
Marion.
-- Poldy!
Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm
yellow twilight towards her tousled head.
-- Who are the letters for?
He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.
-- A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you.
And a letter for you.
He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of
her knees.
-- Do you want the blind up?
Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her
glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.
-- That do? he asked, turning.
She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.
-- She got the things, she said.
He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back
slowly with a snug sigh.
-- Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched.
-- The kettle is boiling, he said.
But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled
linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.
As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:
-- Poldy!
-- What?
-- Scald the teapot.
On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded
and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the
kettle then to let water flow in. Having set it to draw, he took off the
kettle and crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of
butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily
against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they won't eat
pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped
the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through
his fingers, ringwise, from the chipped eggcup.
Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:
new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's
seaside girls.
The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby,
smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait: four.
I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown
paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.
O Milly Bloom, you are my darling.
You are my looking glass from night to morning.
I'd rather have you without a farthing
Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.
Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous
old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the
little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour.
O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we laughed. Sex
breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.
He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the
teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?
Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it
upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.
Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it
on the chair by the bedhead.
-- What a time you were, she said.
She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on
the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft
bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth of
her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she
poured.
A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the
act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.
-- Who was the letter from? he asked.
Bold hand. Marion.
-- O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.
-- What are you singing?
-- La ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song.
Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves
next day. Like foul flowerwater.
-- Would you like the window open a little?
She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:
-- What time is the funeral?
-- Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper.
Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled
drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a
stocking: rumpled, shiny sole.
-- No: that book.
Other stocking. Her petticoat.
-- It must have fell down, she said.
He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorvez. Wonder if she pronounces
that right: voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and
lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the
orange-keyed chamberpot.
-- Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to
ask you.
She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and,
having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text
with the hairpin till she reached the word.
-- Met him what? he asked.
-- Here, she said. What does that mean?
He leaned downwards and read near her polished thumbnail.
-- Metempsychosis?
-- Yes. Who's he when he's at home?
-- Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That
means the transmigration of souls.
-- O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.
He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes.
The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the
smudged pages. Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce
Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked.
Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him
with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler's.
Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we'll break our
sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we
live after death. Our souls. That a man's soul after he dies. Dignam's
soul...
-- Did you finish it? he asked.
-- Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the
first fellow all the time?
-- Never read it. Do you want another?
-- Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has.
She poured more tea into her cup, watching its flow sideways.
Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to
Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that's the word.
-- Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body
after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all
lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They
say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives.
The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better
remind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An
example.
The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number
of Photo Bits: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milk
in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six I gave for the
frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs: Greece: and
for instance all the people that lived then.
He turned the pages back.
-- Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They
used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance.
What they called nymphs, for example.
Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her,
inhaling through her arched nostrils.
-- There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the
fire?
-- The kidney! he cried suddenly.
He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes
against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily
down the stairs with a flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an
angry Jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the fork under the
kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its back. Only a little
burned. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty brown
gravy trickle over it.
Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He
shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a forkful
into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant meat. Done to
a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, sopped one in the
gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about some young student and a
picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he
chewed, sopping another die of bread in the gravy and raising it to his
mouth.
Dearest Papli,
Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me
splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the belle in my new tam. I got mummy's
lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am getting on
swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me and Mrs will
send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day and all the beef
to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few
friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big
kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano downstairs. There is to be a
concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. There is a young student comes
here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells he
sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about
those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. Must now
close with fondest love.
Your fond daughter, MILLY.
P.S. Excuse bad writing, am in a hurry. Byby.
M.
Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first
birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was
born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old woman.
Lots of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from the first
poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She knew at once. He
would be eleven now if he had lived.
His vacant face stared pitying at the postscript. Excuse bad writing.
Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL
CafÉ about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox.
He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after piece of
kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do worse. Music
hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his
meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.
O well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has
happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild piece of
goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain:
very.
He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window.
Day I caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red.
An&Aelig;mic a little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin's King that day
round the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale
blue scarf loose in the wind with her hair.
All dimpled cheek's and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.
Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers pockets,
jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. Pier
with lamps, summer evening, band,
Those girls, those girls,
Those lovely seaside girls'
Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.
Reading lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, braiding.
A soft qualm regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen,
yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen too.
He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. Lips kissed,
kissing kissed. Full gluey woman's lips.
Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass
the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and
six return. Six weeks off however. Might work a press pass. Or through
M'Coy.
The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper,
nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. Wants
to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. Has the
fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with her back
to the fire too.
He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood
up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.
-- Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I'm ready.
Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the
landing.
A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as
I'm.
In the table drawer he found an old number of Titbits. He folded it
under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft
bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.
Listening, he heard her voice:
-- Come, come, pussy. Come.
He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen
towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The
maid was in the garden. Fine morning.
He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.
Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure
the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. All soil like
that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this that is? The hens in
the next garden: their droppings are very good top dressing. Best of all
though are the cattle, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Mulch
of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too.
Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in that corner there. Lettuce. Always
have fresh greens then. Still gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or
bluebottle here Whitmonday.
He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the
peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny, I don't remember that. Hallstand too
full. Four umbrellas, her rain cloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's
shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brilliantined
hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a
bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox there got away James
Stephens they say. O'Brien.
Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agenda what is it? Now, my miss.
Enthusiast.
He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to
get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under
the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash
and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through
a chink up at the nextdoor window. The king was in his counting house.
Nobody.
Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper turning its pages over
on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit.
Our prize titbit. Matcham's Masterstrike. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy,
Playgoers' club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been
made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds
thirteen and six.
Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding
but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he
allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still
patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not
too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive one tabloid of
cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was
something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on,
seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks
of the master-stroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and
ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read
and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who
had written it and received payment of three pounds thirteen and six.
Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for
some proverb which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said
dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her
nether Hip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts
pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy
this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the
patent leather of her boot.
Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stocking calf. Morning
after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the
hours. Explain that morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night
hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her
fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he
had a good smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it.
Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed
her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub.
Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with daggers
and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still
true to life also. Day, then the night.
He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back
the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the
air.
In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully
his black trousers, the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time
is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.
A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third.
Poor Dignam!
Ulysses 5: Lotus Eaters
BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON'S QUAY MR BLOOM WALKED soberly, past
Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher's, the postal telegraph office.
Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned
from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By
Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked,
smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her
forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he
smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses! Waiting
outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be
many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel.
El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker's. At
eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged that job for
O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. Corney. Met her once in the park. In
the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with
my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a
whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.
In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental
Tea Company and read the legends of lead-papered packets: choice blend,
finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan.
Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he
took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with
slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped
lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high
grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His
fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his
waistcoat pocket.
So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over again: choice
blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must
be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses,
flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those
Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a
hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel.
Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most.
Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals
too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine
trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture
somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a
parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the
weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the
weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It's a law
something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints,
teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really
when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of
falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The
earth. It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.
He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her
sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from
his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it
at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in
to see. Per second, per second. Per second for every second it means. From
the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice.
Too late box. Post here. No-one. In.
He handed the card through the brass grill.
-- Are there any letters for me? he asked.
While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting
poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton
against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably.
Went too far last time.
The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a
letter. He thanked and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.
Henry Flower, Esq.
c/o P. O. Westland Row,
City.
Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,
reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment?
Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a grenadier.
Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy.
That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and
drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night:
disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an
army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half
baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed:
ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A
mason, yes.
He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if
that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt
its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will
pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter and
crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on: photo perhaps.
Hair? No.
M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when
you.
-- Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?
-- Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular.
-- How's the body?
-- Fine. How are you?
-- Just keeping alive, M'Coy said.
His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:
-- Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're...
-- O no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.
-- To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?
A photo it isn't. A badge maybe.
-- E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered.
-- I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard
it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?
-- I know.
Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door
of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood
still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his
pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a
day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands
in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women
all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does.
Reserved about to yield. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man.
Possess her once take the starch out of her.
-- I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what
do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were.
Doran, Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came
Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath his
veiled eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided
drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps.
Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will she get up?
-- And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I
said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said.
Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces
dangling. Well turned foot. What is he fostering over that change for? Sees
me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to
her bow.
-- Why? I said. What's wrong with him? I said.
Proud: rich: silk stockings.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a
minute.
-- What's wrong with him? he said. He's dead, he said. And, faith, he
filled up. Is it Paddy Dignam? I said. I couldn't believe it when I heard
it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch.
Yes, he said. He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow.
Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!
A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.
Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and
the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace
street hallway. Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the
display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at?
-- Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.
-- One of the best, M'Coy said.
The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich
gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her hat in
the sun: flicker, flick.
-- Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said.
-- O yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.
He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
-- My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet.
Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks.
Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.
-- My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the
Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
-- That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it
up?
Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread
and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark
lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old...
-- It's a kind of a tour, don't you see? Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.
Sweet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits.
M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.
-- O well, he said. That's good news.
He moved to go.
-- Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking
around.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
-- Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the
funeral, will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a
drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would
have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I'm not
there, will you?
-- I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all
right.
-- Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly
could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do.
-- That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.
Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd
like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners,
riveted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the
Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that
good day to this.
Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has
just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its
way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know? In the
same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't he hear the
difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow.
Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn't
get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife
and my wife.
Wonder is he pimping after me?
Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured
hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's summer
sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight: Mrs Bandman Palmer.
Like to see her in that again. Hamlet she played last night. Male
impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide? Poor
papa! How he used to talk about Kate Bateman in that! Outside the Adelphi in
London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was:
sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By
Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about
where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his
face.
-- Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left
his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his
father and left the God of his father.
Every word is so deep, Leopold.
Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his
face. That day! O dear! O dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was the best for him.
Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the
hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met that
M'Coy fellow.
He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently
champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the
sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they
know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too
full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded
too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might
be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their
neigh can be very irritating.
He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.
He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies,
all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e
non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying
syllables as they pass. He hummed:
La ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.
He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in
the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins
and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its
forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at
marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking
sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a
piece out of his mantel not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles
when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's.
And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.
A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?
Dear Henry,
I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am
awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you
naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is
the real meaning of that word. Are you not happy in your home you poor
little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. Please tell me
what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have.
Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I
have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about.
Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I
will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if
you do not write. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my
request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye
now, naughty darling. I have such a bad headache today and write by return
to your longing
MARTHA.
P.S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to
know.
He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell
and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because
no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then, walking
slowly forward, he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word.
Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't
please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon
anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. Having read it
all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket.
Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did
she write it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me,
respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you:
not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a
row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time.
Naughty boy: punish: afraid of-words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it
anyhow. A bit at a time.
Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.
Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:
pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without
thorns.
Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in
the Coombe, linked together in the rain.
O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers.
She didn't know what to do
To keep it up
To keep it up.
It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all
day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife
use? Now could you make out a thing like that?
To keep it up.
Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or
faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the
two sluts in the Coombe would listen.
To keep it up.
Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:
quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been,
strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper:
fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of the well stonecold like the hole in
the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the
trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and
more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.
Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly
in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away,
sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank.
Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the
same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque
for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of
porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four
times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a
moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter,
no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen
about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter.
What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the
same.
An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.
Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The
bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together,
winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of
liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.
He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the
porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again
behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy for a
pass to Mullingar.
Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.
on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save China's millions. Wonder
how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium.
Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone
they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same.
Convert Dr. William J. Walsh D. D. to the true religion. Buddha their god
lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.
Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever
idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows
him: distinguished looking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into
the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't.
They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat
rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their
fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips,
entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.
The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,
pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.
Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place
to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music.
That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with
crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altar
rails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his
hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are
they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head
sank. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it
into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes
and open your mouth. What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin.
Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it;
only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals
cotton to it.
He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by
one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its
corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought
to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with
heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their
stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened
shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It
does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind
of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a
lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the
same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity.
Then come out a big spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe
in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues
bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confession box. Hence those snores.
Blind faith. Safe in the arms of Kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this
time next year.
He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an
instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair
he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to.
Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I. N. R. I.? No: I. H. S. Molly told
me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And
the other one? Iron nails ran in.
Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with
a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with
a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly.
Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles
he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning.
This very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis
Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plotting
that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that's a good name for
them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. They're not
straight men of business either. O no she's not here: the flower: no, no. By
the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.
The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs
smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what
they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley's
Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn't
give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud
but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old booser worse than another
coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite
right. Perfectly right that is.
Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.
Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that
instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in
Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of
Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ,
but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped.
Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I
could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:
Quis est homo!
Some of that old sacred music is splendid. Mercadante: seven last
words. Mozart's twelfth mass: the Gloria in that. Those old popes were keen
on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for
example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too chanting,
regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still,
having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of
voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses.
Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a placid.
No worry. Fall into flesh don't they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows?
Eunuch. One way out of it.
He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and
bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced
about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the
gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back
quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing
out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Then the
priest knelt down and began to read off a card:
-- O God, our refuge and our strength.
Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them
the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloria and
immaculate virgin. Joseph her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if
you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes
like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all.
Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon In their hands. More than doctor or
solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you
chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse.
Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's
little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at
an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide
her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will
address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be
in Rome: they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too?
Bequests also: to the P. P. for the time being in his absolute discretion.
Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in the Fermanagh will case in the
witness box. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the
church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.
The priest prayed:
-- Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be
our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God
restrain him, we humbly pray): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other
wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women
remained behind: thanksgiving.
Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.
He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the
time. Women enjoy it. Annoyed if you don't. Why-didn't you tell me before.
Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff.
Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Still like
you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He passed, discreetly
buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He
stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and
behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water.
Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because
I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past.
Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the
last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and
gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of
the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.
He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other
trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O
well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up last?
Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been
or the second. O he can look it up in the prescriptions book.
The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone.
The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why?
Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living
all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster
lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost
cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor whack. He ought to physic
himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb
to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough
stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform.
Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup
bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy
where you least expect it. Clever of nature.
-- About a fortnight ago, sir?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He waited by the counter, inhaling the keen reek of drugs, the dusty
dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches
and pains.
-- Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then
orangeflower water...
It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.
-- And white wax also, he said.
Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her
eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs.
Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles
and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the
old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold yes.
Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a
perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d'Espagne. That orangeflower. Pure
curd soap. Water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Time to get a
bath round the corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your
navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the
bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure.
Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all day. Funeral be rather glum.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought
a bottle?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day
and I'll take one of those soaps. How much are they?
-- Fourpence, sir.
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
-- I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.
-- Good, Mr Bloom said.
He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
-- Hello, Bloom, what's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a
minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons' yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap?
Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
-- I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper
and get shut of him.
-- You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
-- Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.
-- I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
-- What's that? his sharp voice said.
-- I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it
away that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
-- I'Il risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender
turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to
gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come
back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed
the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like
a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel.
Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something
to catch the eye.
There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do
you do, sir?
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here.
Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare
street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line.
And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave.
Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life
we trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and
limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his
navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating,
floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid
floating flower.
Ulysses 6: Hades
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM, FIRST, POKED HIS SILKHATTED HEAD INTO the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after
him, curving his height with care.
-- Come on, Simon.
-- After you, Mr Bloom said.
Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:
-- Yes, yes.
-- Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.
Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it tight till it shut tight. He passed an arm through
the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the
lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose
whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over.
Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give
them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners.
Slop about in slipper-slappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready.
Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your
side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and
shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an
envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job.
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it
out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front turning: then nearer:
then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the
avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking
pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled
rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in
the doorframes.
-- What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
-- Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
-- That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother
road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in
mourning, a wide hat.
-- There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
-- Who is that?
-- Your son and heir.
-- Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to
the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell
back, saying:
-- Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
-- Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little cost-drawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of
dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the
bottleworks. Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in
Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two
hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on
him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll
cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent
profit.
-- He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all
over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'Il make it my
business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or
whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I `Il tickle his
catastrophe, believe you me.
He cried above the clatter of the wheels.
-- I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counter-jumper's
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely.
He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild
face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking
beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it
would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond
terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of
the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown
on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying
for it. How life begins.
Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn
German too.
-- Are we late? Mr Power asked.
-- Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch
Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life.
Life.
The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.
-- Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.
-- He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him.
Do you follow me?
He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.
-- What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?
-- Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr
Power said.
All raised their thighs, eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and
said:
-- Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?
-- It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.
Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.
-- After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world.
-- Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak
of his beard gently.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.
-- And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.
-- At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.
-- I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come.
The carriage halted short.
-- What's wrong?
-- We're stopped.
-- Where are we?
Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.
-- The grand canal, he said.
Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illness compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea.
Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss this
chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is
my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. A dying scrawl.
He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men's dogs usually are.
A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower
spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. I
thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.
-- The weather is changing, he said quietly.
-- A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.
-- Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There's the sun again coming
out.
Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled
a mute curse at the sky.
-- It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said.
-- We're off again.
The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed
gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.
-- Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking
him off to his face.
-- O draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear
him, Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of The Croppy Boy.
-- Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. His singing of that
simple ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the
whole course of my experience.
-- Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He's dead nuts on that. And the
retrospective arrangement.
-- Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Martin Cunningham asked.
-- I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it?
-- In the paper this morning.
Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change
for her.
-- No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on, please.
Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the
deaths. Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what Peake
is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, Urbright.
Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the
Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged 88
after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind. Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet
Jesus have mercy.
It is now a month since dear Henry fled
To his home up above in the sky
While his family weeps and mourns his loss
Hoping some day to meet him on high.
I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it
in the bath? He patted his waistcoat pocket. There all right. Dear Henry
fled. Before my patience are exhausted.
National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.
Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with
a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats.
A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a
tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something
automatic so that the wheel itself much handler? Well but that fellow would
lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the
new invention?
Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a
crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law,
perhaps.
They went past the bleak pulpit of Saint Mark's, under the railway
bridge, past the Queen's theatre: in silence. Hoardings. Eugene Stratton.
Mrs Bandman Palmer. Could I go to see Leah tonight, I wonder. I said I. Or
the Lily of Killarney? Elster Grimes Opera company. Big powerful change. Wet
bright bills for next week. Fun on the Bristol. Martin Cunningham could work
a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a drink or two. As broad as it's long.
He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs.
Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he?
-- How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow
in salute.
-- He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?
-- Who? Mr Dedalus asked.
-- Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.
Just that moment I was thinking.
Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the
white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed.
Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right
hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?
Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes feel
what a person Is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just
looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body getting a bit
softy. I would notice that from remembering. What causes that I suppose the
skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape
is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the
dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind.
He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant
glance over their faces.
Mr Power asked:
-- How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?
-- O very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good
idea, you see .
-- Are you going yourself?
-- Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the
county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief
towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.
-- Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now.
-- Have you good artists?
-- Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all
topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact.
-- And Madame, Mr Power said, smiling. Last but not least.
Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and
clasped them. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.
Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling
by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees.
Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his
mouth opening: oot.
-- Four bootlaces for a penny.
Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.
Same house as Molly's namesake. Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. Has
that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. Terrible
comedown, poor wretch! kicked about like snuff at a wake. O'Callaghan on his
last legs.
And Madame. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing
her hair, humming: voglio e non vorrei. No: vorrei e non. Looking at the
tips of her hairs to see if they are split. Mi trema un poco il. Beautiful
on that tre her voice is: weeping tone. A thrust. A throstle. There is a
word throstle that expressed that.
His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over
the ears. Madame: smiling. I smiled back. A smile does a long way. Only
politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman he
keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is
no carnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it
was Crofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is
this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the Moira, was it?
They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form.
Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.
-- Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.
A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner
of Elvery's elephant house showed them a curved hand open on his spine.
-- In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.
Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:
-- The devil break the hasp of your back!
Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as
the carriage passed Gray's statue.
-- We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly.
His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. He caressed his beard, adding:
-- Well, nearly all of us.
Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces.
-- That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J. and
the son.
-- About the boatman? Mr Power asked.
-- Yes. Isn't it awfully good?
-- What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it.
-- There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to
send him to the isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both...
-- What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he
tried to drown...
-- Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did!
Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.
-- No, Mr Bloom said the son himself...
Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely.
-- Reuben J. and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on
their way to the isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got loose
and over the wall with him into the Liffey.
-- For God's sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead?
-- Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and
fished him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the
father on the quay. More dead than alive. Half the town was there.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is...
-- And Reuben J., Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for
saving his son's life.
A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power's hand.
-- O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin.
-- Isn't it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly.
-- One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily. Mr Power's
choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. Nelson's pillar.
-- Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!
-- We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Dedalus sighed.
-- And then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a
laugh. Many a good one he told himself.
-- The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his
fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and he
was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this. He's gone
from us.
-- As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went
very suddenly.
-- Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.
He tapped his chest sadly.
Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.
Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent
colouring it.
Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.
-- He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said.
-- The best death, Mr Bloom said.
Their wide open eyes looked at him.
-- No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in
sleep.
No-one spoke.
Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,
temperance hotel, Falconer's railway guide, civil service college, Gill's,
catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or wind. At
night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the late Father
Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.
White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,
galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach.
Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for a nun.
-- Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.
A dwarf's face mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body,
weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny
a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant nothing. Mistake
of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not the man. Better luck
next time.
-- Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It's well out of it.
The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his
bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.
-- In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.
-- But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own
life.
Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back.
-- The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added.
-- Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We
must take a charitable view of it.
-- They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said.
-- It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's
large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. Like
Shakespeare's face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy on that
here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive a stake of
wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken already. Yet
sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed clutching rushes. He
looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife of his. Setting up house for
her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him every Saturday
almost. Leading him the life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone,
that. Monday morning start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must
have looked a sight that night, Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about
the place and capering with Martin's umbrella:
And they call me the jewel of Asia,
Of Asia,
The geisha.
He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones.
That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The
room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through the
slats of the Venetian blinds. The coroner's ears, big and hairy. Boots
giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like yellow streaks
on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. Verdict: overdose.
Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son Leopold.
No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.
The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones.
-- We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said.
-- God grant he doesn't upset us on the road, Mr Power said.
-- I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race
tomorrow in Germany. The Gordon Bennett.
-- Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith.
As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent
over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody
here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead march from Saul. He's as bad as
old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The Mater Misericordiae.
Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for incurables there.
Very encouraging. Our Lady's Hospice for the dying. Deadhouse handy
underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look terrible the women. Her
feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the spoon. Then the screen round her
bed for her to die. Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee
gave me. He's gone over to the lying-in hospital they told me. From one
extreme to the other.
The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.
-- What's wrong now?
A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching
by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony
croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear.
-- Emigrants, Mr Power said.
-- Huuuh! the drover's voice cried, his switch sounding on their
flanks. Huuuh! Out of that!
Thursday of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them
about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roast beef for old
England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter is lost:
all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a year. Dead
meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap,
margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train
at Clonsilla.
The carriage moved on through the drove.
-- I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the
parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken in
trucks down to the boats.
-- Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said.
Quite right. They ought to.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought is to have
municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line out
to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all.
Don't you see what I mean?
-- O that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and
saloon diningroom.
-- A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.
-- Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn't it be more
decent than galloping two abreast?
-- Well, there's something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.
-- And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn't have scenes like that when
the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin on to the road.
-- That was terrible, Mr Power's shocked face said, and the corpse fell
about the road. Terrible!
-- First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus aid, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup.
-- Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.
Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy
Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too
large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now.
Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose
quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. The
sphincter loose. Seal up all.
-- Dunphy's, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right.
Dunphy's corner. Mourning coaches drawn up drowning their grief. A
pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we'll pull up here
on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. Elixir of
life.
But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in
the knocking about? He would and he wouldn't, I suppose. Depends on where.
The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It would be
better to bury them in red: a dark red.
In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted
by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.
Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.
Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping
barge between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a slacktethered
horse. Aboard of the Bugabu.
Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on
his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds,
over slime, mud-choked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley,
I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire
some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a
lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry.
Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To
heaven by water. Perhaps I will without writing. Come as a surprise,
Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down, lock by lock to Dublin. With turf from
the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his brown strawhat, saluting Paddy
Dignam.
They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now.
-- I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said.
-- Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.
-- How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping I suppose.
-- Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear.
The carriage steered left for Finglas road.
The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of
land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt
in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: appealing.
The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor.
Passed.
On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary the sexton's an old tramp sat,
grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown yawning
boot. After life's journey.
Gloomy gardens then went by, one by one: gloomy houses.
Mr Power pointed.
-- That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house.
-- So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him
off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said.
-- The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.
-- Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. That's the maxim of the
law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to
be wrongfully condemned.
They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered,
tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned.
Murder. The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading
about it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she
met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large.
Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out.
Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without
letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with their
pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen.
The high railings of Prospects rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars,
rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees,
white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on
the air.
The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put
out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his
knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.
Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly
and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. He
stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still
held.
Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It's all the same.
Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death.
Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit.
Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who
ate them? Mourners coming out.
He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes
walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out
the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy.
Where is that child's funeral disappeared to?
A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread,
dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a
granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted.
Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at
it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, pressing on
a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here every day?
Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount Jerome for the
protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Shovelling
them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in
the world.
Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy,
hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl's face stained with dirt and
tears, holding the woman's arm looking up at her for a sign to cry. Fish's
face, bloodless and livid.
The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So
much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First the
stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy followed
with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the brother-in-law.
All walked after.
Martin Cunningham whispered:
-- I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom.
-- What? Mr Power whispered. How so?
-- His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the
Queen's hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare.
Anniversary.
-- O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself!
He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed
towards the cardinal's mausoleum. Speaking.
-- Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked.
-- I believe so, Mr Kernan answered, but the policy was heavily
mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane.
-- How many children did he leave?
-- Five. Ned Lambert says he'll try to get one of the girls into
Todd's.
-- A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children.
-- A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added.
-- Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed.
Has the laugh at him now.
He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had
outlived him, lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must
outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world.
Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow him. For
Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after?
Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage.
Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in the end she put a
few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of hearts. All for a shadow.
Consort not even a king. Her son was the substance. Something new to hope
for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go
first: alone under the ground: and lie no more in her warm bed.
-- How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't
seen you for a month of Sundays.
-- Never better. How are all in Cork's own town?
-- I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned
Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.
-- And how is Dick, the solid man?
-- Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.
-- By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?
-- Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert
said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the
insurance is cleared up.
-- Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in
front?
-- Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is
behind. He put down his name for a quid.
-- I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he
ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.
-- How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?
-- Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.
They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood
behind the boy with the wreath, looking down at his sleek combed hair and
the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there
when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and
recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings
to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel.
Which end is his head.
After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened
light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow
candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a
wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt
here and there in praying desks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and,
when all had knelt dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket
and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left
knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.
A server, bearing a brass bucket with something in it, came out through
a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him tidying his stole with one
hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.
Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.
They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.
Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Dominenamine. Bully
about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide
anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways
like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a
poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways.
-- Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine.
Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem
mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.
Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in
the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too.
What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the
place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of baa gas
round the place. Butchers for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who
was telling me? Mervyn Brown. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely
old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins
sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff
of that and you're a goner.
My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.
The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and
shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were
before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.
-- Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.
The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that of course.
Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. What
harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a fresh
batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in childbirth, men
with beards, baldheaded business men, consumptive girls with little
sparrow's breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing over them all
ad shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam now.
-- In paradisum.
Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over
everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.
The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny
Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the
coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher
gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed them
out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last, folding his
paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the
coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the gravel with
a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the barrow along a
lane of sepulchres.
The ree the ra the Fee the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here.
-- The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.
Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.
-- He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But
his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon!
-- Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'Il soon be
stretched beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.
Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.
-- She's better where she is, he said kindly.
-- I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.
Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.
-- Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.
Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.
-- The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we
can do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.
They covered their heads.
-- The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you
think? Mr Kernan said with reproof.
Mr Bloom nodded gravely, looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secret searching eyes. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We
are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else.
Mr Kernan added:
-- The service of the Irish church, used in Mount Jerome, is simpler,
more impressive, I must say.
Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.
Mr Kernan said with solemnity:
-- I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man's inmost
heart.
-- It does, Mr Bloom said.
Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every
day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying
around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else.
The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day
idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he
came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing
around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all
of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes
one pennyweight. Troy measure.
Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.
-- Everything went off A 1, he said. What?
He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.
-- As it should be, Mr Kernan said.
-- What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.
Mr Kernan assured him.
-- Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.
Ned Lambert glanced back.
-- Bloom, he said, Madam Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.
-- O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some
time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen
seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's, in Roundtown. And a good armful
she was.
He looked behind through the others.
-- What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery
line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.
Ned Lambert smiled.
-- Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for
blottingpaper.
-- In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon
like that for? She had plenty of game in her then.
-- Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.
John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.
The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the
grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.
-- John O'Connell, Mr Power said, pleased. He never forgets a friend.
Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:
-- I am come to pay you another visit.
-- My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want
your custom at all.
Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham's side, puzzling two keys at his back.
-- Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?
-- I did not, Martin Cunningham said.
They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watch chain and spoke in
a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.
-- They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one
foggy evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing
about in the fog they found the grave, sure enough. One of the drunks spelt
out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue
of our Saviour the widow had got put up.
The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:
-- And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, Not a bloody bit like
the man, says he. That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it.
Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher,
accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he
walked.
-- That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to
Hynes.
-- I know, Hynes said, I know that.
-- To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure
goodheartedness: damn the thing else.
Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on
good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys:
like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out, no passout checks. Habeat
corpus. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge
on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?
Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave.
Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when the hairs come out grey and
temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife.
Wonder how he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in
the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting
death... Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about.
The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be
a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man
great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o'the wisp.
Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women
especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The
clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly
keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You
might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones.
Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends
meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of frilled beefsteaks to the
starving gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it
at the window. Eight children he has anyway.
He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field
after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or
kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some day above
ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must
be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too, trim grass and edgings. His
garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well so it is. Ought to be flowers
of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best
opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It's the
blood sinking in the earth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said
killed the christian boy. Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse
gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of
William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds
thirteen and six. With thanks.
I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpse manure, bones, flesh,
nails, charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink, decomposing. Rot
quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy
kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, treacle oozing out of them. Then
dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living.
Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on
themselves.
But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply
swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside
gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing
all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. Cracking his
jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin.
Spurgeon went to heaven 4 A.M. this morning. 11 P.M. (closing time). Not
arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like to hear an
odd joke or the women to know what's in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies'
punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so
better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge
of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De
mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his
funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you
live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.
-- How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.
-- Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.
The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to
trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping
with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its
nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.
Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He
doesn't know who is here nor care.
Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh? Now
who is he I'd like to know? Now, I'd give a trifle to know who he is. Always
someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome
all his life. Yes, he could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after
he died though he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No
ants too. First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe
was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a
Thursday if you come to look at it.
O, poor Robinson Crusoe,
How could you possibly do so?
Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of
them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could invent
a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding let it down that way. Ay but
they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. They're so
particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only
a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin. I see what it
means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The
Irishman's house is his coffin. Enbalming in catacombs, mummies, the same
idea.
Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.
Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's
number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that
I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.
Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had
one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was
once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine
turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not married or
his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.
The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the
gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.
Pause.
If we were all suddenly somebody else.
Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they
say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.
Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The
boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the
black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. Well
cut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. Well it
is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be damned
unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone else. Try
the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then darkened
deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you like to see
a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life.
The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid.
Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet
yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he's
doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing him a woman. Dying
to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold
thee? Bam! expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you.
Don't forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even Parnell.
Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole one after the
other.
We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire
of purgatory.
Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near
you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma poor mamma,
and little Rudy.
The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time?
Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of course. Of
course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the
heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and
some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to
keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are
sure there's no.
The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.
The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way
deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he traversed
the dismal fields.
Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.
-- I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is
your christian name? I'm not sure.
-- L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too.
He asked me to.
Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman once.
So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died
of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley,
you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw
to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him under an
obligation: costs nothing.
-- And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the.
He looked around.
-- Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?
-- M'Intosh, Hynes said, scribbling, I don't know who he is. Is that
his name?
He moved away, looking about him.
-- No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!
Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord,
what became of him?
A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.
-- O, excuse me!
He stepped aside nimbly.
Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath
against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on
their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked
the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a
long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered
weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the
coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed
something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble.
Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just.
The mourners moved away slowly, without aim, by devious paths, staying
awhile to read a name on a tomb.
-- Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.
-- Let us, Mr Power said.
They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:
-- Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.
Hynes shook his head.
-- Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.
Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old
Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity
for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?
Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them
together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave.
Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself.
Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed
away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the
shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you
what they were. So and so, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid
five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good
Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose
is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put
it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's
acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal
spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they
never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil.
Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The
other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.
A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu! Not a budge out of him. Knows
there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder.
Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a
daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.
The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve.
Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart.
Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased.
Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the
basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the
boy. Apollo that was.
How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.
Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the
voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the
house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeragain
hellohello amarawf kopthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died
when I was in Wisdom Hely's.
Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop.
He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he
goes.
An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive
crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good
hidingplace for treasure.
Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was
buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds.
Tail gone now.
One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones
clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone
bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China
that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better.
Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and
Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime fever pits to eat them.
Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower
of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the
pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life
no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the
news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.
We learned that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for
them. Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't
care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste
like raw white turnips.
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.
Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was
here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even
scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to
get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give
you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see
my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another
world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No
more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near
you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this
innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.
Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.
Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton. John Henry, solicitor,
commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be In his office. Mat
Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the
Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that
evening on the bowling green because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of
mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first
sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow
always like that, mortified if women are by.
Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.
-- Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.
They stopped.
-- Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said, pointing.
John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.
-- There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.
John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed
the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again.
-- It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said.
John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.
-- Thank you, he said shortly.
They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a
few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could
wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger without his seeing it.
Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.
Get the pull over him that way.
Thank you. How grand we are this morning.
Ulysses 7: Ae
In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis
BEFORE NELSON'S PILLAR TRAILS SLOWED, SHUNTED, CHANGED TROLLEY, started
for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,
Palmerston park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend
and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway
Company's timekeeper bawled them off:
-- Rathgar and Terenure!
-- Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a
singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.
-- Start, Palmerston park!
The Wearer of the Crown
Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and
polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars,
bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung
sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for
local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.
Gentlemen of the Press
Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores
and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped
dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.
-- There it is Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.
-- Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to
the Telegraph office.
The-door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in
a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a
roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier.
Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the
newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.
-- I'll go through the printing works, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut
square.
-- Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen
behind his ear, we can do him one.
-- Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. We.
William Brayden, Esquire, of Oaklands, Sandymount
Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered:
-- Brayden.
Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a
stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and
National Press and the Freeman's Journal and National Press. Dullthudding
Guinness's barrels. It passed stately up the staircase steered by an
umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step:
back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts
of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
-- Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.
The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build
one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk Mary, Martha.
Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.
-- Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.
-- Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our
Saviour.
Jesus Mario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his
heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one.
The Crozier and the Pen
-- His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.
They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and
stepped off posthaste with a word.
-- Freeman!
Mr Bloom said slowly:
-- Well, he is one of our saviours also.
A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed
in through the sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along
the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping,
thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards
Nannetti's reading closet.
With Unfeigned Regret it is we announce the of a most respected Dublin
Burgess
Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping thump. This
morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to
atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are
pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away,
tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.
How a Great Daily Organ is turned out
Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy
crown.
Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for
College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth.
It's the ads ad side features sell a weekly not the stale news in the
official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one
thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of
Tinnachinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing
return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes.
Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle' Toby's page for
tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure
for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The
personal note M.A. P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand.
World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two
bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More
Irish than the Irish.
The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thurap. Now if he
got paralysed there and no one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on
the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole
thing. Want a cool head.
-- Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him they say.
The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the
dirty glass screen.
-- Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.
Mr Bloom stood in his way.
-- If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,
pointing backward with his thumb.
-- Did you? Hynes asked.
-- Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him.
-- Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too.
He hurried on eagerly towards the Freeman's Journal.
Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint.
We see the Canvasser at work
Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.
-- Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you
remember.
Mr Nannetti considered the cutting a while and nodded.
-- He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.
He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.
The foreman moved his pencil towards it.
-- But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He
wants two keys at the top.
Hell of a racket they make. Maybe he understands what I.
The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began
to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.
-- Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.
Let him take that in first.
Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of
it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various
uses, thousand and one things.
Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew
swiftly on the scarred-woodwork.
House of Key(e)s
-- Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name
Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.
Better not teach him his own business.
-- You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the
top in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea?
The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched
there quietly.
-- The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,
the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the
isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?
I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then if
he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not.
-- We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?
-- I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a
house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and
just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. High class licensed
premises. Longfelt want. So on.
The foreman thought for an instant.
-- We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal.
A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the
silent typesetters at their cases.
Orthographical
Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot
to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the
unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed
pedlar while gauging au the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.
Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on account of the symmetry.
I could have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to
have said something about an old hat or something. No, I could have said.
Looks as good as new now. See his phizthen.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forwards its
flyboard with slit the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human
the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. That door
too slit creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its own way.
Sllt.
Noted Churchman an Occasional Contributor
The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:
-- Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the
Telegraph. Where's what's his name?
He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.
-- Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.
-- Ay. Where's Monks?
-- Monks!
Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.
-- Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a
good place I know.
-- Monks!
-- Yes, sir.
Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it
anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists
over for the show.
A Dayfather
He walked on through the caseroom, passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must
have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads,
speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now.
Sober serious man with a bit in the savings-bank I'd say. Wife a good cook
and washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn
nonsense.
And it was the Feast of the Passover
He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice
that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards
with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All
that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the
other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then the lamb and the cat
and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher and then the angel
of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat.
Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but
it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. How
quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his
fingers.
Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to
the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him
out perhaps? Better phone him up first. Number? Same as Citron's house.
Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.
Only once more that soap
He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over these
walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell
there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door when I was
there.
He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap
I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he
took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned into the hip pocket of his
trousers.
What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something
I forgot. Just to see before dressing. No. Here. No.
A sudden screech of laughter came from the Evening Telegraph office.
Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it is.
He entered softly.
Erin, Green Gem of the Silver Sea
-- The ghost walks, professor Macllugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to
the dusty windowpane.
Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing
face, asked of it sourly:
-- Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse?
Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:
-- Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, fanned by gentlest zephyrs tho' quarrelling with the stony
obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune's blue domain, mid mossy banks,
played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast o'er its
pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest. What
about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his newspaper. How's that for
high?
-- Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.
Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:
-- The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage. O boys! O boys!
-- And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on
the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.
-- That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want
to hear any more of the stuff.
He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.
High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.
Rather upsets a man's day a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old
Chatterton, the vice-chancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle.
Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death written this long time
perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for
your uncle. The right honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes
him an odd shaky cheque or two on gale days. Windfall when he kicks out.
Alleluia.
-- Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.
-- What is it? Mr Bloom asked.
-- A recently discovered fragment of Cicero's, professor MacHugh
answered with pomp of tone. Our lovely land.
Short but to the Point
-- Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.
-- Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With
an accent on the whose.
-- Dan Dawson's land, Mr Dedalus said.
-- Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.
Ned Lambert nodded.
-- But listen to this, he said.
The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was
pushed in.
-- Excuse me, J.J. O'Molloy said, entering.
Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.
-- I beg yours, he said.
-- Good day, Jack.
-- Come in. Come in.
-- Good day.
-- How are you, Dedalus?
-- Well. And yourself?
J.J. O'Molloy shook his head.
Sad
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's in
the wind, I wonder. Money worry.
-- Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks.
-- You're looking extra.
-- Is the editor to be seen? J.J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the
inner door.
-- Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in
his sanctum with Lenehan.
J.J. O'Molloy strolled Jo the sloping desk and began to turn back the
pink pages of the file.
Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of
honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T.
Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show their grey matter. Brains on their sleeve
like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the
Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on the
Independent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind
of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn't
know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one
another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hailfellow well
met the next moment.
-- Ah, listen to this for God's sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if
we but climb the serried mountain peaks...
-- Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!
-- Peaks, Ned Lambert went on, towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were...
-- Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he
taking anything for it?
-- As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio,
unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize
regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and luscious
pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of
our mild mysterious Irish twilight...
His Native Doric
-- The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.
-- That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shines forth to irradiate her silver effulgence.
-- O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan, shite and
onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short.
He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy
moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.
Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An
instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's
unshaven black-spectacled face.
-- Doughy Daw! he cried.
What Wetherup said
All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too wasn't he? Why they call him
Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in
the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments
open house. Big blow out. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by
the stomach.
The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested
by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:
-- What is it?
-- And here comes the sham squire himself, professor MacHugh said
grandly.
-- Getououthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in
recognition.
-- Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.
-- Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.
-- Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.
Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile.
-- Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.
Memorable Battles Recalled
-- North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece.
We won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!
-- Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.
-- In Ohio! the editor shouted.
-- So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.
Passing out, he whispered to J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Incipient jigs. Sad case.
-- Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet
face. My Ohio!
-- A Perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.
O, Harp Eolian
He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant unwashed
teeth.
-- Bingbang, bangbang.
Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.
-- Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an
ad.
He went in.
-- What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.
-- That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you
fret. Hello, Jack. That's all right.
-- Good day, Myles. J.J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?
The telephone whirred inside.
-- Twenty eight... No, twenty... Double four . Yes.
Spot the Winner
Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sports tissues.
-- Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.
He tossed the tissues on to the table.
Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.
-- Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.
Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps.
The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue
scrawls and under the table came to earth.
-- It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.
-- Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a
hurricane blowing.
Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.
-- Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrel shoved me, sir.
He pointed to two faces peering in round the door-frame.
-- Him, sir.
-- Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.
He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.
J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:
-- Continued on page six, column four.
-- Yes... Evening Telegraph here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner
office. Is the boss... ? Yes, Telegraph... To where?... Aha! Which auction
rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him.
A Collision ensues
The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.
-- Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.
-- My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a
hurry.
-- Knee, Lenehan said.
He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee.
-- The accumulation of the anno Domini.
-- Sorry, Mr Bloom said.
He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J.J. O'Molloy slapped
the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed
in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps:
We are the boys of Wexford
Who fought with heart and hand.
Exit Bloom
-- I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in Dillon's.
He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand suddenly
stretched forth an arm amply.
-- Begone! he said. The world is before you.
-- Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.
J.J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.
-- He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through
his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.
-- Show! Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.
A Street Cortege
Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail
of white bowknots.
-- Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk.
Small nines. Steal upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J.J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.
-- What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other
two gone?
-- Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for
a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.
-- Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air
and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.
-- He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voIce.
-- Seems to be, J.J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarette case in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most
matches?
The Calumet of Peace
He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J.
O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it.
-- Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself.
The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:
'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
'Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his long lips.
-- Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:
-- Silence for my brandnew riddle!
-- Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.
-- That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the
fire. We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell.
The Grandeur that was Rome
-- Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:
-- What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloac&Aelig;:
sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet
to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman
who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his
foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed
about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a
watercloset.
-- Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial to
the running stream.
-- They were nature's gentlemen, J.J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.
-- And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.
-- Do you know that story about chief Baron Palles? J.J. O'Molloy
asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going
swimmingly.
-- First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?
Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.
-- Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried.
-- I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led
by Experience visits Notoriety.
-- How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone.
? ? ?
Lenehan said to all:
-- Silence! What opera resembles a railway line? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.
-- Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
-- Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said:
-- That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken.
On swift sail flaming
>From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
-- Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned... ?
Bullockbefriending bard.
Shindy in wellknown Restaurant
-- Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter is not mine.
Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to...
-- O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's face in
the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.
-- Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
-- Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the
ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, graf von
Tirconnel in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian
fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes,
every time. Don't you forget that!
-- The moot point is did he forget it? J.J. O'Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
-- And if not? he said.
-- I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. Hungarian it was one
day...
Lost Causes Noble Marquess mentioned
We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us
is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to
the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak
the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim: time is
money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord
Jesus! Lord Salisbury. A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek!
Kyrie Eleison!
A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.
-- The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought
to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker
and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects
of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the
empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian
fleets at &Aelig;gospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an
oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a
lost cause.
He strode away from them towards the window.
-- They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.
-- Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received
in the latter half of the matinÉe. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen's ear:
Lenehan's Limerick
There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?
In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.
Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.
-- That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be
all right.
Lenehan extended his hands in protest.
-- But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railway line?
-- Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled.
Lenehan announced gladly:
-- The Rose of Castille. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
-- Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.
The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties.
-- Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.
-- Like fellows who had blown up the bastille, J.J. O'Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between
you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.
Omnium Gatherum
-- We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.
-- All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics.
-- The turf, Lenehan put in.
-- Literature, the press.
-- If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of
advertisement.
-- And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's
prime favourite.
Lenehan gave a loud cough.
-- Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a
cold in the park. The gate was open.
You can do it!
The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder.
-- I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite
in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. In the lexicon of youth...
See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.
-- Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective.
Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the
public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn its
soul. Father Son and Holy Ghost and fakes M'Carthy.
-- We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.
-- He wants you for the pressgang, J.J. O'Molloy said.
The Great Gallaher
-- You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in
emphasis. Wait a minute. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher used to
say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the Clarence.
Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You know how he made
his mark? I'll tell you. That was the smartest piece of journalism ever
known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of the invincibles, murder
in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I suppose. I'll show you.
He pushed past them to the files.
-- Look at here, he said, turning. The New York World cabled for a
special. Remember that time?
Professor MacHugh nodded.
-- New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw
hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean, Joe Brady and the
rest of them. Where Skin-the-goat drove the car. Whole route, see?
-- Skin-the-goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that
cabman's shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You
know Holohan?
-- Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.
-- And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for
the corporation. A night watchman.
Stephen turned in surprise.
-- Gumley? he said. You don't say so? A friend of my father's, is he?
-- Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind the
stones, see they don't run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius Gallaher
do? I'll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away. Have you Weekly
Freeman of 17 March? Right. Have you got that?
He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point.
-- Take page four, advertisement for Bransome's coffee let us say. Have
you got that? Right.
The telephone whirred.
A distant voice
-- I'll answer it, the professor said going.
-- B is parkgate. Good.
His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating.
-- T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon
gate.
The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles. An illstarched
dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his
waistcoat.
-- Hello? Evening Telegraph here... Hello?... Who's there?... Yes...
Yes...
-- F to P is the route Skin-the-goat drove the car for an alibi.
Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F. A. B. P.
Got that? X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street.
The professor came to the inner door.
-- Bloom is at the telephone, he said.
-- Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Burke's
publichouse, see?
Clever, Very
Clever, Lenehan said. Very.
-- Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole
bloody history.
Nightmare from which you will never awake.
-- I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present, Dick Adams, the
besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and
myself.
Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing:
-- Madam, I'm Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba.
-- History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince's street was
there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of an
advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the leg up.
Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the Star. Now he's got
in with Blumenfeld. That's press. That's talent. Pyatt! He was all their
daddies.
-- The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the
brother-in-law of Chris Callinan.
-- Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he's here still. Come across
yourself.
-- Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried. He
flung the pages down.
-- Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O'Madden Burke.
-- Very smart, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Professor MacHugh came from the inner office.
-- Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some
hawkers were up before the recorder...
-- O yes, J.J. O'Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home
through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that cyclone
last year and thought she'd buy a view of Dublin. And it turned out to be a
commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or Skin-the-goat. Right
outside the viceregal lodge, imagine!
-- They're only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said.
Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those
fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan? Eh?
Ah, bloody nonsense! Only in the halfpenny place!
His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain.
Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you
write it then?
Rhymes and Reasons
Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be
some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the same,
looking the same, two by two.
... la tua pace
... che parlar ti piace
... mentrechÈ il vento, come fa, si tace.
He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in
russet, entwining, per l'aer perso in mauve, in purple, quella pacifica
oriafiamma, in gold of oriflamme, di rimirar fe piu ardenti. But I old men,
penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth south: tomb womb.
-- Speak up for yourself, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Sufficient for the Day...
J.J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.
-- My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a
false construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for
the third profession qua profession but your Cork legs are running away with
you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and Edmund
Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth of
the farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery gutter sheet not
to mention Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences and our watchful friend
The Skibereen Eagle. Why bring in a master of forensic eloquence like
Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof.
Links with Bygone Days of Yore
Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his
face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. Who
have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha!
-- Well, J.J. O'Molloy said, Bushe K. C., for example.
-- Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes. Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it
in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe.
-- He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only
for... But no matter.
J.J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly:
-- One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my
life fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide,
the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him.
And in the porches of mine ear did pour.
By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other
story, beast with two backs?
-- What was that? the professor asked.
Italia, Magistra Artium
-- He spoke on the law of evidence, J.J. O'Molloy said, of Roman
justice as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he
cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the Vatican.
-- Ha.
-- A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence!
Pause. J.J. O'Molloy took out his cigarette case. False lull. Something
quite ordinary.
Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar.
I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that
it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that
determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.
A Polished Period
J.J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words:
-- He said of it: that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and
terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and
prophecy which if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor has
wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to
live, deserves to live.
His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall.
-- Fine! Myles Crawford said at once.
-- The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
-- You like it? J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen.
Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He
took a cigarette from the case. J.J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles
Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy,
saying:
-- Muchibus thankibus.
A Man of High Morale
-- Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J.J. O'Molloy said
to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal hush
poets: A. E. the master mystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a
nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that
you came to him in the small hours of the morning to ask him about planes of
consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is
a man of the very highest morale, Magennis.
Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say
about me? Don't ask.
-- No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarette case aside.
Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I ever
heard was a speech made by John F. Taylor at the college historical society.
Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had spoken and
the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), advocating the
revival of the Irish tongue.
He turned towards Myles Crawford and said:
-- You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his
discourse.
-- He is sitting with Tim Healy, J.J. O'Molloy said, rumour has it, on
the Trinity college estates commission.
-- He is sitting with a sweet thing in a child's frock, Myles Crawford
said. Go on. Well?
-- It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished
orator, full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction, I
will not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely
upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, therefore
worthless.
He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an
outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and ringfinger
touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new focus.
Impromptu
In ferial tone he addressed J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sick bed. That he had
prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one
shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard
round it. He wore a loose neckcloth and altogether he looked (though he was
not) a dying man.
His gaze turned at once but slowly from J.J. O'Molloy's towards
Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His unglazed
linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair.
Still seeking, he said:
-- When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F. Taylor rose to reply.
Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these.
He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more.
Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet.
He began:
-- Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in
listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by
my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a
country far away from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I
stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some
highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses.
His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smoke
ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked
smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it
yourself?
-- And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian
highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his
words and their meaning was revealed to me.From the Fathers
It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are
corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were
good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine.
-- Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our
language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen; we are a mighty people. You
have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our
galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow
the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive
conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a
polity.
Nile.
Child, man, effigy.
By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple
in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.
-- You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and
mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours
serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and
few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants
and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name.
A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it
boldly:
-- But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and
accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and
bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought
the chosen people out of their house of bondage nor followed the pillar of
the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid
lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of
inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of
the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.
He ceased and looked at them, enjoying silence.
Ominous - for Him!
J.J. O'Molloy said not without regret:
-- And yet he died without having entered the land of promise.
-- A sudden - at - the - moment - though - from - lingering - illness -
often - previously - expectorated - demise, Lenehan said. And with a great
future behind him.
The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and
pattering up the staircase.
-- That is oratory, the professor said, uncontradicted.
Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles
of ears of porches. The tribune's words howled and scattered to the four
winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of
all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more
I have money.
-- Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may
I suggest that the house do now adjourn?
-- You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? Mr
O'Madden Burke asked. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug,
metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.
-- That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All who are in favour
say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To which
particular boosing shed?... My casting vote is: Mooney's!
He led the way, admonishing:
-- We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not?
Yes, we will not. By no manner of means.
Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally's lunge of his
umbrella:
-- Lay on, Macduff!
-- Chip of the old block! the editor cried, slapping Stephen on the
shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys?
He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out the crushed typesheets.
-- Foot and mouth. I know. That'll be all right. That'll go
in. Where are they? That's all right.
He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office.
Let Us Hope
J.J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen:
-- I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment.
He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him.
-- Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn't it? It
has the prophetic vision. Fuit Ilium! The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms of
this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today.
The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and
rushed out into the street, yelling:
-- Racing special!
Dublin. I have much, much to learn.
They turned to the left along Abbey street.
-- I have a vision too, Stephen said.
-- Yes, the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will
follow.
Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran:
-- Racing special!
Dear Dirty Dublin
Dubliners.
-- Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived
fifty and fiftythree years in Fumbally's lane.
-- Where is that? the professor asked.
-- Off Blackpitts.
Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistening
tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker,
darlint!
On now. Dare it. Let there be life.
-- They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson's
pillar. They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox.
They shake out the threepenny bits and a sixpence and coax out the pennies
with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in
coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas
for fear it may come on to rain.
-- Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.
Life on the Raw
-- They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf
at the north city dining rooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins,
proprietress... They purchase-our and twenty ripe plums from a girl at the
foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They give two
threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin to waddle slowly
up the winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each other, afraid of the
dark, panting, one asking the other have you the brawn, praising God and the
Blessed Virgin, threatening to come down, peeping at the airslits. Glory be
to God. They had no idea it was that high.
Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the
lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water given her by a lady who got a
bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen and a
bottle of double X for supper every Saturday.
-- Antithesis, the professor said, nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can
see them. What's keeping our friend?
He turned.
A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scampering in all
directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them Myles
Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet face, talking
with J.J. O'Molloy.
-- Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm.
He set off again to walk by Stephen's side.
Return of Bloom
-- Yes, he said. I see them.
-- Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the
offices of the Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal, called:
-- Mr Crawford! A moment!
-- Telegraph! Racing special!
-- What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace. A newsboy
cried in Mr Bloom's face:
-- Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows!
Interview with the Editor
Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps,
puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes just
now. He'll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he'll see. But he
wants a par to call attention in the Telegraph too, the Saturday pink. And
he wants it if it's not too late I told councillor Nannetti from the
Kilkenny People. I can have access to it in the national library. House of
keys, don't you see? His name is Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he
practically promised he'd give the renewal. But he wants just a little puff.
What will I tell him, Mr Crawford?
K. M. A.
Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said, throwing
out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable.
A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm.
Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is that
young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last
time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere.
Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown?
-- Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I
suppose it's worth a short par. He'd give the ad I think. I'll tell him...
-- He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over
his shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him.
While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on
jerkily.
Raising the Wind
-- Nulla bona, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I'm up to
here. I've been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to back
a bill for me no later than last week. You must take the will for the deed.
Sorry, Jack. With a heart and a half if I could raise the wind anyhow.
J. J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught
up on the others and walked abreast.
-- When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty
fingers in the paper the beard was wrapped in, they go nearer to the
railings.
-- Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two
old Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar.
Some Column! - That's What Waddler One Said
-- That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies'
Dargle. Two old trickies, what?
-- But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see
the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines' blue
dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them giddy to
look so they pull up their skirts...
Those Slightly Rambunctious Females
-- Easy all, Myles Crawford said, no poetic licence. We're in the
archdiocese here.
-- And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the
statue of the onehandled adulterer.
-- Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the
idea. I see what you mean.
Dames Donate Dublin's Cits Speedpills Velocitous Aeroliths, Belief
-- It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too
tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between them
and eat the plums out of it one after another, wiping off with their
handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and spitting
the plumstones slowly out between the railings.
He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden
Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's.
-- Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse.
Sophist Wallops Haughty Helen Square on Proboscis. Spartans Gnash
Molars. Ithacans Vow Pen is Champ
-- You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of
Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were
bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a
bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from
Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.
Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.
They made ready to cross O'Connell street.
Hello There, Central!
At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless
trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham,
Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend and Sandymount
Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines, all still, becalmed
in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery waggons, mail-vans, private
broughams, aerated mineral water floats with rattling crates of bottles,
rattled, lolled, horsedrawn, rapidly.
What? - and Likewise - Where?
-- But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get
the plums?
Virgilian, Says Pedagogue. Sophomore Plumps for Old Man Moses
-- Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to
reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: deus nobis hc otia fecit.
-- No, Stephen said, I call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the
Parable of the Plums.
-- I see, the professor said.
He laughed richly.
-- I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land.
We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy.
Horatio is Cynosure this Fair June Day
J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance cowards the statue and held
his peace.
-- I see, the professor said.
He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson
through the meshes of his wry smile.
Diminished Digits Prove Too Titillating for Frisky Frumps. Anne
Wimbles, Flo Wangles - Yet Can You Blame Them?
-- Onehandled adulterer, he said grimly. That tickles me I must say. --
Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's truth
was known.
Ulysses 8: Lestrygonians
PINEAPPLE ROCK, LEMON PLATT, BUTTER SCOTCH. A SUGARSTICKY GIRL
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat.
Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the
King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne, sucking red jujubes white.
A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.
Heart to heart talks.
Bloo... Me? No.
Blood of the Lamb.
His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druid's altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the
church in Zion, is coming.
Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome.
Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put
the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous
crucifix? Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall,
hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in.
Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the
pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush out.
What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before Rudy
was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the brain.
>From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk.
Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be selling
off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. Lobbing about
waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother goes. Fifteen
children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their theology or the
priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the absolution. Increase
and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat you out of house and home.
No families themselves to feed. Living on the fat of the land. Their
butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do the black fast Yom Kippur.
Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear he'd collapse on the altar. A
housekeeper of one of those fellows If you could pick it out of her. Never
pick it out of her. Like getting L. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No
guests. All for number one. Watching his water. Bring your own bread and
butter. His reverence. Mum's the word.
Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it. Proof
of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.
As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I
heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the
brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter, wonderful. Rats get in
too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the
porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that!
Rats: vats. Well of course if we knew all the things.
Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt quay
walls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben J's son
must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and eightpence too
much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the things. Knows how to
tell a story too.
They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.
He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet
per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of swells,
floated under by the bridge piers. Not such damn fools. Also the day I threw
that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the wake fifty yards
astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.
The hungry famished gull
Flaps o'er the waters dull.
That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has
no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
Solemn.
Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit
Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.
-- Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!
His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand.
Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up
with a rag or a handkerchief.
Wait. Those poor birds.
He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes
for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into
the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently two, then all, from their
heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.
Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fishy flesh they have to,
all sea birds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here
sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder what kind is
swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.
They wheeled, flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny
quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey, say, on chestnut meal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are not
salty? How is that?
His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.
Kino's
11/-
Trousers.
Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which in
the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kind of places
are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all
the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.
Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement.
Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for that matter on the
q.t. running in to loosen a button. Fly by night. Just the place too. POST
NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.
If he...
O!
Eh?
No... No.
No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely?
No, no.
Mr Bloom moved forward raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
that. After one. Timeball on the ballast office is down. Dunsink time.
Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never
exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek:
parallel, parallax. Met him pikehoses she called it till I told her about
the transmigration. O rocks!
Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballast office. She's
right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound.
She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking.
Still I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone voice.
He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a barrel. Now,
isn't that wit? They used to call him big Ben. Not half as witty as calling
him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get outside of a baron of
beef. Powerful man he was at storing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass.
See? it all works out.
A procession of whitesmocked men marched slowly towards him along the
gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they
are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet
letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Hely's. Y
lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it
into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day,
walking along the gutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone
together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl: no: M'Glade's men. Doesn't
bring in any business either. I suggested to him about a transparent show
cart with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks,
envelopes, blotting paper. I bet that would have caught on. Smart girls
writing something catch the eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's
writing. Get twenty of them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger
in the pie. Women too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt, Wouldn't have it of course
because he didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested
with a false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's
potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What?
Our envelopes. Hello! Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson, I am
hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's
Ltd, 85 Dame Street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a job it was
collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent. That was a nice
nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small head. Sister? Sister?
I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with
that sort of woman. I disturbed her at her devotions that morning. But glad
to communicate with the outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our
Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew, I think she knew by
the way she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they
really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the
same. No lard for them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like
buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat
Claffey, the pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed
wire.
He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover
cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil
Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait, was in Thom's. Got the
job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago: ninetyfour
he died, yes that's right, the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon was lord
mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying the port into
his soup before the flag fell, Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman.
Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have already received may
the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress
with the braided frogs. Mantailored with self-covered buttons. She didn't
like it because I sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the
Sugarloaf. As if that. Old Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky
stuff. Flies' picnic too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her
like a glove, shoulder and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbit
pie we had that day. People looking after her.
Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper,
Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American soap
I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped
all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he
told me of. Hereditary taste.
He walked along the curbstone.
Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was
always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron's
saint Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen...
? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he
couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day.
Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home
after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her that
song Winds that blow from the south.
Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting
on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supper room or
oakroom of the mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew out
of my hand against the high school railings. Lucky it didn't. Thing like
that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin linking her in
front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell concerts. Positively
last appearance on any stage. May be for months and may be for never.
Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of
Harcourt road remember that gust? Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa
nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when
we got home raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton
for her supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could
see her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the busk of her stays.
White.
Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her.
Always liked to let herself out. Sitting there after till near two, taking
out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. That was the
night.
-- O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?
-- Oh, how do you do, Mrs Breen?
-- No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for
ages.
-- In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily, Milly has a position down in
Mullingar, you know.
-- Go away! Isn't that grand for her?
-- Yes, in a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How
are all your charges?
-- All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said.
How many has she? No other in sight.
-- You're in black I see. You have no...
-- No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he
die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
-- o dear me, Mrs Breen said, I hope it wasn't any near relation.
May as well get her sympathy.
-- Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite
suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.
Your funeral's tomorrow
While you're coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum
Diddlediddle...
-- Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said
melancholily.
Now that's quite enough about that. Just quietly: husband.
-- And your lord and master?
Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow.
-- O, don't be talking, she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's
in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me
heartscalded. Wait till I show you.
Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured
out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's
gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or
they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood
over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that
way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the
table.
Opening her handbag, chipped leather, hatpin: ought to have a guard on
those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money.
Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging.
Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are you feeding your little
brother's family? Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle. Pastile that was
fell. What is she?...
-- There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you
know what he did last night?
Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him wide in
alarm, yet smiling.
-- What? Mr Bloom asked.
Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.
-- Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.
Indiges.
-- Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.
-- The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.
She took a folded postcard from her handbag.
-- Read that, she said. He got it this morning.
-- What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?
-- U.P.: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great
shame for them whoever he is.
-- Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.
She took back the card, sighing.
-- And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take
an action for ten thousand pounds, he says.
She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.
Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen
its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque, three old
grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty
dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than Molly.
See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.
He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.
Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry on
the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb
tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that was. In
Luke Doyle's long ago, Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U.P.: up.
Change the subject.
-- Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy, Mr Bloom asked.
-- Mina Purefoy? she said.
Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' club. Matcham often thinks of
the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.
-- Yes.
-- I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the
lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three days
bad now.
-- O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that.
-- Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very
stiff birth, the nurse told me.
-- O, Mr Bloom said.
His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in
compassion. Dth! Dth!
-- I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's
terrible for her.
Mrs Breen nodded.
-- She was taken bad on the Tuesday...
Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her.
-- Mind! Let this man pass.
A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river, staring with a
rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavy stringed glass. Tight as a
skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a
stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.
-- Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts.
Watch!
-- Who is he if it's a fair question, Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?
-- His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr
Bloom said, smiling. Watch!
-- He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of
these days.
She broke off suddenly.
-- There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to
Molly, won't you?
-- I will, Mr Bloom said.
He watched her dodge through passers towards the shop-fronts. Denis
Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's
hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old times.
He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust his dull grey
beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke earnestly.
Meshuggah. Off his chump.
Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the
tight skullpiece, the dangling stick, umbrella, dustcoat. Going the two
days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. And
that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have with
him.
U.P.: up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote
it for a lark in the Scotch house, I bet anything. Round to Menton's office.
His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the gods.
He passed the Irish Times. There might be other answers lying there.
Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch
now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there to
simmer. Enough bother wading through forty-four of them. Wanted smart lady
typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty darling
because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the meaning.
Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The
way they spring those questions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My
literary efforts have had the good fortune to meet with the approval of the
eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy
tea with a book of poetry.
Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook
and general, exc cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit
counter. Resp girl (R. C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop.
James Carlisle made that. Six and a half percent dividend. Made a big deal
on Coates's shares. Ca'canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news.
Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the Irish Field now. Lady
Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the
Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable
fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them.
Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No
sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the
death. Strong as a brood mare some of those horsey women. Swagger around
livery stables. Toss off a glass of brandy neat while you'd say knife. That
one at the Grosvenor this morning. Up with her on the car: wishwish.
Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver
did it out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes? Mrs Miriam Dandrade
that sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel.
Divorced Spanish American. Didn't take a feather out of her my handling
them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when
Stubbs the park ranger got me in with Whelan of the Express. Scavenging what
the quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was
custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to be a
bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks.
Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun
and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Eating with a stopwatch,
thirtytwo chews to the minute. Still his muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed
to be well connected. Theodore's cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative
in every family. Hardy annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the
Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one
in a marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast
year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t's are. Dog in the
manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please.
He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval a sixpenny at
Rowe's? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in the
Burton. Better. On my way.
He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot
to tap Tom Kernan.
Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a
vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out! Phew!
Dreadful simply! Child's head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her trying
to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me that would.
Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent something to stop
that. Life with hard labour. Twilightsleep idea: queen Victoria was given
that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman that lived in a shoe she had so
many children. Suppose he was consumptive. Time someone thought about it
instead of gassing about the what was it the pensive bosom of the silver
effulgence. Flapdoodle to feed fools on. They could easily have big
establishments. Whole thing quite painless out of all the taxes give every
child born five quid at compound interest up to twentyone, five per cent is
a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds, multiply by twenty decimal
system, encourage people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit
twentyone years want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum, more than
you think.
Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for
nothing.
Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs
Moisel. Mothers' meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then returns.
How flat they look after all of a sudden! Peaceful eyes. Weight off their
minds. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, she said. The
spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that's nyumyum. Got her
hand crushed by old Tom Wall's son. His first bow to the public. Head like a
prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking them up at all hours. For
God'sake doctor. Wife In her throes. Then keep them waiting months for their
fee. To attendance on your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors,
most of them.
Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of
pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick
the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling from the
air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near Goose green
playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me.
A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian
file. Goose step. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their
truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts.
Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up into groups and scattered,
saluting towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in
pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, marching
irregularly, rounded Trinity railings, making for the station. Bound for
their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive soup.
He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put
him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women.
Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. There is not in this wide
world a vallee. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to the very
last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's wasn't she?
He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack
Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble
being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. Can't
blame them after all with the job they have especially the young hornies.
That horse policeman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity
he got a run for his money. My word he did! His horse's hoofs clattering
after us down Abbey street. Luck I had the presence of mind to dive into
Manning's or I was souped. He did come a wallop, by George. Must have
cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I oughtn't to have got myself swept
along with those medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortar-boards.
Looking for trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that
sting for me in the Mater and now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy.
Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why
he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began.
-- Up the Boers!
-- Three cheers for De Wet!
-- We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree.
Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill.
The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and civil
servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to
whether on the scaffold high.
Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in
his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the
invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to get in
the know. All the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. Drop him
like a hot potato. Why those plain clothes men are always courting slaveys.
Easily twig a man used to uniform. Square-pushing up against a backdoor.
Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And who is the gentleman
does be visiting there? Was the young master saying anything? Peeping Tom
through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young student fooling round her
fat arms ironing.
-- Are those yours, Mary?
-- I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out
half the night.
-- There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.
-- Ah, get along with your great times coming. Barmaids too. Tobacco
shopgirls.
James Stephens' idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that
a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out you
get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in, the firing squad. Turnkey's daughter
got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the Buckingham Palace
hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi.
You must have a certain fascination: Parnell, Arthur Griffith is a
squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Want to gas about
our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom.
Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government. That
the language question should take precedence of the economic question. Have
your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them up with meat and
drink. Michaelmas goose. Here's a good lump of thyme seasoning under the
apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease before it gets too cold.
Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with the band. No grace for the
carver. The thought that the other chap pays best sauce in the world. Make
themselves thoroughly at home. Shove us over those apricots, meaning
peaches. The not far distant day. Home Rule sun rising up in the northwest.
His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly,
shadowing Trinity's surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing,
outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same; day after day: squads
of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies mooching
about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a bed groaning to
have a child tugged out of her. One born every second somewhere. Other dying
every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. Three hundred kicked the
bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the blood off, all are washed in
the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa.
Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other
coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements,
piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. Landlord never
dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets his notice to quit.
They buy the place up with gold and still they have all the gold. Swindle in
it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand.
Built on bread and onions. Slaves. Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left.
Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt, Kerwan's mushroom
houses, built of breeze. Shelter for the night.
No one is anything.
This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate
this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.
Provost's house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in
there. Wouldn't live in it if they paid me. Hope they have liver and bacon
today. Nature abhors a vacuum.
The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silver
ware in Walter Sexton's window opposite by which John Howard Parnell passed,
unseeing.
There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's a
coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don't meet
him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a
corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal's
uniform since he got the job. Charley Boulger used to come out on his high
horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the woebegone walk
of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a pain. Great man's
brother: his brother's brother. He'd look nice on the city charger. Drop
into the D. B. C. probably for his coffee, play chess there. His brother
used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to pass a remark on him.
Freeze them up with that eye of his. That's the fascination: the name. All a
bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with
scarlet harness. Bolt upright like surgeon M'Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat
him for south Meath. Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public
life. The patriot's banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus
said when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the
grave and lead him out of the House of Commons by the arm.
Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which the
ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with a
Scotch accent. The tentacles...
They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and
bicycle. Young woman.
And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence: second-time.
Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the eminent
poet Mr Geo Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. E.: what does
that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed
El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world with a Scotch accent.
Tentacles: octopus. Something occult: symbolism. Holding forth. She's taking
it all in. Not saying a word. To aid gentleman in literary work.
His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a
listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only weggebobbles
and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue
you through all eternity. They say it's healthier. Wind and watery though.
Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night.
Why do they call that thing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians.
To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook
in soda. Keep you sitting by the tap all night.
Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless,
Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic.
Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that kind of food you
see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of
those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts; you couldn't squeeze
a line of poetry out of him. Don't know what poetry is even. Must be in a
certain mood.
The dreamy cloudy gull
Waves o'er the waters dull.
He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of
Yeates and Son, pricing the field glasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's
and have a chat with young Sinclair? Well-mannered fellow. Probably at his
lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Grz lenses, six
guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to capture
trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost property
office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in trains and cloak
rooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. Incredible. Last year
travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's daughter's bag and hand it
to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed money too. There's a little watch up
there on the roof of the bank to test those glasses by.
His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can't see it. If
you imagine it's there you can almost see it. Can't see it.
He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right
hand at arm's length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes:
completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. Must be
the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses. Interesting. There
was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we were in Lombard street west.
Terrific explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year:
autumn some time.
Now that I come to think of it, that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's
the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there some
first Saturday of the month. If I could get art introduction to professor
Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to: man always
feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman proud to be
descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it on with a
trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt out what you
know you're not to: what's parallax? Show this gentleman the door.
Ah.
His hand fell again to his side.
Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,
crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas, then solid,
then world, then cold, then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock like
that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon, she said. I believe there
is.
He went on by la Maison Claire.
Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly
there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon.
She was humming: The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side of
her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch. Fingers.
Asking. Answer. Yes.
Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.
Mr Bloom, quick breathing, slowlier walking, passed Adam court.
With a keep quiet relief, his eyes took note: this is street here
middle of the day Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, M'Coy
said. They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Up in
the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the rest of the year as
sober as a judge.
Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him
good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the
Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon face
in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies eh? Showing
long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, laughed
spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat. Coarse red:
fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white hat. His parboiled
eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp that once did starve us
all.
I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twenty-eight I was.
She twentythree when we left Lombard street west something changed. Could
never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding water in
your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you? Are
you not happy in your home, you poor little naughty boy? Wants to sew on
buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library.
Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,
silk, dames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the
baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the
rain mucks them up on her. Country bred chawbacon. All the beef to the heels
were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of plumb.
He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.
Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth
a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that
here. La causa È santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Tara. Must be washed
in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.
Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Stick them all
over the place. Needles in window curtains.
He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today
anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.
Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't like
it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.
Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk
stockings.
Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.
High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home
and houses, silk webs, silver, rich fruits, spicy from Jaffa. Agendath
Netaim. Wealth of the world.
A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded.
Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he
mutely craved to adore.
Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.
He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling hoofthuds.
Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: In deep summer fields,
tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas,
creaking beds.
-- Jack, love!
-- Darling!
-- Kiss me, Reggy!
-- My boy!
-- Love!
His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink
gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slop of greens. See the
animals feed.
Men, men, men.
Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables
calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food,
their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man
polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of
microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round him
shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate:
halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the
grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten off more than he
can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an
angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone! That last pagan king of
Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the
Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick
converted him to Christianity. Couldn't swallow it all however.
-- Roast beef and cabbage.
-- One stew.
Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish
cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale of
ferment.
Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork, to eat
all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing
the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on
that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the
plate, man! Get out of this.
He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of
his nose.
-- Two stouts here.
-- One corned and cabbage.
That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended
on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three
hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver
knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich.
Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.
An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the bailiff,
standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well up: it
splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, elbows on
table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift across his
stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something with his mouth
full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk
un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?
Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said.
-- Not here. Don't see him.
Out. I hate dirty eaters.
He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap.
Keep me going. Had a good breakfast.
-- Roast and mashed here.
-- Pint of stout.
Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.
He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street.
Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill!
Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down
with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street.
John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother's son don't
talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children, cabmen,
priests, parsons, fieldmarshals, archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde
road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord ma in his gingerbread
coach, old queen in a bathchair. My plate's empty. After you with our
incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the
microbes with your handkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his.
Father O'Flynn would make hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for
number one. Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a soup pot
as big as the Phoenix Park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it.
Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel table d'hÔte she called it. Soup,
joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then who'd wash
up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids that time.
Teeth getting worse and worse.
After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from
the earth garlic, of course, it stinks Italian organgrinders crisp of
onions, mushrooms truffles. Pain to animal too. Pluck and draw fowl.
Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split
their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble
and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobble lights. Give us that brisket off the
hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their
haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and
lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, young one.
Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed.
Insidious. Lick it up, smoking hot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.
Ah, I'm hungry.
He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now
and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.
What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?
-- Hellow, Bloom! Nosey Flynn said from his nook.
-- Hello, Flynn.
-- How's things?
-- Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me
see.
Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham
and his descendants mustered and bred there. Potted meats. What is home
without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the
obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree Dignam's potted meat.
Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like
pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be
tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. There was a
right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the reverend
Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls
mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher.
No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur
fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow's
digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents.
Eat, drink and be merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged.
Cheese digests all but itself. Mighty cheese.
-- Have you a cheese sandwich?
-- Yes, sir.
Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of
burgundy; take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber. Tom
Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that
cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, the
devil the cooks. Devilled crab.
-- Wife well?
-- Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?
-- Yes, sir.
Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.
-- Doing any singing those times?
Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.
Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no
harm. Free ad.
-- She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard
perhaps.
-- No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?
The curate served.
-- How much is that?
-- Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.
Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrier. Easier than
the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of their
lives.
-- Mustard, sir?
-- Thank you.
He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have
it. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.
-- Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see.
Part shares and part profits.
-- Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket
to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed
up in it?
A warm shock of air heat of mustard hauched on Mr Bloom's heart. He
raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five
minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.
His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,
longingly.
Wine.
He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to
speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.
-- Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact.
No fear. No brains.
Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.
-- He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that
boxing match Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks.
By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling
me...
Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up.
-- For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God
till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a
hairy chap.
Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves,
cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose smile
upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the
parsnips.
-- And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give
us a good one for the Gold cup?
-- I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on
a horse.
-- You're right there, Nosey Flynn said.
Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of
disgust, pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine
soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the
chill off.
Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like
the way it curves there.
-- I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It
ruined many a man the same horses.
Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits
for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.
-- True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's
no straight sport now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving Sceptre
today. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won at Epsom.
Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one against Saint
Amant a fortnight before.
-- That so? Davy Byrne said...
He went towards the window and, taking up the petty cash book, scanned
its pages.
-- I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said snuffling. That was a rare bit of
horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm,
Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow cap.
Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it. Ay.
He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the
flutes.
-- Ay, he said, sighing.
Mr Bloom, champing standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numskull. Will
I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him forget. Go
and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. Cold nose he'd
have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly beards they like. Dog's
cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the
City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her lap. O the big
doggy-bowwowsywowsy!
Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish
cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath of
course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. Six,
six. Time will be gone then. She...
Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off
colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins, sardines, gaudy lobsters'
claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells,
periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat,
out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand
years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous
berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you
off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by
the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct.
Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes
but what about oysters? Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells.
Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on.
Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red
bank this morning. Was he oyster old fish at table. Perhaps he young flesh
in bed. No. June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like tainted
game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years
old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless
might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it?
No. Yes, or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat
the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course, aristocrats.
Then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw
pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea
to keep up the price. Cheap. No one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock
in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The
Élite. CrÈme de la crÈme. They want special dishes to pretend they're.
Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me
come eat with me. Royal sturgeon. High sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right
to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow.
Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef
like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage À la duchesse de Parme. Just
as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten
too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards'
desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive: Do
ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips,
evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted
lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I
expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney I remember. Du, de la, French.
Still it's the same fish, perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped
the guts out of making money, hand over fist, finger in fishes' gills, can't
write his name on a cheque, think he was painting the landscape with his
mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha. Ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth
fifty thousand pounds.
Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.
Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the
winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch
telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild
ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple
by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of
undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat
she had her hair, earwigs In the heather scrub my hand under her nape,
you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me,
caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full
lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the
seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour
with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting.
Soft, warm, sticky grumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing
eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth
rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened
under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her; eyes,
her lips, her stretched neck, beating, woman s breasts full in her blouse of
nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was
kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.
Me. And me now.
Stuck, the flies buzzed.
His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab.
Beauty: it curves, curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves
the world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall,
naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don't care what man looks. All to
see. Never speaking, I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she did
Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in your
proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods, golden dishes, all
ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and
turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar, imagine it drinking electricity: gods'
food. Lovely forms of woman sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we
stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth,
food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. Never looked.
I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something fall see if she.
Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do
there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and walked, to
men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a youth
enjoyed her, to the yard.
When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book:
-- What is this he is? Isn't he in the insurance line?
-- He's out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for
the Freeman.
-- I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble?
-- Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why?
-- I noticed he was in mourning.
-- Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all
at home. You're right, by God. So he was.
-- I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a
gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their minds.
-- It's not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before
yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife
has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home to his
better half. She's well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast.
-- And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said.
Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.
-- He doesn't buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of
that.
-- How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.
Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He
winked.
-- He's in the craft, he said.
-- Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.
-- Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order.
Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I was told that by a,
well, I won't say who.
-- Is that a fact?
-- O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when
you're down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it, but they're as close
as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.
Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:
-- Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!
-- There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to
find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and
swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the Saint Legers of
Doneraile.
Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes:
-- And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here
and I never once saw him, you know, over the line.
-- God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips
off when the fun gets too hot. Didn't you see him look at his watch? Ah, you
weren't there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does he outs
with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he does.
-- There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He's a safe man, I'd say.
-- He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He has been
known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O,
Bloom has his good points. But there's one thing he'll never do.
His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.
-- I know, Davy Byrne said.
-- Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said.
Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came In. Tom Rochford followed, a
plaining hand on his claret waistcoat.
-- Day, Mr Byrne.
-- Day, gentlemen.
They paused at the counter.
-- Who's standing? Paddy Leonard asked.
-- I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered.
-- Well, what'll it be? Paddy Leonard asked.
-- I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said.
-- How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God's sake? What's
yours, Tom?
-- How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping.
For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and
hiccupped.
-- Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said.
-- Certainly, sir.
Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates.
-- Lord love a duck, he said, look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold
water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. He
has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip.
-- Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked.
Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set
before him.
-- That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking.
-- Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.
Tom Rochford nodded and drank.
-- Is it Zinfandel?
-- Say nothing, Bantam Lyons winked. I'm going to plunge five bob on my
own.
-- Tell us if you're worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy
Leonard said. Who gave it to you?
Mr Bloom on his way Out raised three fingers in greeting.
-- So long, Nosey Flynn said.
The others turned.
-- That's the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered.
-- Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we'll take two
of your small Jamesons after that and a...
-- Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly.
-- Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby.
Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth
smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach say. Then with those
RÖntgen rays searchlight you could.
At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the
cobble stones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks
having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom
coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move.
Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of his. Wasting
time explaining it to Flynn's mouth. Lean people long mouths. Ought to be a
hall or a place where inventors could go in and invent free. Course then
you'd have all the cranks pestering.
He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo, the closes of the bars:
Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
M'invitasti.
Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap
in the blues. Dutch courage. That Kilkenny People in the national library
now I must.
Bare clean closestools, waiting, in the window of William Miller,
plumber, turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way
down, swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round
the body, changing biliary duct, spleen squirting liver, gastric juice coils
of intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the
time with his insides entrails on show. Science.
-- A cenar teco.
What does that teco mean? Tonight perhaps.
Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited
To come to supper tonight,
The rum the rumdum.
Doesn't go properly.
Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten,
about two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Presscott's ad. Two
fifteen. Five guineas about. On the pig's back.
Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new
garters.
Today. Today. Not think.
Tour the south then. What about English watering places? Brighton,
Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside
girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought,
gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. Will eat
anything.
Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of unbought tarts and
passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. Why I left the church of
Rome? Bird's Nest. Women run him. They say they used to give pauper children
soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato blight. Society over
the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same bait. Why we left
the church of Rome?
A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No
tram in sight. Wants to cross.
-- Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.
The blind stripling did not answer. His wall face frowned weakly. He
moved his head uncertainly.
-- You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is
opposite. Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way.
The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom's eye followed its
line and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's. Where I saw
his brilliantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in John
Long's. Slaking his drouth.
-- There's a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it's not moving. I'll see
you across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street?
-- Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.
-- Come, Mr Bloom said.
He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to
guide it forward.
Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust
what you tell them. Pass a common remark:
-- The rain kept off.
No answer.
Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different
for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child's hand his hand. Like
Milly's was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder if he
has a name, Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse's legs tired drudge get
his doze. That's right. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a horse.
-- Thanks, sir.
Knows I'm a man. Voice.
-- Right now? First turn to the left.
The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing
his cane back, feeling again.
Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone
tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? Must
have felt it. See things in their foreheads perhaps. Kind of sense of
volume. Weight. Would he feel it if something was removed? Feel a gap. Queer
idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he
walk in a beeline if he hadn't that cane? Bloodless pious face like a fellow
going in to be a priest.
Penrose! That was that chap's name.
Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers.
Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a
deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of
course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to
help. Work basket I could buy Molly's birthday. Hates sewing. Might take an
objection. Dark men they call them.
Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides bunched
together. Each person too. Then the spring, the summer: smells. Tastes. They
say you can't taste wines with your eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also
smoke in the dark they say get no pleasure.
And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl
passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have them
all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his mind's eye.
The voice temperature when he touches her with fingers must almost see the
lines, the curves. His hands on her hair, for instance. Say it was black for
instance. Good. We call it black. Then passing over her white skin.
Different feel perhaps. Feeling of white.
Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two
shillings half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer's just here too.
Wait. Think over it.
With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above
his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt the
skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough. The belly
is the smoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick street. Perhaps
to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Might be settling my braces.
Walking by Doran's public house he slid his hand between waistcoat and
trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of his
belly. But I know it's whiteyellow. Want to try in the dark to see.
He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to.
Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would
he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being born
that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned and
drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration for sins
you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike-hoses. Dear, dear,
dear. Pity of course: but somehow you can't cotton on to them someway.
Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons' hall. Solemn as Troy.
After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking a
magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat school. I
sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he'd turn up his nose at that stuff I
drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked on a dusty bottle. Has his own
ideas of justice in the recorder's court. Wellmeaning old man. Police
chargesheets crammed with cases get their percentage manufacturing crime.
Sends them to the rightabout. The devil on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J. a
great strawcalling. Now he's really what they call a dirty jew. Power those
judges have. Crusty old topers in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the
Lord have mercy on your soul.
Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His excellency the lord lieutenant.
Sixteenth today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. The Messiah
was first given for that. Yes Handel. What about going out there.
Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a leech. Wear out
my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate.
Mr Bloom came to Kildare Street. First I must. Library.
Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is.
His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved
to the right.
Is it? Almost certain. Won't look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too
heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Not see. Get on.
Making for the museum gate with long windy strides he lifted his eyes.
Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me?
Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes.
The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold
statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute.
No, didn't see me. After two. Just at the gate.
My heart!
His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir
Thomas Deane was the Greek architecture.
Look for something I.
His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded
Agendath Netaim. Where did I?
Busy looking for.
He thrust back quickly Agendath.
Afternoon she said.
I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman.
Where did I ? Ah, yes. Trousers. Purse. Potato. Where did I ?
Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart.
His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap
lotion have to call tepid paper stuck, Ah, soap there! Yes. Gate.
Safe!
Ulysses 9: Scylla and Charybdis
URBANE, TO COMFORT THEM, THE QUAKER LIBRARIAN PURRED:
-- And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of Wilhelm Meister?
A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul taking arms against
a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in real life.
He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step
backward a sinkapace on the solemn floor.
A noiseless attendant, setting open the door but slightly, made him a
noiseless beck.
-- Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautiful
ineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always feels
that Goethe's judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis.
Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door
he gave his large ear all to the attendant's words: heard them: and was
gone.
Two left.
-- Monsieur de la Palisse, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes
before his death.
-- Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked with
elder's gall, to write Paradise Lost at your dictation? The Sorrows of Satan
he calls it.
Smile. Smile Cranly's smile.
First he tickled her
Then he patted her
Then he passed the female catheter.
For he was a medical
jolly old medi.
-- I feel you would need one more for Hamlet. Seven is dear to the
mystic mind. The shining seven W. B. calls them.
Glittereyed, his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought
the face, bearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He laughed
low: a sizar's laugh of Trinity: unanswered.
Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood
Tears such as angels weep.
Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
He holds my follies hostage.
Cranly's eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed
Kathleen, her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house. And
one more to hail him: ave, rabbi. The Tinahely twelve. In the shadow of the
glen he cooees for them. My soul's youth I gave him, night by night.
Godspeed. Good hunting.
Mulligan has my telegram.
Folly. Persist.
-- Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a
figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though I
admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry.
-- All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his
shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex.
Clergymen's discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us
ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art
is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is
the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet
bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato's world of ideas.
All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.
A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike
me!
-- The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely.
Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy.
-- And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said.
One can see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm.
He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face.
Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the
heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who
suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon the
altar. I am the sacrificial butter.
Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A. E., Arval, the Name
Ineffable, in heaven hight, K. H., their master, whose identity is no secret
to adepts. Brothers of the great white lodge always watching to see if they
can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of light, born of an
ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the plane of buddhi. The life
esoteric is not for ordinary person. O. P. must work off bad karma first.
Mrs Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very illustrious sister H. P. B's
elemental.
O, fie! Out on't! Pfuiteufel! You naughtn't to look, missus, so you
naughtn't when a lady's ashowing of her elemental.
Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with
grace a notebook, new, large, clean, bright.
-- That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet's musings
about the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and
undramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato's.
John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth:
-- Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle
with Plato.
-- Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from his
commonwealth?
Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of
allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the
street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through
spaces smaller than red globules of man's blood they creepycrawl after
Blake's buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a
shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the
past.
Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague.
-- Haines is gone, he said.
-- Is he?
-- I was showing him Jubainville's book. He's quite enthusiastic, don't
you know, about Hyde's Lovesongs of Connacht. I couldn't bring him in to
hear the discussion. He's gone to Gill's to buy it.
Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick
To greet the callous public.
Writ, I ween, 'twas not my wish
In lean unlovely English.
The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined.
We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green
twinkling stone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea.
-- People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of
Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the world
are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.
For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the living mother. The
rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce the sixshilling novel, the
musichall song, France produces the finest flower of corruption in MallarmÉ
but the desirable life is revealed only to the poor of heart, the life of
Homer's Ph&Aelig;acians.
>From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen.
-- MallarmÉ, don't you know, he said, has written those wonderful prose
poems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one about Hamlet. He
says: il se promÈne, lisant au livre de lui-mÊme, don't you know, reading
the book of himself. He describes Hamlet given in a French town, don't you
know, a provincial town. They advertised it.
His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air.
HAMLET
ou
LE DISTRAIT
PiÈce de Shakespeare
He repeated to John Eglinton's newgathered frown:
-- PiÉce de Shakespeare, don't you know. It's so French, the French
point of view. Hamlet ou...
-- The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended.
John Eglinton laughed.
-- Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, but
distressingly shortsighted in some matters.
Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder.
-- A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not
for nothing was he a butcher's son wielding the sledded poleaxe and spitting
in his palm. Nine lives are taken off for his father's one, Our Father who
art in purgatory. Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to shoot. The bloodboltered
shambles in act five is a forecast of the concentration camp sung by Mr
Swinburne.
Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar.
Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none
But we had spared...
Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea.
-- He will have it that Hamlet is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said for
Mr Best's behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our flesh
creep.
List! List! O List!
My flesh hears him: creeping, hears.
If thou didst ever...
-- What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has
faded into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of
manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies
from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the
world that has forgotten him? Who is king Hamlet?
John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge:
Lifted.
-- It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with a
swift glance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside.
The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers
who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.
Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices.
-- Shakespeare has left the huguenot's house in Silver street and walks
by the swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the pen
chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon has other
thoughts.
Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me!
-- The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the
castoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is the
ghost, the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare who has
studied Hamlet all the years of his life which were not vanity in order to
play the part of the spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, the young
player who stands before him beyond the rack of cerecloth, calling him by a
name:
Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit
bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince,
young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has died in
Stratford that his namesake may live for ever.
-- Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and
in the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words
to his own son's name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been
prince Hamlet's twin) is it possible, I want to know, or probable that he
did not draw or foresee the logical conclusion of those premises: you are
the dispossessed son: I am the murdered father: your mother is the guilty
queen. Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway?
-- But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began
impatiently.
Art thou there, truepenny?
-- Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I
mean when we read the poetry of King Lear what is it to us how the poet
lived? As for living, our servants can do that for us, Villiers de l'Isle
has said. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet's
drinking, the poet's debts. We have King Lear: and it is immortal.
Mr Best's face appealed to, agreed.
Flow over them with your waves and with your waters,
Mananaan, Mananaan MacLir...
How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry?
Marry, I wanted it.
Take thou this noble.
Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's
daughter. Agenbite of inwit.
Do you intend to pay it back?
O, yes.
When? Now?
Well... no.
When, then?
I paid my way. I paid my way.
Steady on. He's from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe
it.
Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got
pound.
Buzz. Buzz.
But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under
everchanging forms.
I that sinned and prayed and fasted.
A child Conmee saved from pandies.
I, I and I. I.
A.E.I.O.U.
-- Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries?
John Eglinton's carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid for
ever. She died, for literature at least, before she was born.
-- She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She
saw him into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She bore his
children and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids closed when he
lay on his deathbed.
Mother's deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into this
world lies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. Liliata
rutilantium.
I wept alone.
John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp.
-- The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got
out of it as quickly and as best he could.
-- Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His
errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian,
softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous.
-- A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of
discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn from
Xanthippe?
-- Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring
thoughts into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (absit
nomen!) Socratididion's Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever know.
But neither the midwife's lore nor the caudlectures saved him from the
archons of Sinn Fein and their noggin of hemlock.
-- But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we
seem to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her.
His look went from brooder's beard to carper's skull, to remind, to
chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless
though maligned.
-- He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant
memory. He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville
whistling The girl I left behind me. If the earthquake did not time it we
should know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds,
the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, Venus and Adonis, lay
in the bedchamber of every light-of-love in London. Is Katharine the shrew
illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and beautiful. Do you think the
writer of Antony and Cleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the
back of his head that he chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie
withal? Good: he left her and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are
the women of a boy. Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He
chose badly? He was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann
hath a way. By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet
and twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping
to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford wench
who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself.
And my turn? When?
Come!
-- Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book,
gladly brightly.
He murmured then with blonde delight for all:
Between the acres of the rye
These pretty countryfolk would lie.
Paris: the wellpleased pleaser.
A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its
cooperative watch.
-- I am afraid I am due at the Homestead.
Whither away? Exploitable ground.
-- Are you going, John Eglinton's active eyebrows asked. Shall we see
you at Moore's tonight? Piper is coming.
-- Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back?
Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper.
-- I don't know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get
away in time.
Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. Isis Unveiled. Their Pali book we
tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an Aztec
logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. The
faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, ringroundabout him.
Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies tend them i'the eyes,
their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god he thrones, Buddh under
plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls.
Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled, whirling, they bewail.
In quintessential triviality
For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt.
-- They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian
said, friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering together
a sheaf of our younger poets' verses. We are all looking forward anxiously.
Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces,
lighted, shone.
See this. Remember.
Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his
ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with two
index fingers. Aristotle's experiment. One or two? Necessity is that in
virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise. Argai, one hat
is one hat.
Listen.
Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part.
Longworth will give it a good puff in the Express. O, will he? I liked
Colum's Drover. Yes, I think he has that queer thing, genius. Do you think
he has genius really? Yeats admired his line: As in wild earth a Grecian
vase. Did he? I hope you'll be able to come tonight. Malachi Mulligan is
coming too. Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did you hear Miss Mitchell's
joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's wild oats? Awfully
clever, isn't it? They remind one of don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our
national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. Moore is the man for
it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt?
O'Neill Russell? O, yes, he must speak the grand old tongue. And his
Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing some clever sketches. We are becoming
important, it seems.
Cordelia. Cordoglio. Lir's loneliest daughter.
Nookshotten. Now your best French polish.
-- Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will
be so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman...
-- O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much
correspondence.
-- I understand, Stephen said. Thanks.
Good ild you. The pigs' paper. Bullockbefriending.
-- Synge has promised me an article for Dana too. Are we going to be
read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope you
will come round tonight. Bring Starkey.
Stephen sat down.
The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing his mask said:
-- Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating.
He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a
chopine, and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low:
-- Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet?
Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light?
-- Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been
first a sundering.
-- Yes.
Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks
from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women he
won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, bully
tapsters' wives. Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack dishonoured body
that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as cinnamon, now her leaves
falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven.
-- Yes. So you think.
The door closed behind the outgoer.
Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and
brooding air.
A vestal's lamp.
Here he ponders things that were not: what Caesar would have lived to
do had he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of
the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when he
lived among women.
Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.
Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of
that Egyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks.
They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of
death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak
their will.
-- Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most
enigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so much.
Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest.
-- But Hamlet is so personal, isn't it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind
of private paper, don't you know, of his private life. I mean I don't care a
button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty...
He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his
defiance. His private papers in the original. Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim imo
shagart. Put beurla on it, littlejohn.
Quoth littlejohn Eglinton:
-- I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but
I may as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that Shakespeare
is Hamlet you have a stern task before you.
Bear with me.
Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes, glinting stern under
wrinkled brows. A basilisk. E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca. Messer Brunetto,
I thank thee for the word.
-- As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said,
from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist
weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it
was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff time
after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the
unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the
mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that which I am
and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the future, the sister
of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that
which then I shall be.
Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile.
-- Yes, Mr Best said youngly, I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitterness
might be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from the
son.
Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son.
-- That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing.
John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow.
-- If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a
drug in the market. The plays of Shakespeare's later years which Renan
admired so much breathe another spirit.
-- The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed.
-- There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been
a sundering.
Said that.
-- If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over
the hell of time of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, look
to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a man,
Shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince of
Tyre?
Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded.
-- A child, a girl placed in his arms, Marina.
-- The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a
constant quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they
lead to the town.
Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon's wild oats. Cypherjugglers
going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town good masters?
Mummed in names: A. E., eon: Magee, John Eglinton. East of the sun, west of
the moon: Tir na n-og. Booted the twain and staved.
How many miles to Dublin?
Three score and ten, sir.
Will we be there by candlelight?
-- Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the
closing period.
-- Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus, as some aver
his name is, say of it?
-- Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita,
that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter's
child. My dearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man love
the daughter it he has not loved the mother?
-- The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L'art d'Être
grand...
-- His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard
of all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The
images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them
grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or repeat himself.
The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope.
-- I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of
the public. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr George
Bernard Shaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles on
Shakespeare in the Saturday Review were surely brilliant. Oddly enough he
too draws for us an unhappy relation with the dark lady of the sonnets. The
favoured rival is William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I own that if the poet
must be rejected, such a rejection would seem more in harmony with - what
shall I say? - our notions of what ought not to have been.
Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk's egg,
prize of their fray.
He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost
love thy man?
-- That may be too, Stephen said. There is a saying of Goethe's which
Mr Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because you
will get it in middle life. Why does he send to one who is a buonaroba, a
bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood, a
lordling to woo for him? He was himself a lord of language and had made
himself a coistrel gentleman and had written Romeo and Juliet. Why? Belief
in himself has been untimely killed. He was overborne in a cornfield first
(ryefield, I should say) and he will never be a victor in his own eyes after
nor play victoriously the game of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism
will not save him. No later undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of
the boar has wounded him there-where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is
worsted yet there remains to her woman's invisible weapon. There is, I feel
in the words, some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a
darker shadow of the first, darkening even his own understanding of himself.
A life fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool.
They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour.
-- The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the
porch of a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep cannot
know the manner of their quell unless their Creator endow their souls with
that knowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the beast with two
backs that urged it king Hamlet's ghost could not know of were he not
endowed with knowledge by his creator. That is why the speech (his lean
unlovely English) is always turned elsewhere, backward. Ravisher and
ravished, what he would but would not, go with him from Lucrece's
bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen's breast, bare, with its mole
cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creation he has piled up to hide
him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But, because loss is his
gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminished personality, untaught by
the wisdom he has written or by the laws he has revealed. His beaver is up.
He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind by Elsinore's rocks or what you will,
the sea's voice, a voice heard only in the heart of him who is the substance
of his shadow, the son consubstantial with the father.
-- Amen! responded from the doorway.
Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
Entr'acte.
A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forwards then
blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram.
-- You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he
asked of Stephen.
Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a
bauble.
They make him welcome. Was Din verlachst wirst Du noch dienen.
Brodd of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most.
He Who Himself begot, middler the Holy Ghost, and Himself sent himself,
Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, stripped
and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on crosstree, Who let
Him bury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven and there these
nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His Own Self but yet
shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and dead when all the quick
shall be dead already.
He lifts hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells
aquiring.
-- Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive
discussion, Mr Mulligan, I'll be bound, has his theory too of the play and
of Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented.
He smiled on all sides equally.
Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled:
-- Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name.
A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features.
-- To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like
Synge.
Mr Best turned to him:
-- Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He'll see you after at
the D. B. C. He's gone to Gill's to buy Hyde's Lovesongs of Connacht.
-- I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here?
-- The bard's fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather
tired perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress
played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining
held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an Irishman?
Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He swears (His
Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick.
-- The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde's, Mr Best said,
lifting his brilliant notebook. That Portrait of Mr W. H. where he proves
that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues.
-- For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked.
Or Hughie Wills. Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I?
-- I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily.
Of course it's all paradox, don't you know, Hughes and hews and hues the
colour, but it's so typical the way he works it out. It's the very essence
of Wilde, don't you know. The light touch.
His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe.
Tame essence of Wilde.
You're darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan
Deasy's ducats.
How much did I spend? O, a few shillings.
For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry.
Wit. You would give your five wits for youth's proud livery he pranks
in. Lineaments of gratified desire.
There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool
ruttime send them. Yea, turtledove her.
Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's kiss.
-- Do you think it is only a paradox, the quaker librarian was asking.
The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.
They talked seriously of mocker's seriousness.
Buck Mulligan's again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head
wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His mobile
lips read, smiling with new delight.
-- Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull!
He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully:
-- The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the
immense debtorship for a thing done. Signed: Dedalus. Where did you launch
it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four quid? The aunt
is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram! Malachi Mulligan,
the Ship, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer! O, you priestified
kinchite!
Joyfully he thrust the message and envelope into a pocket but keened in
querulous brogue:
-- It's what I'm telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we
were, Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did
for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with
leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's sitting
civil waiting for pints apiece.
He wailed!
-- And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us
your conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the
drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful.
Stephen laughed. Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down:
-- The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He
heard you pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He's out in pampooties to
murder you.
-- Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature.
Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping
ceiling.
-- Murder you! he laughed.
Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash of
lights in rue Saint-AndrÉ-des-Arts. In words of words for words, palabras.
Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, brandishing a
winebottle, C'est vendredi saint! Murthering Irish. His image, wandering, he
met. I mine. I met a fool i' the forest.
-- Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar.
-- ... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his
Diary of Master William Silence has found the hunting terms... Yes? What is
it?
-- There's a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward
and offering a card. From the Freeman. He wants to see the files of the
Kilkenny People for last year.
-- Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?...
He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down, unglanced, looked,
asked, creaked, asked:
-- Is he?... O there!
Brisk in a galliard he was off and out. In the daylit corridor he
talked with voluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most
honest broadbrim.
-- This gentleman? Freeman's Journal? Kilkenny People? To be sure. Good
day, sir. Kilkenny... We have certainly...
A patient silhouette waited, listening.
-- All the leading provincial... Northern Whig, Cork Examiner
Enniscorthy Guardian, 1903... Will you please?... Evans, conduct this
gentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or please allow me... This
way... Please, sir...
Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing
dark figure following his hasty heels.
The door closed.
-- The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried.
He jumped up and snatched the card.
-- What's his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom.
He rattled on.
-- Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in the
museum when I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth that has
never been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to her. Life of
life, thy lips enkindle.
Suddenly he turned to Stephen:
-- He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker
than the Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove. Venus
Kallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! The god pursuing the maiden hid.
We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best's approval. We
begin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if at all,
as a patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome.
-- Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beauty
from Kyrios Menelaus' brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy in
whom a score of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty years
he lived in London and, during part of that time, he drew a salary equal to
that of the lord chancellor of Ireland. His life was rich. His art, more
than the art of feudalism, as Walt Whitman called it, is the art of surfeit.
Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane,
gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies. Sir Walter Raleigh, when they arrested
him, had half a million francs on his back including a pair of fancy stays.
The gombeen woman Eliza Tudor had underlinen enough to vie with her of
Sheba. Twenty years he dallied there between conjugal love and its chaste
delights and scortatory love and its foul pleasures. You know Manningham's
story of the burgher's wife who bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had
seen him in Richard III and how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado
about nothing, took the cow by the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at
the gate, answered from the capon's blankets: William the conqueror came
before Richard III. And the gay lakin, Mistress Fitten, mount and cry O, and
his dainty birdsnies, Lady Penelope Rich, a clean quality woman is suited
for a player, and the punks of the bankside, a penny a time.
Cours-la-Reine. Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries.
Minette? Tu veux?
-- The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of Oxford's
mother with her cup of canary for every cockcanary.
Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed:
-- Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock!
-- And Harry of six wives' daughter and other lady friends from
neighbour seats, as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those
twenty years what do you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing behind
the diamond panes?
Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter Lane of Gerard, herbalist,
he walks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of Juno's
eyes, violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. Afar, in a
reek of lust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness.
Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton's desk sharply.
-- Whom do you suspect? he challenged.
-- Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twice
spurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove.
Love that dare not speak its name.
-- As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a
lord.
Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them.
-- It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for all
other and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for the
stallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he had a shrew
to wife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow. Two deeds are
rank in that ghost's mind: a broken vow and the dullbrained yokel on whom
her favour has declined, deceased husband's brother. Sweet Ann I take it,
was hot in the blood. Once a wooer twice a wooer.
Stephen turned boldly in his chair.
-- The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said, frowning. If
you deny that in the fifth scene of Hamlet he has branded her with infamy,
tell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years between
the day she married him and the day she buried him. All those women saw
their men down and under: Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her poor
dear Willun, when he went and died on her, raging that he was the first
to go, Joan, her four brothers, Judith, her husband and all her sons, Susan,
her husband too, while Susan's daughter, Elizabeth, to use granddaddy's
words, wed her second, having killed her first.
O yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in
royal London to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her
father's shepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein he has
commended her to posterity.
He faced their silence.
To whom thus Eglinton:
You mean the will.
That has been explained, I believe, by jurists.
She was entitled to her widow's dower
At common law. His legal knowledge was great
Our judges tell us.
Him Satan fleers,
Mocker:
And therefore he left out her name
>From the first draft but he did not leave out
The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters,
For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford
And in London. And therefore when he was urged,
As I believe, to name her
He left her his Secondbest
Bed.
Punkt
Leftherhis
Secondbest
Bestabed
Secabest
Leftabed.
Woa!
-- Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, as
they have still if our peasant plays are true to type.
-- He was a rich countrygentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms
and landed estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalist
shareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her his
best bed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in peace?
-- It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, Mr
Secondbest Best said finely.
-- Separatio a mensa et a thalamo, bettered Buck Mulligan and was
smiled on.
-- Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered,
bedsmiling. Let me think.
-- Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen
sage, Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves,
pays tribute to his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his
dead wife and bids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don't forget Nell
Gwynn Herpyllis) and let her live in his villa.
-- Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean...
-- He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish
for a king. O, I must tell you what Dowden said!
-- What? asked Besteglinton.
William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people's William. For
terms apply: E. Dowden, Highfield house...
-- Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he
thought of the charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his
hands and said: All we can say is that life ran very high in those days.
Lovely!
Catamite.
-- The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best to
ugling Eglinton.
Steadfast John replied severe:
-- The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You can not eat your
cake and have it.
Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me the palm of beauty?
-- And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his
own long pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself a
cornjobber and moneylender with ten tods of corn hoarded in the famine
riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship mentioned by
Chettle Falstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing. He sued a
fellowplayer for the price of a few bags of malt and exacted his pound of
flesh in interest for every money lent. How else could Aubrey's ostler and
callboy get rich quick? All events brought grist to his mill. Shylock chimes
with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging and quartering of the queen's
leech Lopez, his jew's heart being plucked forth while the sheeny was yet
alive: Hamlet and Macbeth with the coming to the throne of a Scotch
philosophaster with a turn for witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in
Love's Labour Lost. His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide
of Mafeking enthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a
porter's theory of equivocation. The Sea Venture comes home from Bermudas
and the play Renan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American
cousin. The sugared sonnets follow Sidney's. As for fay Elizabeth, otherwise
carroty Bess, the gross virgin who inspired The Merry Wives of Windsor, let
some meinherr from Almany grope his life long for deephid meanings in the
depth of the buckbasket.
I think you're getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture of
theolologicophilolological. Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere.
-- Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared, expectantly. Your dean
of studies holds he was a holy Roman.
Sufflaminandus sum.
-- He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French
polisher of Italian scandals.
-- A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him
myriadminded.
Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitia
inter multos.
-- Saint Thomas, Stephen began...
-- Ora pro nobis, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair.
There he keened a wailing rune.
-- Pogue mahone! Asushla machree! It's destroyed we are from this day!
It's destroyed we are surely!
All smiled their smiles.
-- Saint Thomas, Stephen, smiling, said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy
reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different from
that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his wise and
curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the love so given
to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some stranger who, it may
be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with avarice, are of all races
the most given to inter-marriage. Accusations are made in anger. The
christian laws which built up the hoards of the jews (for whom, as for the
lollards, storm was shelter) bound their affections too with hoops of steel.
Whether these be sins or virtues old Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday
leet. But a man who holds so tightly to what he calls his rights over what
he calls his debts will hold tightly also to what he calls his rights over
her whom he calls his wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his
wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his jackass.
-- Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned.
-- Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently.
-- Which Will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed.
-- The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's
widow, is the will to die.
-- Requiescat! Stephen prayed.
What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago...
-- She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the
mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as rare as
a motor car is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven parishes.
In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed at New Place and drank a
quart of sack the town paid for but in which bed he slept it skills not to
ask) and heard she had a soul. She read or had read to her his chapbooks
preferring them to the Merry Wives and, loosing her nightly waters on the
jordan, she thought over Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches and The most
Spiritual Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze. Venus had twisted
her lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age
of exhausted whoredom groping for its god.
-- History shows that to be true, inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos. The
ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man's
worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that
Russell is right. What do we care for his wife and father? I should say that
only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. I feel
that the fat knight is his supreme creation.
Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy supping
with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it him.
Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman to see
you. Me? Says he's your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter Magee Mor
Matthew, a rugged rough rugheaded kern, in strossers with a buttoned
codpiece, his nether stocks bemired with clauber of ten forests, a wand of
wilding in his hand.
Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower.
Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I
touched his hand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is attending
her. The eyes that wish me well. But do not know me.
-- A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a
necessary evil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father's
death. If you hold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters,
with thirtyfive years of life, nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, with
fifty of experience, is the beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg then you
must hold that his seventyyear old mother is the lustful queen. No. The
corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to hour it
rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised that
mystical estate upon his son. Boccaccio's Calandrino was the first and last
man who felt himself with child. Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious
begetting, is unknown to man. It is a mystical estate, an apostolic
succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that mystery and not on
the madonna which the cunning Italian intellect flung to the mob of Europe
the church is founded and founded irremovably because founded, like the
world, macro- and microcosm, upon the void. Upon incertitude, upon
unlikelihood. Amor matris, subjective and objective genitive, may be the
only true thing in life. Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father
of any son that any son should love him or he any son?
What the hell are you driving at?
I know. Shut up. Blast you! I have reasons.
Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea.
Are you condemned to do this?
-- They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal
annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, hardly
record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, lesbic sisters,
loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with grandmothers, jailbirds
with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The sun unborn mars beauty: born, he
brings pain, divides affection, increases care. He is a male: his growth is
his father's decline, his youth his father's envy, his friend his father's
enemy.
In rue Monsieur-le-Prince I thought it.
-- What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut. Am I father? If
I were?
Shrunken uncertain hand.
-- Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the
field, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of Aquin,
with whom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well: if the father who
has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a father be a son?
When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name in
the comedy of errors wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own son
merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all
his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn
grandson who, by the same token, never was born for nature, as Mr Magee
understands her, abhors perfection.
Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly
glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine.
Flatter. Rarely. But Flatter.
-- Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big
with child. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The
play's the thing! Let me parturiate!
He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands.
-- As for his family, Stephen said, his mother's name lives in the
forest of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in
Coriolanus. His boyson's death is the deathscene of young Arthur in King
John. Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who the girls in The
Tempest, in Pericles, in Winter's Tale are we know. Who Cleopatra, fleshpot
of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may guess. But there is another
member of his family who is recorded.
-- The plot thickens, John Eglinton said.
The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with
haste, quake, quack.
Door closed. Cell. Day.
They list. Three. They.
I you he they.
Come, mess.
STEPHEN He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in his
old age told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister Gatherer one
time mass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the playwriter up in
Lunnon in a wrastling play wud a man on's back. The playhouse sausage filled
Gilbert's soul. He is nowhere: but an Edmund and a Richard are recorded in
the works of sweet William.
MAGEEGLINJOHN Names! What's in a name?
BEST That is my name, Richard, don't you know. I hope you are going to
say a good word for Richard, don't you know, for my sake.
(Laughter.)
BUCK MULLIGAN (Piano, diminuendo.)
Then outspoke medical Dick
To his comrade medical Davy...
STEPHEN In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago,
Richard Crookback, Edmund in King Lear, two bear the wicked uncles' names.
Nay, that last play was written or being written while his brother Edmund
lay dying in Southwark.
BEST I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don't want Richard, my name.
(Laughter.)
QUAKERLYSTER (A tempo.) But he that filches from me my good name...
STEPHEN (Stringendo.) He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William,
in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set his
face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets where
there is Will in overplus. Like John O'Gaunt his name is dear to him, as
dear as the coat of arms he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled
argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest
shakescene in the country. What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves
in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a
daystar, a firedrake rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens
alone, brighter than Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in
Cassiopeia, the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his
initial among the stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon,
eastward of the bear, as he walked by the slumberous summer fields at
midnight, returning from Shottery and from her arms.
Both satisfied. I too.
Don't tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched.
And from her arms.
Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you?
Read the skies. Autontimerumenos. Bonus Stephanoumenos. Where's your
configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D.: sua donna. GiÀ:
di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amar. S. D.
-- What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a
celestial phenomenon?
-- A star by night, Stephen said, a pillar of the cloud by day.
What more's to speak?
Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots.
Stephanos, my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my
feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too.
-- You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name
is strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour.
Me, Magee and Mulligan.
Fabulous artificer, the hawklike man. You flew. Whereto?
Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater,
ait. Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing he.
Mr Best's eagerquietly lifted his book to say:
-- That's very interesting because that brother motive, don't you know,
we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three brothers
Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don't you know, the fairytales. The third brother
that marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best prize.
Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best.
The quaker librarian springhalted near.
-- I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand
you to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps
I am anticipating?
He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained.
An attendant from the doorway called:
-- Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants...
-- O! Father Dineen! Directly.
Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone.
John Eglinton touched the foil.
-- Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and
Edmund. You kept them for the last, didn't you?
-- In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie and
nuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A
brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella.
Lapwing.
Where is your brother? Apothecaries' hall. My whetstone. Him, then
Cranly, Mulligan: now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They mock
to try you. Act. Be acted on.
Lapwing.
I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink.
On.
-- You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which
he took the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others?
Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann
(what's in a name?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard the
conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered. The other four
acts of that play hang limply from that first. Of all his kings Richard is
the only king unshielded by Shakespeare's reverence, the angel of the world.
Why is the underplot of King Lear in which Edmund figures lifted out of
Sidney's Arcadia and spatchcocked on to a Celtic legend older than history?
-- That was Will's way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now
combine a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. Que
voulez-vous? Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and makes
Ulysses quote Aristotle.
-- Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or the
usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to Shakespeare,
what the poor is not, always with him. The note of banishment, banishment
from the heart, banishment from home, sounds uninterruptedly from The Two
Gentlemen of Verona onward till Prospero breaks his staff, buries it certain
fathoms in the earth and drowns his book. It doubles itself in the middle of
his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis,
catastasis, catastrophe. It repeats itself again when he is near the grave,
when his married daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of
adultery. But it was the original sin that darkened his understanding,
weakened his will and left in him a strong inclination to evil. The words
are those of my lords bishops of Maynooth: an original sin and, like
original sin, committed by another in whose sin he too has sinned. It is
between the lines of his last written words, it is petrified on his
tombstone under which her four bones are not to be laid. Age has not
withered it. Beauty and peace have not done it away. It is in infinite
variety everywhere in the world he has created, in Much Ado about Nothing,
twice in As you like It, in The Tempest, in Hamlet, in Measure for Measure,
and in all the other plays which I have not read.
He laughed to free his mind from his mind's bondage. Judge Eglinton
summed up.
-- The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He
is all in all.
-- He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act
five. All in all. In Cymbeline, in Othello he is bawd and cuckold. He acts
and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like JosÉ he kills the
real Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago ceaselessly
willing that the moor in him shall suffer.
-- Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear!
Dark dome received, reverbed.
-- And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed.
When all is said Dumas fils (or is it Dumas pÈre?) is right. After God
Shakespeare has created most.
-- Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns
after a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he
has always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of
life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The motion
is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet pÉre and Hamlet fils. A king and a prince
at last in death, with incidental music. And, what though murdered and
betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, Dane or Dubliner, sorrow
for the dead is the only husband from whom they refuse to be divorced. If
you like the epilogue look long on it: prosperous Prospero, the good man
rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa's lump of love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man
taken off by poetic justice to the place where the bad niggers go. Strong
curtain. He found in the world without as actual what was in his world
within as possible. Maeterlinck says: If Socrates leave his house today he
will find the sage seated on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is
to Judas his steps will tend. Every life is many days, day after day. We
walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men,
wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves. The
playwright who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us
light first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom
the most Roman of catholics call dio boia, hangman god, is doubtless all in
all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too but
that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more
marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife unto himself.
-- Eureka! Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka!
Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton's
desk.
-- May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi.
He began to scribble on a slip of paper.
Take some slips from the counter going out.
-- Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one,
shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.
He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor.
Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his
variorum edition of The Taming of the Shrew.
-- You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have
brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe your
own theory?
-- No, Stephen said promptly.
-- Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a
dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote.
John Eclecticon doubly smiled.
-- Well, in that case, he said, I don't see why you should expect
payment for it since you don't believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is
some mystery in Hamlet but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man Piper
met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes that the
secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to visit the present
duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor wrote the plays. It
will come as a surprise to his grace. But he believes his theory.
I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or
help me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? Egomen. Who to unbelieve? Other
chap.
-- You are the only contributor to Dana who asks for pieces of silver.
Then I don't know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an
article on economics.
Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics.
-- For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview.
Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then
gravely said, honeying malice:
-- I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper
Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the Summa contra
Gentiles in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and Rosalie,
the coalquay whore.
He broke away.
-- Come, Kinch. Come, wandering &Aelig;ngus of the birds.
Come, Kinch, you have eaten all we left. Ay, I will serve you your orts
and offals.
Stephen rose.
Life is many days. This will end.
-- We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. Notre ami Moore says
Malachi Mulligan must be there.
Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama.
-- Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth of
Ireland. I'll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk
straight?
Laughing he...
Swill till eleven. Irish nights' entertainment.
Lubber...
Stephen followed a lubber...
One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After his
lub back I followed. I gall his kibe.
Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a
wellkempt head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering
daylight of no thoughts.
What have I learned? Of them? Of me?
Walk like Haines now.
The constant readers' room. In the readers' book Cashe Boyle O'Connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet mad?
The quaker's pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk.
-- O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased...
Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself,
selfnodding:
-- A pleased bottom.
The turnstile.
Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?...
The curving balustrade; smoothsliding Mincius.
Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling:
John Eglinton, my jo, John.
Why won't you wed a wife?
He sputtered to the air:
O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their
playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers' hall. Our players are creating a new
art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey theatre! I smell the
public sweat of monks.
He spat blank.
Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And
left the femme de trente ans. And why no other children born? And his first
child a girl?
Afterwit. Go back.
The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling,
minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair.
Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he...
-- Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there...
I hardly hear the purlieu cry
Or a Tommy talk as I pass one by
Before my thoughts begin to run
On F. M'Curdy Atkinson,
The same that had the wooden leg
And that filibustering fillibeg
That never dared to slake his drouth,
Magee that had the chinless mouth.
Being afraid to marry on earth
They masturbated for all they were worth.
Jest on. Know thyself.
Halted below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt.
-- Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing
black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black.
A laugh tripped over his lips.
-- Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that
old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jew jesuit! She gets you a job
on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. Couldn't you do
the Yeats touch?
He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:
-- The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time.
One thinks of Homer.
He stopped at the stairfoot.
-- I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.
The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's
morrice with caps of indices.
In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet:
Everyman His own Wife
or
A Honeymoon in the Hand
(a national immorality in three orgasms)
by
Ballocky Mulligan
He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying:
-- The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen.
He read, marcato:
-- Characters:
TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole)
CRAB (a bushranger)
MEDICAL DICK
and (two birds with one stone)
MEDICAL DAVY
MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier)
FRESH NELLY
and
ROSALIE (the coalquay whore)
He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen:
and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:
-- O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to
lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured,
multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!
-- The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever
lifted them.
About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.
Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today,
if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must come
to, ineluctably.
My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.
A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting.
-- Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.
The portico.
Here I watched the birds for augury. &Aelig;ngus of the birds. They go,
they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wandered. Street of harlots
after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.
-- The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you
see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient
mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.
Manner of Oxenford.
Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.
A dark back went before them. Step of a pard, down, out by the gateway,
under portcullis barbs.
They followed.
Offend me still. Speak on.
Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds.
Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a
flaw of softness softly were blown.
Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline, hierophantic:
from wide earth an altar.
Laud we the gods
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
>From our bless'd altars.
Ulysses 10: Wandering Rocks
THE SUPERIOR, THE VERY REVEREND JOHN CONMEE S. J, RESET HIS smooth
watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to
three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again?
Dignam, yes. Vere dignum et justum est. Brother Swan was the person to see.
Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical
catholic: useful at mission time.
A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his
crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the
sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for aims towards the very
reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his
purse held, he knew, one silver crown.
Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long,
of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending
their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: If I had
served my God as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my
old days. He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves and towards him
came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M. P.
-- Very well, indeed, father. And you father?
Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton
probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at
Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. And
Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to be sure
it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was very
probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes: a
very great success. A wonderful man really.
Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M. P.
looking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M. P. Yes,
he would certainly call.
-- Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy.
Father Conmee doffed his silk hat, as he took leave, at the jet beads
of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again in going. He had
cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste.
Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father
Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice.
-- Pilate! Wy don't you old back that owlin mob?
A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his
way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. Of
good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?
O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial.
Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy
square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house: Aha. And were they
good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his name? Jack
Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? His name was
Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have.
Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to master Brunny Lynam and
pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street.
-- But mind you don't post yourself into the box, little man, he said.
The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed.
-- O, sir.
-- Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.
Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee's letter
to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox, Father
Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square east.
Mr Denis J. Maginni, professor of dancing, &c., in silk hat, slate
frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers,
canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave deportment most
respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady Maxwell at the corner of
Dignam's court.
Was that not Mrs M'Guinness?
Mrs M'Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the
farther footpath along which she smiled. And Father Conmee smiled and
saluted. How did she do?
A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to
think that she was a pawnbroker. Well, now! Such a... what should he say?...
such a queenly mien.
Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the
shutup free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Green B. A. will (D. V.)
speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say a
few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They acted
according to their lights.
Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular
road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important
thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.
A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All
raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly.
Christian brother boys.
Father Conmee smelled incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint
Joseph's church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. Father Conmee
raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but occasionally they
were also badtempered.
Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift
nobleman. And now it was an office or something.
Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted
by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father Conmee
saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came from
baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the tobacconist
against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New
York. In America those things were continually happening. Unfortunate people
to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition.
Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse against the window of
which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted.
Father Conmee passed H. J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny
Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. A
constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted the
constable. In Youkstetter's, the pork-butcher's, Father Conmee observed
pig's puddings, white and black and red, lying neatly curled in tubes.
Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a turf
barge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty straw
seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above him. It
was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator
who had made turf to be in bogs where men might dig it out and bring it to
town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor people.
On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint Francis
Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound tram.
Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of
saint Agatha's church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge.
At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for
he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.
Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with
care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence and
five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse. Passing
the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually made his visit
when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The solemnity of the
occupants of the car seemed to Father Conmee excessive for a journey so
short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum.
It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father
Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee
supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the
glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping
her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly.
Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that
the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the
seat.
Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the
mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head.
At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old
woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the
bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a
market net: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and basket
down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed the end of
the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had always to be told
twice bless you, my child, that they have been absolved, pray for me. But
they had so many worries in life, so many cares, poor creatures.
>From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grinned with thick niggerlips at
Father Conmee.
Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men
and of his sermon of saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission and of
the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and
yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour
came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, Le Nombre
des élus, seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those were millions of
human souls created by God in His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.
V.) been brought. But they were God's souls created by God. It seemed to
Father Conmee a pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might
say.
At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the
conductor and saluted in his turn.
The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.
The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide,
immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining. Then
came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. Those
were oldworldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times in the
barony.
Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book Old Times in the
Barony and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of Mary
Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere.
A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel,
Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, not
startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the jealous
lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed adultery
fully, eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris, with her husband's
brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned as women did. Only
God knew and she and he, her husband's brother.
Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however
for men's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways.
Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and
honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at smiling
noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters. And
the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble, were impalmed by
don John Conmee.
It was a charming day.
The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages,
curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of
small white clouds going slowly down the wind. Moutonner, the French said. A
homely and just word.
Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds
over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of
Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the
cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He
was their rector: his reign was mild.
Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out.
An ivory bookmark told him the page.
Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had
come.
Father Conmee read in secret Pater and Ave and crossed his breast. Deus
in adiutorium.
He wamked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he
came to Res in Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuotum veritas: in
eternum omnia iudicia iustitu tu&Aelig;.
A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a
young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his
cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from
her light skirt a clinging twig.
Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his
breviary. Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis
formidavit cor meum.
Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping
eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went
to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings.
Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway.
There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the
doorcase, looking idly out.
Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.
Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat
downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.
Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.
-- That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher.
-- Ay, Corny Kelleher said.
-- It's very close, the constable said.
Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth
while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a
coin.
-- What's the best news? he asked.
-- I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with
bated breath.
A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting
Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards Larry
O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably
-- For England...
He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted
and growled:
-- home and beauty.
J.J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the
warehouse with a visitor.
A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it
into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks and glanced sourly
at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four
strides.
He halted and growled angrily:
-- For England...
Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him,
gaping at his stump with their yellow-slobbered mouths.
He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head
towards a window and bayed deeply:
-- home and beauty.
The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.
The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card Unfurnished Apartments
slipped from the sash and fell.
A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forth from a white
petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A woman's hand flung forth a coin over
the area railings. It fell on the path.
One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the
minstrel's cap, saying:
-- There, sir.
Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming
kitchen.
-- Did you put in the books? Boody asked.
Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.
-- They wouldn't give anything on them, she said.
Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles
tickled by stubble.
-- Where did you try? Boody asked.
-- M'Guinness's.
Body stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.
-- Bad cess to her big face! she cried.
Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.
-- What's in the pot? she asked.
-- Shirts, Maggy said.
Boody cried angrily:
-- Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?
Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:
-- And what's in this?
A heavy fume gushed in answer.
-- Peasoup, Maggy said.
-- Where did you get it? Katey asked.
-- Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.
The lacquey rang his bell.
-- Barang!
Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:
-- Give us it here!
Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey,
sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth
random crumbs.
-- A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly?
-- Gone to meet father, Maggy said.
Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:
-- Our father who art not in heaven.
Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed:
-- Boody! For shame!
A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the
Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around
the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between the
Customhouse old dock and George's quay.
The blonde girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling
fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and
a small jar.
-- Put these in first, will you? he said.
-- Yes, sir, the blond girl said, and the fruit on top.
-- That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.
She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe
shamefaced peaches.
Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the
fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red
tomatoes, sniffing smells.
H. E. L. Y.'S. filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane,
plodding towards their goal.
He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from
his fob and held it at its chain's length.
-- Can you send them by tram? Now?
A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's
car.
-- Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?
-- O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.
The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.
-- Will you write the address, sir?
Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.
-- Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid.
-- Yes, sir. I will, sir.
Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket.
-- What's the damage? he asked.
The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits.
Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He
took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.
-- This for me? he asked gallantly.
The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie
a bit crooked, blushing.
-- Yes, sir, she said.
Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.
Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the
red flower between his smiling teeth.
-- May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.
-- Ma! Almidano Artifoni said.
He gazed over Stephen's shoulder at Goldsmith's knobby poll.
Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore,
gripping frankly the handrests. Pale faces. Men's arms frankly round their
stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of the
bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.
-- Anch'io ho avuto di queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said, quand' ero
giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo È una bestia. è
peccato. Perche la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via. Invece,
Lei si sacrifica.
-- Sacrifizio incruento, Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in
slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.
-- Speriamo, the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. Ma, dia retta
a me. Ci rifletta.
By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram
unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.
-- Ci riflettÒ, Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouser-leg.
-- Ma, sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said.
His heavy hand took Stephen's firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously
an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.
-- Eccolo, Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. Venga a trovarmi e
ci pensi. Addio, caro.
-- Arrivederla, maestro, Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand
was freed. E grazie.
-- Di che? Almidano Artifoni said. Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!
Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal,
trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted,
signalling in vain among the rout of bare-kneed gillies smuggling implements
of music through Trinity gates.
Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of The Woman in White far
back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her
typewriter.
Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion?
Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.
The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them:
six.
Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:
-- 16 June 1904.
Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab
where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. Y.'S
and plodded back as they had come.
Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and
capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking, is she?
The way she is holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow be at
the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt
like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells
never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he won't keep me here till
seven.
The telephone rang rudely by her ear.
-- Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five.
Only those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can
go after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and
six. I'll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.
She scribbled three figures on an envelope.
-- Mr Boylan l Hello! That gentleman from Sport was in looking for you.
Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir.
I'll ring them up after five.
Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch.
-- Who's that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?
-- Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied, groping for foothold.
-- Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute
his pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there.
The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed itself In a long
soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and mouldy
air closed round them.
-- How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.
-- Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic
council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed himself
a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin. O'Madden
Burke is going to write something about it one of these days. The old bank
of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and the original
jews' temple was here too before they built their synagogue over in Adelaide
road. You were never here before, Jack, were you?
-- No, Ned.
-- He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my
memory serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.
-- That's right, Ned Lambert said. That's quite right, sir.
-- If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to
allow me perhaps .
-- Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like.
I'll get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here
or from here.
In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the
piled seedbags and points of vantage on the floor.
>From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.
-- I'm deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't trespass
on your valuable time...
-- You're welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like.
Next week, say. Can you see?
-- Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.
-- Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered.
He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away
among the pillars. With J.J. O'Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey
where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal,
O'Connor, Wexford.
He stood to read the card in his hand.
-- The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint
Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He's writing a book about the
Fitzgeralds he told me. He's well up in history, faith.
The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging
twig.
-- I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J.J. O'Molloy said.
Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air.
-- God, he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of
Kildare after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? I'm bloody
sorry I did it, says he, but I declare to God I thought the archbishop was
inside. He mightn't like it, though. What? God, I'll tell him anyhow. That
was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they were all of them,
the Geraldines.
The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He
slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried:
-- Woa, sonny!
He turned to J.J. O'Molloy and asked:
-- Well, Jack. What is it? What's the trouble? Wait a while. Holdhard.
With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an
instant, sneezed loudly.
-- Chow! he said. Blast you!
-- The dust from those sacks, J.J. O'Molloy said politely.
-- No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before ... blast
your soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of
draught...
He held his handkerchief ready for the coming...
-- I was... this morning... poor little... what do you call him...
Chow!... Mother of Moses!
Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his
claret waistcoat.
-- See? he said. Say it's turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On.
He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove,
wobbled a while, ceased, ogling them: six.
Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the
consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying the
costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the admiralty
division of King's bench to the court of appeal an elderly female with false
teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of great amplitude.
-- See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here. Turns
Over. The impact. Leverage, see?
He showed them the rising column of disks on the right.
-- Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late
can see what turn is on and what turns are over.
-- See? Tom Rochford said.
He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle,
stop: four. Turn Now On.
-- I'll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One
good turn deserves another.
-- Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I'm Boylan with impatience.
-- Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly, when you two begin.
Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it.
-- But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked.
-- Tooraloo, Lenehan said, see you later.
He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court.
-- He's a hero, he said simply.
-- I know, M'Coy said. The drain, you mean.
-- Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole.
They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.
Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall
Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like a
bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it half choked
with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky's vest and all, with
the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope round the poor devil
and the two were hauled up.
-- The act of a hero, he said.
At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past
them for Jervis street.
-- This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam's
to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and
chain?
M'Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then at
O'Neill's clock.
-- After three, he said. Who's riding her?
-- O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is.
While he waited in Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle
pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy get a
nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark.
The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the vice-regal
cavalcade.
-- Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons
in there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn't an
earthly. Through here.
They went up the steps and under Merchants' arch. A dark-backed figure
scanned books on the hawker's cart.
-- There he is, Lenehan said.
-- Wonder what he is buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind.
-- Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye, Lenehan said.
-- He's dead nuts on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he
bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were fine
plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and comets with
long tails. Astronomy it was about.
Lenehan laughed.
-- I'll tell you a damn good one about comets' tails, he said. Come
over in the sun.
They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the
river wall.
Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's,
carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.
-- There was a big spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said
eagerly. The annual dinner you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord mayor was
there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan Dawson spoke and
there was music. Bartell D'Arcy sang and Benjamin Dollard.
-- I know, M'Coy broke in. My missus sang there once.
-- Did she? Lenehan said.
A card Unfurnished Apartments reappeared on the windowsash of number 7
Eccles street.
He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh.
-- But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the
catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were
there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and curaÇao to
which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came
solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies.
-- I know, M'Coy said. The year the missus was there...
Lenehan linked his arm warmly.
-- But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after
all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the
morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's night
on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the
car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing glees and
duets: Lo, the early beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load
of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the bloody car gave I had
her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She has a fine pair, God bless
her. Like that.
He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:
-- I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time.
Know what I mean?
His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in
delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.
-- The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a
gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the
comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and
Hercules and the dragon and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost,
so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted
a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By
God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure
that's only what you might call a pinprick. By God, he wasn't far wide of
the mark.
Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft
laughter.
-- I'm weak, he gasped.
M'Coy's white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan
walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead
rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy.
-- He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not
one of your common or garden... you know... There's a touch of the artist
about old Bloom.
Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk,
then of Aristotle's Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates: infants
cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows. Lots of
them like that at this moment all over the world. All butting with their
skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.
He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: Tales of the Ghetto
by Leopold von Sacher Masoch.
-- That I had, he said, pushing it by.
The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter.
-- Them are two good ones, he said.
Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth.
He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his
unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain.
On O'Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay
apparel of Mr Denis J. Maginni, professor of dancing &c.
Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch.
Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes.
He opened it. Thought so.
A woman's voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: The man.
No: she wouldn't like that much. Got her it once.
He read the other title: Sweets of Sin. More in her line. Let us see.
He read where his finger opened.
-- All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on
wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul!
Yes. This. Here. Try.
-- Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands
felt for the opulent curves inside her dÉshabillÉ.
Yes. Take this. The end.
-- You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eyeing her with a suspicious glare.
The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenly
shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played round her
perfect lips as she turned to him calmly.
Mr Bloom read again: The beautiful woman.
Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amid
rumpled clothes. Whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched themselves
for prey. Melting breast ointments (For him! For Raoul!). Armpits' oniony
sweat. Fishgluey slime (her heaving embonpoint!). Feel! Press! Crushed!
Sulphur dung of lions!
Young! Young!
An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of
chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in the lord
chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the admiralty
division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the Lady Cairns
versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal reservation of
judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident and Guarantee
Corporation.
Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy
curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven
reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, spat phlegm on the
floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it and
bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.
Mr Bloom beheld it.
Mastering his troubled breath, he said:
-- I'll take this one.
The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.
-- Sweets of Sin, he said, tapping on it. That's a good one.
The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell
twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.
Dilly Dedalus, listening by the curbstone, heard the beats of the bell,
the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely curtains.
Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any advance on
five shillings? Going for five shillings.
The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:
-- Barang!
Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint.
J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched necks
wagging, negotiated the curve by the College Library.
Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row.
He halted near his daughter.
-- It's time for you, she said.
-- Stand up straight for the love of the Lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said.
Are you trying to imitate your uncle John the cornetplayer, head upon
shoulders? Melancholy God!
Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and
held them back.
-- Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine.
Do you know what you look like?
He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders
and dropping his underjaw.
-- Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you.
Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.
-- Did you get any money? Dilly asked.
-- Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin
would lend me fourpence.
-- You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes.
-- How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek.
Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along
James's street.
-- I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now?
-- I was not then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns
taught you to be so saucy? Here.
He handed her a shilling.
-- See if you can do anything with that, he said.
-- I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.
-- Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of
them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother
died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from me.
Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I was
stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead.
He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat.
-- Well, what is it? he said, stopping.
The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs.
-- Barang!
-- Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.
The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell
but feebly:
-- Bang!
Mr Dedalus stared at him.
-- Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to
talk.
-- You got more than that, father, Dilly said.
-- I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave
you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, that's all I have. I got two
shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the funeral.
He drew forth a handful of copper coins nervously.
-- Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said.
Mr Dedalus thought and nodded.
-- I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell
street. I'll try this one now.
-- You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning.
-- Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk
for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly.
He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on.
The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of
Parkgate.
-- I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said.
The lacquey banged loudly.
Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing
mincing mouth:
-- The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do
anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica!
>From the sundial towards James's Gate walked Mr Kernan pleased with
the order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson boldly along James's street,
past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr
Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other
establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive. Lovely
weather we are having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those farmers are
always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best gin, Mr Crimmins.
A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that General Slocum explosion.
Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And heartrending scenes. Men
trampling down women and children. Most brutal thing. What do they say was
the cause? Spontaneous combustion: most scandalous revelation. Not a single
lifeboat would float and the firehose all burst. What I can't understand is
how the inspectors ever allowed a boat like that... Now you are talking
straight, Mr Crimmins. You know why? Palmoil. Is that a fact? Without a
doubt. Well now, look at that. And America they say is the land of the free.
I thought we were bad here.
I smiled at him. America, I said, quietly, just like that. What is it?
The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true? That's a
fact.
Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's
always someone to pick it up.
Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy
appearance. Bowls them over.
-- Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
-- Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered stopping.
Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter
Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson street.
Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built under three
guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street club toff had it
probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian bank, gave me a very
sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he remembered me.
Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road.
Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom
again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying has
it.
North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains,
sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the
ferry-wash, Elijah is coming.
Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course.
Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy body
forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Lambert's brother
over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn it. No. The windscreen
of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash like that. Damn like him.
Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath.
Good drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his
fat strut.
Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope.
Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife drove
by in her noddy.
Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight
burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the wall.
Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn down here.
Make a detour.
Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by the
corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin Distillers
Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, the reins
knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary bosthoon
endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse.
Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John
Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the
office of Messrs Collis and Ward.
Mr Kernan approached Island street.
Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those
reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all now in a
kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No cardsharping then.
One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table by a dagger. Somewhere
here Lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr. Stables behind Moira
house.
Damn good gin that was.
Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that
sham squire, with his violet gloves, gave him away. Course they were on the
wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is: Ingram. They
were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad touchingly. Masterly
rendition.
At the siege of Ross did my father fall.
A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping,
leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.
Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily.
His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a
pity!
Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's
fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays.
Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on
dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous
and winedark stones.
Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil lights
shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of their
brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest them.
She dances in a foul gloom where gum burns with garlic. A sailorman,
rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed silent
rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her hips, on her
gross belly flapping a ruby egg.
Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned
it and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating on
a stolen hoard.
And you who wrest old images from the burial earth! The brainsick words
of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat
standing from everlasting to everlasting.
Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through
Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded umbrella, one with a
midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled.
The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the
powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always
without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I between
them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. Shatter them,
one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me you who can. Bawd
and butcher, were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A look around.
Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You
say right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed.
Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against
his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing
Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood round the roped
prizering. The heavyweights in light loincloths proposed gently each to
other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes' hearts.
He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart.
-- Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.
Tattered pages. The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the CurÉ of
Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney.
I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. Stephano Dedalo,
alumno optimo, palmam ferenti.
Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet
of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers.
Binding too good probably, what is this? Eighth and ninth book of
Moses. Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and
read. Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for
white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the
following talisman three times with hands folded:
-- Se et yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen.
Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter
Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's charms,
as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your wool.
-- What are you doing here, Stephen.
Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress.
Shut the book quick. Don't let see.
-- What are you doing? Stephen said.
A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It
glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her of
Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck
bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. Nebrakada femininum.
-- What have you there? Stephen asked.
-- I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing
nervously. Is it any good?
My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring.
Shadow of my mind.
He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer.
-- What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French?
She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips.
Show no surprise. Quite natural.
-- Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on
you. I suppose all my books are gone.
-- Some, Dilly said. We had to.
She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will
drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, my
heart, my soul. Salt green death.
We.
Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite.
Misery! Misery!
-- Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
-- Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley
brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand.
-- What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said.
-- Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon,
with two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance.
-- Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it?
-- O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance.
-- With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked.
-- The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I'm
just waiting for Ben Dollard. He's going to say a word to Long John to get
him to take those two men off. All I want is a little time.
He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in
his neck.
-- I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He's always
doing a good turn for someone. Hold hard!
He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant.
-- There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets.
Ben Dollard's loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops
crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards them at
an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails.
As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted:
-- Hold that fellow with the bad trousers.
-- Hold him now, Ben Dollard said.
Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben
Dollard's figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered
sneeringly:
-- That's a pretty garment, isn't it, for a summer's day?
-- Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I
threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw.
He stood beside them beaming on them first and on his roomy clothes
from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying:
-- They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow.
-- Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be
to God he's not paid yet.
-- And how is that basso profondo, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked.
Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring,
glasseyed, strode past the Kildare street club.
Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter's mouth, gave forth
a deep note.
-- Aw! he said.
-- That's the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone.
-- What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What? He turned to
both.
-- That'll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also.
The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old Chapterhouse of saint
Mary's abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by
Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the Ford of
Hurdles.
Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward,
his joyful fingers in the air.
-- Come along with me to the subsheriff's office, he said. I want to
show you the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He's a cross between
Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He's well worth seeing, mind you. Come along. I
saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now and it will cost me a
fall if I don't... wait awhile... We're on the right lay, Bob, believe you
me.
-- For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously.
Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button
of his coat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the heavy
shraums that clogged his eyes to hear aright.
-- What few days? he boomed. Hasn't your landlord distrained for rent?
-- He has, Father Cowley said.
-- Then our friend's writ is not worth the paper it's printed on, Ben
Dollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the
particulars. 29 Windsor avenue. Love is the name?
-- That's right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He's a
minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that?
-- You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put
that writ where Jacko put the nuts.
He led Father Cowley boldly forward linked to his bulk.
-- Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his
glasses on his coatfront, following them.
-- The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they
passed out of the Castleyard gate.
The policeman touched his forehead.
-- God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily.
He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on
towards Lord Edward street.
Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head, appeared
above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel.
Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father
Conmee and laid the whole case before him.
-- You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward.
-- Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not.
John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them
quickly down Cork hill.
On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed
Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending.
The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street.
-- Look here Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the Mail
office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings.
-- Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down
the five shillings too.
-- Without a second word either, Mr Power said.
-- Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added.
John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes.
-- I'll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted elegantly.
They went down Parliament street.
-- There's Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's.
-- Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.
Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's
brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties.
John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took
the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit who walked
uncertainly with hasty steps past Micky Anderson's watches.
-- The assistant town clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John
Wyse Nolan told Mr Power.
They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The
empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham,
speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance.
-- And Long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as
life.
The tall form of Long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.
-- Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and
greeted.
Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay
decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all their
faces.
-- Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he
said, with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.
Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly,
about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know,
to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the macebearer laid up
with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, no quorum even and
Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little Lorcan Sherlock doing
locum tenens for him. Damned Irish language, of our forefathers.
Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.
Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to
the assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his
peace.
-- What Dignam was that? Long John Fanning asked.
Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot.
-- O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness' sake
till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!
Testily he made room for himself beside Long John Fanning's flank and
passed in and up the stairs.
-- Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think
you knew him or perhaps you did, though.
With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in.
-- Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of
Long John Fanning ascending towards Long John Fanning in the mirror.
-- Rather lowsized, Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin
Cunningham said.
Long John Fanning could not remember him.
Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.
-- What's that? Martin Cunningham said.
All turned where they stood; John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the
cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, harness
and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past before his
cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, leaping
leaders, rode outriders.
-- What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the
staircase.
-- The lord lieutenant general and general governor of Ireland, John
Wyse Nolan answered from the stairfoot.
As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his
panama to Haines.
-- Parnell's brother. There in the corner.
They chose a small table near the window opposite a long-faced man
whose beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard.
-- Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat.
-- Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city
marshal.
John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw
went up again to his forehead whereat it rested.
An instant after, under its screen, his eyes looked quickly,
ghostbright, at his foe and fell once more upon a working corner.
-- I'll take a mÉlange, Haines said to the waitress.
-- Two mÉlanges, Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and
butter and some cakes as well.
When she had gone he said, laughing:
-- We call it D. B. C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you
missed Dedalus on Hamlet.
Haines opened his newbought book.
-- I'm sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all
minds that have lost their balance.
The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street:
-- England expects...
Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.
-- You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance.
Wandering &Aelig;ngus I call him.
-- I am sure he has an idÉe fixe, Haines said, pinching his chin
thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it would
be likely to be. Such persons always have.
Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely.
-- They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will
never capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white
death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. The
joy of creation.
-- Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled
him this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It's
rather interesting because Professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting
point out of that.
Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to
unload her tray.
-- He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said,
amid the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny,
of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does he
write anything for your movement?
He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream.
Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its
smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily.
-- Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write
something in ten years.
-- Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon.
Still, I shouldn't wonder if he did after all.
He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup.
-- This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I
don't want to be imposed on.
Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of
ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street
past Benson's ferry, and by the three-masted schooner Rosevean from
Bridgwater with bricks.
Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. Behind
him Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell with
stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith's house
and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a blind
stripling tapped his way by the wall of College Park.
Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr
Lewis Werner's cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion
square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling.
At the corner of Wilde's he halted, frowned at Elijah's name announced
on the Metropolitan Hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke's lawn.
His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth bared he muttered:
-- Coactus volui.
He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word.
As he strode past Mr Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat
brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards,
having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly face
after the striding form.
-- God's curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder
nor I am, you bitch's bastard!
Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the
pound and half of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been sent
for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming dull
sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and
the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the
superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. And they eating
crumbs of the cottage fruit cake jawing the whole blooming time and sighing.
After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, court dress milliner,
stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their pelts
and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning Masters Dignam
gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin's pet lamb, will meet sergeant-major
Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty sovereigns, God,
that'd be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, that's the chap sparring
out to him with the green sash. Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. I
could easy do a bunk on ma. Master Dignam on his left turned as he turned.
That's me in mourning. When is it? May the twenty-second. Sure, the blooming
thing is all over. He turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam
turned, his cap awry, his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin
lifted, he saw the image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the
two puckers. One of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes
that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out.
Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going
for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would
knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for science
was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of him, dodging
and all.
In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and
a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling
him and grinning all the time.
No Sandymount tram.
Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his
other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming
stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He
met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow either, stay away till
Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I'm in mourning? Uncle
Barney said he'd get it into the paper tonight. Then they'll all see it in
the paper and read my name printed and pa's name.
His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a
fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were
screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were bringing
it downstairs.
Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling
the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and
heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing on
the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney's for to
boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see him again.
Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be a good son
to ma. I couldn't hear the other things he said but I saw his tongue and his
teeth trying to say it better. Poor pa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I
hope he is in purgatory now because he went to confession to father Conroy
on Saturday night.
William Humble, earl of Dudley, and Lady Dudley, accompanied by
lieutenantcolonel Hesseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal
lodge. In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de
Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward, A. D. C. in attendance.
The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix Park saluted by
obsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern
quays. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the
metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted him
vainly from afar. Between Queen's and Whitworth bridges Lord Dudley's
viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. L., M.
A., who stood on Arran Quay outside Mrs M. E. White's, the pawnbroker's, at
the corner of Arran street west stroking his nose with his forefinger,
undecided whether he should arrive at Phibsborough more quickly by a triple
change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot through Smithfield,
Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the porch of Four Courts
Richie Goulding with the costsbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward saw him with
surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the doorstep of the office of Reuben J.
Dodd, solicitor, agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly
female about to enter changed her plan and retracing her steps by King's
windows smiled credulously on the representative of His Majesty. From its
sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung out in
fealty a tongue of liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond Hotel,
gold by bronze, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and
admired. On Ormond quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the
greenhouse for the subsheriff's office, stood still in midstreet and brought
his hat low. His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus' greeting. From
Cahill's corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M. A., made obeisance
unperceived, mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of
yore rich advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of
each other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office
and Dollard's big red printing house Gerty MacDowell, carrying the Catesby's
cork lino letters for her father who was laid up, knew by the style it was
the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn't see what Her Excellency had on
because the tram and Spring's big yellow furniture van had to stop in front
of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant. Beyond Lundy Foot's from
the shaded door of Kavanagh's winerooms John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen
coldness towards the lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland.
The Right Honourable William Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed
Micky Anderson's all times ticking watches and Henry and James's wax
smartsuited freshcheeked models, the gentleman Henry, dernier cri James.
Over against Dame gate Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the approach of
the cavalcade. Tom Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley on him, took his
thumbs quickly out of the pockets of his claret waistcoat and doffed his cap
to her. A charming soubrette, great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and
lifted skirt, smiled daubily from her poster upon William Humble, earl of
Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Hesseltine and also upon the
honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck
Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage
over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the
chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's street,
Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first French
primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare John
Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from
winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not looked at in his
fat left hand not feeling it. Where the foreleg of King Billy's horse pawed
the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband back from under the hoofs of
the outriders. She shouted in his ear the tidings. Understanding, he shifted
his tomes to his left breast and saluted the second carriage. The honourable
Gerald Ward A. D. C., agreeably surprised, made haste to reply. At
Ponsonby's corner a jaded white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white
flagons halted behind him, E. L. Y.'S., while outriders pranced past and
carriages. Opposite Pigott's music warerooms Mr Denis J. Maginni professor
of dancing &c, gaily apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and
unobserved. By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in
tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of My girl's a
Yorkshire girl.
Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high
action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit
of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute but he
offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and the red
flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His Excellency
drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of music which was
being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen highland laddies blared and
drumthumped after the cortÉge:
But though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
Baraabum.
Yet I've a sort of a
Yorkshire relish for
My little Yorkshire rose.
Baraabum.
Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H.
Thrift, T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, C.
Adderly, and W. C. Huggard started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's hotel,
Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a fierce
eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr E. M. Solomons in the window
of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster street, by Trinity's
postern, a loyal king's man, Horn-blower, touched his tallyho cap. As the
glossy horses pranced by Merrion square Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam,
waiting, saw salutes being given to the gent with the topper and raised also
his new black cap with fingers greased by porksteak paper. His collar too
sprang up. The viceroy, on his way to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of
funds for Mercer's hospital, drove with his following towards Lower Mount
street. He passed a blind stripling Opposite Broadbent's. In Lower Mount
street a pedestrian in a brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly
and unscathed across the viceroy's path. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his
hoarding, Mr Eugene Stratton, his blub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome
to Pembroke township. At Haddington road corner two sanded women halted
themselves, an umbrella and a bag in which eleven cockles rolled to view
with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his golden chain. On
Northumberland and Landsdowne roads His Excellency acknowledged punctually
salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small schoolboys at the
garden gate of the house said to have been admired by the late queen when
visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in 1849,
and the salute of Almidano Artifoni's sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing
door.
Ulysses 11: Sirens
BRONZE BY GOLD HEARD THE HOOFIRONS, STEELYRINING IMPERthnthn thnthnthn.
Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold
flushed more.
A husky fifenote blew.
Blew. Blue bloom is on the
Gold pinnacled hair.
A jumping rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille.
Trilling, trilling: I dolores.
Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold?
Tink cried to bronze in pity.
And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.
Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! Notes
chirruping answer. Castille. The morn is breaking.
Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.
Coin rang. Clock clacked.
Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La
cloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!
Jingle. Bloo.
Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.
A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.
Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.
Horn. Hawhorn.
When first he saw. Alas!
Full tup. Full throb.
Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.
Martha! Come!
Clapclop. Clipclap. Clappyclap.
Goodgod henev erheard inall.
Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.
A moonlight nightcall: far: far.
I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming.
Listen!
The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each and for other
plash and silent roar.
Pearls: when she. Liszt's rhapsodies. Hissss.
You don't?
Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra.
Black.
Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do.
Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee.
But wait!
Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore.
Naminedamine. All gone. All fallen.
Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair.
Amen! He gnashed in fury.
Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding.
Bronzelydia by Minagold.
By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom.
One rapped, one tapped with a carra, with a cock.
Pray for him! Pray, good people!
His gouty fingers nakkering.
Big Benaben. Big Benben.
Last rose Castille of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone. Pwee!
Little wind piped wee.
True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your
tschink with tschunk.
Fff! Oo!
Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs?
Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl.
Then, not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt.
Done.
Begin!
Bronze by gold, Miss Douce's head by Miss Kennedy's head, over the
crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel.
-- Is that her? asked Miss Kennedy.
Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and eau de Nil.
-- Exquisite contrast, Miss Kennedy said.
When all agog Miss Douce said eagerly:
-- Look at the fellow in the tall silk.
-- Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly.
-- In the second carriage, Miss Douce's wet lips said, laughing in the
sun. He's looking. Mind till I see.
She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against
the pane in a halo of hurried breath.
Her wet lips tittered:
-- He's killed looking back.
She laughed:
-- O wept! Aren't men frightful idiots?
With sadness.
Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair
behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a hair.
Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear.
-- It's them has the fine times, sadly then she said.
A man.
Bloowho went by by Moulang's pipes, bearing in his breast the sweets of
sin, by Wine's antiques in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by Carroll's
dusky battered plate, for Raoul.
The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them
unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china. And
-- There's your teas, he said.
Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned
lithia crate, safe from eyes, low.
-- What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked.
-- Find out, Miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint.
-- Your beau, is it?
A haughty bronze replied:
-- I'll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of your
impertinent insolence.
-- I mperthnthn thnthnthn, bootsnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as
she threatened as he had come.
Bloom.
On her flower frowning Miss Douce said:
-- Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn't conduct himself
I'll wring his ear for him a yard long.
Ladylike in exquisite contrast.
-- Take no notice, Miss Kennedy rejoined.
She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered
under their reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned, waiting
for their teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black satin, two
and nine a yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and seven.
Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear,
hoofs ring from afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel.
-- Am I awfully sunburnt?
Miss Bronze unbloused her neck.
-- No, said Miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax
with the cherry laurel water?
Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror
gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their midst a
shell.
-- And leave it to my hands, she said.
-- Try it with the glycerine, Miss Kennedy advised.
Bidding her neck and hands adieu Miss Douce
-- Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that
old fogey in Boyd's for something for my skin.
Miss Kennedy, pouring now fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed:
-- O, don't remind me of him for mercy'sake!
-- But wait till I tell you, Miss Douce entreated.
Sweet tea Miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears
with little fingers.
-- No, don't, she cried.
-- I won't listen, she cried.
But Bloom?
Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey's tone:
-- For your what? says he.
Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak: but said, but prayed
again:
-- Don't let me think of him or I'll expire. The hideous old wretch!
That night in the Antient Concert Rooms.
She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped sweet tea.
-- Here he was, Miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three
quarters, ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa!
Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from Miss Kennedy's throat. Miss Douce
huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a shout
in quest.
-- O! shrieking, Miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget bis goggle
eye?
Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting:
-- And your other eye!
Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner's name. Why do I always think
Figather? Gathering figs I think. And Prosper LorÉ's huguenot name. By
Bassi's blessed virgins Bloom's dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white under,
come to me. God they believe she is: or goddess. Those today. I could not
see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus' son. He might be
Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of fellows in: her
white.
By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets.
Of sin.
In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy
your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let
freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each Other, high
piercing notes.
Ah, panting, sighing. Sighing, ah, fordone their mirth died down.
Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and
giggle-giggled. Miss Douce, bending again over the teatray, ruffled again
her nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping her
fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed, spluttered
out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter, coughing with
choking, crying:
-- O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that, she cried.
With his bit of beard!
Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman,
delight, joy, indignation.
-- Married to the greasy nose! she yelled.
Shrill, with deep laughter, after bronze in gold, they urged each other
to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold goldbronze, shrilldeep,
to laughter after laughter: And then laughed more. Greasy I knows.
Exhausted, breathless their shaken heads they laid, braided and pinnacled by
glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!), panting, sweating
(O!), all breathless.
Married to Bloom, to greaseaseabloom.
-- O saints above! Miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I
wished I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet.
-- O, Miss Douce! Miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!
And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly.
By Cantwell's offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi's virgins, bright of
their oils. Nannetti's father hawked those things about, wheedling at doors
as I. Religion pays. Must see him about Keyes's par. Eat first. I want. Not
yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. Where
eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five guineas with
those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets of sin.
Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled.
Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his
rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled.
-- O welcome back, Miss Douce.
He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?.
-- Tiptop.
He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor.
-- Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the
strand all day.
Bronze whiteness.
-- That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed
her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males.
Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away.
-- O go away, she said. You're very simple, I don't think.
He was.
-- Well now, I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they
christened me simple Simon.
-- You must have been a doaty, Miss Douce made answer. And what did the
doctor order today?
-- Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I'll trouble
you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky.
Jingle.
-- With the greatest alacrity, Miss Douce agreed.
With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane's
she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from her
crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought pouch and
pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky fifenotes.
-- By Jove, he mused. I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must
be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at
last, they say. Yes, yes.
Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid's, into
the bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute.
None not said nothing. Yes.
Gaily Miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling:
-- O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!
-- Was Mr Lidwell in today?
In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex
bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. Buy
paper. Daly's. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue Bloom is on the rye.
-- He was in at lunchtime, Miss Douce said.
Lenehan came forward.
-- Was Mr Boylan looking for me?
He asked. She answered:
-- Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?
She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her
gaze upon a page.
-- No. He was not.
Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard not seen, read on. Lenehan round the
sandwichbell wound his round body round.
-- Peep! Who's in the corner?
No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her
stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess.
Jingle jaunty jingle.
Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no
notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:
-- Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your
bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?
He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.
He sighed, aside:
-- Ah me! O my!
He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod.
-- Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.
-- Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked.
Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who?
-- Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard.
Dry.
Mr Dedalus, famous fighter, laid by his dry filled pipe.
-- I see, he said. I didn't recognize him for the moment. I hear he is
keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately?
He had.
-- I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In
Mooney's en ville and in Mooney's sur mer. He had received the rhino for the
labour of his muse.
He smiled at bronze's teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes.
-- The Élite of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh
MacHugh, Dublin's most brilliant scribe and editor, and that minstrel boy of
the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the O'Madden
Burke.
After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and
-- That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see.
He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his
glass.
He looked towards the saloon door.
-- I see you have moved the piano.
-- The tuner was in today, Miss Douce replied, tuning it for the
smoking concert and I never heard such an exquisite player.
-- Is that a fact?
-- Didn't he, Miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind
too, poor fellow. Not twenty I'm sure he was.
-- Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said.
He drank and strayed away.
-- So sad to look at his face, Miss Douce condoled.
God's curse on bitch's bastard.
Tink to her pity cried a diner's bell. To the door of the diningroom
came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. Lager for
diner. Lager without alacrity she served.
With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jingle
jaunty blazes boy.
Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the
oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently
her hand), soft pedalling a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt
advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action.
Two sheets cream vellum paper on reserve two envelopes when I was in
Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought. Are you not happy in
your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means something, language
of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet after
mass. Tanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying
mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair
streaming: lovelorn. For some man. For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex
bridge a gay hat riding on a jauntingcar. It is. Third time. Coincidence.
Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay.
Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out.
-- Two pence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say.
Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse...
And four.
At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go.
Ternoon. Think you're the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all. For
men.
In drowsy silence gold bent on her page.
>From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the
tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. Acall again. That he now poised
that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly and
softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call.
Pat paid for diner's popcorked bottle: and over tumbler tray and
popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with Miss
Douce.
-- The bright stars fade...
A voiceless song sang from within, singing:
-- ... the morn is breaking.
A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive
hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, called
to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's leavetaking,
life's, love's morn.
-- The dewdrops pearl...
Lenehan's lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy.
-- But look this way, he said, rose of Castille.
Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped.
She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castille. Fretted forlorn,
dreamily rose.
-- Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her.
She answered, slighting:
-- Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.
Like lady, ladylike.
Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he
strode. Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and
hailed him:
-- See the conquering hero comes.
Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered
hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked
towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft saluting.
-- And I from thee...
-- I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan.
He touched to fair Miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled
on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer hair, a
bosom and a rose.
Boylan bespoke potions.
-- What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a
sloegin for me. Wire in yet?
Not yet. At four he. All said four.
Cowley's red lugs and Adam's apple in the door of the sheriff's office.
Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. Wait.
Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What,
Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. See,
not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom followed
bag. Dinner fit for a prince.
Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her
bust, that all but burst, so high.
-- O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!
But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.
-- Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan.
Shebronze, dealing from her jar thick syrupy liquor for his lips,
looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and syrupped with
her voice:
-- Fine goods in small parcels.
That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.
-- Here's fortune, Blazes said.
He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang.
-- Hold on, said Lenehan, till I...
-- Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.
-- Sceptre will win in a canter, he said.
-- I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own,
you know. Fancy of a friend of mine.
Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at Miss Douce's
lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled.
Idolores. The eastern seas.
Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave),
bearing away teatray. Clock clacked.
Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It
clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till and
hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For me.
-- What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four?
O'clock.
Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged
Blazes Boylan's elbowsleeve.
-- Let's hear the time, he said.
The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered
tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near
the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come:
whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited.
Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes.
-- Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's no-one. He never heard.
-- ... to Flora's lips did hie.
High, a high note, pealed in the treble, clear.
Bronzedouce, communing with her rose that sank and rose, sought Blazes
Boylan's flower and eyes.
-- Please, please.
He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal.
-- I could not leave thee...
-- Afterwits, Miss Douce promised coyly.
-- No, now, urged Lenehan. Sonnezlacloche! O do! There's no-one.
She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling
faces watched her bend.
Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord,
and lost and found it faltering.
-- Go on! Do! Sonnez!
Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted
them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes.
-- Sonnez!
Smack. She let free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter
smackwarm against her smackable woman's warmhosed thigh.
-- La cloche! cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust
there.
She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren't men?), but, lightward
gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.
-- You're the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said.
Boyland, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drankoff his tiny
chalice, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. He spellbound eyes went
after her gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch for
ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, a spiky shell, where it
concerted, mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze.
Yes, bronze from anearby.
-- ... Sweetheart, goodbye!
-- I'm off, said Boylan with impatience.
He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change.
-- Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell
you. Tom Rochford...
-- Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going.
Lenehan gulped to go.
-- Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I'm coming.
He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the
threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender.
-- How do you do Mr Dollard?
-- Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard's vague bass answered, turning an
instant from Father Cowley's woe. He won't give you any trouble, Bob. All
Bergan will speak to the long fellow. We'll put a barleystraw in that Judas
Iscariot's ear this time.
Sighing, Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an
eyelid.
-- Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon, give us a
ditty. We heard the piano.
Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders, Power for Richie.
And Bloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now. How
warm this black is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat. Let me see.
Cider. Yes, bottle of cider.
-- What's that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man.
-- Come on, come on, Ben Dollar called. Begone, dull care. Come, Bob.
He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the:
hold him now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His
gouty paws plumped chords. Plumped stopped abrupt.
Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered he wanted
Power and cider. Bronze by the window watched, bronze from afar.
Jingle a tinkle jaunted.
Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He's off. Light sob of breath Bloom
sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He's gone. Jingle. Hear.
-- Love and war, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times.
Miss Douce's brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind,
smitten by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting
light), she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive
(why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze over the bar where bald
stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite
nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of shadow, eau de Nil.
-- Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded
them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the
Collard grand.
There was.
-- A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn't stop
him. He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink.
-- God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the
punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment.
They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding
garment.
-- Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said.
Where's my pipe by the way?
He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried
two diners' drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again.
-- I saved the situation, Ben, I think.
-- You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too.
That was a brilliant idea, Bob.
Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the
situa. Tight trou. Brilliant ide.
-- I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano
in the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and who
was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you remember?
We had to search all Holles street to find them till the chap in Keogh's
gave us the number. Remember?
Ben remembered, his broad visage wondering.
-- By God she had some luxurious opera cloaks and things there.
Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand.
-- Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He
wouldn't take any money either. What? Any God's quantity of cocked hats and
boleros and trunkhose. What?
-- Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of
all descriptions.
Jingle haunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres.
Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat.
Mrs Marion met him pike hoses. Smell of burn of Paul de Kock. Nice name
he.
-- What's this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion.
-- Tweedy.
-- Yes. Is she alive?
-- And kicking.
-- She was a daughter of...
-- Daughter of the regiment.
-- Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor.
Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after.
-- Irish? I don't know, faith. Is she, Simon?
Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling.
-- Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My Irish
Molly, O.
He puffed a pungent plumy blast.
-- From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way.
They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze by
maraschino, thoughtful all two, Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace, Drumcondra
with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent.
Pat served uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before he
ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods' roes while
Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, bite
by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate.
Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes.
By Bachelor's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun,
in heat, mare's glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres:
sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the?
Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn.
Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding
chords:
-- When love absorbs my ardent soul...
Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roof-panes.
-- War! War! cried Father Cowley. You're the warrior.
-- So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love
or money.
He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge.
-- Sure, you'd burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said
through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours.
In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would.
-- Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time,
Ben. Amoroso ma non troppo. Let me there.
Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She
passed a remark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful weather.
They drank cool stout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant was going? And
heard steelhoofs ringhoof ring. No, she couldn't say. But it would be in the
paper. O, she needn't trouble. No trouble. She waved about her outspread
Independent, searching, the lord lieutenant, her pinnacles of hair
slowmoving, lord lieuten. Too much trouble, first gentleman said. O, not in
the least. Way he looked that. Lord lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron
steel.
-- ... my ardent soulI care not foror the morrow.
In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and war someone is.
Ben Dollard's famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit for
that concert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers. Molly did
laugh when he went out. Threw herself back across the bed, screaming,
kicking. With all his belongings on show. O, saints above, I'm drenched! O,
the women in the front row! O, I never laughed so many! Well, of course,
that's what gives him the base barreltone. For instance eunuchs. Wonder
who's playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley. Musical. Knows whatever note you
play. Bad breath he has, poor chap. Stopped.
Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George
Lidwell, gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist, a lady's,
hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old dingdong
again.
-- Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell.
George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand.
Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the
Burton, gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables,
flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro, bald Pat. Nothing to do. Best
value in Dub.
Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together,
mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the bowend,
sawing the 'cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. Night we
were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between the acts,
other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's legs too,
bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide them.
Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty.
Only the harp. Lovely gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a
lovely. Gravy's rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that once
or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their harps. I.
He. Old. Young.
-- Ah, I couldn't, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless.
Strongly.
-- Go on, blast you, Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits
-- M'appari, Simon, Father Cowley said.
Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long
arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he
sang to a dusty seascape there: A Last Farewell. A headland, a ship, a sail
upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the wind upon
the headland, wind around her.
Cowley sang:
-- M'appari tutt amor;
Il mio sguardo l'incontr...
She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil to one departing, dear one, to
wind, love, speeding sail, return.
-- Go on, Simon.
-- Ah, sure my dancing days are done, Ben... Well...
Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting,
touched the obedient keys.
-- No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original One flat.
The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused.
Up stage strode Father Cowley.
-- Here, Simon. I'll accompany you, he said. Get up.
By Graham Lemon's pineapple rock, by Elvery's elephant jingle jogged.
Steak, kidney, liver, mashed at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom and
Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank Power and cider.
Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: Sonnambula. He
heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, that M'Guckin! Yes. In his way.
Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like.
Never forget it. Never.
Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain.
Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the
piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile.
Sings too: Down among the dead men. Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the.
Not-making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power.
Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking
matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs.
And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed refusing to pay his fare.
Curious types.
Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived, never. In
the gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note.
Speech paused on Richie's lips.
Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. Believes his
own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good memory.
-- Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom.
-- All is lost now...
Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee
murmured all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth he's
proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two notes in one
there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my motives he twined
and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all. Echo. How sweet the
answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he whistled. Fall,
surrender, lost.
Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase.
Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence in
the moon. Still hold her back. Brave, don't know their danger. Call name.
Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That's why. Woman.
As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost.
-- A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well.
Never in all his life had Richie Goulding.
He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise
child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me?
Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking
Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his eye.
Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I did sir.
Wouldn't trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise.
Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably.
Stopped again.
Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.
-- With it, Simon.
-- It, Simon.
-- Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind
solicitations.
-- It, Simon.
-- I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall
endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down.
By the sandwichbell in screening shadow, Lydia her bronze and rose, a
lady's grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous eau de Nil Mina to
tankards two her pinnacles of gold.
The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord longdrawn, expectant drew
a voice away.
-- When first I saw that form endearing.
Richie turned.
-- Si Dedalus' voice, he said.
Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow
endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to Pat,
bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the bar. The
door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting to hear, for
he was hard of hear by the door.
-- Sorrow from me seemed to depart.
Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves
in murmur, like no voice of strings of reeds or what doyoucallthem
dulcimers, touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their each
his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each seemed to
from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw, lost Richie,
Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn't expect it in the least,
her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word.
Love that is singing: love's old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the
elastic band of his packet. Love's old sweet sonnez la gold. Bloom wound a
skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his
troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.
-- Full of hope and all delighted...
Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his
feet when will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He can't
sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. What
perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last look at
mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How do you? I do
well. There? What? Or? Phila of cachous, kissing comfits, in her satchel.
Yes? Hands felt for the opulent.
Alas! The voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud.
-- But alas, 'twas idle dreaming...
Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly
man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his
wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he doesn't
break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing too. Drink.
Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage,
raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy.
Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling. Full it throbbed. That's the
chat. Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect.
Words? Music? No: it's what's behind.
Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.
Bloom. Flood of warm jimjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music
out, in desire, dark to lick flow, invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping
her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the
warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow,
joygush, tupthrop. Now! Language of love.
-- ... ray of hope...
Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse
unsqueaked a ray of hope.
Martha it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel's song. Lovely
name you have. Can't write. Accept my little pres. Play on her heartstrings
pursestrings too. She's a. I called you naughty boy. Still the name: Martha.
How strange! Today.
The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to
Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting, to wait.
How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, how look,
form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom's heart.
Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in
Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still hear
it better here than in the bar though farther.
-- Each graceful look...
First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure. Yellow,
black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. Fate.
Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she sat.
All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees.
-- Charmed my eye...
Singing. Waiting she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume of
what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat warbling.
First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy eyes. Under a
peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in shadow Dolores
shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.
-- Martha! Ah, Martha!
Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant
to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In cry
of lionel loneliness that she should know, must Martha feel. For only her he
waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. Somewhere.
-- Co-me, thou lost one!Co-me thou dear one!
Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chest note, return.
-- Come!
It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver
orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too
long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent,
aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal
bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around
about the all, the endlessnessnessness...
-- To me!
Siopold!
Consumed.
Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to
her, you too, me, us.
-- Bravo! Clapclap. Goodman, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore!
Clapclipclap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap,
said, cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat,
Mina, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank and
bronze Miss Douce and gold Miss Mina.
Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before.
Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, reverend
father Theobald Matthew, jaunted as said before just now. Atrot, in heat,
heatseated. Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. Slower the mare went up
the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan,
impatience Boylan, joggled the mare.
An afterclang of Cowley's chords closed, died on the air made richer.
And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank,
Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two
tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, coral lips,
at first, at second. She did not mind.
-- Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you'd
sing, Simon, like a garden thrush.
Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy
served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in; Lydia, admired,
admired. But Bloom sang dumb.
Admiring.
Richie, admiring, descanted on that man's glorious voice. He remembered
one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang 'Twas rank and fame: in
Ned Lambert's 'twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a note like
that he never did then false one we had better part so clear so God he never
heard since love lives not a clinking voice ask Lambert he can tell you too.
Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the
night, Si in Ned Lambert's, Dedalus' house, sang 'Twas rank and fame...
He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom of
the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing 'Twas rank and fame in
his, Ned Lambert's house.
Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the
lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The
nights Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky cords. Wonderful, more than
all the others.
That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It's in the silence you feel
you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air.
Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the
slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzzed, it twanged. While
Goulding talked of Barraclough's voice production, while Tom Kernan, harking
back in a retrospective sort of arrangement, talked to listening Father
Cowley who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While big Ben
Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus lighting, who nodded as he smoked, who
smoked.
Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his
string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on.
Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat.
Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus
paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing.
Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then.
Snivel. Big Spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her
wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy hair un comb: 'd.
Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in
your? Twang. It snapped.
Jingle into Dorset street.
Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased.
-- Don't make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted.
George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe.
First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And
second tankard told her so. That that was so.
Miss Douce, Miss Lydia, did not believe: Miss Kennedy, Mina, did not
believe: George Lidwell, no: Miss Dou did not: the first, the first: gent
with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, Miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: the tank.
Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted.
Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A
pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut fine. It certainly
is. Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is
this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper,
envelope: unconcerned. It's so characteristic.
-- Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said.
-- It is, Bloom said.
Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two
divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two
plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find
out this equal to that, symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't see my
mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think
you're listening to the ethereal. But suppose you said it like: Martha,
seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It's on
account of the sounds it is.
Instance he's playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like till you
hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear
chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks over barrels, through
wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you're in.
Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two
together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that.
Blumenlied I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came
home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste.
Queer because we both I mean.
Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite
flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went.
It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy
in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstown
harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight with
those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as
a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole.
Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a
moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying.
Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom's your other eye,
scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho!
Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking...
Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman.
Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir.
Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some
pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline imposs. To write today.
Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting
fingers on flat pad Pat brought.
On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accept my poor little pres
enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls.
Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor
little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle,
have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O,
Mairy lost the pin of her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to.
To keep it up. Call me that other. Other world she wrote. My patience are
exhaust. To keep it up. You must believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True.
Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives.
Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found
out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don't
see. Woman. Sauce for the gander.
A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James
of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young
gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George
Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a
straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick
street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and jingled. By Dlugacz'
porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a gallantbuttocked mare.
-- Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect.
Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You
know now. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he
playing now? Improvising intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will you
pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want to.
Know. O. Course if I didn't I wouldn't ask. La la la ree. Trails off there
sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. P. S. La
la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee.
He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper.
Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:
Miss Martha Clifford
c/o P. O.
Dolphin's barn lane
Dublin.
Blot over the other so he can't read. Right. Idea prize titbit.
Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per
col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. p.: up.
Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms
Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be.
Wisdom while you wait.
In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyed-auburn. One life is
all. One body. Do. But do.
Done anyhow. Postal order stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now.
Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. House of
mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn't hear. Deaf beetle he is.
Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn't. Settling those napkins.
Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then he'd
be two. Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off.
Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of
his hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He
waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits
while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. Hee
hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait.
Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose.
She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell
she brought.
To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding
seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear.
-- Listen! she bade him.
Under Tom Kernan's ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow.
Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband took
him by the throat. Scoundrel, said he. You'll sing no more lovesongs. He
did, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. Cowley lay back.
Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful.
She held it to her own and through the sifted light pale gold in contrast
glided. To hear.
Tap.
Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more
faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for other,
hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar.
Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened.
Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside.
Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream first
make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn't forget. Fever near
her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with seaweed. Why
do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks their mouth, why? Her
eyes over the sheet, a yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. No admittance
except on business.
The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood is it. Souse
in the ear sometimes. Well, it's a sea. Corpuscle islands.
Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur,
hearing: then laid it by, gently.
-- What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled.
Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled.
Tap.
By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan
turned.
>From the forsaken shell Miss Mina glided to her tankard waiting. No,
she was not so lonely archly Miss Douce's head let Mr Lidwell know. Walks in
the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly answered: with
a gentleman friend.
Bob Cowley's twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord
has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben Lightly he played a light
bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, and for their
gallants, gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one: two, one, three, four.
Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattle market,
cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. Ruttledge's
door: ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he's playing
now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle chambers dancing. Misery.
Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating dockleaves. Nice that is.
Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look at us.
That's joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other
joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows you
are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then know.
M'Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing eat. Like tearing silk.
When she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can't manage men's
intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I'm warm, dark, open. Molly in
qui est homo: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. Want a woman who
can deliver the goods.
Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boy Ian socks skyblue
clocks came light to earth.
O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It
is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. Tinkling.
Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the resonance changes
according as the weight of the water is equal to the law of falling water.
Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain.
Diddle iddle addle addle oodle oodle. Hiss. Now. Maybe now. Before.
One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de
Kock, with a loud proud knocker, with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock.
Tap.
-- Qui sdegno, Ben, said Father Cowley.
-- No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered, The Croppy Boy. Our native Doric.
-- Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true.
-- Do, do, they begged in one.
I'll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To
me. How much?
-- What key? Six sharps?
-- F sharp major, Ben Dollard said.
Bob Cowley's outstretched talons gripped the black deep sounding
chords.
Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must.
Got money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears
lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence tip.
Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting Patty
come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they wait.
But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the
dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic.
The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach,
and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men and
true. The priest he sought, with him would he speak a word.
Tap.
Ben Dollard's voice barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. Croak
of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big ships'
chandler's business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships' lanterns.
Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle
number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him.
The priest's at home. A false priest's servant bade him welcome. Step
in. The holy father. Curlycues of chords.
Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their
days in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die.
The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered a
lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footstep there, told them the
gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive.
Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he'll win in Answers poets' picture
puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching in a nest.
Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee what domestic
animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he has still. No
eunuch yet with all his belongings.
Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf
Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened.
The chords harped slower.
The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous.
Ben's contrite beard confessed: in nomine Domini, in God's name. He knelt.
He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing: mea culpa.
Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion
corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey,
corpusnomine. Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape.
Tap.
They listened: tankards and Miss Kennedy, George Lidwell eyelid well
expressive, fullbusted satin, Kernan, Si.
The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since easter he had cursed
three 'times. You bitch's bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play.
Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother's rest he had not
prayed. A boy. A croppy boy.
Bronze, listening by the beerpull, gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn't
half know I'm. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking.
Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face?
They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate.
Cockcarracarra.
What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes.
Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked that
best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. Custom
his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. Tootling.
Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses, helpless, gashes in
their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile music hath
jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin's name.
She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore, lowcut, belongings on show.
Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. Told
her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, listening.
Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle, staring down into her with
his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you must hear twice.
Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the tune. Met him pike
hoses. Philosophy. O rocks!
All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his
brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of his
name and race.
I too, last my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No
son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?
He bore no hate.
Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old.
Big Ben his voice unfolded. Great voice, Richie Goulding said, a flush
struggling in his pale, to Bloom, soon old but when was young.
Ireland comes now. My country above the King. She listens. Who fears to
speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough.
-- Bless me, father, Dollard the croppy cried. Bless me and let me go.
Tap.
Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week.
Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those girls,
those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters read out
for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's own Mumpsypum. Laughter in court.
Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you.
Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest
rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by
heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap.
Tap. Tap.
Thrilled, she listened, bending in sympathy to hear.
Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it:
page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. Even
admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, a flute
alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes all women. Goddess I didn't see. They
want it: not too much polite. That's why he gets them. Gold in your pocket,
brass in your face. With look to look: songs without words. Molly that
hurdygurdy boy. She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so like
the Spanish. Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of nature.
Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What?
Will? You? I. Want. You. To.
With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed. Swelling in apoplectic bitch's
bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour's your time to live, your
last.
Tap. Tap.
Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs. For all
things dying, want to, dying to, die. For that all things born. Poor Mrs
Purefoy. Hope she's over. Because their wombs.
A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes,
calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder
river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red rose
rose slowly, sank red rose. Heartbeats her breath: breath that is life. And
all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair.
But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castille. The morn. Ha.
Lidwell. For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here
though. Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties.
On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand lightly, plumply, leave
it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the
polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger
passed in pity: passed, repassed and, gently touching, then slid so
smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through
their sliding ring.
With a cock with a carra.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing.
The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be.
Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass
by her. Can leave that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No.
Walk, walk, walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall
Farrell, Waaaaaaalk.
Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O'er ryehigh blue.
Bloom stood up. Ow. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have sweated:
music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card inside, yes.
By deaf Pat in the doorway, straining ear, Bloom passed.
At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid.
Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to dolorous
prayer.
By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties,
by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and
faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely Bloom.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace.
Breathe a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy.
Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway
heard growls and roars of bravo, fat back-slapping, their boots all
treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to
wash it down. Glad I avoided.
-- Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus said. By God, you're as good as ever you
were.
-- Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad,
upon my soul and honour it is.
-- Lablache, said Father Cowley.
Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and
all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering
castagnettes in the air.
Big Benaden Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben.
Rrr.
And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all
laughing, they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer.
-- You're looking rubicund, George Lidwell said.
Miss Douce composed her rose to wait.
-- Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben's fat back shoulderblade.
Fit as a fiddle, only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his
person.
Rrrrrrsss.
-- Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled.
Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly
he waited. Unpaid Pat too.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankardone.
-- Mr Dollard, they murmured low.
-- Dollard, murmured tankard.
Tank one believed: Miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the
tank.
He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that
is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of Dollard, was it?
Dollard, yes.
Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely,
murmured Mina. And The last rose of summer was a lovely song. Mina loved
that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina.
'Tis the last rose of summer Dollard left Bloom felt wind wound round
inside.
Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J's
one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I
hadn't promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your nerves. Beerpull.
Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. That rules the world.
Far. Far. Far. Far.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady,
with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went
Poldy on.
Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap.
Cowley, he stunts himself with it; kind of drunkenness. Better give way
only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All ears.
Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. You
daren't budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop.
Fiddlefaddle about notes.
All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you
never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year.
Queer up there in the cockloft alone with stops and locks and keys. Seated
all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or the other
fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing (want to have
wadding or something in his no don't she cried), then all of a soft sudden
wee little wee little pippy wind.
Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom's little wee.
Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning, with fetched pipe. I was with him
this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam's...
-- Ay, the Lord have mercy on him.
-- By the by there's a tuningfork in there on the...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
-- The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked.
-- O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw,
forgot it when he was here.
Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so
exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid minagold.
-- Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out!
-- 'lldo! cried Father Cowley.
Rrrrrr.
I feel I want...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
-- Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine.
Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely,
last sardine of summer. Bloom alone.
-- Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Bloom went by Barry's. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had.
Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Litigation. Love one another. Piles
of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of attorney. Goulding,
Collis, Ward.
But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation: Micky
Rooney's band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after pig's
cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band part. Pom.
Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses' skins. Welt them through life, then
wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call yashmak or I mean
kismet. Fate.
Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane, came taptaptapping
by Daly's window where a mermaid, hair all streaming (but he couldn't see),
blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid coolest whiff of all.
Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb
and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in Lombard
street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its own, don't you
see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? Cloche. Sonnez la! Shepherd his
pipe. Policeman a whistle. Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o'clock's all's well!
Sleep! All is lost now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait, I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff.
Long John. Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little nominedomine. Pom. It is
music, I mean of course it's all pom pom pom very much what they call da
capo. Still you can hear. As we march we march along, march along. Pom.
I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of
custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he must
have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. Muffled up.
Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown mackin. O, the whore of
the lane!
A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the
day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing.
Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had the?
Heehaw. Shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any chance
of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with you in the
brown costume. Put you off your stroke. That appointment we made. Knowing
we'd never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home sweet home. Sees me,
does she? Looks a fright in the day. Face like dip. Damn her! O, well, she
has to live like the rest. Look in here.
In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold
dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged candlestick melodeon
oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might learn to play. Cheap. Let
her pass. Course everything is dear if you don't want it. That's what good
salesman is. Make you buy what he wants to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish
razor he shaved me with. Wanted to charge me for the edge he gave it. She's
passing now. Six bob.
Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund.
Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking
glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia's tempting last
rose of summer, rose of Castille. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth:
Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and Big Ben Dollard.
Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.
Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks's window. Robert
Emmet's last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is.
-- True men like you men.
-- Ay, ay, Ben.
-- Will lift your glass with us.
They lifted.
Tschink. Tschunk.
Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw
not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie nor
Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see.
Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. When my country takes
her place among.
Prrprr.
Must be the bur.
Fff. Oo. Rrpr.
Nations of the earth. No-one behind. She's passed. Then and not till
then. Tram. Kran, kran, kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm sure
it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Karaaaaaaa. Written. I
have.
Pprrpffrrppfff.
Done.
Ulysses 12: Cyclops
I WAS JUST PASSING THE TIME OF DAY WITH OLD TROY O THE D.M.P. at the
corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and
he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the
weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only
Joe Hynes.
-- Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody
chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?
-- Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to?
-- Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give
that fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and
ladders.
-- What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.
-- Devil a much, says I. There is a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the
garrison church at the corner of Chicken Lane - old Troy was just giving me
a wrinkle about him - lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay
three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hop of my thumb
by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street.
-- Circumcised! says Joe.
-- Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm
hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out
of him.
-- That the lay you're on now? says Joe.
-- Ay, says I . How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and
doubtful debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a
day's walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain.
Tell him, says he, I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him to send you
round here again or if he does, says he, I'll have him summonsed up before
the court, so will I, for trading without a licence. And he after stuffing
himself till he's fit to burst! Jesus, I had to laugh at the little jewy
getting his shirt out. He drink me my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he
no pay me my moneys?
For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's
parade, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter called the vendor, and sold
and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, Esquire, of 29 Arbour Hill in the city
of Dublin, Arran quay ward, gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser,
videlicet, five pounds avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings
per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal,
at three pence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the said
vendor of one pound five shillings and six pence sterling for value received
which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in weekly
instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence
sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or pledged or
sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall be and remain
and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the said vendor to be
disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the said amount shall have
been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein
set forth as this day hereby agreed between the said vendor his heirs,
successors, trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his
heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the other part.
-- Are you a strict t. t.? says Joe.
-- Not taking anything between drinks, says I.
-- What about paying our respects to our friend? says foe.
-- Who? says I. Sure, he's in John of God's off his head, poor man.
-- Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.
-- Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.
-- Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the
citizen.
-- Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful,
Joe?
-- Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms.
-- What was that, Joe? says I.
-- Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want
to give the citizen the hard word about it.
So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the
courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he has it
but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over that bloody
foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he.
In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There
rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in
life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land it is
in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the gunnard, the
plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the grilse, the dab, the
brill, the flounder, the mixed coarse fish generally and other denizens of
the aqueous kingdom too numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of
the west and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions their
first class foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted
planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world
with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in
close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely
songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden
ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels
of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from
afar to woo them, from Elbana to Slievemargy, the peerless princes of
unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and
of Cruachan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of
Boyle, princes, the sons of kings.
And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen
by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for that
purpose and thither come all herds and fatlings and first fruits of that
land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain descended from
chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields,
flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon
beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical
potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of
onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows
and fat vetches and bere and rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet
big bitter ripe pomellated apples and chips of strawberries and sieves of
gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and
raspberries from their canes.
-- I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty,
you notorious bloody hill and dale robber!
And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed
ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and
roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and Cuffe's
prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various
different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus heifers and
polly bullocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime premiated
milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, cackling,
roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, champing, chewing,
of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from pasturelands of Lush and Rush
and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales of Thomond, from M'Gillicuddy's
reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the
gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended
with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and
farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs,
in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with the dun.
So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there sure enough was the
citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody
mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the
way of drink.
There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his
load of papers, working for the cause.
The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps.
Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody
dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a
constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper about
a licence.
-- Stand and deliver, says he.
-- That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here.
-- Pass, friends, says he.
Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he:
-- What's your opinion of the times?
Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to
the occasion.
-- I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down
his fork.
So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:
-- Foreign wars is the cause of it.
And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:
-- It's the Russians wish to tyrannise.
-- Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I, I've a thirst on
me I wouldn't sell for half a crown.
-- Give it a name, citizen, says Joe.
-- Wine of the country, says he.
-- What's yours? says Joe.
-- Ditto MacAnaspey, says I...
-- Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says
he.
-- Never better, a chara, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh?
And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck
and, by Jesus, he near throttled him.
The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was
that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired
freely freckled shaggybearded wide-mouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced
barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From
shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his rocklike mountainous
knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his body wherever visible,
with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to
the mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus). The widewinged nostrils, from which
bristles of the same tawny hue projected, were of such capaciousness that
within their cavernous obscurity the field-lark might easily have lodged her
nest. The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were
of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm
breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth
while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his
formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of the
lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and tremble.
He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to
the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle of
plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughly
stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbriggan
buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of salted
cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a
row of seastones which dangled at every movement of his portentous frame and
on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many
Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles,
Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the Ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh,
Shane O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh
O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer,
Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas
Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain
Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan,
Marshal Mac-Mahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the
Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castille, the Man for
Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The
Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan,
Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton,
William Tell, Michelangelo, Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter
the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian
Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and
Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier
Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn,
Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth,
Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker,
Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of
Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle,
Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A
couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed
a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he
was sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and
spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time by
tranquillising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic
stone.
So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the
sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid. O, as true as I'm
telling you. A goodlooking sovereign.
-- And there's more where that came from, says he.
-- Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I.
-- Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the
wheeze.
-- I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and
Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish.
Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, the
son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the prudent
soul.
-- For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen, the
subsidised organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look
at this blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. The Irish Independent,
if you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman's friend. Listen to
the births and deaths in the Irish all for Ireland Independent and I'll
thank you and the marriages.
And he starts reading them out:
-- Gordon, Barnfield Crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's
on Sea, the wife of William T. Redmayne, of a son. How's that, eh? Wright
and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the late
George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham Road, Stockwell, Playwood and Ridsdale at
Saint Jude's Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, Dean of Worcester,
eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London: Carr, Stoke Newington, of
gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the Moat house, Chepstow.
-- I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience.
-- Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of Davie Dimsey, late of the admiralty:
Miller, Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning Street,
Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my brown
son? How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber?
-- Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they
had the start of us. Drink that, citizen.
-- I will, says he, honourable person.
-- Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form.
Ah! Owl! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint.
Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.
And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came
swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth, and behind him
there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred
scrolls of law, and with him his lady wife, a dame of peerless lineage,
fairest of her race.
Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's
snug, squeezed up with the laughing, and who was sitting up there in the
corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk, blind to the world, only Bob Doran.
I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the door. And
begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bath
slippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife
hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman trotting like a poodle. I
thought Alf would split.
-- Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a
postcard someone sent him with u. p.: up on it to take a li...
And he doubled up.
-- Take a what? says I.
-- Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds.
-- O hell! says I.
The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you
seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs.
-- Bi i dho husht, says he.
-- Who? says Joe.
-- Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went
round to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round
to the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p.: up. The
long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old
lunatic is gone round to Green Street to look for a G. man.
-- When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe.
Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan?
-- Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a
pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen long
John's eye. U. p...
And he started laughing.
-- Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan?
-- Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.
Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full
of the foaming ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and
Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of
deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass
and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and
bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their
toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.
Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born,
that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that
thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals.
But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be
outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon
of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the
image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria
her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea,
queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a
victress over many peoples, the well-beloved, for they knew and loved her
from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the pale, the dark,
the ruddy and the ethiop.
-- What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up
and down outside?
-- What's that? says Joe.
-- Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about
hanging. I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at
here.
So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his
pocket.
-- Are you codding? says I.
-- Honest injun, says Alf. Read them.
So Joe took up the letters.
-- Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran.
So I saw there was going to be bit of a dust. Bob's a queer chap when
the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk:
-- How's Willy Murray those times, Alf?
-- I don't know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel Street with
Paddy Dignam. Only I was running after that.
-- You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who?
-- With Dignam, says Alf.
-- Is it Paddy? says Joe.
-- Yes, says Alf. Why?
-- Don't you know he's dead? says Joe.
-- Paddy Dignam dead? says Alf.
-- Ay, says Joe.
-- Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain
as a pikestaff.
-- Who's dead? says Bob Doran.
-- You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm.
-- What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... and Willie Murray
with him, the two of them there near what-doyoucallhim's... What? Dignam
dead?
-- What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about... ?
-- Dead! says Alf. He is no more dead than you are.
-- Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this
morning anyhow.
-- Paddy? says Alf.
-- Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him.
-- Good Christ! says Alf.
Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted.
In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by
tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing
luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of the
etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge of jivic
rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was effected through
the pituitary body and also by means of the orangefiery and scarlet rays
emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. Questioned by his
earthname as to his whereabouts in the heaven-world he stated that he was
now on the path of pralaya or return but was still submitted to trial at the
hands of certain bloodthirsty entities on the lower astral levels. In reply
to a question as to his first sensations in the great divide beyond he
stated that previously he had seen as in a glass darkly but that those who
had passed over had summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to
them. Interrogated as to whether life there resembled our experience in the
flesh he stated that he had heard from more favoured beings now in the
spirit that their abodes were equipped with every modern home comfort such
as talafana, alavatar, hatakalda, wataklasat and that the highest adepts
were steeped in waves of volupcy of the very purest nature. Having requested
a quart of buttermilk this was brought and evidently afforded relief. Asked
if he had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the
wrong side of Maya to acknowledge the true path for it was reported in
devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the eastern
angle where the ram has power. It was then queried whether there were any
special desires on the part of the defunct and the reply was: We greet you,
friends of earth, who are still in the body. Mind C.K. doesn't pile it on.
It was ascertained that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager
of Messrs H.J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of
the defunct, who had been responsible for the carrying out of the interment
arrangements. Before departing he requested that it should be told to his
dear son Patsy that the other boot which he had been looking for was at
present under the commode in the return room and that the pair should be
sent to Cullen's to be soled only as the heels were still good. He stated
that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and
earnestly requested that his desire should be made known.
Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was
intimated that this had given satisfaction.
He is gone from mortal haunts: O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was
his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with your
wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind.
-- There he is again, says the citizen, staring out.
-- Who? says I.
-- Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last
ten minutes.
And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again.
Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was.
-- Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him.
And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest
blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence:
-- Who said Christ is good?
-- I beg your parsnips, says Alf.
-- Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little
Willy Dignam?
-- Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his
troubles.
But Bob Doran shouts out of him.
-- He's a bloody ruffian I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam.
Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't
want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran
starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there.
-- The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character.
The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat.
Fitter for him to go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married,
Mooney, the bumbailiff's daughter. Mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street
that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was
stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing her
person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour.
-- The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy,
poor little Paddy Dignam.
And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that
beam of heaven.
Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round
the door.
-- Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen.
So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was
Martin Cunningham there.
-- O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to
this, will you?
And he starts reading out one.
7, Hunter Street, Liverpool.
To the High Sheriff of Dublin, Dublin.
Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the above-mentioned painful
case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of February 1900 and i
hanged...
-- Show us, Joe, says I.
-- ... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in
Pentonville prison and i was assistant when...
-- Jesus, says I.
-- ... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith...
The citizen made a grab at the letter.
-- Hold hard, says Joe, i have a special nack of putting the noose once
in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir' my teas is
five ginnese.
H. Rumbold,
Master Barber.
-- And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen.
-- And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take
them to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you
have?
So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and
couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well
he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake.
-- Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe.
And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with
a black border round it.
-- They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang
their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses.
And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his
heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop
up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull.
In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their
deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever
wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so saith
the Lord.
So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom
comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the
business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those Jewies
does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't
know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on.
-- There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf.
-- What's that? says Joe.
-- The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf.
-- That so? says Joe.
-- God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in
Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when they
cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker.
-- Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.
-- That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural
phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the...
And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science
and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.
The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered
medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the
cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would,
according to the best approved traditions of medical science, be calculated
to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of
the nerve centres, causing the pores of the cobra cavernosa to rapidly
dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to
that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in
the phenomenon which has been dominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and
outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem
capitis.
So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and
he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the
men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him
about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause
by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other.
Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a new dog so he ought.
Mangy ravenous brute sniffling and sneezing all round the place and
scratching his scabs and round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a
half one sucking up for what he could get. So of course Bob Doran starts
doing the bloody fool with him:
-- Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy. Give us the
paw here! Give us the paw!
Arrah! bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from
tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking all
kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and
intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few bits
of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacob's tin he told Terry to bring.
Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging out of him a
yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry bloody mongrel.
And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the
brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet and
die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and she's far
from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown cigar putting on
swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he married is a nice old
phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley. Time they were stopping up
in the City Arms Pisser Burke told me there was an old one there with a
cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and Bloom trying to get the soft side of
her doing the mollycoddle playing bÉzique to come in for a bit of the wampum
in her will and not eating meat of a Friday because the old one was always
thumping her craw and taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led
him the rounds of Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till
he brought him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach
him the evils of alcohol and by herrings if the three women didn't near
roast him it's a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that
kept the hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at Pisser Burke taking them off
chewing the fat and Bloom with his but don't you see? and but on the other
hand. And sure, more be token, the lout I'm told was in Power's after, the
blender's, round in Cope street going home footless in a cab five times in
the week after drinking his way through all the samples in the bloody
establishment. Phenomenon!
-- The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and
glaring at Bloom.
-- Ay, ay, says Joe.
-- You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is...
-- Sinn Fein! says the citizen. Sinn fein amhain! The friends we love
are by our side and the foes we hate before us.
The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far
and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the
gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums
punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening claps
of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly
scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp
to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain poured down from the
floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared heads of the assembled
multitude which numbered at the lowest computation five hundred thousand
persons. A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief
Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York
Street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably
rendering on their black draped instruments the matchless melody endeared to
us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. Special quick excursion
trains and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our
country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable amusement
was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and M-ll-g-n who
sang The Night before Larry was stretched in their usual mirth-provoking
fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their
broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner
in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their
hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and Female Foundling Hospital
who thronged the windows overlooking the scene were delighted with this
unexpected addition to the day's entertainment and a word of praise is due
to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their excellent idea of affording the
poor fatherless and motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The
viceregal houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by
Their Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grand stand while
the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle
was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation, present in
full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the
semi-paralysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the
aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul PetitÉpatant, the
Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von
Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virdga KisÁszony PutrÁpesthi, Hiram
Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos. Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum
Effendi, SeÑor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de
la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf
Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond
Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Herr Hurhausdirektorprasident Hans
Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanato
riumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor
Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the delegates without exception expressed
themselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning the
nameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness. An animated
altercation (in which all took part) ensued among F.O.T.E.I. as to whether
the eighth or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of
Ireland's patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs,
scimitars, boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas,
catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to and
blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden,
summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly restored order and
with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth of the month as a
solution equally honourable for both contending parties. The readywitted
ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to all and was unanimously
accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily congratulated by all the
F.O.T.E.I., several of whom were bleeding profusely. Commendatore
Beninobenone having been extricated from underneath the presidential
armchair, It was explained by his legal adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the
various articles secreted in his thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by
him during the affray from the pockets of his Junior colleagues in the hope
of bringing them to their senses. The objects (which included several
hundred ladies' and gentlemen's gold and silver watches) were promptly
restored to their rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.
Quietly, unassumingly, Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless
morning dress and wearing his favourite flower the Gladiolus Cruentus. He
announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have
tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate - short, painstaking yet withal so
characteristic of the man. The arrival of the world-renowned headsman was
greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal
ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more
excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch,
banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid
which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double
F recalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani
beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was
exactly seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by
megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore's
patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family since
the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in
attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who administered the last comforts
of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death penalty
knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his cassock above
his hoary head, and offered up to the throne of grace fervent prayers of
supplication. Hard by the block stood the grim figure of the executioner,
his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated
apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal
signal he tested the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his
brawny forearm or decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had
been provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a
handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife,
the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially supplied by
the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield), a
terracotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, blind
intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two commodious
milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of the most precious
victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats' and dogs' home was in
attendance to convey these vessels when replenished to that beneficent
institution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried
steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and
invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for the
consumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital spirits
when prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the proceedings
from beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in these our times,
rose nobly to the occasion and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded
to) that the meal should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of
the sick and indigent roomkeeper's association as a token of his regard and
esteem. The nec and non plus ultra of emotion were reached when the blushing
bride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and
flung herself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched
into eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving
embrace murmuring fondly Sheila, my own. Encouraged by this use of her
christian name she kissed passionately all the various suitable areas of his
person which the decencies of prison garb permitted her ardour to reach. She
swore to him as they mingled the salt streams of their tears that she would
cherish his memory, that she would never forget her hero boy who went to his
death with a song on his lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in
Clonturk park. She brought back to his recollection the happy days of
blissful childhood together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had
indulged in the innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the
dreadful present, they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including
the venerable pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster
audience simply rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief
and clasped their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst
from their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the
inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the
aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and genial
giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of their
handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye in that
record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a handsome young
Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair sex, stepped
forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree,
solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the
day, and was accepted on the spot. Every lady in the audience was presented
with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and
crossbones brooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst
of emotion: and when the gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of
one of the most timehonoured names in Albion's history) placed on the finger
of his blushing fiancÉe an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in
the form of a fourleaved shamrock excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the
stern provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan
Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a considerable
number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, could not now
restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a
furtive tear and was overheard by those privileged burghers who happened to
be in his immediate entourage to murmur to himself in a faltering undertone:
-- God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey
it makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause I
thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way.
So then the citizens begin talking about the Irish language and the
corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak their
own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a quid and
Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he cadged off Joe
and talking about the Gaelic league and the antitreating league and drink,
the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is about the size of it. Gob, he'd let
you pour all manner of drink down his throat till the Lord would call him
before you'd ever see the froth of his pint. And one night I went in with a
fellow into one of their musical evenings, song and dance about she could
get up on a truss of hay she could my Maureen Lay, and there was a fellow
with a Ballyhooly blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot
of colleen bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals
and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh
entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And then an
old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers shuffling
their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two sky pilots having
an eye around that there was no goings on with the females, hitting below
the belt.
So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty
starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I would,
if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again where it
wouldn't blind him.
-- Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, sneering.
-- No, says 1. But he might take my leg for a lampost.
So he calls the old dog over.
-- What's on you, Garry? says he.
Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the
old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera. Such
growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone that has
nothing better to do ought to write a letter pm bono publico to the papers
about the muzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling and grousing
and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the hydrophobia
dropping out of his jaws.
All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the
lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not missing
the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the famous old
Irish red wolfdog setter formerly known by the sobriquet of Garryowen and
recently rechristened by his large circle of friends and acquaintances Owen
Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of years of training by kindness
and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, comprises, among other
achievements, the recitation of verse. Our greatest living phonetic expert
(wild horses shall not drag it from us!) has left no stone unturned in his
efforts to delucidate and compare the verse recited and has found it bears a
striking resemblance (the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic
bards. We are not speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which
the writer who conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the
Little Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as a
contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting communication published by
an evening contemporary) of the harsher and more personal note which is
found in the satirical effusions of the famous Raftery and of Donald
MacConsidine to say nothing of a more modern lyrist at present very much in
the public eye. We subjoin a specimen which has been rendered into English
by an eminent scholar whose name for the moment we are not at liberty to
disclose though we believe our readers will find the topical allusion rather
more than an indication. The metrical system of the canine original, which
recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh
englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will agree
that the spirit has been well caught. Perhaps it should be added that the
effect is greatly increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and
indistinctly in a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour.
The curse of my curses
Seven days every day
And seven dry Thursdays
On you, Barney Kiernan,
Has no sup of water
To cool my courage,
And my guts red roaring
After Lowry's lights.
So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could
hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have another.
-- I will, says he, a chara, to show there's no ill feeling.
Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one
pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog and
getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for man and
beast. And says Joe:
-- Could you make a hole in another pint?
-- Could a swim duck? says I.
-- Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in
the way of liquid refreshment? says he.
-- Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet
Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's.
Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't
serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally
under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy.
-- Holy Wars, says Joe laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is
landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what?
-- Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers.
-- Whose admirers? says Joe.
-- The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom.
Then he starts all confused mucking it up about the mortgagor under the
act like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit
of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that Dignam
owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow contested the
mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled with his mortgagor
under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in himself under the act
that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling
bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal Hungarian privileged lottery.
True as you re there. O, commend me to an israelite! Royal and privileged
Hungarian robbery.
So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he
was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and to
tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was never a
truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her. Choking with
bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic to tell her that.
Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another.
-- Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however
slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, as
I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem, as to request of you
this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve let the
sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my boldness.
-- No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which
actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me
consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this
proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup.
-- Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your
heart, I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the
expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy,
were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech.
And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five
o'clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the bobby,
14 A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after closing time,
fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard, drinking porter out of
teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, Joseph Manuo, and
talking against the catholic religion and he serving mass in Adam and Eve's
when he was young with his eyes shut who wrote the new testament and the old
testament and hugging and snugging. And the two shawls killed with the
laughing, picking his pockets the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all
over the bed and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. How is
your testament? Have you got an old testament? Only Paddy was passing there,
I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little concubine of a
wife, and she wagging her tail up the aisle of the chapel, with her patent
boots on her, no less, and her violets, nice as pie, doing the little lady.
Jack Mooney's sister. And the old prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to
street couples. Gob, Jack made him toe the line. Told him if he didn't patch
up the pot, Jesus, he'd kick the shite out of him.
So Terry brought the three pints.
-- Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.
-- Slan leat, says he.
-- Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.
Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small
fortune to keep him in drinks.
-- Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.
-- Friend of yours, says Alf.
-- Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?
-- I won't mention any names, says Alf.
-- I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with
William Field, M. P., the cattle traders. _ -- Hairy Iopas, says the
citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of all countries and the idol of
his own.
So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and
the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen sending
them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his sheepdip for the
scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for
timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a knacker's yard. Walking about
with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till Joe
Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier. Mister
Knowall. Teach your grandmother how to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling
me in the hotel the wife used to be in rivers of tears sometimes with Mrs
O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her.
Couldn't loosen her farting strings but old cod's eye was waltzing around
her showing her how to do it. What's your programme today? Ay. Humane
methods. Because the poor animals suffer and experts say and the best known
remedy that doesn't cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer
gently. Gob, he'd have a soft hand under a hen.
Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for
us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then
comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her fresh
egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook.
-- Anyhow, says Joe. Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to
London to ask about it on the floor of the House of Commons.
-- Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see
him, as it happens.
-- Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.
-- That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr
Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure?
-- Nannan's going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question
tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the
park. What do you think of that, citizen? The Sluagh na h-Eireann.
Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat): Arising out of _the question of my
honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right honourable
gentleman whether the Government has issued orders that these animals shall
be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their
pathological condition?
Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con): Honourable members are already in
possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole house. I
feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the honourable
member's question is in the affirmative.
Mr Orelli (Montenotte. Nat): Have similar orders been issued for the
slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phnix
park?
Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.
Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous
Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the treasury
bench? (O! O!)
Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.
Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot.
(Ironical opposition cheers.)
The speaker: Order! Order!
(The house rises. Cheers.)
-- There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival.
There he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The
champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your
best throw, citizen?
-- Na bacleis, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a
time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.
-- Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.
-- Is that really a fact? says Alf.
-- Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Do you not know that?
So off they started about Irish sport and shoneen games the like of the
lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and
building up a nation once again and all of that. And of course Bloom had to
have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was
bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody
floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw?
That's a straw. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it for an hour so he
would and talk steady.
A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of Brian
O'Ciarnain's in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices of Sluagh na
h-Eireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the importance of
physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancient Rome and
ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerable president of
this noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of large
dimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificent
oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and
instructive discussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to
the desirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our
ancient panceltic forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in
the cause o! our old tongue, Mr Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent
appeal for the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes,
practised morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the
best traditions of manly strength and power handed down to us from ancient
ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses,
having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to
a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts
of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal
Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses (happily too familiar to need
recalling here) A nation once again in the execution of which the veteran
patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly
excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his
stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured
anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism,
which by its superquality greatly enchanced his already international
reputation, was vociferously applauded by the large audience amongst which
were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as
representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions.
The proceedings then terminated.
Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William _Delany, S. J.,
L. L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S.
Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. P.
J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr.
Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman. O. D. C.; the rev. T. Maher,
S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, V. F.; the
very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. M.; the rev. T.
Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C.;
the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr M'Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R.
Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D. Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T.
Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J.
Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc.
-- Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that
Keogh-Bennett match?
-- No, says Joe.
-- I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.
-- Who? Blazes? says Joe.
And says Bloom:
-- What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training
of the eye.
-- Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run
the odds and he swatting all the time.
-- We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put
English gold in his pocket.
-- True for you, says Joe.
And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the
blood, asking Alf:
-- Now don't you think, Bergan?
-- Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was
only a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See
the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he
gave him one last puck in the wind. Queensberry rules and all, made him puke
what he never ate.
It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were
scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty _sovereigns. Handicapped
as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by
superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling
for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively
claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of
rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet's
nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to business leading
off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by
shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw. The redcoat
ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a left hook, the body punch being a
fine one. The men came to handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his
man under, the bout ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler
punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his
corner where he was liberally drenched with water and, when the bell went,
came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic
Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The
two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice
cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork
a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart
upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth
the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to
Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean and
clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out
when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry
boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke
through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight.
-- He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's
running a concert tour now up in the north.
-- He is, says Joe. Isn't he?
-- Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer
tour, you see. Just a holiday.
-- Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe.
-- My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it _will be a
success too. He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent.
Hoho begob, says I to myself, says I. That explains the milk in the
cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the tootle
on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge
that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers.
Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what?
The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the bucko that'll organise
her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddereesh.
Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There
grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The
gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The
chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms.
And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloys, a comely hero
of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned in
the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert.
-- Hello, Ned.
-- Hello, Alf.
-- Hello, Jack.
-- Hello, Joe.
-- God save you, says the citizen.
-- Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned?
-- Half one, says Ned.
So J. J. ordered the drinks.
-- Were you round at the court? says Joe.
-- Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he.
-- Hope so, says Ned.
Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list
and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's.
Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye,
drinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning
his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would know him in
the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of
the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says _he. Ay, and done, says I. Gob,
ye'll come home by weeping cross one of these days, I'm thinking.
-- Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there, says Alf. U. p.
up.
-- Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.
-- Ay, says Ned, and he wanted right go wrong to address the court only
Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined
first.
-- Ten thousand pounds, says Alf laughing. God I'd give anything to
hear him before a judge and jury.
-- Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.
-- Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character.
-- Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in
evidence against you.
-- Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not
compos mentis. U. p. up.
-- Compos your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he's balmy?
Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on
with a shoehorn?
-- Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an
indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law.
-- Ha, ha, Alf, says Joe.
-- Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.
-- Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half
and half.
-- How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he.
-- Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish
nor flesh.
-- Nor good red herring, says Joe.
-- That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what
that is.
Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explained he meant, on
account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old
stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody
povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him, bringing
down the rain. And she with _her nose cockahoop after she married him
because a cousin of his old fellow's was pew opener to the pope. Picture of
him on the wall with his smashall sweeney's moustaches. The signor Brini
from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal zouave to the Holy Father, has left
the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was he, tell us? A nobody, two
pair back and passages, at seven shillings a week, and he covered with all
kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world.
-- And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to
be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my
opinion an action might lie.
Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our
pints in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself.
-- Well, good health, Jack, says Ned.
-- Good health, Ned, says J. J.
-- There he is again, says Joe.
-- Where? says Alf.
And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter
and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as
they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a
secondhand coffin.
-- How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe.
-- Remanded, says J. J.
One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James
Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying
he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in
the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all,
skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and his own kidney too. J.
J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew Zaretsky or something weeping
in the witnessbox with his hat on him, swearing by the holy Moses he was
stuck for two quid.
-- Who tried the case? says Joe.
-- Recorder, says Ned.
-- Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two
eyes.
-- Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe _about
arrears of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll
dissolve in tears on the bench.
-- Ay, says Alf. Reuben J. was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the
dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones for
the corporation there near Butt bridge.
And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry:
-- A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many
children? Ten, did you say?
-- Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid!
-- And a wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court
immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you,
sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking
industrious man! I dismiss the case.
And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and
in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the
daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first quarter, it
came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law.
There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave his rede and master
Justice Andrews sitting without a jury in the probate court, weighed well
and pondered the claims of the first chargeant upon the property in the
matter of the will propounded and final testamentary disposition in re the
real and personal estate of the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner,
deceased versus Livingstone, an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to
the solemn court of Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And
he sat him there about the hour of five o'clock to administer the law of the
brehons at the commission for all that and those parts to be holden in and
for the county of the city of Dublin. And there sat with him the high
sinhedrim of the twelve tribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe
of Patrick and of the tribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the
tribe of Conn and of the tribe of Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and of
the tribe of Finn and of the tribe of Dermot and of the tribe of Cormac and
of the tribe of Kevin and of the tribe of Caolte and of the tribe of Ossian,
there being in all twelve good men and true. And he conjured them by Him who
died on rood that they should _well and truly try and true delivrance make
in the issue joined between their sovereign lord the King and the prisoner
at the bar and true verdict give according to the evidence so help them God
and kiss the books. And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and
they swore by the name of Him who is from everlasting that they would do His
rightwiseness. And straightway the minions of the law led forth from their
donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended in
consequence of information received. And they shackled him hand and foot and
would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge against him
for he was a malefactor.
-- Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland
filling the country with bugs.
So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe
telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first but
if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy
by this and by that he'd do the devil and all.
-- Because you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have
repetition. That's the whole secret.
-- Rely on me, says Joe.
-- Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland.
We want no more strangers in our house.
-- O I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that
Keyes you see.
-- Consider that done, says Joe.
-- Very kind of you, says Bloom.
-- The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in.
We brought them. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon robbers
here.
-- Decree nisi, says J. J.
And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a
spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after
him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when.
-- A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all
our misfortunes.
-- And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the Police Gazette
with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint._ -- Give us a squint at her,
says I.
And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows
off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct
of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty
but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers
misconducting herself and her fancy man feeling for her tickles and Norman
W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be late after she
doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor.
-- O Jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!
-- There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef
off of that one, what?
So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on
him as long as a late breakfast.
-- Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action?
What did those tinkers in the cityhall at their caucus meeting decide about
the Irish language?
O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the
puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that
which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city,
second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due
prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel
whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into honour among
mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael.
-- It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal
Sassenachs and their patois.
So J. J. puts in a word doing the toff about one story was good till
you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy putting your
blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a
nation and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and their
colonies and their civilisation.
-- Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them!
The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged
sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature worthy of the
name. Any civilisation _they have they stole from us. Tonguetied sons of
bastards' ghosts.
-- The European family, says J. J...
-- They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin
Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language anywhere
in Europe except in a cabinet d'aisance.
And says John Wyse:
-- Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:
-- Conspuez les Anglais! Perde Albion!
He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the
medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg
Abu, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes,
rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless
gods.
-- What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that
had lost a bob and found a tanner.
-- Gold cup, says he.
-- Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.
-- Throwaway, says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest
nowhere.
-- And Bass's mare? says Terry.
-- Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid
on my tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend.
-- I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on Zinfandel that Mr Flynn
gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's.
-- Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. Throwaway,
says he. Takes the biscuit and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy name is
Sceptre.
So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was
anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck
with his mangy snout up. Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard.
-- Not there, my child, says he.
-- Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the
other dog.
And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom
sticking in an odd word. _ -- Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in
others' eyes but they can't see the beam in their own.
-- Raimeis, says the citizen. There's no-one as blind as the fellow
that won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing twenty
millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? And
our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And our wool that
was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our damask from the
looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and our white flint
glass down there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin that we have since
Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised
point from the Carmelite convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole
wide world! Where are the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of
Hercules, the Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and
Tyrian purple to sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and
Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver
from Tipperary, second to none, our far-famed horses even today, the Irish
hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for the
right to fish in our waters. What do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe us for
our ruined trade and our ruined hearths? And the beds of the Barrow and
Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us
all die of consumption.
-- As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland
with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. Larches,
firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was reading a
report of lord Castletown's...
-- Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the
chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save
the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of
Eire, O.
-- Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan.
The fashionable international world attended en masse this afternoon at
the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger
of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady
Sylvester _Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly
Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees,
Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys
Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra
Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar,
Miss O. Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola
Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne,
Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma
Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride
who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked
exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk,
moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad
emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme
being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of
honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride,
wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty motif of plume rose
being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the
jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor
Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability and, in
addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and
striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at the conclusion of the
service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre in Horto after the papal
blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts,
beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe
sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a
quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.
-- And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with
Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were
pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway.
-- And will again, says Joe.
-- And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the
citizen, clapping his thigh. Our harbours that _are empty will be full
again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom of
Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a fleet
of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the O'Kennedys of
Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor Charles
the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish battleship
is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none of your
Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the province of
Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue field, the three sons of
Milesius.
And he took the last swig out of the pint, Moya. All wind and piss like
a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life
is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in
Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking
for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted
tenant.
-- Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?
-- An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.
-- Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you
asleep?
-- Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir.
Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead
of attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to
crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head down
like a bull at a gate. And another one: Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga. A
lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a sambo strung up on
a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under him. Gob, they ought to drown
him in the sea after and electrocute and crucify him to make sure of their
job.
-- But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at
bay?
-- I'Il tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it
is. Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about _flogging on
the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself
Disgusted One.
So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of
tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson
with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out,
howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun.
-- A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir
John Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on
the breech.
And says John Wyse:
-- 'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane
and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till
he yells meila murder.
-- That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the
earth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary
chamber on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen
gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about of
drudges and whipped serfs.
-- On which the sun never rises, says Joe.
-- And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The
unfortunate yahoos believe it.
They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth
and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born
of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed
and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the
bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence
he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid.
But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere? I mean wouldn't
it be the same here if you put force against force?
Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his
last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living._
-- We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater
Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the black
47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by the
batteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons
there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America. Even the
grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the Sassenach tried to starve the
nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas
bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, they drove out the peasants in
hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in the coffinships. But those that came
to the land of the free remember the land of bondage. And they will come
again and with a vengeance, no cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions
of Kathleen ni Houlihan.
-- Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...
-- We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since
the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at
Killala.
-- Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us
against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the
broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild
geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain,
and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But what
did we ever get for it?
-- The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know
what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they
trying to make an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with
perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were?
-- Conspuez les FranÇais, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.
-- And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we
had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the
elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead?
Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old
one with the winkers on her blind drunk in her royal palace every night of
God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her up
body and bones to roll _into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and
singing him old bits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the
boose is cheaper.
-- Well! says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.
-- Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more
pox than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!
-- And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and
bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in his Satanic Majesty's
racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode.
The earl of Dublin, no less.
-- They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says
little Alf.
And says J. J.:
-- Considerations of space influenced their lordship's decision.
-- Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.
-- Yes, sir, says he, I will.
-- You? says Joe.
-- Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.
-- Repeat that dose, says Joe.
Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with
his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.
-- Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it.
Perpetuating national hatred among nations.
-- But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.
-- Yes, says Bloom.
-- What is it? says John Wyse.
-- A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same
place.
-- By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm
living in the same place for the past five years.
So of course everyone had a laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck
out of it:
-- Or also living in different places.
-- That covers my case, says Joe.
-- What is your nation if I may ask, says the citizen.
-- Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland._
The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and,
gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.
-- After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief
to swab himself dry.
-- Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and
repeat after me the following words.
The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth
attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors of
the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth
prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the
cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of
the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters his
evangelical symbol a bogoak sceptre, 8 North American puma (a far nobler
king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), a Kerry
calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the
emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and
grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully
beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave
free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the
Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, the ruins of
Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, Ireland's Eye, the
Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur
Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of Ovoca,
Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape Clear,
the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union
Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids,
Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's
Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's hole, the
three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the
bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave - all these moving
scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the
waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations
of time. _ -- Shove us over the drink, says I. Which is which?
-- That's mine, says Joe, as the devil laid to the dead policeman.
-- And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and
persecuted. Also now. This very moment. This very instant.
Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.
-- Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what
belongs to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist,
sold by auction off in Morocco like slaves or cattles.
-- Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.
-- I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom.
-- Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.
That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old
lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a
sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And then
he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a
wet rag.
-- But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's
not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's
the very opposite of that that is really life.
-- What? says Alf.
-- Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says
he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there.
If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment.
Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.
-- A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.
-- Well, says John Wyse, isn't that what we're told? Love your
neighbours.
-- That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,
Moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. _ Love loves to love love.
Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell
loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fair genteman. Li Chi Han
lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant.
Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the
turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His
Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves
officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person loves that other
person because everybody loves somebody but
God loves everybody.
-- Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power,
citizen.
-- Hurrah, there, says Joe.
-- The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.
And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.
-- We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket.
What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and
children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted
round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in the
United Irishman today about that Zulu chief that's visiting England?
-- What's that? says Joe.
So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts
reading out:
-- A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was
presented yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in
Waiting, Lord Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks
of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. The
delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which the dusky
potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely translated by the British
chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, tendered his best thanks
to Massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial relations existing between
Abeakuta and the British Empire, stating that he treasured as one of his
dearest possessions an illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and
the secret of England's greatness, graciously presented to him by the _white
chief woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the
august hand of the Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of
firstshot usquebaugh to the toast Black and White from the skull of his
immediate predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts,
after which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark
in the visitors' book, subsequently executing an old Abeakutic wardance, in
the course of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious
applause from the girl hands.
-- Widow woman, says Ned, I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that
bible to the same use as I would.
-- Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful
land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.
-- Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.
-- No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only
initialled: P.
-- And a very good initial too, says Joe.
-- That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.
-- Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the
Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what's
this his name is?
-- Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman.
-- Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and
flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out
of them.
-- I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.
-- Who? says I.
-- Bloom, says he, the courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on
Throwaway and he's gone to gather in the shekels.
-- Is it that whiteyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a
horse in anger in his life.
-- That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to
back that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip.
Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the only
man in Dublin has it. A dark horse. _ -- He's a bloody dark horse himself,
says Joe.
-- Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.
-- There you are, says Terry.
Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. So I just went round to the back of
the yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was
letting off my (Throwaway twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to
myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in
Slattery's off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings is
five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) Pisser Burke was telling
me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have done about a
gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube she's better or she's
(ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full
up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik!
phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's the last of it) Jerusalem
(ah!) cuckoos.
So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it
was Bloom gave the idea for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all
kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the
Government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling
Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody
kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody
chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom
with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before him perpetrating frauds,
old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself with the
prussic acid after he swamping the country with his baubles and his penny
diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. Any amount of money advanced on note
of hand. Distance no object. No security. Gob he's like Lanty MacHale's goat
that'd go a piece of the road with everyone.
-- Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll
tell you about it, Martin Cunningham.
Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power
with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the
collector general's, an orangeman Blackburn _does have on the registration
and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the
king's expense.
Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their
palfreys.
-- Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the
party. Saucy knave! To us!
So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.
Mine host came forth at the summons girding him with his tabard.
-- Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.
-- Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our
steeds. And for ourselves give us of your best for faith we need it.
-- Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare
larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.
-- How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant
countenance, so servest thou the king's messengers, Master Taptun?
An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage.
-- Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's
messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The
king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I
warrant me.
-- Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty
trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?
Mine host bowed again as he made answer:
-- What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of
venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head
with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of
old Rhenish?
-- Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!
-- Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare
larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue.
So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.
-- Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans._
-- Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen
about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?
-- That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege.
-- Who made those allegations? says Alf.
-- I, says Joe. I'm the alligator.
-- And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like
the next fellow?
-- Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is.
-- Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the
hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.
-- We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.
-- Who is Junius? says J. J.
-- He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it
was he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that
in the castle.
-- Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.
-- Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag. The
father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deed poll, the father
did.
-- That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of
saints and sages!
-- Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For
that matter so are we.
-- Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be
their Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe,
till he knows if he's a father or a mother.
-- Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.
-- O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of
his that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a
tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered.
-- En ventre sa mere, says J. J.
-- Do you call that a man? says the citizen.
-- I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.
-- Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power._
-- And who does he suspect? says the citizen.
Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed
middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month
with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm telling
you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and
throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then sloping
off with his five quid without putting up a pint of stuff like a man. Give
us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your eye.
-- Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't
wait.
-- A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he
is. Virag from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.
-- Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.
-- Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.
-- You Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.
-- Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert
us, says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our
shores.
-- Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.
-- Amen, says the citizen.
-- And I'm sure he will, says Joe.
And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with
acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons,
the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and
monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and
Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and
the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, Premonstratesians, Servi,
Trinitarians, and the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel
mount the children of Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of
Avila, calced and other: and friars brown and grey, sons of poor Francis,
capuchins, cordeliers, minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara:
and the sons of Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and
the monks of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of
the christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And
after _came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and S.
Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian
Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and S. Stephen
Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S. Leugarde and S.
Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent de Paul and S. Martin
of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and S. Joseph and S. Denis and
S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S. Terence and S. Edward and
S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and
S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole
and S. James of Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and
S. Celestine and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and
S. Senan and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S.
Fintan and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives
of Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy
youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans and
the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. Kieran
and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and S.
Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis
Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of
Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and
S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa
of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with
eleven thousand virgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae,
bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were
woven the blessed symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves,
cruses, fetters, axes, trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets,
shears, keys, dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows,
beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells,
crutches, forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes
on a dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way
by Nelson's Pillar, Henry Street, Mary Street, Capel Street, Little Britain
Street, chanting the _introit in Epiphania Domini which beginneth Surge,
illuminare and thereafter most sweetly the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba
venient they did divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead
to life, multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering
various articles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the
scriptures, blessing and prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of
gold came the reverend Father O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And
when the good fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard
Kiernan and Co, limited, 8,9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale
grocers, wine and brandy shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine and
spirits for consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and
censed the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises
and the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches
and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with
blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had blessed
the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of His light to
inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the beverages and
the company of all the blessed answered his prayers.
-- Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
-- Que fecit clum et terram.
-- Dominus vobiscum.
-- Et cum spiritu tuo.
And he laid his hands upon the blessed and gave thanks and he prayed
and they all with him prayed:
-- Deus, cuius vet sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde
super creaturas istas: et pasta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem
Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis
Tui corporis sanitatem et anima tutelam Te auctore percipiat per
Christum Dominum nostrum.
-- And so say all of us, says Jack.
-- Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.
-- Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.
I was just looking round to see who the happy thought would_ strike
when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry.
-- I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope
I'm not...
-- No, says Martin, we're ready.
Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver.
Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's a jew
for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five.
-- Don't tell anyone, says the citizen.
-- Beg your pardon, says he.
-- Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along
now.
-- Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's
a secret.
And-he bloody dog woke up and let a growl.
-- Bye bye all, says Martin.
And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or
whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at
sea up with them on the bloody jaunting car.
Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.
The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop,
the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward
with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh
to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark,
they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he
fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one
is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth
speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the
smile of ladies fair. Even so did they come and set them, those willing
nymphs, the undying sisters. And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their
foam: and the bark clave the waves.
But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the
citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the
dropsy and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in
Irish, spitting and spatting _out of him and Joe and little Alf round him
like a leprechaun trying to peacify him.
-- Let me alone, says he.
And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls
out of him:
-- Three cheers for Israel!
Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake
and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's always
some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing.
Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would.
And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and
Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and
Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers
calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car
and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts
singing If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew and a slut shouts out of
her:
-- Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!
And says he:
-- Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.
-- He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.
-- Whose God? says the citizen.
-- Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a
jew like me.
Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.
-- By Jesus, says he, I'Il brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name. By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.
-- Stop! Stop! says Joe.
A-large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to NagyasÁgos uram LipÓti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's,
printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant
clime of SzÁzharminczbrojÚgulyÁs-DugulÁs (Meadow of Murmuring _Waters). The
ceremony which went off with great Éclat was characterised by the most
affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the
work of Irish artists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on
behalf of a large section of the community and was accompanied by the gift
of a silver casket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic
ornament, a work which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob
agus Jacob. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many
of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of
Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come back to Erin, followed
immediately by Rakoczy's March. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along
the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three
Rock Mountain, Sugar-loaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees,
the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the
Connemara hills, the reeks of M'Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh
and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by
answering cheers from a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and
Caledonian hills, the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by
a final floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were
present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by
a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were
dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical power station at the
Pigeon-house. VisszontlÁtlÁsÁra, kedvÉs barÁton! VisszontlÁtÁsra! Gone but
not forgotten.
Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin
anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he
shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's royal
theatre.
-- Where is he till I murder him?
And Ned and J. G. paralysed with the laughing.
-- Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel.
But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other
way and off with him.
-- Hold one citizen, says Joe. Stop. _ Begob he drew his hand and made
a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes or he'd have left
him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. The bloody nag
took fright and the old mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the
populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the
street.
The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth
grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar
seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year of
the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part
of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint
Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole
or perch. All the lordly Tesidences in the vicinity of the palace of justice
were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the
catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of
ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buried
alive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves
were accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic
character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much
respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk
umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, coat of arms and house
number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir
Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search
parties in remote parts of the island, respectively, the former on the third
basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of
one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head
of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they-observed an incandescent
object of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a
terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed south west by west. Messages of
condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the
different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously pleased
to decree that a special missa pro defunctis shall be celebrated
simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all
the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in
suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so
unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of
debris human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son,
159, Great Brunswick Street and Messrs T. C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80,
North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light
infantry under the general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral the right
honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson K.G., K.P., H.T.,
P.C., K.C.B., M.P., J.P., M.B., D.S.O., S.O.D., M.F.H., M.R.I.A., B.L., Mus.
Doc., P.L.G., F.T.C.D., F.R.U.I., F.R.C.P.I. and F.R.C.S.I.
You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that
lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he would
so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and
Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as
sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths
after him.
-- Did I kill him, says he, or what?
And he shouting to the bloody dog:
-- After him, Garry! After him, boy!
And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old
sheepface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs
back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to
five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you.
When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld
the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the
chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of
the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon
Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And he
answered with a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben
Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at
an angle of _fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green Street like a
shot off a shovel.
Ulysses 13: Nausicca
THE SUMMER EVENING HAD BEGUN TO FOLD THE WORLD IN ITS mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all
too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the
weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet
church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of
prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the storm-tossed
heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.
The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft
were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat
beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and
Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, two
little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with caps to match and the
name H.M.S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were
twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but
for all that darling little fellows with bright merry faces and endearing
ways about them. They were dabbling in the sand with their spades and
buckets, building castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured
ball, happy as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby
baby to and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled
with delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a
tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy
Caffrey bent over him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple
in his chin.
-- Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.
And baby prattled after her:
-- A jink a jink a jawbo. _Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she
was awfully fond of children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy
Caffrey could never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy
Caffrey that held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf of
brown bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But
to be sure baby was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy
bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey.
A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with a laugh in
her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe red lips, a girl
lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at the quaint language
of little brother.
But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to this
golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand which Master
Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go wrong that it was to
be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the Martello tower had. But
if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was selfwilled too and, true to
the maxim that every little Irishman's house is his castle, he fell upon his
hated rival and to such purpose that the would be assailant came to grief
and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of
discomfited Master Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.
-- Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively, at once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I catch
you for that.
His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was
after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables were
full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over
life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen
on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears
that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and shook her hand at
Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him she wouldn't be far
from him, her eyes dancing in admonition.
-- Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.
She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:
-- What's your name? Butter and cream?
-- Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?
-- Nao, tearful Tommy said.
-- Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.
-- Nao, Tommy said.
-- I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart, Gerty is Tommy's
sweetheart.
-- Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.
Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy
Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentlemen couldn't
see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes.
But who was Gerty?
Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance, was in very truth as fair a specimen of
winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced
beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a
Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even
to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late had done
her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's female pills and she
was much better of those discharges she used to get and that tired feeling.
The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity
though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her
hands were of finely veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as
lemon juice and queen of ointments could make them though it was not true
that she used to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either.
Bertha Supple told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was
black out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their
little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told her
not let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never
speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate
refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gerty which was unmistakably
evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but
willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had
she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might
easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself
exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at her feet
vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the
love that might have been, that lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a
look, tense with suppressed meaning, that imparted a strange yearning
tendency to the beautiful eyes a charm few could resist. Why have women such
eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous
lashes and dark expressive brows. Time gas when those brows were not so
silkilyseductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman
Beautiful page of the Princess novelette, who had first advised her to try
eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in
leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing
scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you have a
beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because she had a
button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It
was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning
on account of the new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a
profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for
wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale flush, delicate as the
faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet
girlish shyness that of a surety God's fair land of Ireland did not hold her
equal.
For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. Inclination
prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent. The pretty lips
pouted a while but then she glanced up and broke out into a joyous little
laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May morning. She knew
right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy say that because of him
cooling in his attentions when it was simply a lovers' quarrel. As per usual
somebody's nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle always
riding up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in
the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was
on and he was going to Trinity college to study for a doctor when he left
the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle
races in Trinity college university. Little recked he perhaps for what she
felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core.
Yet he was young and perchance he might learn to love her in time. They were
protestants in his family and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after
Him the blessed Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome
with an exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman,
the shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would know
anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the
lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good
cigarettes and besides they were both of a size and that was why Edy
Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and ride
up and down in front of her bit of a garden.
Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out.
A neat blouse of electric blue, selftinted by dolly dyes (because it was
expected in the Lady's Pictorial that electric blue would be worn), with a
smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in which she
always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her favourite perfume because
the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the
stride showed off her slim graceful figure to perfection. She wore a
coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed
with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and at the side a butterfly bow to
tone. All Tuesday week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but
at last she found what she wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it,
slightly shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a
penny. She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it
on then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her!
And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that
would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest
thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very petite but
she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak
or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle at her higharched
instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect proportions beneath her
skirt and just the proper amount and no more of her shapely limbs encased in
finespun hose with high spliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies
they were Gerty's chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and
fears of sweet seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can
find it in his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets, with awfully
pretty stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted
with different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen and
she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and
ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't
trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things. She
was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour and the
lucky colour too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because
the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father brought
him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because she thought
perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that morning she
nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that was for luck and
lovers' meetings if you put those things on inside out so long as it wasn't
of a Friday.
And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds
to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears,
she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings. Though not too
much because she knew how to cry nicely before the mirror. You are lovely,
Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls upon a face infinitely sad
and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain. Yes, she had known from the
first that her daydream of a marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells
ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder
brother would be Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude
Wylie was wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue
fox was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoers' (he
was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an arm round
her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her little one in a
strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the first!) but it was only
the end of her nose and then he hastened from the room with a remark about
refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of character had never been Reggy
Wylie's strong point and he who would woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a
man among men. But waiting, always waiting to be asked and it was leap year
too and would soon be over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a
rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong
quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked
with grey, and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain
her to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her
with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns
this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only,
his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death
us two part, from this to this day forward.
And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his little
wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in the face,
Bertha Supple too, and Edy, the spitfire, because she would be twenty-two in
November. She would care for him with creature comforts too for Gerty was
womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that feeling of hominess. Her
griddlecakes done to a golden-brown hue and queen Ann's pudding of
delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from all because she had a
lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour
and always stir in the same direction then cream the milk and sugar and
whisk well the white of eggs though she didn't like the eating part when
there were any people that made her shy and often she wondered why you
couldn't eat something poetical like violets or roses and they would have a
beautifully appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the
photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked,
it was so human, and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack
in Clery's summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be
tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a husband)
with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed sweeping moustache
and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon (three wonderful
weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug and cosy little
homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple but
perfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to
business he would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze for
a moment deep down into her eyes.
Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes, so then
she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off
and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said he
wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the ball and
if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it was his ball
and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if you please. The
temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy Caffrey since he was
out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to he off now with him and she told
Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.
-- You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball. But Cissy
Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her finger and she
snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and Tommy after it in
full career, having won the day.
-- Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.
And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played
here's the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread
carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin.
But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way like that
from everyone always petting him.
-- I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't
say.
-- On the beetoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.
Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her life
to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure the
gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss.
-- Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of
her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at him.
Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.
For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and
jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's faces on her
nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go where
you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss White. That
was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget the evening she dressed
up in her father's suit and hat and the burned cork moustache and walked
down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette? There was none to come up to her
for fun. But she was sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts
heaven ever made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be
wholesome.
And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted
by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and
benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered together
without distinction of social class (and a most edifying spectacle it was to
see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the storms of this weary
world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate, reciting the litany of
Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede for them, the old familiar
words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had
her father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the
pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might
now be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told
herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the
lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window
dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But
that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cast its
shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home
circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father,
a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there
was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was the man who lifts his
hand to a woman save in the way of kindness deserves to be branded as the
lowest of the low.
And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, wrapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her
companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off
Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like himself
passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him anyway
screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a father
because he was too old or something or on account of his face (it was a
palpable case of doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the pimples on it
and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor father! With all
his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me, Mary, how to woo thee
or My love and cottage near Rochelle and they had stewed cockles and lettuce
with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when he sang The moon hath
raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on
him, from a stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on
his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and
they were to have had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was
so near. Now he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be
a warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the
funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the
letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic
standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright and
cheery in the home.
A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the
house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in gold.
And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was it rubbed
on the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't like her
mother taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single thing they ever
had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the world of her for her
gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at the main every night and
it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that place where she never forgot
every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr Tunney the grocer's christmas
almanac the picture of halcyon days where a young gentleman in the costume
they used to wear then with a threecornered hat was offering a bunch of
flowers to his ladylove with oldtime chivalry through her lattice window.
You could see there was a story behind it. The colours were done something
lovely. She was in a soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the
gentleman was in chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often
looked at them dreamily when there for a certain purpose and felt her own
arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and
thought about those times because she had found out in Walker's pronouncing
dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the halcyon days what
they meant.
The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion, till
at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no getting
behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he could down
towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was not slow to voice
his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was sitting there by
himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted the ball. Our two
champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and to avoid trouble
Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to her please. The
gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw it up the strand
towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and stopped right under
Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamoured again
for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and let them fight for it so Gerty
drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn't come rolling down
to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.
-- If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.
Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her
skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly
good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down towards
the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw attention
on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the warm flush, a
danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her
cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of the most casual but now
under the brim of her new hat she ventured a look at him and the face that
met her gaze there in the twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her
the saddest she had ever seen.
Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted
and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of
original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for us,
vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn hearts
were there and toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred and
wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with hope
for the reverend father Hughes had told them what the great saint Bernard
said in his famous prayer of Mary, the most pious Virgin's intercessory
power that it was not recorded in any age that those who implored her
powerful protection were ever abandoned by her.
The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy played with baby
Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep she
cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy gone and
then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, didn't the little
chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa.
-- Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.
And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of health, a
perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out to be
something great, they said.
-- Hajajajahaja.
Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to
sit up properly, and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried
out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half
blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:
-- Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.
And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all
no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave him in
his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was quickly
appeased.
Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out
of that and not get on her nerves no hour to be out and the little brats of
twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the paintings that
man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured chalks and such a pity
too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the evening and the clouds
coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to hear the music like that and
the perfume of those incense they burned in the church like a kind of waft.
And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking
at and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into her as though
they would search her through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful
eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were
so queer. She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual
face that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin
Harvey, the matinÉe idol, only for the moustache which she preferred because
she wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they two to always
dress the same on account of a play but she could not see whether he had an
aquiline nose or a slightly retmussÉ from where he was sitting. He was in
deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting sorrow was
written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what it was. He was
looking up so intently, so still and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he
could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that
thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad that something told her to put
on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was
far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he who
mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him because she
felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very heart of the
girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant
it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even,
even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if
he was a protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly
loved her. There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a
womanly woman not like other flighty girls, unfeminine, he had known, those
cyclists showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to know all,
to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, make him forget
the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real
man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for
herself alone.
Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy can
never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge for the
afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her own heart.
Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the stained glass windows
lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue banners of the blessed
Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon at the altar,
carrying things in and out with his eyes cast down. He looked almost a saint
and his confession-box was so quiet and clean and dark and his hands were
just like white wax and if ever she became a Dominican nun in their white
habit perhaps he might come to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic.
He told her that time when she told him about that in confession crimsoning
up to the roots of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled
because that was only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature
s laws, he said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came
from the nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed
Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to
Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and
thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design for
him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the
mantelpiece white and gold with a canary bird that came out of a little
house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the
forty hours' adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to
give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place.
The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them a
good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of them.
And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they were afraid
the tide might come in on them and be drowned.
-- Jacky! Tommy!
Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and she
ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had a good
enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the thingamerry she
was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow long because it
wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at it. She ran with
long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up her skirt at the side
that was too tight on her because there was a lot of the tomboy about Cissy
Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever she thought she had a good
opportunity to show off and just because she was a good runner she ran like
that so that he could see all the end of her petticoat running and her
skinny shanks up as far as possible. It would have served her just right if
she had tripped up over something accidentally on purpose with her high
crooked French heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble.
Tableau! That would have been a very charming exposÉ for a gentleman like
that to witness.
Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed the
thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the Blessed
Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was itching to give
them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't because she thought he
might be watching but she never made a bigger mistake in all her life
because Gerty could see without looking that he never took his eyes off of
her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the thurible back to Father Conroy and
knelt down looking up at the Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing
Tantum ego and she just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose
and fell to the Tantumer gosa cramen tum. Three and eleven she paid for
those stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the
Monday before Easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was what he
was looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had
neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his head
to see the difference for himself.
Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a streel
tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only a
fortnight before like a rag on her back and bit of her petticoat hanging
like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to settle her
hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a
girl's shoulders, a radiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in its
sweetness. You would have to travel many a long mile before you found a head
of hair the like of that. She could almost see the swift answering flush of
admiration in his eyes that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her
hat so that she could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled
shoe faster for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes.
He was eyeing her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman's instinct told her
that she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet
swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a
glorious rose.
Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,
half smiling, with her specs, like an old maid, pretending to nurse the
baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why
no-one could get on with her, poking her nose into what was no concern of
hers. And she said to Gerty:
-- A penny for your thoughts.
-- What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth.
I was only wondering was it late.
Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and
their baby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just gave a
gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy asked her the
time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half past kissing
time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because they were told to
be in early.
-- Wait, said Cissy, I'll ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time
by his conundrum.
So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his
hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his
watchchain, looking at the church. Passionate nature though he was Gerty
could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he had been
there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the next moment it
was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed in every line of
his distinguishedlooking figure.
Cissy said to excuse her would he mind telling her what was the right
time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it and
looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his watch
was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the sun was set.
His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in measured accents
there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. Cissy said thanks and
came back with her tongue out and said uncle said his waterworks were out of
order.
Then they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon O'Hanlon
got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told
Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the
flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could see
the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and she swung her
leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he could see and he
was looking all the time that he was winding the watch or whatever he was
doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands back into his pockets.
She felt a Kind of a sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel
of her scalp and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be
coming on because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account
of the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her
every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was
undisguised admiration in a man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be
seen on that man's face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it.
Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty
noticed that that little hint she gave had the desired effect because it was
a long way along the strand to where there was the place to push up the
pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to make
herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his cope
poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to read off and
he read out Panem de clo prstitisti eis and Edy and Cissy were
talking about the time all the time and asking her but Gerty could pay them
back in their own coin and she just answered with scathing politeness when
Edy asked her was she heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over.
Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke
volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt. O yes, it cut deep because Edy had
her own quiet way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the
confounded little cat she was. Gerty's lips parted swiftly to frame the word
but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,
so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She
had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all
his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an
instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes
were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in
sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see.
-- O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head
flashed up, I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year.
Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the
ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young voice
that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As for Mr Reggy
with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck him aside as if he
was so much filth and never again would she cast as much as a second thought
on him and tear his silly postcard into a dozen pieces. And it ever after he
dared to presume she could give him one look of measured scorn that would
make him shrivel up on the spot. Miss puny little Edy's countenance fell to
no slight extent and Gerty could see by her looking as black as thunder that
she was simply in a towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt,
because that shaft had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew
that she was something aloof, apart in another sphere, that she was not of
them and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it so they could
put that in their pipe and smoke it.
Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked
in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the
sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior and Cissy told him too
that Billy Winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby looked
just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy poked him
like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby, without as much as by
your leave, sent up his compliments on to his brandnew dribbling bib.
O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.
The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she set
that little matter to rights.
Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy
asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was
flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it
off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction because
just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet seashore because
Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that Father Conroy put
round him round his shoulders giving the benediction with the blessed
Sacrament in his hands.
How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse
of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time a
bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, thither, with
a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of the lighthouses so
picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of paints because it was
easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter would be going his rounds
past the presbyterian church grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue
where the couples walked and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy
Wylie used to turn his freewheel like she read in that book The Lamplighter
by Miss Cummins, author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For Gerty had her
dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a
keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the
coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her
toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was
scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasures
trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose
scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change
when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful
thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame
Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only
express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she had
copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. Art
thou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J. Walsh, Magherafelt, and after
there was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and ofttimes the beauty
of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes with
silent tears that the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but
for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was
an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. But
it must end she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be
no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the great
sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than the
whole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was
the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or
a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with the
foreign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse,
cruel only to be kind. But even if - what then? Would it make a very great
difference? From everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature
instinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women
off the accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and
coarse men, with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and being
taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be just good
friends like a big brother and sister without all that other in spite of the
conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in
mourning for from the days beyond recall. She thought she understood. She
would try to understand him because men were so different. The old love was
waiting, waiting with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing
eyes. Heart of mine! She would follow her dream of love, the dictates of her
heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for
her for love was the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might
she would be wild, untrammelled, free.
Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and
the choir sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes and then he locked the
tabernacle door because the benediction was over and Father Conroy handed
him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't she coming but Jacky
Caffrey called out:
-- O, look, Cissy!
And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over
the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.
-- It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.
And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,
helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy
holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running.
-- Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks.
But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and
call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could see
from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her pulses
tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and a light broke
in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion silent as the grave,
and it had made her his. At last they were left alone without the others to
pry and pass remarks and she knew he could be trusted to the death,
steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. His
hands and face were working and a tremor went over her. She leaned back far
to look up where the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so
as not to fall back looking up and there was no one to see only him and her
when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply
soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his
heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew about the passion of men like
that, hot-blooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and
made her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with
them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of
papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do
something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But
this was altogether different from a thing like that because there was all
the difference because she could almost feel him draw her face to his and
the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides there was absolution
so long as you didn't do the other thing before being married and there
ought to be women priests that would understand without your telling out and
Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes
so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors'
photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on the
way it did.
And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned
back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and
they all saw it and shouted to look, look there it was and she leaned back
ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was flying about
through the air, a soft thing to and fro, dark. And she saw a long Roman
candle going up over the trees up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all
breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean
back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and
her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back
and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that
caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and
eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw
and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling
in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above
her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed
and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he
couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those
skirt-dancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on
looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her
snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow
the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that
cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot
blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and
everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain
gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars
falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!
Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She
glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of
piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl. He was
leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands
silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he
had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch
that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been. He of all men!
But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, for him too a word
of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and wandered. Should a girl
tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their secret, only theirs, alone in
the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell save the little bat
that flew so softly through the evening to and fro and little bats don't
tell.
Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to
show what a great person she was: and then she cried:
-- Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up.
Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into
her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course
without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too far to. She
rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet again, there,
and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her dream of yester eve.
She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls bet in a last lingering
glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full of a strange shining, hung
enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a
sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.
Slowly without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,
to Edy, to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was darker
now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy seaweed.
She balked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but with care
and very slowly because Gerty MacDowell was...
Tight boots? No. She's lame! O!
Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's
left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong
by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a
woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show.
Hot little devil all The same. Wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a
negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her
monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache
today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy
longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told me liked
to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose. Sister? How many
women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. Something in the air. That's the
moon. But then why don't all women menstruate at the same time with same
moon, I mean? Depends on the time they were born, I suppose. Or all start
scratch then get out of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I
got the best of that. Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning
over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this
morning. That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife
engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small
mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves.
Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices.
Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. Pity
they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah,
yes. Muioscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy's
hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it
all a fake? Lingerie does it. Felt for the curves inside her deshabillÉ.
Excites them also when they're. I'm all clean come and dirty me. And they
like dressing one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly's
new blouse. At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I
bought her the violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and
turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met.
His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a
charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O Mairy lost the pin of
her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just
changes when you're on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary,
Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry
either. Always off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an
appointment. Out on spec probably. They believe in chance because like
themselves. And the others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends at
school, arms round each other's neck or with ten fingers locked, kissing and
whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with
whitewashed faces, cool coif and their rosaries going up and down,
vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write
to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr
Right comes along then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau! O, look who it is
for the love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with
yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in each
other's appearance. You're looking splendid. Sister souls showing their
teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn't lend each other a
pinch of salt.
Ah!
Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.
Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my foot. O
that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest once in a
way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. Turns milk,
makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I read in a
garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's a flirt. All
are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like that you often meet what you
feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow courting:
collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same and stags. Same time
might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No.
Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell.
Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap
with bearsgrease, plastery hair lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid
gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn't let
her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men
marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her
hat to show her hair. Wide brim bought to hide her face, meeting someone
might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong
in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the rocks in
Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice.
She's worth ten, fifteen, more a pound. All that for nothing. Bold hand. Mrs
Marion. Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I
sent to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle
with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding. He's another.
Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark
liver oil they use to clean could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he,
she?
O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.
Ah!
Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that
little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy Aftereffect not
pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care.
Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers
with the kiddies. Well, aren't they. See her as she is spoil all. Must have
the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. Amours
of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. Curtain up.
Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom. Little
sweetheart come and kiss me Still I feel. The strength it gives a man.
That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind coming out of
Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't have. Makes you want to sing
after. Lacaus esant taratara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan
however if you don't know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question
they ask you another. Good idea if you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if
you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the
dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she
was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her
say all wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one
who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them
till they harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two
shillings. Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she
hadn't called me sir. Oh, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with
a single girl! That's what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman. Or
even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other chap's wife.
Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today spitting back gumchewed
gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble.
But might happen sometime, I don't think. Come in. All is prepared. I
dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they change the venue when it's not
what they like. Ask you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a
gentleman who. Or ask you what someone was going to say when he changed his
mind and stopped. Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I want to, something
like that. Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to
want something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must
have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she
came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First Kiss does the trick. The
propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by their
eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their dying
day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the Moorish wall beside
the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts were developed. Fell
asleep then. After Gencree dinner that was when we drove home the featherbed
mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye off her too.
Val Dillon. Apoplectic.
There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up
like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,
waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in mother's
clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And the dark one
with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could whistle. Mouth made
for that. Like Molly. Why that high class whore In Jammet's wore her veil
only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling me the right time? I'll
tell you the right time up a dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times
every morning, cure for fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers
see most of the game. Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In
their line.
Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that
satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine
eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so much
the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond a dog's
jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school drawing a
picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that innocence? Poor
idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see them sit on a bench
marked Wet Paint. Eyes all over them. Look under the bed for what's not
there. Longing to get the fright of their lives. Sharp as needles they are.
When I said to Molly the man at the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking,
thought she might like, twigged at once he had a false arm. Had too. Where
do they get that? Typist going up Roger Greene's stairs two at a time to
show her understandings. Handed down from father to mother to daughter, I
mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the
mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a
mirror. And when I sent her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Presscott's, by the
way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her stocking. Clever little
minx! I never told her. Neat way she carried parcels too. Attract men, small
thing like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back
when it was red. Who did you learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse
taught me. O, don't they know? Three years old she was in front of Molly's
dressingtable just before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice face.
Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins
anyway not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you
are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.
Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in Grafton
street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.
A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads
and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy ran out to see and Edy after
with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. Will she?
Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, I saw your. I
saw all.
Lord!
Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For
this relief much thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all things
combined. Excitement. When she leaned back felt an ache at the butt of my
tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a worse fool
of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I will tell you
all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It couldn't be? No, Gerty
they called her. Might be false name however like my and the address
Dolphin's barn a blind.
Her maiden name was Jemina Brown
And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.
Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.
Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it
understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything
straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because it lasts
only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's pants will
soon fit Willy and fullers' earth for the baby when they hold him out to do
ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them out of harm's way. Nature. Washing
child, washing corpse. Dignam. Children's hands always round them. Cocoa-nut
skulls, monkeys, not even closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and
tainted curds. Oughtn't to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill
it up with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is
nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly was
in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his
coat. And, Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst
of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in
drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in the
dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning: was I drunk last night?
Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come home to roost. They
stick by one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault also. That's where
Molly can knock spots off them. It is the blood of the south. Moorish. Also
the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance
those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to
introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript, wouldn't
know what to call her. Always see a fellow's weak point in his wife. Still
there's destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own secrets between them.
Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then
little chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, with little
hobbies. As God made them He matched them. Sometimes children turn out
well enough. Twice nought makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and
blushing bride. Marry in May and repent in December. This wet is very
unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is not back. Better detach.
Ow!
Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the
short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.
Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic influence
between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I suppose at
once. Cat's away the mice will play. I remember looking in Pill lane. Also
that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance
pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. And time? Well that's
the time the movement takes. Then if one thing stopped the whole ghesabo
would stop bit by bit. Because it's arranged. Magnetic needle tells you
what's going on in the sun, the stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you
hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel.
Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest and let you see and see more and
defy you if you're a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look,
look and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.
Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third
person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw stuck
out head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at the horse
show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine voice that
fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did, like flowers. It was too.
Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the paint. Make their own use
of everything. Same time doing it scraped her slipper on the floor so they
wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick the beam, I think. Keep that
thing up for hours. Kind of a general all round over me and half down my
back.
Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave
you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it?
Heliotrope? No, Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that kind.
Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her with a
little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night
she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her
black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good conductor, is it? Or
bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For instance if you go into
a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too. Why did I smell it only now?
Took its time in coming like herself, slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so
many millions of tiny grains blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice
islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it
is. It's like a fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what
do you call it gossamer and they're aways spinning it out of them, fine as
anything, rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes
off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little kick, taking
them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on
the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of
strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or
under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners. Hyacinth
perfume made of oil or ether or something. Muskrat. Bag under their tails
one grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at each other behind. Good evening.
Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that.
Yes now, look at it that way. We're the same. Some women for instance warn
you off when they have their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could
hang your hat on. Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please
keep off the grass.
Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves Long
John had on his desk the other. Breath? What you eat and drink gives that.
No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests that are
supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies round treacle.
Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree of forbidden priest.
O father, will you? Let me be the first to. That diffuses itself all through
the body, permeates. Source of life and it's extremely curious the smell.
Celery sauce. Let me.
Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.
Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah, no, that's the soap.
O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never
went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag this
morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could mention
Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. Two and
nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do I owe you?
Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving credit another
time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellow run up a bill on the
slate and then slinking around the back streets into somewhere else.
Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as
far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a
good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk a
mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk after
him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you learn
something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't mock what
matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he now. The Mystery
Man on the Beach, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom. Payment at the
rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow today at the graveside in the
brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all
the. Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the
Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the
rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the
twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem
coming nigh.
Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or
they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the
dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash
better. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you. Better now of
course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through the small guts for
nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. Scowl or smile. Pardon!
Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in the shade after the sun. Some
light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet.
Two, when three it's night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks
like a phantom ship. No. Wait. Trees are they. An optical illusion. Mirage.
Land of the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My
native land, goodnight.
Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white
fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way
up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on
the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the position. Like to
be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't know how nice you looked.
I begin to like them at that age. Green apples. Grab at all that offer.
Suppose it's the only time we cross legs, seated. Also the library today:
those girl graduates. Happy chairs under them. But it's the evening
influence. They feel all that. Open like flowers, know their hours,
sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under
the lamps. Nightstock in Mat Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder.
Wish I had a full length oil-painting of her then. June that was too I
wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with
you once again. Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad
about her lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much
pity. They take advantage.
All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums and I the plumstones.
Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change: that's all.
Lovers: yum yum.
Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of
me, little wretch. She kissed me. My youth. Never again. Only once it comes.
Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the same. Like
kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing new under the
sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's barn. Are you not happy in your? Naughty
darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. Mat Dillon and
his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Molly too.
Eightyseven that was.
Year before we. And the old major partial to his drop of spirits.
Curious she an only child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you're
escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.
And just when he and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we
played. Rip: tear in Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering.
Winkle: cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She
leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in
Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from
the dew.
Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a
tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could
be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny
little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging
by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose. Mass
seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us.
And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same thing with ads. Buy from us.
And buy from us. Yes, there's the light in the priest's house. Their frugal
meal. Remember about the mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom's.
Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate.
Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out at night like mice. They're a mixed
breed. Birds are like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise?
Better sit still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the
end of a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with
tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white.
Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example like the
eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to stamp his
trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase.
Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with three colours. Not true.
That half tabbywhite tortoise-shell in the City Anns with the letter em on
her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst.
Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his name with the burning
glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' matches. What?
Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles
in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My
memory's not so bad.
Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last
week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be the
one bit me, come back to see. Birds too never find out what they say. Like
our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve? they have to fly over the
ocean and back. Lot must be killed in storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life
sailors have too. Big brutes of ocean-going steamers floundering along in
the dark, lowing out like seacows. Faugh a ballagh. Out of that, bloody
curse to you. Others in vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about
like snuff at a wake when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes
away for years at the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because
it's round. Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it
till Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail
end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed.
Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well? And the
tephilim no what's this they call it poor papa's father had on his door to
touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of
bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when you go out never
know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life,
life-belt round round him, gulping salt water, and that's the last of his
nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick?
Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,
crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker. Moon looking down. Not my
fault, old cockalorum.
A lost long candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of
funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and sheda cluster of violet
but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The shepherd's hour:
the hour of holding: hour of tryst. From house to house, giving his
everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock postman, the glowworm's lamp
at his belt gleaming here and there through the laurel hedges. And among the
five young trees a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By
screens of lighted windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying,
wailing: Evening Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup race!
and from the door of Dignam's house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the
bat flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,
grey. Howth settled for slumber tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons
(he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of
ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing,
slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled,
winked at Mr Bloom.
Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches
buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin's
King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy trip.
Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard to feed the
herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. Milly, no sign
of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what death is at that
age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they fear. When we hid
behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the
wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch
them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle.
Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each other? Sometimes they go off.
Poor kids. Only troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her
for that. After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has.
What do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with
the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little
hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you touch.
Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made me
laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is more sensitive, I
think. Mine too. Nearer the heart. Padding themselves out if fat is in
fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened she
was when her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for the
mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista.
O'Hara's tower. The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all his
family. Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking out over
the sea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. I always
thought I'd marry a lord or a gentleman with a private yacht. Buenos noches,
seÑorita. El hombre ama la muchacha hermosa. Why me? Because you were so
foreign from the others.
Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you
dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for Leoh,
Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see. Hope
she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the bath, funeral, house of keys,
museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Then that bawler in Barney
Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters. What I said about his God
made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and laugh at
themselves. Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like a
child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round. Not so bad
then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers
for the sister-in-law he hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style
of beauty. Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the
wife of the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the
early morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he
kissed the cow. But Dignam's put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so
depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to
those Scottish widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for granted
we're going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's
that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on the
premium. Her widow's mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must wheedle
her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O'Connor
wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some
good matronly woman in a pork-pie hat to mother him. Take him in tow,
platter face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette bloomers, three
shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they
say. Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we
die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the
trick. U. p.: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed. Curse
seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She had red
slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does. Would I like her
in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead
by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes's. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats
for Molly. She has something to put in them. What's that? Might be money.
Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He
brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read. Better go.
Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and
pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with story
of a treasure in it thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children always want
to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters. What's this?
Bit of stick.
O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here
tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do.
Will I?
Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write
a message for her. Might remain. What?
I.
Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide
comes here a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark mirror,
breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and letters. O,
those transparent! Besides they don't know. What is the meaning of that
other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like.
AM. A.
No room. Let it go.
Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.
Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.
Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by
design.
He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now
if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance. We'll
never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me feel so
young.
Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.
Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I won't
go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a moment.
Won't sleep though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat again. No harm
in him. Just a few.
O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me
do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met
him pike hoses frillies for Raoul to perfume your wife black hair heave
under embon seÑorita young eyes Mulvey plump years dreams return tail end
Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in her
next her next.
A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom
with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a
few.
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed where Canon
O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were taking
tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup and talking
about
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Because it was a little canarybird bird that came out of its little
house to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there
because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty
MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was
sitting on the rocks looking was
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Ulysses 14: Oxen of the Sun
DESHIL HOLLES EAMUS. DESHIL HOLLES EAMUS. DESHIL HOLES Eamus.
Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send
us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright
one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.
Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, hoyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy,
hoopsa.
Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive
concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitable by mortals
with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most
in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind's
ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent
they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is
the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure
of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for
that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent
when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent
nature's incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some
significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour
may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary
anyone so is there inilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature's boon
can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just
citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and to
tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently commenced
might be in the future not with similar excellence accomplished if an
inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors
transmitted customs to that thither of profundity that that one was
audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no
more odious offence can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign
that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with
prophecy of abundance or with diminution's menace that exalted of
reiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?
It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians
relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature admirable
admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured. Not to speak
of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, their greatest
doctors, the O'Shiels, the O'Hickeys, the O'Lees, have sedulously set down
the divers methods by which the sick and the relapsed found again health
whether the malady had been trembling withering or loose boyconnell flux.
Certainly in every public work which in it anything of gravity contains
preparation should be with importance commensurate and therefore a plan was
by them adopted (whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of
experience it is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of
subsequent inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest)
whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that
whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly required
and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being
sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist
valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was provided.
To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be
molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers
prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods
mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so having
itself, parturient in vehicle the reward carrying desire immense among all
one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile. O
thing of prudent nation not merely in being seen but also even in being
related worthy of being praised that they her by anticipation went seeing
mother, that she by them suddenly to be about to be cherished had been begun
she felt!
Before born babe bliss had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in
that one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with
wholesome food reposeful cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were now
done and by wise foresight set: but to this no less of what drugs there is
need and surgical implements which are pertaining to her case not omitting
aspect of all very distracting spectacles in various latitudes by our
terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine and human, the
cogitation of which by sejunct females is to tumescence conducive or eases
issue in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly
far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term
up.
Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night's oncoming. Of
Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark ruth
of man his errand that him lone led till that house.
Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming
mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so
God's angel to Mary quoth. Watchers they there walk, white sisters in ward
sleepless. Smarts they still sickness soothing: in twelve moons thrice an
hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding wariest ward.
In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mild-hearted eft rising
with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens
in eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin! Full she dread that God the Wreaker
all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. Christ's rood made she
on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe infare under her thatch. That
man her will wotting worthful went in Horne's house.
Loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow
he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land
and seafloor nine year had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe meeting
he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with good ground
of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so young then had
looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning.
As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad
after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings
sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare
Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so heavied
in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for friend so young,
algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. She said that he had a
fair sweet death through God His goodness with masspriest to be shriven,
holy housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. The man then right earnest
asked the nun of which death the dead man was died and the nun answered him
and said that he was died in Mona island through bellycrab three year agone
come Childermas and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul
in his undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. So
stood they there both awhile in wanhope, sorrowing one with other.
Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the
dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked
forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to
go as he came.
The man that was come into the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and
he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. The
nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes now full
three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear but that now in
a little it would be. She said thereto that she had seen many births of
women but never was none so hard as was that woman's birth. Then she set it
forth all to him that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened
to her words for he felt with wonder women's woe in the travail that they
have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a young face
for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Nine
twelve bloodflows chiding her childless.
And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there
nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came
against the place as they stood a young learning knight yclept Dixon. And
the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had
had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learning
knight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was
sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful
dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and
chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should go into
that castle for to make merry with them that were there. And the traveller
Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and
a subtle. Also the lady was of his avis and reproved the learning knight
though she trowed well that the traveller had said thing that was false for
his subtility. But the learning knight would not hear say nay nor do her
mandement ne have him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it
was a marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for
to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in
divers lands and sometimes venery.
And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy
and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move
for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are
made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix
in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there
were vessels that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of seasand and the air
by a warlock with his breath that he blares into them like to bubbles. And
full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a
fuller ne richer. And there was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to
open in the which lay strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men
nie that this be possible thing without they see it natheless they are so.
And these fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land
because of the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olive
press. And also it was marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a
compost out of fecund wheat kidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain
angry spirits that they do into it swells up wondrously like to a vast
mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long
sticks out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a
brewage like to mead.
And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp
thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe
Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in
amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and anon
full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and his
neighbour wist not of his wile. And he sat down in that castle with them for
to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God.
This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at
the reverence of Jesu our alther liege lord to leave their wassailing for
there was above one quick with child a gentle dame, whose time hied fast.
Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that
it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it be not come
or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that
hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than any of the tother
and for that they both were knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by
cause that he was elder he spoke to him full gently. But, said he, or it be
long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing
for she hath waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said,
Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore
him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now
drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their
both's health for he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir
Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars' hall and
that was the meekest man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under
hen and that was the very truest knight of the world one that ever did
minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman's woe
with wonder pondering.
Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be
drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side the
board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable's with
other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the franklin
that high! Lenehan and one from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and young Stephen
that had mien of a frere that was at head of the board and Costello that men
clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of
all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the most drunken that demanded
still of more mead) and beside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi
they waited for that he promised to have come and such as intended to no
goodness said how he had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for
he bore fast friendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and
for that his languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as
they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red him,
love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.
For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each
gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that
put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a
matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne's house that now
was trespassed out of this world and the self night next before her death
all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And they said
farther she should live because in the beginning they said the woman should
bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were of this imagination
affirmed how young Madden had said truth for he had conscience to let her
die. And not few and of these was young Lynch were in doubt that the world
was now right evil governed as it was never other howbeit the mean people
believed it otherwise but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A
redress God grant. This was scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay,
by our Virgin Mother, the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour
whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argument and what for their
drinking but the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so
that at the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the
whole affair and when he said how that she was dead and how for holy
religion sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to
Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby
they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words
following, Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now
glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purge fire. But,
gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly unpossibilise,
which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life?
For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures
within us and nature has other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch
Costello wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he
could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or
wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of
lustihead. Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi's praise of
that beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn the
other all this while pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did
malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that he
was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. Thereat laughed
they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold which never durst
laugh too open by reason of a strange humour which he would not bewray and
also ford that he rued for her that bare whoso she might be or wheresoever.
Then spoke young Stephen orgulous of mother Church that would cast him out
of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness
wrought by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to
mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the
reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain
with effectu secuto, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions
of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the second
month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother foldeth ever
souls for God's greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was but a
dam to bring forth beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth
the fisherman's seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church
for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he
in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of
mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said
dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever
loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his
experience of so seldom seen an accident it was good for that Mother Church
belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he
scaped their questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a
pregnant word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he
averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he was of
a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that taking it
appeared eftsoons.
But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had
pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and as
he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild
which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art could save so
dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap
and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of lamb's wool, the flower of
the flock, lest he might perish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then
about the midst of the winter) and now sir Leopold that had of his body no
manchild for an heir looked upon him his friend's son and was shut up in
sorrow for his forepassed happiness and as sad as he was that him failed a
son of such gentle courage (for all accounted him of real parts) so grieved
he also in no less measure for young Stephen for that he lived riotously
with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores.
About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty
so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed their
approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the
intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the vicar of
Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, quod he, of
this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed parcel of my body but
my soul's bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to them that live by bread
alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for this will comfort more than
the other will dismay. See ye here. And he showed them glistering coins of
the tribute and goldsmiths' notes the worth of two pound nineteen shilling
that he had, he said, for a song which he writ. They all admired to see the
foresaid riches in such dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were
then these as followeth: Know all men, he said, time's ruins build
eternity's mansions. What means this? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but
after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark
me now. In woman's womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker
all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the
postcreation. Omnis cam ad te veniet. No question but her name is puissant
who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, our mighty
mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly that she hath an
omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem, that is to wit, an almightiness of
petition because she is the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too,
whereas that other, our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive
anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a
penny pippin. But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I
say, and was but creature of her creature, vergine madre figlia di tuo
figlio or she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or
ignorancy with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and
with Joseph the Joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages
parce que M. LÉo Taxil nous a dit que qui l'avait mise dans cette fichue
position c'Était le sacrÉ pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder
transsubstantiality oder consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality.
And all cried out upon It for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy,
he said, a birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without
bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will we
withstand, withsay.
Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would
sing a bawdy catch Staboo Stabella about a wench that was put in pod of a
jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did now attack: The first three months
she was not well, Staboo, when here nurse Quigley from the door angerly bid
them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she remembered them
being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came for because
she was jealous that not gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her
guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian
walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her
hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all
embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and with
menace of blandishments others whiles all chode with him, a murrain seize
the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in
the peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou
dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like
a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the
flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most
sacred and most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne's house rest should
reign.
To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in
Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he had
not cided to take friar's vows and he answered him obedience in the womb,
chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master Lenehan at
this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he
heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding
female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too,
waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he said very entirely it
was clean contrary to their suppose for he was the eternal son and ever
virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him his
curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as the
priests use in Madagascar island, she to be in guise of white and saffron,
her groom in white and grain, with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed
while clerks sung kyries and the anthem Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis
mysterium till she was there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable
hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis
Beaumont that is in their Maid's Tragedy that was writ for a like twining of
lovers: To bed, to bed, was the burden of it to be played with accompanable
concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most
mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus
of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial
communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, but, harkee, young
sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher for, by my truth, of such
a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best
remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the stews to
make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days and
the custom of the country approved with it. Greater love than this, he said,
no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do
likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, said Zarathustra, sometime regius
professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there
ever that man to whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy
tower it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. Orate, fratres,
pro memetipso. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy
generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my
word and broughtest in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my
sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned
against the light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants.
Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done
this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps
and didst deny me to the Roman and the Indian of dark speech with whom thy
daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of
behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and from Pisgah and from the Horns of
Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. But thou hast suckled me
with a bitter milk: my moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou
hast left me alone for ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a
kiss of ashes hast thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior,
he proceeded to say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint
nor so much as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell's
gates visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates
atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father
showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon of
life is an Egypt's plague which in the nights of prenativity and
postmortemity is their most proper ubi and quomodo. And as the ends and
ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their
inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads
forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that
minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto nature so
is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail,
batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they bend.
First saved from water of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated
wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the
conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the
ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor
whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we
would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our
whoness hath fetched his whenceness.
Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly Etienne chanson but he loudly
bid them lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majestic
longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator all in applepie
order, a penny for him who finds the pea.
Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack,
See the malt stored in many a refluent sack,
In the proud cirque of Jackjohn's bivouac.
A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled, back. Loud on
left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm
that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and
witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he
that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed pale as they might all mark
and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now
of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his
breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some
jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which Master Lenehan
vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and a blow on any the
least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in
his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead.
But this was only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne's
hall. He drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it
thundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden, being
godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of doom and
Master Bloom, at the braggart's side spoke to him calming words to slumber
his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise
that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having
taken place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon.
But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? No, for he
had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be done
away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the other? He
was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But could he not
have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness
that then he lived withal? Indeed not for Grace was not there to find that
bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the god Bringforth or, what
Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard? Why, he could not but hear
unless he had plugged up the tube Understanding (which he had not done). For
through that tube he saw that he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must
for a certain one day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And
would he not accept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he
and make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has
commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that other
land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise which
behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there is no death
and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall come as many as
believe on it? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and Chaste had pointed
him to the way but the reason was that in the way he fell in with a certain
whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand
and she beguiled him wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she
said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a
brave place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot
which is named Two-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence.
This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of
Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore
Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a wicked
devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and know her.
For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else but notion and they
could conceive no thought of it for, first, Two-in-the-Bush whither she
ticed them was the very goodliest grot and in it were four pillows on which
were four tickets with these words printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy
and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and
the monsters they cared not for them, for Preservative had given them a
stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither
from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield
which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil
and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon,
Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, were ye
all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a very grievous
rage that he would presently lift his arm and spill their souls for their
abuses and their spillings done by them contrariwise to his word which forth
to bring brenningly biddeth.
So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and
after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a
fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won't sprout, fields
athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. Hard
to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle this
long while back as no man remembered to be without. The rosy buds all gone
brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought but dry flags and faggots
that would catch at first fire. All the world saying, for aught they knew,
the big wind of last February a year that did havoc the land so pitifully a
small thing beside this barrenness. But by and by, as said, this evening
after sundown, the wind sitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be
seen as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some
sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke
with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within
door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a
clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as
the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through
Merrion green up to Holles street, a swash of water running that was before
bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack
after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon's door
(that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal.
Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come from Mr Moore's the
writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite) chanced
against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now In with dance cloaks of
Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where
his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and
asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's
being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a
skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel and all this while
poured with rain and so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of
Crawford's journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling
fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy, Vin. Lynch, a Scots
fellow, Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad for a racinghorse he fancied and
Stephen D. Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he
having dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red
slippers on in pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be
for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her
belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the
midwives sore put to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop
that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than
good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks they say, but God give her
soon issue. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off her
last chick's nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three all
breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king's bible. Her hub
fifty odd and a methodist but takes the Sacrament and is to be seen any fair
sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound
with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has trailing for flounder and
pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of
rain and all refreshed and will much increase the harvest yet those in ken
say after wind and water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi's
almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same
gist out of the Hindustanish for his farmer's gazette) to have three things
in all but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and
bairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with their queerities
no telling how.
With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the
letter was in that night's gazette and he made a show to find it about him
(for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but on
Stephen's persuasion he gave over to search and was bidden to sit near by
which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman that went for a
merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of woman, horseflesh, or hot
scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he was mean in fortunes and for the
most part hankered about the coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps,
ostlers, bookies, Paul's men, runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of
the bagnio and other rogues of the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a
tipstaff often at nights till broad day of whom he picked up between his
sackpossets much loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boiling-cook's and
if he had but gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of
tripes with a bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off
with his tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every
mother's son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello, that is,
hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank
(that was his name), 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered
along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with
their bully beef, a pox on it. There's as good fish in this tin as ever came
out of it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that
stood by which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place which
was indeed the chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. Mort aux
vaches, says Frank then in the French language that had been indentured to a
brandy shipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a
gentleman too. From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father,
a headborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the
use of the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but
he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with
the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he
would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him
from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to
hoof it on the roads with the Romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by
favour or moonlight or fecking maid's linen or choking chickens behind a
hedge. He had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with
naked pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint of
tears as often as he saw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across,
that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest
I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can
scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood
beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wools, having been some
years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster that drove
his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in
Prussia street. I question with you there, says he. More like 'tis the hoose
of the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a little moved but very handsomely, told
him no such matter and that he had dispatches from the emperor's chief
tailtickler thanking him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor
Rinderpest, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of
physic to take the bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain
dealing. He'll find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a
bull that's Irish, says he. Irish by name and Irish by nature, says Mr
Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about. An Irish bull in an English
chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent
to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattle breeder of them all,
with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross the
table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and a
portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a coat
of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils so that the
women of our island, leaving doughballs and rollingpins, followed after him
hanging his bulliness in daisychains. What for that, says Mr Dixon, but
before he came over farmer Nicholas that was a eunuch had him properly
gelded by a college of doctors, who were no better off than himself. So be
off now, says he, and do all my cousin german the Lord Harry tells you and
take a farmer's blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very
soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent,
for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid,
wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of
the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the
nape from his long holy tongue then lie with the finest strapping young
ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his word:
And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat with a tippet
and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him
all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him at every turn of the
road with a gold manger in each full of the best hay in the market so that
he could doss and dung to his heart's content. By this time the father of
the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavy that he could
scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames and damsels
brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full
he would rear up on his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and
roar and bellow out of him in bull's language and they all after him. Ay,
says another, and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in
all the land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to
his mind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the
island with a printed notice, saying: By the lord Harry green is the grass
that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a
cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo
that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he
run amok over half the countryside rooting up with his horns whatever was
planted and all by lord Harry's orders. There was bad blood between them at
first, says Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the
old Nicks in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his
house and I'll meddle in his matters, says he. I'll make that animal smell
hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one
evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to
go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the
first rule of the course was that the others were to row with pitchforks) he
discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and on picking up a
blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry he found sure enough that
he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous champion bull of the Romans,
Bos Bovum, which is good bog Latin for boss of the show. After that, says Mr
Vincent, the lord Harry put his head into a cow's drinking trough in the
presence of all his courtiers and pulling it out again told them all his new
name. Then, with the water running off him, he got into an old smock and
skirt that had belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the
bull's language to study but he could never learn a word of it except the
first personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if
ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it up
on what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of
cotton or a corkfloat. In short he and the bull of Ireland were soon as fast
friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was
that the men of the island, seeing no help was toward as the ungrate women
were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their
bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards,
sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head
between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly
Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their
bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America. Which was the
occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that
rollicking chanty:
-- Pope Peter's but a pissabed.
A man's a man for a' that.
Our worthy acquaintance, Mr Malachi Mulligan, now appeared in the
doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a
friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec
Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or
a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil
enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a project
of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched on. Whereat
he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had had
printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend printed in fair italics:
Mr Malachi Mulligan, Fertiliser and Incubator, Lambay Island. His project,
as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures
such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop
Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our
bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend,
said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both.
'Tis as cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation
and, expatiating on his design, told his hearers that he had been led into
this thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the
inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due
to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether
the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities
acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch
defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable
females with rich jointures, a prey for the vilest bonzes, who hide their
flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly
bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply
the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when
a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made
his heart weep. To curb this inconvenience (which he concluded due to a
suppression of latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors of
worth and inspected into this matter, he had resolved to purchase in fee
simple for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord Talbot
de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of not much in favour with our ascendancy
party. He proposed to set up there a national fertilising farm to be named
Omphalos with an obelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to
offer his dutiful yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what
grade of life soever who should there direct to him with the desire of
fulfilling the functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor
would he take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than
the opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions, and their tempers
were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. For
his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a diet of
savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these latter
prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both broiled and
stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum chillies. After
this homily which he delivered with much warmth of asseveration Mr Mulligan
in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with which he had shielded it.
The both, it seems, had been overtaken by the rain and for all their mending
their pace had taken water, as might be observed by Mr Mulligan's
smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now somewhat piebald. His project
meanwhile was very favourably entertained by his auditors and won hearty
eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of Mary's excepted to it, asking with a
finicking air did he purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan
however made court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics
which as it dwelt upon his memory seemed to him a sound and tasteful support
of his contention: Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, ut
matres familiarum nostro lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici
titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum
Romanorum magnopere anteponunt: while for those of ruder wit he drove home
his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more suitable to their stomach,
the buck and doe of the forest glade, the farmyard drake and duck.
Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper
man of his person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with
animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics while
the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had advanced. The
young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a passage that had
befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his nearest neighbour. Mr
Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for whom were those loaves and
fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him a civil bow and said, Pray,
sir, was you in need of any professional assistance we could give? Who, upon
his offer, thanked him very heartily, though preserving his proper distance,
and replied that he was come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne's
house, that was in an interesting condition, poor lady, from woman's woe
(and here he fetched a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken
place. Mr Dixon, to turn the table, took on to ask Mr Mulligan himself
whether his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an
ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due as
with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. For
answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote himself
bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll mimic of
Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though 'tis pity she's
a trollop): There's a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a
conceit that it renewed the storms of mirth and threw the whole room into
the most violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the
same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the antechamber.
Here the listener, who was none other than the Scotch student, a little
fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion with
the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient point,
having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to
pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by a questioning pose
of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a
gesture) to which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the head,
asked the narrator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might treat
him with a cup of it. Mais bien sÛr, noble stranger, said he cheerily, et
mille compliments. That you may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing
but this cup to crown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but
a crust in my wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would
accept of them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and
give thanks to the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver
of good things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took
a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his
bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband that very picture
which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. Gazing upon
those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he said, had you
but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting instant with her
dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her feast day as she told
me) in such an artless disorder, of so melting a tenderness, 'pon my
conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been impelled by generous nature to
deliver yourself wholly into the hands of such an enemy or to quit the field
for ever. I declare, I was never so touched in all my life. God I thank thee
as the Author of my days! Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature
will bless with her favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these
words and, having replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and
sighed again. Beneficent Disseminator of blessing to all Thy creatures, how
great and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in
thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, the
lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer years.
But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and imperfect are all
our sublunary joys! Maledicity! Would to God that foresight had remembered
me to take my cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had
poured seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew
me, he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and,
thousand thunders, I know of a marchand de capotes, Monsieur Poyntz, from
whom I can have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion as ever
kept a lady from wetting. Tut, Tut! cries le FÉcondateur, tripping in, my
friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller (I have just cracked
a half bottle avec lui in a circle of the best wits of the town), is my
authority that in Cape Horn, ventre biche, they have a rain that will wet
through any, even the stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, he tells
me, sans blague, has sent more than one luckless fellow in good earnest
posthaste to another world. Pooh! A livre! cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy
things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy
mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My
dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she
would starve in such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing
piquantly and whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words
but giddy butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted
it in our heart and it has become a household word that il y a deux choses
for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a
breach of the proprieties, is the fittest nay, the only, garment. The first,
said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to
fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my
ear), the first is a bath... but at this point a bell tinkling in the hall
cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment of our
store of knowledge.
Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and while
all were conjecturing what might be the cause Miss Callan entered and,
having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with a
profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a party of
debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and not less
severe than beautiful refrained the humorous sallies even of the most
licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of ribaldry.
Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled. A monstrous
fine bit of cow-flesh! I'll be sworn she has rendezvoused you. What, you
dog? Have you a way with them? Gad's bud. Immensely so, said Mr Lynch. The
bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater hospice. Demme, does not
Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the chin? As I look to be saved I
had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid there any time these seven
months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in the primrose vest,
feigning a womanish simper and immodest squirmings of his body, how you do
tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I'm all of a wibblywobbly. Why, you're
as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem that you are! May this pot of four
half choke me, cried Costello, if she ain't in the family way. I knows a
lady what's got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young
surgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the
nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful
providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady
who was enceinte which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had
given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who
without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling
profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest
power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need
were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble
exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious
incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an
one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the
astonishment of ours and at an instant the most momentous that can befall a
puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of
a race where the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no right
reverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Having delivered
himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the by and repaired to
the door. A murmur of approval arose from all and some were for ejecting the
low soaker without more ado, a design which would have been effected nor
would he have received more than his bare deserts had he not abridged his
transgression by affirming with a horrid imprecation (for he swore a round
hand) that he was as good a son of the true fold as ever drew breath. Stap
my vitals, said he, them was always the sentiments of honest Frank Costello
which I was bred up most particular to honour thy father and thy mother that
had the best hand to a rolypoly or a hasty pudding as you ever see what I
always looks back on with a loving heart.
To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of
some impudent mocks which he, however, had borne with being the fruits of
that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity. The young
sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies as overgrown children:
the words of their tumultuary discussions were difficultly understood and
not often nice: their testiness and outrageous mots were such that his
intellects resiled from: nor were they scrupulously sensible of the
proprieties though their fund of strong animal spirits spoke in their
behalf. But the word of Mr Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he
nauseated the wretch that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen
gibbosity born out of wedlock and thrust like a crookback teethed and feet
first into the world, which the dint of the surgeon's pliers in his skull
lent indeed a colour to, so as it put him in thought of that missing link of
creation's chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now for
more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had passed through
the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a wary ascendancy and
self a man of a rare forecast, he had enjoined his heart to repress all
motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting them with the readiest
precaution, foster within his breast that plenitude of sufferance which base
minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and all find tolerable and but tolerable.
To those who create themselves wits at the cost of feminine delicacy (a
habit of mind which he never did hold with) to them he would concede neither
to bear the name nor to herit the tradition of a proper breeding: while for
such that, having lost all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the
sharp antidote of experience to cause their insolency to beat a precipitate
and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel with mettlesome youth
which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlings of the
severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer express it) for
eating of the tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanity
upon any condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her
lawful occasions. To conclude, while from the sister's words he had reckoned
upon a speedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little
alleviated by the intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal
of such duress now testified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty
of the Supreme Being.
Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express
his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express
one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not to
be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement since
she had been in such pain through no fault of hers. The dressy young blade
said it was her husband's that put her in that expectation or at least it
ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I must acquaint you,
said Mr Crothers, clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of
emphasis, old Glory Allelujerum was round again to-day, an elderly man with
dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of
Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her. I bade him hold himself in readiness
for that the event would burst anon. 'Slife, I'll be round with you. I
cannot but extol the virile potency of the old bucko that could still knock
another child out of her. All fell to praising of it, each after his own
fashion, though the same young blade held with his former view that another
than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, a clerk in orders, a linkboy
(virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household.
Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty
of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the
dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere
acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of
time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which
most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added,
it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for
I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together.
But with what fitness, let it be asked, of the noble lord, his patron,
has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to
civil rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity?
Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the
recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados
did this traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece
against the empire of which he is a tenant at will while he trembled for the
security of his four per cents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all
benefits received? Or is it that from being a deluder of others he has
become at last his own dupe as he is, if report belie him not his own and
his only enjoyer? Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a
respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most
distant reflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as
it was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy
woman she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate
prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the
derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican
in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to
attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest
strata of society. Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary
angel it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the
question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr
Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort
couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him
to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seed-field that lies fallow
for the want of a ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second
nature and an opprobium in middlelife. If he must dispense his balm of
Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore to health a
generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consist better with the
doctrines that now engross him. His marital breast is the repository of
secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. The lewd suggestions of some
faded beauty may console him for a consort neglected and debauched but this
new exponent of morals and healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree
which, when rooted in its native orient, throve and flourished and was
abundant in balm but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have
lost their quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is
stagnant, acid and inoperative.
The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial
usages of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the junior
medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the delegation
that an heir had been born. When he had betaken himself to the women's
apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the afterbirth in the
presence of the secretary of state for domestic affairs and the members of
the privy council, silent in unanimous exhaustion and approbation, the
delegates, chafing under the length and solemnity of their vigil and hoping
that the joyful occurrence would palliate a licence which the simultaneous
absence of abigail and officer rendered the easier, broke out at once into a
strife of tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard
endeavouring to urge, to mollify, to restrain. The moment was too propitious
for the display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union
among tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively
eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean
section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, with
respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs murder and
endered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured
the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the rights of primogeniture and
king's bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages and infanticides,
simulated and dissimulated, acardiac ftus in ftu, aprosopia due to a
congestion, the agnatia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate
Mulligan) in consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along
the medial line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other
spoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation of
labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the vein, the
premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the actual
case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial insemination
by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause,
the problem of the perpetuation of the species in the case of females
impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of delivery called
by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the recorded instances of multigeminal,
twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of
consanguineous parents - in a word all the cases of human nativity which
Aristotle has classified in his master-piece with chromolithographic
illustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were
examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of
pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a country
stile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and
the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and
ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her person
which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. The
abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro's inkle,
strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a primafacie and
natural hypothetical explanation of swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel
Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. The
hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the taledonian envoy and worthy
of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for, envisaged in such
cases an arrest of embryonic development at some stage antecedent to the
human. An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views with such
heat as almost carried conviction the theory of copulation between women and
the males of brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of
fables such as that of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin
poet has handed down to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression
made by his words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as
it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein
of pleasantry which none better than he knew know to affect, postulating as
the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously, a
heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and Mr Candidate
Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma in the even of one
Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficulty by mutual consent was
referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon
Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural
gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested or in
obedience to an inward voice, he delivered briefly, and as some thought
perfunctorily, the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder
what God has joined.
But Malachias' tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up
the scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in
the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh creep? He
had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the other a phial
marked Poison. Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted on all faces while
he eyed them with a ghastly grin. I anticipated some such reception, he
began with an eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, history is to blame. Yes,
it is true. I am the murderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The
inferno has no terrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and
ages, what way would I be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I
tramping Dublin this while back with my share of songs and himself after me
the like of a soulth or a bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland's, is in this
life. It is what I tried to obliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting,
the Erse language (he recited some), laudanum (he raised the phial to his
lips), camping out. In vain! His spectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope...
Ah! Destruction! The black panther! With a cry he suddenly vanished and the
panel slid back. An instant later his head appeared in the door opposite and
said: Meet me at Westland row station at ten past eleven. He was gone! Tears
gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host. The seer raised his hand to
heaven, murmuring: The vendetta of Mananaan! The sage repeated Lex talionis.
The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense
debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased. The
mystery was unveiled. Haines was the third brother. His real name was
Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father. He drank
drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. The lonely house by the
graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. The spider pitches her
web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers from his hole. A curse is on
it. It is haunted. Murderer's ground.
What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the
chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry
and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No
longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of
reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance
in the funds. He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a
mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young
figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning
from the old house in Clambrassil street to the high school, his book
satchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a
mother's thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his
first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged
traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented
handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas, a
thing now of the past!), and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or
that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding
virgin shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins.
The scent, the smile but more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous
address brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm
seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of
noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned
spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto,
the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, to a
tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him
might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He
thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores
there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and
mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luck-penny), together they hear
the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal
university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever
remember the night, first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in
nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant (fiat!)
light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a
breath 'twas done but - hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl
flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of
night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold! Name and
memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken
from thee and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none now to
be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.
The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the
infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of
cycles of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey
twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields,
shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her
mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms
are they yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim shapely haunches,
a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull. They fade, sad
phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home of screechowls and
the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more. And on the highway of
the clouds they come, muttering thunder of rebellion, the ghosts of beasts.
Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads them, the lancinating
lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and
of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea,
Lacus Mortis. Ominous, revengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the
clouds, horned and capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned
the giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all
their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun.
Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible
gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent
grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own
magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And, lo, wonder of
metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar,
the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, Millicent, the
young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she now arise, a queen among
the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright
gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer! It floats, it
flows about her starborn flesh and loose it streams emerald, sapphire, mauve
and heliotrope, sustained on currents of cold interstellar wind, winding,
coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till
after a myriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and
triangled sign upon the forehead of Taurus.
Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at
school together in Conmee's time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades,
Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the past
and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them into life
across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to my call? Who
supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending bard, am lord and
giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair with a coronal of
vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those leaves, Vincent said
to him, will adorn you more fitly when something more, and greatly more,
than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. All who wish you
well hope this for you. All desire to see you bring forth the work you
meditate. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent, Lenehan
said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him, have no fear. He could not
leave his mother an orphan. The young mans face grew dark. All could see how
hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He
would have withdrawn from the feast had not the noise of voices allayed the
smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the rider's
name: Lenehan as much more. He told them of the race. The flag fell and,
huuh, off, scamper, the mare ran out freshly with O. Madden up. She was
leading the field: all hearts were beating. Even Phyllis could not contain
herself. She waved her scarf and cried: Huzzah! Sceptre wins! But in the
straight on the run home when all were in close order the dark horse
Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All was lost now. Phyllis
was silent: her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I am undone. But
her lover consoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which lay
some oval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell: one only. A whacking
fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and three today.
What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterous buffalo the
victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear it as was the ancient
wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh. She is
not the filly that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold such
another. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish
you could have seen my queen today, Vincent said, how young she was and
radiant (Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock
of muslin, I do not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us
were in bloom: the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen
floating by us. In the sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone
a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplepomenos sells
in his booth near the bridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the arm
with which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when I pressed
too dose. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the couch, but today she was
free, blithe, mocked at peril. She is more taking then. Her posies too! Mad
romp that it is, she had pulled her fill as we reclined together. And in
your ear, my friend, you will not think who met us as we left the field.
Conmee himself! He was walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book
with, I doubt not, a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the
page. The sweet creature turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to
reprove a slight disorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for
the very trees adore her. When conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely
echo in the little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going by he
had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had poor luck
with Bass's mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more propensely.
He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and withheld his act,
pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. Warily, Malachi
whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is as painful
perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object, intensely
regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods. Do
you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos told me so, Stephen answered, whom in
a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic
law. The lords of the moon, Theosophos told me, an orange-fiery shipload
from planet Alpha of the lunar chain, would not assume the etheric doubles
and these were therefore incarnated by the ruby-coloured egos from the
second constellation.
However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him
being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised, which was
entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was not the
case at all. The individual whose visual organs, while the above was going
on, were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of animation, was
as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody that conjectured
the contrary would have found themselves pretty speedily in the wrong shop.
During the past four minutes or thereabouts he had been staring hard at a
certain amount of number one Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at
Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situated amongst a lot of others right
opposite to where he was and which was certainly calculated to attract
anyone's remark on account of its scarlet appearance. He was simply and
solely, as it subsequently transpired for reasons best known to himself
which put quite an altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after
the moment before's observations about boyhood days and the turf,
recollecting two or three private transactions of his own which the other
two were as mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however,
both their eyes met and, as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other
was endeavouring to help himself to the thing, he involuntarily determined
to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the mediumsized glass
recipient which contained the fluid sought after and made a capacious hole
in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the same time however, a
considerable degree of attentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer
that was in it about the place.
The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the
course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The
debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on the
loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne's house had never beheld an
assembly so representative and so varied nor had the old rafters of that
establishment ever listened to a language so encyclopaedic. A gallant scene
in truth it made. Crothers was there at the foot of the table in his
striking Highland garb, his face glowing from the briny airs of the Mull of
Galloway. There too, opposite to him was Lynch, whose countenance bore
already the stigmata of early depravity and premature wisdom. Next the
Scotchman was the place assigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his
side was seated in stolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair of the
resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it the
figure of Bannon in explorer's kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide
brogues contrasted sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred manners
of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board was the
young poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical
inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while to
right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, fresh
from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of
travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible dishonour, but
from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril or threat or
degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which
the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.
It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted
transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) contentions would
appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted
scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with
tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in the street has to
face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he
can. There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answer -
at present - such as the first problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb.
Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we accept the view of
Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period,
assert others) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too long
neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, as
most embryologists incline to opine, such as Culpepper, Spallanzani,
Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti, a mixture of both? This
would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature's favourite devices)
between the nisus formativus of the nemasperm on the one hand and on the
other a happily chosen position, succubitus felix, of the passive element.
The other problem raised by the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant
mortality. It is interesting because, as he pertinently remarks, we are all
born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg.
et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitary conditions in which our greylunged
citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by inhaling the
bacteria which lurk in dust. These facts, he alleges, and the revolting
spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicity posters, religious
ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed
scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic
bachelors and unfructified duennas - these, he said, were accountable for
any and every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he
prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life,
genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive
pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as Venus
and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these little
attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass
the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc.
Bacc.) attributes some of these demises to abnormal trauma in the case of
women workers subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital
discipline in the home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or
official, culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of
criminal abortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the
former (we are thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he
cites of nurses forgetting to count the sponges In the peritoneal cavity is
too rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonder
is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do, all
things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which often balk
nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is that thrown out by Mr
V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and mortality, as well as all
other phenomena of evolution, tidal movements, lunar phases, blood
temperatures, diseases in general, everything, in fine, in nature's vast
workshop from the extinction of some remote sun to the blossoming of one of
the countless flowers which beautify our public parks, is subject to a law
of numeration as yet unascertained. Still the plain straightforward question
why a child of normally healthy parents and seemingly a healthy child and
properly looked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though
other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's
words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and
cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are
due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs
have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that
only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at
an increasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement, which, though
productive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), is
nevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the race in
general in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus'
(Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) that an
omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass
through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability such
multifarious aliments as cancrenous females emaciated by parturition,
corpulent professional gentlemen, not to speak of jaundiced politicians and
chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric relief in an innocent collation
of staggering bob, reveals as nought else could and in a very unsavoury
light the tendency above alluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are
not so intimately acquainted with the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as
this morbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all his overweening
bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an
alkali prides himself on being, it should perhaps be stated that staggering
bob in the vile parlance of our lower class licensed victuallers signifies
the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In a
recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in
the commons' hall of the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles
street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Mdw., F. K. Q. C.
P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as
having stated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthetic
allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous of all
nature's processes, the act of sexual congress) she must let it out again or
give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the risk of her own was
the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor none the less effective for the
moderate and measured tone in which it was delivered.
Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a
happy accouchement. It had been a weary weary while both for patient and
doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave woman had
manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and now she was very
very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone before, are happy too as
they gaze down and smile upon the touching scene. Reverently look at her as
she reclines there with the motherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for
baby fingers (a pretty sight it is to see), in the first bloom of her new
motherhood, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the
Universal Husband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only
one blessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy,
to lay in his arms that mite of God's clay, the fruit of their lawful
embraces. He is older now (you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in
the shoulders yet in the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the
conscientious second accountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O
Doady, loved one of old, faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that
faroff time of the roses! With the old shake of her pretty head she recalls
those days. God, how beautiful now across the mist of years! But their
children are grouped in her imagination about the bedside, hers and his,
Charley, Mary Alice, Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy
(Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy
(called after our famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs of
Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a Purefoy
if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful will be
christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of Mr Purefoy
in the Treasury Remembrancer's office, Dublin Castle. And so time wags on:
but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh break from that
bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from your pipe, the
seasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for you (may it be the
distant day!) and dout the light whereby you read in the Sacred Book for the
oil too has run low and so with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows
and will call in His own good time. You too have fought the good fight and
played loyally your man's part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good
and faithful servant!
There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil
memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but
they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them
be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were
not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth
suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various
circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his
senses or amid the cool silver tranquillity of the evening or at the feast
at midnight when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the
vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut
off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent,
remote, reproachful.
The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of
that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied
trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an
unhealthiness, a flair, for the cruder things of life. A scene disengages
itself in the observer's memory, evoked, it would seem, by a word of so
natural a homeliness as if those days were really present there (as some
thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space of lawn one soft May
evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at Roundtown, purple and white,
fragrant slender spectators of the game but with much real interest in the
pellets as they run slowly forward over the sward or collide and stop, one
by its fellow, with a brief alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn
where the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as
fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know
not what of arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely
brace of them pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the
skin so daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in
linseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth when
ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the urn secured
by that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little just as this young
man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of danger but must needs
glance at whiles towards where his mother watches from the piazzetta giving
upon the flower-close with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach
(alles VergÄnghche) in her glad look.
Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that
antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their faces.
Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of custody rather,
befitting their station in that house, the vigilant watch of shepherds and
of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago. But as before the
lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with preponderant excess of
moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, compass earth and sky in one
vast slumber, impending above parched field and drowsy oxen and blighted
growth of shrub and verdure till in an instant a flash rives their centres
and with the reverberation of the thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent,
so and not otherwise was the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon
the utterance of the Word.
Burke's! Outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and
bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor,
punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear, ashplants,
bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and what not. A
dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse Callan taken aback
in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon coming downstairs with
news of placentation ended, a full pound if a milligramme. They hark him on.
The door! It is open? Ha? They are out tumultuously, off for a minute's
race, all bravely legging it, Burke's of Denzille and Holles their ulterior
goal. Dixon follows, giving them sharp language but raps out an oath, he
too, and on. Bloom stays with nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy
mother and nurseling up there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too
not other now? Ward of watching in Horne's house has told its tale in that
washedout pallor. Them all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping he
whispers close in going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee?
The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence
celestial, glistering on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God's
air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it
deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed
and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in
this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her
lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified
with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a
very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all
their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with
butcher's bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head
up? For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See,
thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A
canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee!
He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked
kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the
innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile
cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary
pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever,
bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious
attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and
trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music. Twenty years
of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and
would and wait and never do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and
didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathusthra?
Deine kuh TrÜbsal melkest Du. Nun trinkst Du die sÜsse Milch des Euters.
See! It displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother's
milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars
overhead, rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters
will quaff in their guzzlingden, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's
land. Thy cow's dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and
fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch!
Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!
All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides.
Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo.
Any brollies or gumboots in the family? Where the Henry Nevil's sawbones and
ole clo? Sorra one o me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward the ribbon
counter. Where's Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the drunken minister coming
out of the maternity hospal! Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius.
A make, mister. The Denzille lane boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto,
Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight. Yous join us, dear sir? No
hentrusion in life. Lou heap good man. Allee samee this bunch. En avant, mes
enfants! Fire away number one on the gun. Burke's! Thence they advanced five
parasangs. Slattery's mounted foot where's that bleeding awfur? Parson
Steve, apostates' creed! No, no. Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. Keep a
watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What's on you? Ma mÈre m'a
mariÉe. British Beatitudes! Ratamplan Digidi Boum Boum. Ayes have it. To be
printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females. Calf
covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautiful book come
out of Ireland my time. Silentium! Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to
nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp the boys
are (attitudes!) parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs,
battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beerbeef
trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers.
Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops' boosebox.
Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You
hurt? Most amazingly sorry!
Query. Who's astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall.
Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this
week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the übermensch. Dittoh. Five
number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's candle.
Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go
again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy? Caramba! Have an eggnog or a
prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular's got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated
awful. Don't mention it. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet
be a boomblebee whenever he was settin sleep in hes bit garten. Digs up near
the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin, I do. Full of a dure.
See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your
lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here.
Look slippery. If you fall don't wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine!
Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her
anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and
allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spud again the
rheumatiz? All poppycock, you'll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear
thee best a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity
sagaciating OK? How's the squaws and papooses? Womanbody after going on the
straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There's hair. Ours the white death and
the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss. Mummer's wire. Cribbed out
of Meredith. Jesified orchidised polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine's writing Pa
Kinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi.
Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw
Hielentman's your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil!
My tipple. Merci. Here's to us. How's that? Leg before wicket. Don't stain
my brandnew sitinems. Give's a shake of pepper, you there. Catch aholt.
Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every cove to his
gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. Les petites femmes. Bold bad girl from the town
of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the
road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do
you want for ninepence? Machree, Macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress
jig. And a pull altogether. Ex!
Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like
seeing as how no shiners is acoming, Underconstumble? He've got the chink ad
lib. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in
on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing.
You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won't wash here for nuts
nohow. Lil chile vely solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds
teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, Mossoo.
Tanks you.
'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir.
Bantam, two days teetee. Mowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint,
do. Gum, I'm jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With
a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castille. Rows of
cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. Gemini,
he's going to holler. The colleen bawn, my colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut
his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped
him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen. Hand as give me the jady
coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot.
Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a
goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospel-true. Criminal diversion? I think that
yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the
game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back. O, lust, our refuge and our
strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes
someone. All in if he spots me. Comeahome, our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo.
Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to
pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S'elp me,
honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I had. There's a great big holy friar.
Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil
get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord, Amen.
You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy
drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most
extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one
expensive inaugurated libation? Give's a breather. Landlord, landlord, have
you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, wee drap to pree. Cut and some again.
Right Boniface! Absinthe the lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum
diabolus capiat posteriora nostra Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the
Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads? Photo's papli, by all
that's gorgeous! Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares
of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel,
ye maun e'en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann will
yu help, yung man hoose frend tuk bungalo kee to find plais whear to lay
crown off his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my
shins if this beent the bestest putties longbreakyet. Item, curate, couple
of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of
sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed
spirits. Time. Who wander through the world. Health all. A la vÔtre!
Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep
at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by
James. Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond?
Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity.
Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all
tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she
did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn
in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. Pardon? See him today at a runefal?
Chum o yourn passed in his checks? Ludamassy! Pore picanninies! Thou'll no
be telling me thot, Pold veg! Did urns blubble bigsplash crytears cos fries
Padney was took off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra
best. I never see the like since I was born. Tiens, tiens, but it is well
sad, that, my faith, yes. O get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle
drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow.
Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him,
says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There's eleven of them. Get ye gone.
Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah, the Excellent One, your
soul this night ever tremendously conserve.
Your attention! We're nae thy fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The
least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable
regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my thrue love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook.
Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes.
Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up. Pflaap! Tally ho. You not
come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap!
Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for
Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips there shady Mary is.
Righto, any old time. Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. You coming long?
Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned
against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to
judge the world by fire. Pflaap! Ut implerentur scripturae. Strike up a
ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. Christicle,
who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? Elijah is coming
washed in the Blood of the Lamb. Come on, you winefizzling ginsizzling
booseguzzling existences! Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed,
hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed four flushers, false alarms and excess
baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J. Christ Dowie,
that's yanked to glory most half this planet from 'Frisco Beach to
Vladivostok. The Deity ain't no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that
he's on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the
grandest thing yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus.
You'll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle
the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch
in it for you, my friend, In his backpocket. Just you try it on.
CirceThe Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an
uncobbled transiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green
will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of flimsy houses with gaping
doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice
gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are
wedged lumps of coal and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly.
Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the
murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.
THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you.
THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable.
(A deaf mute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling,
jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children's hands
imprisons him.)
THE CHILDREN Kithoguel Salute.
THE IDIOT (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!
THE CHILDREN Where's the great light?
THE IDIOT (Gobbing.) Ghaghahest.
(They release him. He jerks on. A pygmy woman swings on a rope slung
between the railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and
muffled by its arm and hat moves, groans, grinding growling teeth, and
snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbish tip crouches to
shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oil lamp
rams the last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew
his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair
swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a
papershuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt,
scrambles up. A drunken navvy ups with both hands the railings of an area,
lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shoulder capes, their hands
upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes; a woman screams; a
child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer
from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs
out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice,
still young, sings shrill from a lane.)
CISSY CAFFREY
I gave it to Molly
Because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters,
as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths
a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)
THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.
CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
(She sings.)
I gave it to Nelly
To stick in her belly
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics
bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond copper
polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the
redcoats.)
PRIVATE COMPTON (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.
PRIVATE CARR (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!
CISSY CAFFREY (Her voice soaring higher.)
She has it, she got it,
Wherever she put it
The leg of the duck.
(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy
the introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockey cap low on his brow, attends
him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)
STEPHEN Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.
(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)
THE BAWD (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
STEPHEN (Altius aliqantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit acqua ista.
THE BAWD (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils.)
EDY BOARDMAN (Bickering.) And say the one: I seen you up Faithful place
with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat.
Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the
mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one
is. Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time,
Kildbride the enginedriver and lancecorporal Oliphant.
STEPHEN (Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti i sunt.
(He flourishes his ashplant shivering the lamp image, shattering light
over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him,
growling. Lynch scar's it with a kick.)
LYNCH So that?
STEPHEN (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music, not odours, would
be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay
sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.
LYNCH Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburg street!
STEPHEN We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even
the allwisest stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.
LYNCH Ba!
STEPHEN Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?
This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread and wine in Omar. Hold
my stick.
LYNCH Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?
STEPHEN Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson,
ad deam qui laetificat juventutem meam.
(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands,
his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned
in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher.)
LYNCH Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the
customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.
(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs
in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb.
The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The
navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects
from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he
staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset.
Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond
the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy staggering forward cleaves the
crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the
railway bridge Bloom appears flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate
into a side pocket. From Gillens hairdressers window a composite portrait
shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror at the side presents to
him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level
Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington but
in the con vex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops
of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.
At Antonio Babaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright
arclamps. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)
BLOOM Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!
(He disappears into Olhousen's, the pork butcher's, under the
downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the
shutter puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one
containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter
sprinkled with wholepepper He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one
side he presses a parcel against his rib and groans.)
BLOOM Stitch in my side. Why did I run?
(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset
siding. The glow leaps again.)
BLOOM What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.
(He stands at Cormack's corner watching.)
BLOOM Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course.
South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're safe.
(He hums cheerfully.) London's burning, London's burning! On fire, on fire!
(He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther
side of Talbot street.) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.
(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)
THE URCHINS Mind out, mister! (Two cyclists, with lighted paper
lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling.)
THE BELLS Haltyaltyaltyall.
BLOOM (Halts erect stung by a spasm.) Ow.
(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon
sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge
red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs
his footgong.)
THE GONG Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.
(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved
hand, blunders stifflegged, out of the track. The motorman thrown forward,
pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)
THE MOTORMAN Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hattrick?
BLOOM (Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a
mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.) No thoroughfare. Close shave
that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. On the
hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. (He feels
his trouser pocket.) Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch in tracks or
bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at
Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I
ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked
me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him
all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in
Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost
cattle. Mark of the beast. (He closes his eyes an instant.) Bit light in the
head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too
much for me now. Ow!
(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O'Beirnes wall, a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero
the figure regards him with evil eye.)
BLOOM Buenos noches, seÑorita Blanca, que calle es esta?
THE FIGURE (Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Password. Sraid Mabbot.
BLOOM Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (He mutters.) Gaelic league
spy, sent by that fireeater.
(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps
left, ragsackman left.)
BLOOM I beg. (He swerves, sidles, stepsaside, slips past and on.)
BLOOM Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a fingerpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost
my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter
headed, In darkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones,
at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off
his sins of the world.
(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)
BLOOM O!
(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepocket,
sweets of sin, potato soap.)
BLOOM Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.
(The retriever approaches sniffling, nose to the ground. A sprawled
form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of
an elder in Zion and a smoking cap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles
hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn
face.)
RUDOLPH Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with
drunken goy ever. So. You catch no money.
BLOOM (Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,
feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.
RUDOLPH What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (With feeble
vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom) Are you not my son
Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left
the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?
BLOOM (With precaution.) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's
left of him.
RUDOLPH (Severely.) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after
spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?
BLOOM (In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,
narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver
waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side
of him coated with stiffening mud.) Harriers, father. Only that once.
RUDOLPH Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make
you kaput, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.
BLOOM (Weakly.) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I
slipped.
RUDOLPH (With contempt) Ooim nachez. Nice spectacles for your poor
mother!
BLOOM Mamma!
ELLEN BLOOM (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, crinoline and bustle,
widow Twankey's blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens
and cameo brooch, her hairplaited in a crisping net, appears over the
staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand and cries out in
shrill alarm.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling
salts! (She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped
blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid
doll fall out.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all, at all?
(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in
his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)
A VOICE (Sharply.) Poldy!
BLOOM Who? (He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) At your service.
(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in
Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet
trousers and jacket slashed with gold. A wide yells cummerbund girdles her.
A white yashmak violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her
lace dark eyes and raven hair.)
BLOOM Molly!
MARION Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to
me. (Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
BLOOM (Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit.
(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air questions,
hopes, crubeens for her supper things to tell her excuses, desire,
spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled
toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a
camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable
rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with disgruntled
hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles
angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)
MARION Nebrakada! Feminimum.
(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a lace mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof then droops his head
and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back
for leapfrog.)
BLOOM I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer Mrs Marion...
if you...
MARION So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her
trinketed stomacher. A slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy, Poldy,
you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world.
BLOOM I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower
water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning.
(He pats divers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah!
(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon
soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)
THE SOAP
We're a capital couple are Bloom and I;
He brightens the earth, I polish the sky.
(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appeals in the disc of the
soapsun.)
SWENY Three and a penny, please.
BLOOM Yes. For my wife, Mrs Marion. Special recipe.
MARION (Softly.) Poldy!
BLOOM Yes, ma'am?
MARION Ti trema un poco il cuore?
(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon,
humming the duet from Don Giovanni)
BLOOM Are you sure about that Voglio? I mean the pronunciati...
(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes
his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)
THE BAWD Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched.
Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.
(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled Bridie
Kelly stands.)
BRIDIE Hatch street. Any good in your mind?
(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues
with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.
Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)
THE BAWD (Her wolfeyes shining.) He's getting his pleasure. You won't
get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night before
the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.
(Leering Gerty MacDowell limps forward. She draws from behind ogling,
and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)
GERTY With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (She murmurs.) You did
that. I hate you.
BLOOM I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you.
THE BAWD Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman
false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the
strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.
GERTY (To Bloom.) When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.
(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Dirty married man! I love you for doing
that to me.
(She slides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with
loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen,
smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)
MRS BREEN Mr.
BLOOM (Coughs gravely.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter
dated the sixteenth instant .
MRS BREEN Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you
nicely! Scamp!
BLOOM (Hurriedly.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think me? Don't
give me away. Walls have hears. How do you do? It's ages since I. You're
looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this time
of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting quarter.
Rescue of fallen women Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary...
MRS BREEN (Holds up a finger.) Now don't tell a big fib! I know
somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily.) Account for
yourself this very minute or woe betide you!
BLOOM (Looks behind.) She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. The
exotic, you see. Negro servants too in livery if she had money. Othello
black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at the Livermore
christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.
(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,
upstarched Sambo chokers and lace scarlet asters in their buttonholes leap
out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the
twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through a
breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to back, toe heel, heel
toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)
There's someone in the house with Dina
There's someone in the house, I know,
There's someone in the house with Dina
Playing on the old banjo.
(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling,
chortling, trumming, twanging they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)
BLOOM (With a sour tenderish smile.) A little frivol, shall we, if you
are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a
fraction of a second?
MRS BREEN (Screams gaily.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!
BLOOM For old sake'sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage
mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft corner
for you. (Gloomily.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle.
MRS BREEN Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. (She
puts out her hand inquisitively.) What are you hiding behind your back? Tell
us, there's a dear.
BLOOM (Seizes her wrist with his free hand.) Josie Powell that was,
prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in
a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night Georgina Simpson's
housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin
blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuff box?
MRS BREEN You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic
recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the
ladies.
BLOOM (Squire of dames, in dinner jacket, with watered-silk facings,
blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a
prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen, I give
you Ireland, home and beauty.
MRS BREEN The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song.
BLOOM (Meaningfully dropping his voice.) I confess I'm teapot with
curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot at
present.
MRS BREEN (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London's tea pot and I'm
simply teapot all over me. (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlour
mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase
ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.
BLOOM (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his
fingers and thumbs passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which
she surrenders gently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out
of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby
ring.) LÀ ci darem la mano.
MRS BREEN (In a onepiece eveningfrock executed in moonlight blue, a
tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her
moonblue satin slipper curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e
non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
BLOOM When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the
beast. I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his brow.)
Think what it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman, it's
breaking me! (Dennis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich
board, shuffles past them in cadet slippers, his dull beard thrust out,
muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the
ace of spaces, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)
ALF BERGAN (Points jeering at the sandwich boards.) U.p.: Up.
MRS BREEN (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad
eye.) Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.
BLOOM (Shocked.) Molly's best friend! Could you?
MRS BREEN (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)
Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?
BLOOM (Off handedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without
potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah. Mrs Bandman Palmer. Trenchant
exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling
good place round there for pig's feet. Feel.
(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears
weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a
skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He ins it and shows it
full of polonies, kippered, herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills.)
RICHIE Best value in Dub.
(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his
napkin, waiting to wait.)
PAT (Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.) Steak and
kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.
RICHIE Goodgod. Inev erate inall...
(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,
gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)
RICHIE (With a cry of pain, his hand to his back) Ah! Bright's! Lights!
BLOOM (Points to the navvy.) A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate
stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.
MRS BREEN Humbugging and delutbering as per usual with your cock and
bull story.
BLOOM I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here.
But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason.
MRS BREEN (All agog.) O, not for worlds.
BLOOM Let's walk on. Shall us?
MRS BREEN Let's.
(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The
terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)
THE BAWD Jewman's melt!
BLOOM (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel,
tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white
spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in
bandolier and a grey billycock hat.) Do you remember a long long time, years
and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when
we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?
MRS BREEN (In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider
veil.) Leopardstown.
BLOOM I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three
year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old
fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you
had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs
Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven,
a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I'll lay you what you like
she did it on purpose...
MRS BREEN She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser!
BLOOM Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky
little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on
you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to
kill it, you cruel creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of
a fullstop.
MRS BREEN (Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Naughty cruel I was.
BLOOM (Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) And Molly was eating a
sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Frankly,
though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style.
She was .
MRS BREEN Too.
BLOOM Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly
were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the
tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her
name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard
or read or knew or came across .
MRS BREEN (Eagerly.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on
towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet
apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to
a tale which their broken snouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An
armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.)
THE GAFFER (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns
came down from the scaffolding in Beaver Street what was he after doing it
into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings
for Derwan's plasterers.
THE LOITERERS (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!
(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their
lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)
BLOOM Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad
daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.
THE LOITERERS Jays, that's a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the
men's porter.
(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled,
call from lanes, doors, corners.)
THE WHORES Are you going far, queer fellow? How's your middle leg? Got
a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.
(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. >From
a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In
the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)
THE NAVVY (Belching.) Where's the bloody house?
THE SHEBEENKEEPER Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout.
Respectable woman.
THE NAVVY (Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.) Come
on, you British army!
PRIVATE CARR (Behind his back.) He aint half balmy.
PRIVATE COMPTON (LAughs.) What ho!
PRIVATE CARR (To the navvy.) Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for
Carr. Just Carr.
THE NAVVY (Shouts.)
We are the boys. Of Wexford.
PRIVATE COMPTON Say! What price the sergeantmajor?
PRIVATE CARR Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett.
THENAVVY (Shouts.)
The galling chain.
And free our native land.
(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault.
The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)
BLOOM Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they
are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland
row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. Train with
engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding for the night or
collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What am I following him
for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy
Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met. Kismet. He'll lose that
cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye
lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have lost my life too with that
mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind. Can't
always save you, though. If I had passed Truelock's window that day two
minutes later would have been shot. Absence of body. Still if bullet only
went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. What was
he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper.
(He gazes ahead reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream
and a phallic design.)
Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. What's
that like? (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways, in window
embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed
floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths.)
THE WREATHS Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.
BLOOM My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get
all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much.
(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his
tail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak to
him first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like a polecat. Chacun
son goÛt. He might be mad. Fido. Uncertain in his movements. Good fellow!
Garryowen! (The wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with
begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.) Influence of his
surroundings. Give and have done with it. Provided nobody. (Calling
encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by
the setter into a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to
dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.) Sizeable for
threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why?
Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.
(With regret he lets unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiff
mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching
the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. They murmur
together.)
THE WATCH Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.
(Each lays a hand on Blooms shoulder.)
FIRST WATCH Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.
BLOOM (Stammers.) I am doing good to others.
(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with
Banbury cakes in their beaks.)
THE GULLS Kaw kave kankury kake.
BLOOM The friend of man. Trained by kindness.
(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high bars tool, sways over the
munching spaniel.)
BOB DORAN Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.
(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pigs knuckle
between his molars through which rabid scrumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran
falls silently into an area.)
SECOND WATCH Prevention of cruelty to animals.
BLOOM (Enthusiastically.) A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on
Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad
French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All
tales of circus life are highly demoralising.
(Signor Maffei, passion pale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs
in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paper hoop, a curling
carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the going boarhound.)
SIGNOR MAFFEI (With a sinister smile.) Ladies and gentlemen, my
educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my
patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted
thong. Block tackle and a strangling pully will bring your lion to heel, no
matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater. A redhot
crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of
Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. (He glares.) I possess the Indian sign. The
glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. (With a bewitching
smile.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.
FIRST WATCH Come. Name and address.
BLOOM I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! (He takes off his high
grade hat, saluting.) Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard of
von Bloom Pasha. Umpteen mil lions. Donnerwetter! Owns half Austria. Egypt.
Cousin.
FIRST WATCH Proof.
(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.)
BLOOM (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a
false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and offers
it.) Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: Messrs John
Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk.
FIRST WATCH (Reads.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Un lawfully watching
and besetting.
SECOND WATCH An alibi. You are cautioned.
BLOOM (Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.) This is
the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don't know his name.
(Plausibly.) You know that old joke, rose of Castille. Bloom. The change of
name Virag. (He murmurs privately and confidentially.) We are engaged you
see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. (He shoulders the second
watch gently.) Dash it all. It's a way we gallants have in the navy. Uniform
that does it. (He turns gravely to the first watch.) Still, of course, you
do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old
Burgundy. (To the second watch gaily.) I'll introduce you, inspector. She's
game. Do it in shake of a lamb's tail.
(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)
THE DARK MERCURY The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of
the army.
MARTHA (Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the
Irish Times in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Henry! Leopold!
Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.
FIRST WATCH (Sternly.) Come to the station.
BLOOM (Scared, hats himself steps back, then, plucking at his heart and
lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of
fellowcraft.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity.
The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide
case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully
accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.
MARTHA (Sobbing behind her veil.) Breach of promise. My real name is
Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my brother,
the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.
BLOOM (Behind his hand.) She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. (He
murmurs vaguely the past of Ephraim.) Shitbroleeth.
SECOND WATCH (Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.) You ought to be thoroughly
well ashamed of yourself.
BLOOM Gentleman of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am a
man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable
married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. My
wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant
upstanding gentleman, who do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of
Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his majority for
the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift.
FIRST WATCH Regiment.
BLOOM (Turns to the gallery.) The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the
earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms up
there among you. The R. D. F. With our own Metropolitan police, guardians of
our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as physique, in
the service of our sovereign.
A VOICE Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?
BLOOM (His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.) My old dad too was
a J.P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the colours
for king and country in the absentminded war under General Gough in the park
and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches.
I did all a white man could. (With quiet feeling.) Jim Bludso. Hold her
nozzle again the bank.
FIRST WATCH Profession or trade.
BLOOM Well, I follow a literary occupation. Author-journalist. In fact
we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the
inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected with
the British and Irish press. If you ring up...
(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His
scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a hank
of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a telephone
receiver nozzle to his ear.)
MYLES CRAWFORD (His cock's wattles wagging.) Hello, seventyseven
eightfour. Hello. Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arse wiper here. Paralyse
Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?
(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate
morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased
lavender trousers and patent boots. He cames a lace portfolio labelled
Matcham's Masterstrokes.)
BEAUFOY (Drawls.) No, you aren't, not by a long shot if I know it. I
don't see it, that's all. No born gentleman, no one with the most
rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly
loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak
masquerading as a literateur. It's perfectly obvious that with the most
inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling books, really
gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath
suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions with which your
lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom.
BLOOM (Murmurs with hangdog meekness.) That bit about the laughing
witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... ?
BEAUFOY (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.) You
funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully weird for words! I don't think
you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. My
literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, we
shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? We are considerably out
of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has
not even been to a university.
BLOOM (Indistinctly.) University of life. Bad art.
BEAUFOY (Shouts.) It's a damnably foul lie showing the moral rottenness
of the man! (He extends his portfolio.) We have here damning evidence, the
corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the
hallmark of the beast.
A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY
Moses, Moses, king of the jews,
Wiped his arse in the Daily News.
BLOOM (Bravely.) Overdrawn.
BEAUFOY You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you
rotter! (To the court.) Why, look at the man's private life! Leading a
quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be mentioned
in mixed society. The arch conspirator of the age.
BLOOM (To the court.) And he, a bachelor, how.
FIRST WATCH The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.
THE CRIER Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!
(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket
on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)
SECOND WATCH Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?
MARY DRISCOLL (Indignantly.) I'm not a bad one. I bear a respectable
character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, six
pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out, and I had to leave owing to
his carryings on.
FIRST WATCH What do you tax him with?
MARY DRISCOLL He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself
as poor as I am.
BLOOM (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless
slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled softly.) I treated you white. I gave
you mementoes, smart emerald garters far above your station. Incautiously I
took your part when you were accused of pilfering. There's a medium in all
things. Play cricket.
MARY DRISCOLL (Excitedly.) As God is looking down on me this night if
ever I laid a hand to them oysters!
FIRST WATCH The offence complained of? Did something happen?
MARY DRISCOLL He surprised me in the rere of the premises, your honour,
when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety
pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he
interfered twice with my clothing.
BLOOM She counterassaulted.
MARY DRISCOLL (Scornfully.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush,
so I had. I remonstrated with him, your lord, and he remarked: Keep it
quiet!
(General laughter.)
GEORGES FOTTRELL (Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Order in
court! The accused will now make a bogus statement.
(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a
long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his
stirring address to the grand-jury. He was down and out but, though branded
as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the
memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely
domestic animal. A seven months' child, he had been carefully brought up and
nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an
erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long
last in sight of the whipping post, to lead a homely life in the evening of
his days, permeated by the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of
the family. An acclimatised Britisher he had seen that summer eve from the
footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain
refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful
households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of
happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence
a dozen, innocent British born bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant,
youthful scholars grappling with their pensums, model young ladies playing
on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round
the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with
their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon
Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a
sacrifice, greatest bargain ever... )
(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that
they cannot hear.)
LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND (Without looking up from their notebooks.)
Loosen his boots.
PROFESSOR MACHUGH (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Cough it up,
man. Get it out in bits.
(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A lace bucket.
Bloom himself Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A
plasterers bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly
agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He
did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbits
back number.)
(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom, in a torn frockcoat stained with
whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of sticking-plaster
across his nose, talks inaudibly.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a
voice of pained protest.) This is no place for indecent levity at the
expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a beargarden
nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My client is an
infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is
now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a
momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such
familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my
client's native place, the land of the Pharaoh. Prima facie, I put it to you
that there was no attempt at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and
the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was
not repeated. I would deal inespecial with atavism. There have been cases of
shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak
he could a tale unfold one of the strangest that have ever been narrated
between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from
cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction
and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact.
BLOOM (Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar's vest and trousers,
apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about him
dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches his belt
sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court,
pointing one thumb heavenward.) Him makee velly muchee fine night. (He
begins to lilt simply.)
Li li poo lil chile,
Blingee pigfoot evly night.
Payee two shilly...
(He is howled down.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (Hotly to the populace.) This is a lonehand fight. By
Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this
fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has
superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically without
wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not
accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The
young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter.
(Bloom takes J. J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his lips.) I shall call
rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at
its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful
man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which
injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong
turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own
sweet will on her. He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man
I know. He is down on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his
extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which
will now be shown. (To Bloom.) I suggest that you will do the handsome
thing.
BLOOM A penny in the pound.
(The mirage of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in
silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in
blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an orange
citron and a pork kidney.)
DLUGACZ (Hoarsely.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.
(J. J. O'Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his
coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken
eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor. He
applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of
rosepink blood.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (Almost voicelessly.) Excuse me, I am suffering from a
severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. (He
assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour
Bushe.) When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught that the pensive
bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves
to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the
doubt. (A paper with something written on it is handed into court.)
BLOOM (In court dress.) Can give best references. Messrs Callan,
Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon,
ex-lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest .
Queens of Dublin Society. (Carelessly.) I was just chatting this afternoon
at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer
royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said...
MRS YELVERTON BARRY (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength
ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brick quilted dolman, a comb of
brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.) Arrest him constable. He
wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the
North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He
said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of
the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. I deeply inflamed
him, he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half
past four p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send
me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The
Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays.
MRS BELLINGHAM (In cap and seal coneymantle, wrapped up to the nose,
steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzingglasses
which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.) Also to me. Yes, I
believe it is the same objectionable person. Because he closed my carriage
door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of
February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and ballstop in my
bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss
culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour. I had it examined by a
botanical expert and elicited the information that it was a blossom of the
homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Shame on him!
(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins sues forward.)
THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS (Screaming.) Stop thief! Hurrah there,
Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!
SECOND WATCH (Produces handcuffs.) Here are the darbies.
MRS BELLINGHAM He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome
compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound
coachman Balmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of
his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my
person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial
bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck's head couped
or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves
in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden
treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged
me, stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me, to defile the
marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (In amazon costume, hard hat,
jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with
bra idea drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes
her welt constantly.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the
Phnix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes,
I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the
Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. This
plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in
double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris
boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. It represents a
partially nude senorita, frail and lovely (his wife as he solemnly assured
me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit intercourse with a
muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to do likewise, to
misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his
letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to
bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping.
MRS BELLINGHAM Me too.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Me too.
(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters
received from Bloom.)
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Stamps her jingling spurs in a
sudden paroxysm of sudden fury.) I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge
the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive.
BLOOM (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (He squirms.)
Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS Very much so! I'll make it hot for
you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that.
MRS BELLINGHAM Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and
stripes on it!
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married
man!
BLOOM All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling
glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Laughs derisively.) O, did you, my
fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life
now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. You
have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury.
MRS BELLINGHAM (Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)
Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an
inch of his life. The cat-o' nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.
BLOOM (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands with hangdog mien.) O
cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let
me off this once. (He offers the other cheek.)
MRS YELVERTON BARRY (Severely.) Don't do so on any account, Mrs
Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.)
I'll do no such thing. Pig dog and always was ever since he was pupped! To
dare address me! I'll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I'll
dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (She swishes
her hunting crop savagely in the air.) Take down his trousers without loss
of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?
BLOOM (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.
(Davy Stephens, ringleted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)
DAVY STEPHENS Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with
Saint Patrick's Day Supplement. Containing the new addresses of all the
cuckolds in Dublin.
(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and
exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend John
Hughes S.J. bend low.)
THE TIMEPIECE (Unportalling.)
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)
THE QUOITS Jigjag, Jigajiga. Jigjag.
(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox
the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman silkhatted, Jack Power Simon
Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford,
Lenehan, Paddy Leonard Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of a
Nameless One.)
THE NAMELESS ONE Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised
her.
THE JURORS (All their heads turned to his voice.) Really?
THE NAMELESS ONE (Snarls.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.
THE JURORS (All their heads lowered in assent.) Most of us thought as
much.
FIRST WATCH He is a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted: Jack
the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward.
SECOND WATCH (Awed, whispers.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.
THE CRIER (Loudly.) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a
well-known dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold ad a public
nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes
the most honourable.
(His Honour sir Frederick Falkiner recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb
of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his arms an
umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.)
THE RECORDER I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid
Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap.) Let him be
taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in
custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged
by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the
Lord have-mercy on your soul. Remove him. (A black skullcap descends upon
his head.)
(The subsheriff long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry
Clay.)
LONG JOHN FANNING (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)
Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?
(H. Rumbold, master barber in a bloodcoloured jerk in and tanner's
apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder mounts the block. A life preserver
and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his
grapping hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)
RUMBOLD (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Hanging Harry,
your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing.
(The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)
THE BELLS Heigho! Heigho!
BLOOM (Desperately.) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence.
Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzees. (Breathlessly.) Pelvic
basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion.) I left the
precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may I
speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want a
little more .
HYNES (Coldly.) You are a perfect stranger.
SECOND WATCH (Points to the corner.) The bomb is here. FIRST WATCH
Infernal machine with a time fuse. BLOOM No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a
funeral. FIRST WATCH (Draws his truncheon.) Liar!
(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy
Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows
to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit.
His green eyeflashes bloodshot. Half of one ear all the nose and both thumbs
are ghouleaten.)
PADDY DIGNAM (In a hollow voice.) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor
Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from
natural causes.
(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)
BLOOM (In triumph.) You hear?
PADDY DIGNAM Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list!
BLOOM The voice is the voice of Esau.
SECOND WATCH (Blesses himself.) How is that possible?
FIRST WATCH It is not in the penny catechism.
PADDY DIGNAM By metempsychosis. Spooks.
A VOICE O rocks.
PADDY DIGNAM (Earnestly.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton,
solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. Now
I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife
was awfully cut up. Dow is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of
sherry. (He looks round him.) A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That
buttermilk didn't agree with me.
(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker stands forth, holding a
bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain,
toad bellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding
sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.)
FATHER COFFEY (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.) Namine. Jacobs
Vobiscuits. Amen.
(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Dignam, Patrick T.,
deceased.
PADDY DIGNAM (With pricked up ears, winces.) Overtones.
(He wriggles forward, places an ear to the ground.) My masters' voice!
JOHN O'CONNELL Burial docket letter number U. P. Eightyfive thousand.
Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.
(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his
tailstiffpointed, his ears cocked.)
PADDY DIGNAM Pray for the repose of his soul.
(He worms down through a coal hole, his brown habit trailing its tether
over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus
turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is heard baying
under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted,
in cap and breeches, jumps from his two-columned machine.)
TOM ROCHFORD (A hand to his breastbone, bows.) Reuben J. A florin I
find him. (He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) My turn now on.
Follow me up to Carlow.
(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the
coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloom
plodges forward again. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The
kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him, twittering, warbling,
cooing.)
THE KISSES (Warbling.) Leo! (Twittering.) Icky licky micky sticky for
Leo! (Cooing.) Coo coocoo! Yummyumm Wom worn! (Warbling.) Big comebig!
Pirouette! Leopopold! (Twittering.) Leeolee! (Warbling.) O Leo!
(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddyflecks,
silvery sequins.)
BLOOM A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.
(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three
bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips
down the steps and accosts him.)
ZOE Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend.
BLOOM Is this Mrs Mack's?
ZOE No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse.
Mother Slipperslapper. (Familiarly.) She's on the job herself tonight with
the vet, her tipster, that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in
Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. (Suspiciously.) You're
not his father, are you?
BLOOM Not I!
ZOE You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand slides over his
left thigh.)
ZOE How's the nuts?
BLOOM Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier I suppose. One
in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.
ZOE (In sudden alarm.) You've a hard chancre.
BLOOM Not likely.
ZOE I feel it.
(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard
black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.)
BLOOM A talisman. Heirloom.
ZOE For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?
(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket, then links his arm,
cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note,
oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed
with kohol. His smile softens.)
ZOE You'll know me the next time.
BLOOM (Forlornly.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to.
(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round
their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong
hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the
bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still,
cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur
of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely
murmuring.)
ZOE (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously
smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach,
benoith Hierushaloim.
BLOOM (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.
ZOE And you know what thought did?
(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth sending on him
a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre
of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)
BLOOM (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat
awkward hand.) Are you a Dublin girl?
ZOE (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.) No bloody
fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot?
BLOOM (As before.) Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish
device. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder of
rank weed.
ZOE Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.
BLOOM (In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating
tie and apache cap.) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Raleigh brought
from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence
by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will,
understanding, all. That is to say, he brought the poison a hundred years
before another person whose name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies.
All our habits. Why, look at our public life!
(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)
THE CHIMES Turn again, Leopold! Lord Mayor of Dublin!
BLOOM (In alderman's gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, Inns
Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, from
the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. That's my
programme. Cui Bono? But our buccaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom
ship of finance...
AN ELECTOR Three times three for our future chief magistrate!
(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)
THE TORCH BEARERS Hooray!
(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city
shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice
Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk
tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. They nod
vigorously in agreement.)
LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral
chain and lace white silk scarf) That alder man sir Leo Bloom's speech be
printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which he was
born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare
hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated
Boulevard Bloom.
COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK Carried unanimously.
BLOOM (Impassionedly.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they
recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines is
their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses,
supplanters, bug-bears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous
hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted
labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain
stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf
and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev...
(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring
up. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mille Failte and Mah Ttob Melek
Israel spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers,
chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the royal Dublin Fusiliers,
the Kings Own Scottish Boraerers, the Cameron Highlanders and the Welsh
Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school
are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices,
gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The
pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance
playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted,
trailing banners and waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal
standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the
procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a
chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are
followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Dublin,
the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo
and Watedord, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and
maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire
Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of
precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor His Eminence Michael cardinal
Logue archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most
reverend Dr William Alexander archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland,
the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist,
anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the
society of friends. her them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with
flying colours: coopen, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers,
law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimney sweeps, lard
refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church
decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertaken, silk mercers, lapidaries,
salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners,
export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse
repository hands, bullion broken, cricket and archery outfitters,
riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bed chamber Black Rod, Deputy
Garter Gold Stick, the master of hone, the lord great chamberlain, the earl
marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's
iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet.
Beefeaten reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloom
appears bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing
Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is
seated on a milkwhite hone with long flowing crimson tail, richly
caparisoned, with golden heads tall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their
balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men
cheer. Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and
wrenbushes.)
BLOOM'S BOYS
The wren, the wren,
The king of all birds,
Saint Stephen's his day,
Was caught in the furze.
A BLACKSMITH (Murmurs.) For the Honour of God! And is that Bloom? He
scarcely looks thirtyone.
A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest
reformer. Hats off!
(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)
A MILLIONAIRESS (Richly.) Isn't he simply wonderful?
A NOBLEWOMAN (Nobly.) All that man has seen!
A FEMINIST (Masculinely.) And done!
A BELLHANGER A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.
(Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)
THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR I here present your un doubted emperor
president and king chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant
ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!
ALL God save Leopold the First!
BLOOM (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor
with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.
WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Will
you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments
in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?
BLOOM (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.
MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (Pours a cruse of hair oil over Bloom's
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold, Patrick,
Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!
(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on
at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church,
Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up
from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do
homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.)
THE PEERS I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly
worship.
(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental
and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)
BLOOM My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix
hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated our
former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the
splendour of night.
(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moon blue robes, a silver crescent on her
head, descends from a Sedan chair borne by two giants. An outburst of
cheering.)
JOHN HOWARD PARNELL (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!
BLOOM (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of our
common ancestors.
(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The
keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all
that he is wearing green socks.)
TOM KERNAN You deserve it, your honour.
BLOOM On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with
telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we
yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our
light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry,
Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.
THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS Hear! Hear!
JOHN WYSE NOLAN There's the man that got away James Stephens.
A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY Bravo!
AN OLD RESIDENT You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you
are.
AN APPLEWOMAN He's a man like Ireland wants.
BLOOM My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere
long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the
Nova Hibernia of the future.
(Thirtytwo workmen wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland,
under the guidance of Derwan the builder construct the new Bloomusalem. It
is a colossal edifice, with crystal roof built in the shape of a huge pork
kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension
several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are
temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the
ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red
with the letters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the
walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)
THE SIGHTSEERS (Dying) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)
(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trap-door. He points
an elongated finger at Bloom.)
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH Don't you believe a word he Says. That man is
Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.
BLOOM Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh!
(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his
sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful
enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees,
are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration
medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars,
free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives, in sealed envelopes tied with
gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of
cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of
Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins,
dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all
tram lines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny
dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy
and Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), So Meals for 7/6
(culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic),
Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric),
Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), love-letters of Mother Assistant
(erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart
(melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and
scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The lady
Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses
him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph
is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)
THE WOMEN Little father! Little father!
THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS
Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.
(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)
BABY BOARDMAN (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja.
BLOOM (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother!
(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear old friends!
(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.) Peep! Bopeep! (He
wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? (He performs
juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet
silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.) Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. (He
consoles a widow.) Absence makes the heart grow younger. (He dances the
Highland fling with grotesque antics.) Leg it, ye devils! (He kisses the
bedsores of a palsied veteran.) Honourable wounds! (He trips up a fat
policeman.) U.p.: up. U.p.: up. (He whispers in the ear of a blushing
waitress and laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty, naughty! (He eats a raw turnip
offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.) Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to
accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.) My dear
fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar.) Please accept. (He
takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) Come
on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!
THE CITIZEN (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald
muffler.) May the good God bless him!
(The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)
BLOOM (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and
reads solemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur
Hanukah Ros chaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah
Talith.
(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)
JIMMY HENRY The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic
Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice,
solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this
our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the Paradisiacal Era.
PADDY LEONARD What am I to do about my rates and taxes?
BLOOM Pay them, my friend.
PADDY LEONARD Thank you.
NOSEY FLYNN Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?
BLOOM (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are
bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five
pounds.
J.J. O'MOLLY A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien!
NOSEY FLYNN Where do I draw the five pounds?
PISSER BURKE For bladder trouble?
BLOOM
Acid. nit. hydrochlor dil., 20 minims,
Tinct. mix. vom., 4 minims.
Extr. taraxel. lig., 30 minims.
Aq. dis. ter in die.
CHRIS CALLINAN What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of
Aldebaran?
BLOOM Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II.
JOE HYNES Why aren't you in uniform?
BLOOM When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the
Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?
BEN DOLLARD Pansies?
BLOOM Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.
BEN DOLLARD When twins arrive?
BLOOM Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.
LARRY O'ROURKE An eight day licence for my new premises. You remember
me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen of
stout for the missus.
BLOOM (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no
presents.
CROFTON This is indeed a festivity.
BLOOM (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.
ALEXANDER KEYES When will we have our own house of keys?
BLOOM I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten
commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile.
Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses.
Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and
night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must
now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival, with masked licence, bonuses
for all, esperanto the universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of
barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free love and a free lay
church in a free lay state.
O'MADDEN BURKE Free fox in a free henroost.
DAVY BYRNE (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!
BLOOM Mixed races and mixed marriage.
LENEHAN What about mixed bathing?
(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.
All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare Street Museum appears,
dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked
goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos Venus Metempsychosis, and plaster
figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic
Music, Amor Publicity, Manufacture, liberty of Speech, Plural Voting,
Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless
Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)
FATHER FARLEY He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an any thingarian
seeking to overthrow our holy faith.
MRS RIORDAN (Tears up her will.) I'm disappointed in you! You bad man!
MOTHER GROGAN (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) You beast! You
abominable person!
NOSEY FLYNN Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.
BLOOM (With rollicking humour.)
I vowed that I never would leave her,
She turned out a cruel deceiver.
With my tooraloom tooraloom tooralcom tooraloom.
HOPPY HOLOHAN Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all.
PADDY LEONARD Stage Irishman!
BLOOM What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of
Casteele. (Laughter.)
LENEHAN Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!
THE VEILED SIBYL (Enthusiastically.) I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it.
I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest man
on earth.
BLOOM (Winks at the bystanders.) I bet she's a bonny lassie.
THEODORE PUREFOY (In fishing cap and oilskin jacket.) He employs a
mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.
THE VEILED SIBYL (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.)
(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by
stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their
veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of
Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating
themselves by placing their heads in gas ovens, hanging themselves in
stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)
ALEXANDER J. DOWIE (Violently.) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the
man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A
fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave
precocious signs of infantile debauchery recalling the cities of the plain,
with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the
white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman,
intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the
caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban!
THE MOB Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!
(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper
and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value,
hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheeps'
tails, odd pieces of fat.)
BLOOM (Excitedly.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.
By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He
is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the viper, has
wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan
capall. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist to give
medical testimony on my behalf.
DR MULLIGAN (In motor jerkin, green motoroggles on his brow.) Dr Bloom
is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private
asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is
present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have
been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic
exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from
selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has
metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his
memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made
a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427
anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta.
(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)
DR MADDEN Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming
generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits
of wine in the national teratological museum.
DR CROTTHERS I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid.
Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.
DR PUNCH COSTELLO The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.
DR DIXON (Reads a bill of health.) Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many
have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on
the whole, coy though not feeble-minded in the medical sense. He has written
a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the
Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. He is
practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw
litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. He wears a
hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I
understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory.
Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for
clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been
called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.
(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American
makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, bank cheques,
banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U.s,
wedding rings' watch-chains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly
collected.)
BLOOM O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORNTON (In nursetender's gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You'll be
soon over it. Tight, dear.
(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white
children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive
plants. All are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade,
respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages
fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each has his name
printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger,
Chrysostomos, MaindorÉe, Silversmile, Silberselber Vifargent, Panargros.
They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several
different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of
railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vice chairmen of hotel
syndicates.)
A VOICE Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?
BLOOM (Darkly.) You have said it.
BROTHER BUZZ Then perform a miracle.
BANTAM LYONS Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.
(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes
through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the the ledge by
his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several
sufferers from kings evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many
historical personages, lord Beaconsfield, lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of
Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle,
Rossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe,
Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different
directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his
little finger.)
BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as
breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and
brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and Noah
begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and
Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le
Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat
Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss
begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli began Aranjuez
and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and
Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum
and Christbaum begat Ben Maimun and Ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty
Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat
Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat
Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat
Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.
A DEADHAND (Writes on the wall.) Bloom is a cod. A CRAB (In bush
ranger's kit.) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?
A FEMALE INFANT (Shakes a rattle.) And under Ballybough bridge?
A HOLLYBUSH And in the devil's glen?
BLOOM (Blushes furiously all over from front to nates, three tears
falling from his left eye.) Spare my past.
THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook
fair shillelaghs.) Sjambok him!
(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms,
his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. Artane orphans,
joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining
hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)
THE ARTANE ORPHANS
You big, you bog, you dirty dog!
You think the ladies love you!
THE PRISON GATE GIRLS
If you see kay
Tell him he may
See you in tea
Tell him from me.
HORNBLOWER (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) And he shall carry the
sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to
Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from
Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.
(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide
travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky and
Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards
at Bloom.)
MASTIANSKY AND CITRON Belial! Laemlein of Istria! the false Messiah!
Abulafia!
(George S. Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his
arm, presenting a bill.)
MESIAS To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.
BLOOM (Rubs his hands cheerfully.) Just like old times. Poor Bloom!
(Reuben J. Dodd, black bearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his
shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)
REUBEN J. (Whispers hoarsely.) The squeak is out. A split is gone for
the flatties. Nip the first rattler.
THE FIRE BRIGADE Pflaap!
BROTHER BUZZ (Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of
painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round his
neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.) Forgive him his
trespasses.
(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets
fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)
THE CITIZEN Thank heaven!
BLOOM (In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid
phoenix flames.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.
(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of
Erin, in black garments with lace prayerbooks and long lighted candles in
their hands, kneel down and pray.)
THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN Kidney of Bloom, pray for us. Flower of the Bath,
pray for us. Mentor of Menton, pray for us. Canvasser for the Freeman, pray
for us. Charitable Mason, pray for us. Wandering Soap, pray for us. Sweets
of Sin, pray for us. Music without Words, pray for us. Reprover of the
Citizen, pray for us. Friend of all Frillies, pray for us. Midwife Most
Merciful, pray for us. Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence,
pray for us.
(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Mr Vincent O'Brien, sings
the Alleluia chorus, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes
mute, shrunken, carbonised.)
ZOE Talk away till you're black in the face.
BLOOM (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an
emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak pig
by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.) Let me be going now, woman of the
house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and
mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye.) All insanity. Patriotism,
sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life's
dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. (He gazes far away
mournfully.) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A
letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly.) No more. I have lived.
Fare. Farewell.
ZOE (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next
time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too
quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts.
BLOOM (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle.
ZOE (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a
bleeding whore a chance.
BLOOM (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil.
Where are you from? London?
ZOE (Glibly.) Hog's Norton where the pigs play the organs. I'm
Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I say,
Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short
time? Ten shillings?
BLOOM (Smiles, nods slowly.) More, houri, more.
ZOE And more's mother? (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Are
you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll peel
off.
BLOOM (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled
embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled
pears.) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed
monster. (Earnestly.) You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you.
ZOE (Flattered.) What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for.
(She pats him.) Come.
BLOOM Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.
ZOE Babby!
BLOOM (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,
fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a chubby
finger, his moist tongue tolling and lisping.) One two tlee: tlee tlwo
tlone.
THE BUCKLES Love me. Love me not. Love me.
ZOE Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she captures his
hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the pass touch of secret monitor,
luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard.
(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards
the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted
eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of
all the male brutes that have possessed her.)
THE MALE BRUTES (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their
loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.) Good!
(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.
They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his
hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)
ZOE (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) Hoopsa! Don't fall upstairs.
BLOOM The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the
threshold.) After you is good manners.
ZOE Ladies first, gentlemen after.
(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out
her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the an tiered rack of the hall hang a
man's hat and waterproof Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns,
then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is thrown open. A man
in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an apes gait,
his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar his
twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom
bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then,
his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve
tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies,
colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade
and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all
senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of
shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.
The walls are tapes-tried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the
grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on
the hearth rug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he
beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume,
doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand,
sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at
herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of her corset lace
hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the
piano.)
KITTY (Coughs behind her hand.) She's a bit imbecilic. (She signs with
a waggling forefinger.) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white
petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself.
(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows,
red with henna.) O, excuse!
ZOE More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the
gas full cock.)
KITTY (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight?
LYNCH (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
ZOE Clap on the back for Zoe.
(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at the
pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats
once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat
whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in
the sofa corner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A
heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)
KITTY (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!
ZOE (Promptly.) Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.
(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over
her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled
caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances
behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)
STEPHEN As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto
Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an old
hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cla enarrant gloriam Domini. It is
susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian
and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is
Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to
his chief bassoonist about his almightiness. Mais, nom de nom, that is
another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He
stops, points at Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge
bump?
THE CAP (With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman's
reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of
life. Bah!
STEPHEN You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.
How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone!
THE CAP Bah!
STEPHEN Here's another for you. (He frowns.) The reason is because the
fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval
which .
THE CAP Which? Finish. You can't.
STEPHEN (With on effort.) Interval which. Is the greatest possible
ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.
THE CAP Which? (Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.)
STEPHEN (Abruptly.) What went forth to the ends of the world to
traverse not itself. God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller,
having itself traversed in reality itself, becomes that self. Wait a moment.
Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self which it itself
was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco!
LYNCH (With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe
Higgins.) What a learned speech, eh?
ZOE (Briskly.) God help your head, he knows more than you have
forgotten.
(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)
FLORRY They say the last day is coming this summer.
KITTY No!
ZOE (Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God!
FLORRY (Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Anti christ. O, my
foot's tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patterpast,
yelling.)
THE NEWSBOYS Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea
serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)
STEPHEN A time, times and half a time.
(Reuben J. Antichrist, wanderingjew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrims wallet from
which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his
shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled
mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its
breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked,
hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose,
tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL What?
THE HOBGOBLIN (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping, with outstretched clutching arms, then all
at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient!
C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round and round
with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches
juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux son! faits!
(The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien n'va plus. (The
planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into
vacuum.)
FLORRY (Sinking into torpor, crosses herself secretly.) The end of the
world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over
coughs and feetshuffling.)
THE GRAMOPHONE Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna...
(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tight-rope taut from zenith to nadir the End of
the World, a two headed octopus in gillies kilts, busby and tartan filibegs,
whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the fob of the Three Lugs of
Man.)
THE END OF THE WORLD (With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row,
the keel row, the keel row?
(Over the passing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh
as a corncrakes, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with
funnel sleeves he is seen, vergefaced above a rostrum about which the banner
of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)
ELIJAH No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole
Sue, Dave Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut.
Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's time is
12.25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick
ace. Join on right here! Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run.
Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent
came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe
Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense
that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of
the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You
can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this
vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck
joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener,
sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just
the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores.
It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and getting down to
bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that?
O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up
by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. (He shouts.) Now
then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! (He sings.)
Jeru...
THE GRAMOPHONE (Drowning his voice.) Whorusalaminyour highhohhhh.
(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)
THE THREE' WHORES (Covering their ears, squawk.) Ahhkkk!
ELIJAH (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top
of his voice, his arms uplifted.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you
hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe
strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and
Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don't
never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just
now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our
sisters dear. (He winks at his audience.) Our Mr President, he twig the
whole lot and he ain't saying nothing.
KITTY-KATE I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did
on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop. My mother's sister
married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was
pure.
ZOE-FANNY I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.
FLORRY-TERESA It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of
Hennessy's three stars I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the
bed.
STEPHEN In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without
end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.
(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,
Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast,
goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)
THE BEATITUDES (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum
barnum buggerum bishop.
LYSTER (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says
discreetly.) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the
light.
(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser attire, shinily laundered,
his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's
kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizard-lettered, and a high pagoda hat.)
BEST (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown
of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.) I was just
beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know. Yeats
says, or I mean, Keats says. (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and
flashes it towards a corner; with carping accent.) Esthetics and cosmetics
are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man.
Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.
(In the cone of the search light behind the coalscuttle, ollave,
holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaan MacLir broods, chin on knees. He
rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mantle. About his head
writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right
hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two
talons.)
MANANAAN MACLIR (With a voice of waves.) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor!
Ma! White yoghin of the Gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. (With
a voice of whistling seawind.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't have my leg
pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult of Shakti. (With
a cry of stormbirds.) Shakti, Shiva! Dark hidden Father! (He smites with his
bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its co-operative dial glow
the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with the vehemence of the ocean.)
Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead, I am the dreamery
creamery butter.
(A skeleton judas hand strangles the light. The green light wanes to
mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)
THE GASJET Pooah! Pfuiiiiii!
(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.)
ZOE Who has a fag as I'm here?
LYNCH (Tossing a cigarette on to the table.) Here.
ZOE (Her head perched aside in mock pride.) Is that the way to hand the
pot to a lady? (She stretches up to light the cigarette over the flame,
twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch with his
poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up her flesh
appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly at her
cigarette.) Can you see the beauty spot of my behind?
LYNCH I'm not looking.
ZOE (Makes sheep's eyes.) No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you
suck a lemon?
(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom,
then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue
fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling
his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and
gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate,
chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the left
on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several overcoats and wears a
brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of parchment. In his left eye
flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On
his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.)
VIRAG (Heels together bows.) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.
(He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence
hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not
wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular
devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good.
BLOOM Granpapachi. But...
VIRAG Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and
coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of
gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should
opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that
the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed
to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I
right?
BLOOM She is rather lean.
VIRAG (Not unpleasantly.) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier
pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest
bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has
been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention
to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today.
Parallax! (With a nervous twitch of his head.) Did you hear my brain go
snap? Pollysyllabax!
BLOOM (An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.) She
seems sad.
VIRAG (Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left
eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus
mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by
Rualdus Colombus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially.) Well
then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty
of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable
matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party,
longcasted and deep in keel.
BLOOM (Regretfully.) When you come out without your gun.
VIRAG We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your
money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either...
BLOOM With?...
VIRAG (His tongue upcurling.) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is
coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of
bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of
very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate,
while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of
potent rectum and tumescent for palpation which leave nothing to be desired
save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When
coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread
with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow
them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal
blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after.
Wallow in it. Lycopodium. (His throat twitches.) Slapbang! There he goes
again.
BLOOM The stye I dislike.
VIRAG (Arches his eyebrows.) Contact with a goldring, they say.
Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the
consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyo saurus. For the rest Eve's sovereign
remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (He twitches.) It is a funny
sound.
(He coughs encouragingly.) But possibly it is only a wart. I presume
you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head?
Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.
BLOOM (Reflecting.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This
searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of
accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said .
VIRAG (Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.) Stop
twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten.
Exercise your mnemotechnic. La causa È santa. Tara. Tara. (Aside.) He will
surely remember.
BLOOM Rosemary also did I understand you to say or will power over
parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand
cures. Mnemo?
VIRAG (Excitedly.) I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. (He taps his
parchmentroll energetically.) This book tells you how to act with all
descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite,
melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about
amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with
horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and
the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in
male habiliments? (With a dry snigger.) You intended to devote an entire
year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1882 to
square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the
ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gusseted
knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations,
camiknickers? (He crows derisively.) Keekeereekee!
(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores, then gazes at the veiled
mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)
BLOOM I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence
this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is will
then tomorrow as now was be past yester.
VIRAG (Prompts into his ear in a pig's whisper.) Insects of the day
spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the
inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal verve in
dorsal region. Pretty Poll! (His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally.) They
had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five
hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend
Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. Bear's
buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time we may resume. We were
very pleased, we others. (He coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose
thoughtfully with a scooping hand.) You shall find that these night insects
follow the light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.
For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of
Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation
of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are
automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun
nighttown. Chase me, Charley! Buzz!
BLOOM Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self
then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I...
VIRAG (His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.) Splendid!
Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (He gobbles
gluttonously with turkey wattles.) Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are we?
Open Sesame! Cometh forth! (He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his
glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he claws.) Stay,
good friend. I bring thee thy answer Redbank oysters will shortly be upon
us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the
truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker,
were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they
stink yet they sting. (He wags head with cackling raillery.) Jocular. With
my eyeglass in my ocular.
BLOOM (Absently.) Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open
sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve and
the serpent contradict. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to my idea.
Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way through miles of
omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like those bubblyjocular
Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.
VIRAG (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly
closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) That the cows with their those
distended udders that they have been the known...
BLOOM I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. (He repeats.)
Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their teats
to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. (Profoundly.) Instinct rules the
world. In life. In death.
VIRAG (Head askew, arches his back and hunched wing- shoulders, peers
at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a homing claw and cries.) Who's
Ger Ger? Who's dear Gerald? O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned.
Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation
of firstclass tablenumpkin? (He mews.) Luss puss puss puss! (He sighs, draws
back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw.) Well, well. He doth
rest anon.
I'm a tiny tiny thing
Ever flying in the spring
Round and round a ringaring.
Long ago I was a king,
Now I do this kind of thing
On the wing, on the wing!
Bing!
(He rushes against the mauve shade flapping noisily.) Pretty pretty
pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.
(From left upper entrance with two sliding steps Henry Flower comes
forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed
sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed
bamboo Jacobs pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears dark
velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's face with
flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet
are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles down his goffered
ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his amorous tongue.)
HENRY (In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar.)
There is a flower that bloometh.
(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards
Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendent dewlap to the piano.)
STEPHEN (To himself.) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my
belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my.
Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy
or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep
impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially drunk,
by the way. (He touches the keys again.) Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not
much however.
(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous
moustachework.)
ARTIFONI Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto.
FLORRY Sing us something. Love's old sweet song.
STEPHEN No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you
the letter about the lute?
FLORRY (Smirking.) The bird that can sing and won't sing.
(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober two Oxford dons with
lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew
Arnold's face.)
PHILIP SOBER Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with
the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you
got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney's en
ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital,
Burke's. Eh? I am watching you.
PHILIP DRUNK (Impatiently.) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way.
If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who
was it told me his name?
(His lawnmower begins to purr.) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a
notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have
somewhere? Mac somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on,
Swinburne, was it, no?
FLORRY And the song?
STEPHEN Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
FLORRY Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once.
STEPHEN Out of it now. (To himself.) Clever.
PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER (Their lawnmowers purring with a rigadoon
of grasshalms.) Clever ever. Out of it. Out of it. By the by have you the
book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow.
Keep in condition. Do like us.
ZOE There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of
business with his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to him.
I know you've a Roman collar.
VIRAG Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. (Harshly, his
pupils waxing.) To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the
Virag who disclosed the sex secrets of monks and maidens. Why I left the
Church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose.
Flipperty Jippert. (He wriggles.) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt
of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's lingam. Short time after man
presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers
herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the
stiff one. (He cries.) Coactus volui. Then giddy woman will run about.
Strong man grasps woman's wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now
fierce angry, strikes woman's fat yadgana. (He chases his tail.) Piffpaff!
Popo! (He stops, sneezes.) Pchp! (He worries his butt.) Prrrrrht!
LYNCH I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for
shooting a bishop.
ZOE (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) He couldn't get a
connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush.
BLOOM Poor man!
ZOE (Lightly.) Only for what happened him.
BLOOM How?
VIRAG (A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage,
cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.)
Verfluchte Goim! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God!
He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchias, a Libyan eunuch, the pope's
bastard. (He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye
agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world.) A son of a
whore. Apocalypse.
KITTY And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from
Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and
was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for
the funeral.
PHILIP DRUNK (Gravely.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position,
Philippe?
PHILIP SOBER (Gaily.) C'Était le sacrÉ pigeon, Philippe.
(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.
And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whores
shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)
LYNCH (Laughs.) And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated
anthropoid apes.
FLORRY (Nods.) Locomotor ataxy.
ZOE (Gaily.) O, my dictionary.
LYNCH Three wise virgins.
VIRAG (Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony epileptic
lips.) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orange flower. Panther, the Roman
centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (He sticks out a flickering
phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork.) Messiah! He burst her
tympanum. (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the cynical
spasm.) Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk!
(Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled,
hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stands
forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing
bagslops.)
BEN POLLARD (Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels
jovially in base barreltone.) When love absorbs my ardent soul.
(The virgins, Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley, burst through the
ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)
THE VIRGINS (Gushingly.) Big Ben! Ben MacChree!
A VOICE Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.
BEN DOLLARD (Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.) Hold him now.
HENRY (Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs.) Thine
heart, mine love. (He plucks his lutestrings.) When first I saw.
VIRAG (Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting.) Rats!
(He yawns; showing a coalblack throat and closes his jaws by an upward push
of his parchment roll.) After having said which I took my departure.
Farewell. Fare thee well. Dreck!
(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb
and gives a cows lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to the
door his wild had slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two ungainly
stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a
pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)
THE FLYBILL K. 11. post no bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.
HENRY All is lost now.
(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)
VIRAG'S HEAD Quack!
(Exeunt severally.)
STEPHEN (Over his shoulder to Zoe.) You would have preferred the
fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes,
the dog sage, and the last end of Anus Heresiarchus. The agony in the
closet.
LYNCH All one and the same God to her.
STEPHEN (Devoutly.) And Sovereign Lord of all things.
FLORRY (To Stephen.) I'm sure you are a spoiled priest. Or a monk.
LYNCH He is. A Cardinal's son.
STEPHEN Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.
(His Eminence, Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland,
appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven
dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping
under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His thumbs are
stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary
of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he
invokes grace from on high with lace wave gestures and proclaims with
bloated pomp.)
THE CARDINAL
Conservio lies captured.
He lies in the lowest dungeon
With manacles and chains around his limbs
Weighing upwards of three tons.
(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left
cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and
fro, ads akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour.) O, the poor little
fellow Hi-hi-hi-hi-his legs they were yellow He was plump, fat and heavy and
brisk as a snake But some bloody savage To graize his white cabbage He
murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.
(A multitude of midges swarms over his robe. He scratches himself with
crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims.) I'm suffering the agony
of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little
chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd walk me off the face of the
bloody globe.
(His head aslant, he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers,
imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat
from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his train bearers. The
dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag
behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, merciful, male, melodious.)
Shall carry my heart to thee, Shall carry my heart to thee, And the breath
of the balmy night Shall carry my heart to thee.
(The trick doorhandle turns.)
THE DOORHANDLE Theeee.
ZOE The devil is in that door.
(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the
waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and,
half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and
offers it nervously to Zoe.)
ZOE (Sniffs his hair briskly.) Hum. Thank your mother for the rabbits.
I'm very fond of what I like.
BLOOM (Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep,
pricks his ears.) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event?
ZOE (Tears open the silverfoil.) Fingers was made before forks. (She
breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then
turns kittenishly to Lynch.) No objection to French lozenges? (He nods. She
taunts him.) Have it now or wait till you get it? (He opens his mouth, his
head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She
whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.) Catch.
(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it
through with a crack.)
KITTY (Chewing.) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely
ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady.
The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still.
BLOOM (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic
forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance
towards the door. Then, rigid, with left foot advanced, he makes a swift
pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his
right arm downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you,
whoever you are.
(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside.
Blooms features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing calmly. Zoe
offers him chocolate.)
BLOOM (Solemnly.) Thanks.
ZOE Do as you're bid. Here.
(A firm heelclacking is heard on the stairs.)
BLOOM (Takes the chocolate.) Aphrodisiac? But I thought it. Vanilla
calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus.
Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This black makes me sad.
Eat and be merry for tomorrow. (He eats.) Influence taste too, mauve. But it
is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late
than never. Try truffles at Andrews.
(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress enters. She is
dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled
selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in
Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply
carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly
sweated and fullnosed, with orangetainted nostrils. She has lace pendant
beryl eardrops.)
BELLA My word! I'm all of a mucksweat.
(She glances around her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom
with hard insistence. Her lace fan winnows wind towards her heated face,
neck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)
THE FAN (Flirting quickly, then slowly.) Married, I see.
BLOOM Yes... Partly, I have mislaid .
THE FAN (Half opening, then closing.) And the missus is master.
Petticoat government.
BLOOM (Looks down with a sheepish grin.) That is so.
THE FAN (Folding together, rests against her eardrop.) Have you
forgotten me?
BLOOM Yes. No.
THE FAN (Folded akimbo against her waist.) Is me her was you dreamed
before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we?
(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)
BLOOM (Wincing.) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which
women love.
THE FAN (Tapping.) We have met. You are mine. It is fate.
BLOOM (Cowed.) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your
domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak,
with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late
box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a
right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the
law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my
left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a
regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined
his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite,
he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle, as you
probably... (He winces.) Ah!
RICHIE GOULDING (Bagweighted, passes the door.) Mocking is catch. Best
value in Dub. Fit for a prince's liver and kidney.
THE FAN (Tapping.) All things end. Be mine. Now.
BLOOM (Undecided.) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman.
Rain, exposure at dewfall on the sea rocks, a peccadillo at my time of life.
Every phenomenon has a natural cause.
THE FAN (Points downwards slowly.) You may.
BLOOM (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. ) We are
observed.
THE FAN (Points downwards quickly.) You must.
BLOOM (With desire, with reluctance.) I can make a true black knot.
Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellet's.
Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once
before today. Ah!
(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the
edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom,
stifflegged ageing, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out
and in her laces.)
BLOOM (Murmurs lovingly.) To be a shoefitter in Mansfield's was my
love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up
crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly
small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily
to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.
THE HOOF Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.
BLOOM (Crosslacing.) Too tight?
THE HOOF If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you.
BLOOM Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar
dance. Bad luck. Nook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That
night she met... Now!
(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises
his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in mid-brow. His eyes grow
dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)
BLOOM (Mumbles.) Awaiting your further orders, we remain, gentlemen.
BELLO (With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.) Hound of
dishonour!
BLOOM (Infatuated.) Empress!
BELLO (His heavy cheekchops sagging.) Adorer of the adulterous rump!
BLOOM (Plaintively.) Hugeness!
BELLO Dungdevourer!
BLOOM (With sinews semiflexed.) Magnificence.
BELLO Down! (He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.) Incline feet
forward! Slide left foot one pace back. You will fall. You are falling. On
the hands down!
BLOOM (Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing.) Truffles!
(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
snuffling, rooting at his feet, then lies, shamming dead with eyes shut
tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most
excellent master.)
BELLO (With bobbed hair purple gills, fat moustache rings round his
shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport
skirt and alpine hat with moor cock's feather, his hands stuck deep in his
breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in.) Feel my
entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot's glorious
heels, so glistening in their proud erectness.
BLOOM (Enthralled, bleats.) I promise never to disobey.
BELLO (Laughs loudly.) Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for
you. I'm the tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet
Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I
dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be
inflicted in gym costume.
(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.
ZOE (Widening her slip to screen her.) She's not here.
BLOOM (Closing her eyes.) She's not here.
FLORRY (Hiding her with her gown.) She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. She'll
be good, sir.
KITTY Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir.
BELLO (Coaxingly.) Come, ducky dear. I want a word with you, darling,
just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety.
(Bloom puts out her timid head.) There's a good girly now. (Bello grabs her
hair violently and drags her forward.) I only want to correct you for your
own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender behind? O, ever so gently,
pet. Begin to get ready.
BLOOM (Fainting.) Don't tear my.
BELLO (Savagely.) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging
hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian
slave of old. You're in for it this time. I'll make you remember me for the
balance of your natural life. (His forehead veins swollen, his face
congested.) I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my
thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat ham rashers and a bottle of
Guinness's porter. (He belches.) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange
cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. Very possibly I shall
have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice Of you
with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig
with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you.
(He twists her arm. Bloom squeaks, turning turtle.)
BLOOM Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't!
BELLO (Twisting.) Another!
BLOOM (Screams.) O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like
mad!
BELLO (Shouts.) Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best
bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you.
(He slaps her face.)
BLOOM (Whimpers.) You're after hitting me. I'll tell...
BELLO Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
ZOE Yes. Walk on him! I will.
FLORRY I will. Don't be greedy.
KITTY No, me. Lend him to me.
(The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib,
men's grey and green socks and brogues, flour-smeared, a rollingpin stuck
with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)
MRS KEOCH (Ferociously.) Can I help? (They hold and pinion Bloom.)
BELLO (Squats, with a grunt, on Bloom's upturned face, puffing
cigar-smoke, nursing a fat leg.) I see Keating Clay is elected chairman of
the Richmond Asylum and bytheby Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen
three quarters. Curse me for a fool that I didn't buy that lot Craig and
Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned
outsider Throwaway at twenty to one. (He quenches his cigar angrily on
Bloom's ear.) Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray?
BLOOM (Goaded, buttocksmothered.) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!
BELLO Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg, pray for it as you never
prayed before. (He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar.) Here, kiss
that. Both. Kiss. (He throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman's
knees, calls in a hard voice.) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I'll
ride him for the Eclipse stakes. (He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's
testicles roughly, shouting.) Ho! off we pop! I'll nurse you in proper
fashion. (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the saddle.) The lady goes a
pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a
gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.
FLORRY (Pulls at Bello.) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked
before you.
ZOE (Pulling at Florry.) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet,
suckeress?
BLOOM (Stifling.) Can't.
BELLO Well, I'm not. Wait. (He holds in his breath.) Curse it. Here.
This bung's about burst. (He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his
features, farts loudly.) Take that! (He recorks himself) Yes, by Jingo,
sixteen three quarters.
BLOOM (A sweat breaking out over him.) Not man. (He sniffs.) Woman.
BELLO (Stands up.) No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has
come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under
the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments,
you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over
head and shoulders and quickly too.
BLOOM (Shrinks.) Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I
tip-touch it with my nails?
BELLO (Points to his whores.) As they are now, so will you be, wigged,
singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape
measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel
force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille, with whalebone busk, to
the diamond trimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure,
plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty
two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my
houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice.
Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at
first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round
your bare knees will remind you...
BLOOM (A chafing soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and lace
male hands and nose, leering mouth.) I tried her things on only once, a
small prank, in Holles street. When we were hardup I washed them to save the
laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.
BELLO (Jeers.) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh! and showed off
coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind close-drawn blinds your
unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders, in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho!
Ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunk
leg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam
Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne Hotel, eh?
BLOOM Miriam, Black. Demimondaine.
BELLO (Guffaws.) Christ Almighty, it's too tickling, this! You were a
nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning
in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade, about to be violated by
Lieutenant Smythe Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell, M.P., Signor Laci
Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henry Fleury of Gordon
Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Cr&Aelig;sus, the varsity wetbob eight
from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess
of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again.) Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat
laugh?
BLOOM (Her hands and features working.) It was Gerald converted me to
be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play
Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's
stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult
of the beautiful.
BELLO (With wicked glee.) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took
your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the
smoothworn throne.
BLOOM Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (Earnestly.)
And really it's better the position... because often I used to wet.
BELLO (Sternly.) No insubordination. The sawdust is there in the corner
for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll
teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles.
Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your
past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.
THE SINS OF THE PAST (In a medley of voices.) He went through a form of
clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black
Church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an
address in d'Olier Street while he presented himself indecently to the
instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he encouraged a nocturnal
strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse
attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled
messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by
the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by
loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he
not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of
wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by
gingerbread and a postal order?
BELLO (Whistles loudly.) Say! What was the most revolting piece of
obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out. Be
candid for once.
(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering,
Eooloohoom. Poldy Hock, Bootlaces a penny, cassidy's hag, blind stripling,
Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other the... )
BLOOM Don't ask me. Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought
the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath...
BELLO (Peremptorily.) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing.
Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good-ghoststory or a line of
poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give
you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... !
BLOOM (Docile, gurgles.) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant...
BELLO (Imperiously.) O get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when
you're spoken to.
BLOOM (Bows.) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!
(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)
BELLO (Satirically.) By day you will souse and bat our smelling
underclothes, also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with
dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be nice? (He
places a ruby ring on her finger.) And there now! With this ring I thee own.
Say, thank you, mistress.
BLOOM Thank you, mistress.
BELLO You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in
the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Ay,
and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink
me piping hot. Hop! you will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your
misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the
hairbrush. You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night your
wellcreamed braceleted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered
with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights
of old laid down their lives. (He chuckles.) My boys will be no end charmed
to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all. When they come here the
night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First,
I'll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta
Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the
Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a
short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (He
points.) For that lot trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth.
(He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva.) There's fine
depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (He shoves his arm in a
bidder's face.) Here, wet the deck and wipe it round!
A BIDDER A florin!
(Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.)
A VOICE One and eightpence too much.
THE LACQUEY Barang!
CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.
BELLO (Gives a rap with his gavel.) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and
cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine his points.
Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had
only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a
day. A pure stock getter, due to lay within the hour. His sire's milk record
was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up!
Whoa! (He brands his initial Con Bloom's croup.) So! Warranted Cohen! What
advance on two bob, gentlemen?
A DARKVISAGED MAN (In disguised accent.) Hoondert punt sterlink.
VOICES (Subdued.) For the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid.
BELLO (Gaily.) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short
skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent
weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight
seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the
blasÉ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis XV
heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees
modestly kissing. Bring all your power of fascination to bear on them.
Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.
BLOOM (Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with
forefinger in mouth.) O, I know what you're hinting at now.
BELLO What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (He
stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suetfolds of
Bloom's haunches.) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your curly
teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's
as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or
sell your pump. (Loudly.) Can you do a man's job?
BLOOM Eccles Street.
BELLO (Sarcastically.) I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but
there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay
young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you,
you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it.
He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to
belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking
out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy
ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That
makes you wild, don't it? Touches the spot? (He spits in contempt.)
Spittoon!
BLOOM I was indecently treated, I... inform the police. Hundred pounds.
Unmentionable. I.
BELLO Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want, not your
drizzle.
BLOOM To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll!... We... Still...
BELLO (Ruthlessly.) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will
since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years.
Return and see.
(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)
SLEEPY HOLLOW Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!
BLOOM (In tattered moccasins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tip toeing,
fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond
panes, cries out.) I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! But
that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he.
BELLO (Laughs mockingly.) That's your daughter, you owl, with a
Mullingar student.
(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her bluescab in
the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls,
her young eyes wonderwide.)
MILLY My! It's Papli! But. O Papli, how old you've grown!
BELLO Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writing table where we never wrote,
Aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his
men friends are living there in clover. The Cuckoos' Rest! Why not? How many
women had you, say? Following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them
by your smothered grunts. What, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with
parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander, O.
BLOOM They... I
BELLO (Cuttingly.) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet
you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find
the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried
home in the rain for art for art's sake. They will violate the secrets of
your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to
make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender
from Hampton Leedom's.
BLOOM Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return.
I will prove...
A VOICE Swear!
(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowie knife between his
teeth.)
BELLO As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your
secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are
down and out and don't you forget it, old bean.
BLOOM Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody... ?
(He bites his thumb.)
BELLO Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or
grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to
hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have. If you have none
see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery
jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I
married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his
neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, what ever the buggers' names
were, suffocated in the one cess pool. (He explodes in a loud phlegmy
laugh.) We'll manure you, Mr Flower! (He pipes scoffingly.) Byby, Poldy!
Byby, Papli!
BLOOM (Clasps his head.) My will power! Memory! I have sinned! I have
suff... (He weeps tearlessly.)
BELLO (Sneers.) Crybabby! Crocodile tears!
(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the
earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in
sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph
Goldwater Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie
Watchman, 0. Mastiansky, the Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With
swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.)
THE CIRCUMCISED (In a dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit
upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad.
VOICES (Sighing.) So he's gone. Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never
heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, yes.
(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of
incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oak frame a nymph with hair
unbound, lightly clad in teabrown art colours, descends from her grotto and
passing under interlacing yews, stands over Bloom.)
THE YEWS (Their leaves whispering.) Sister. Our sister. Ssh.
THE NYMPH (Softly.) Mortal! (Kindly.) Nay, dost not weepest!
BLOOM (Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight,
with dignity.) This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit.
THE NYMPH Mortal! You found me in evil company, high kickers, coster
picnic makers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in flesh
tights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the
hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil.
I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow
youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary
articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman.
Useful hints to the married.
BLOOM (Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.) We have met before. On
another star.
THE NYMPH (Sadly.) Rubber goods. Neverrip. Brand as sup plied to the
aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited
testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust
developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.
BLOOM You mean Photo Bits?
THE NYMPH I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me
above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four
places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.
BLOOM (Humbly kisses her long hair.) Your classic curves, beautiful
immortal. I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty,
almost to pray.
THE NYMPH During dark nights I heard your praise.
BLOOM (Quickly.) Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst
side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of my bed or
rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is
that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago,
incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless inoffensive vent. (He
sighs.) 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage.
THE NYMPH (Her fingers in her ears.) And words. They are not in my
dictionary.
BLOOM You understood them?
THE YEWS Ssh.
THE NYMPH (Covers her face with her hand.) What have I not seen in that
chamber? What must my eyes look down on?
BLOOM (Apologetically.) I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up
with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea, long ago.
THE NYMPH (Bends her head.) Worse! Worse!
BLOOM (Reflects precautiously.) That antiquated commode. It wasn't her
weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after
weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed
utensil which has only one handle.
(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)
THE WATERFALL
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
THE YEWS (Mingling their boughs.) Listen. Whisper. She is right, our
sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer
days.
JOHN WYSE NOLAN (In the background, in Irish National For ester's
uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Prosper! Give shade on languorous days,
trees of Ireland!
THE YEWS (Murmuring.) Who came to Poulaphouca with the high school
excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?
BLOOM (Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript
juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes,
bordered stockings with turnover tops, and a red school cap with badge.) I
was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the
mingling odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned
tight on the old Royal stairs, for they love crushes, instincts of the herd,
and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Even a pricelist of their
hosiery. And then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school.
And tipsycake. Halcyon days.
(Halcyon Days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and
shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen
Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing of
the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)
THE HALCYON DAYS Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray!
(They cheer.)
BLOOM (Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, stunned with spent
snowballs, struggles to rise.) Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let's
ring all the bells in Montague Street. (He cheers feebly.) Hurray for the
High School!
THE ECHO Fool!
THE YEWS (Rustling.) She is right, our sister. Whisper. (Whispered
kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the
boles and among the leaves and break blossoming into bloom.) Who profaned
our silent shade?
THE NYMPH (Coyly through parting fingers.) There! In the open air?
THE YEWS (Sweeping downward.) Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward.
THE WATERFALL
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca.
THE NYMPH (With wide fingers.) O! Infamy!
BLOOM I was precocious. Youth. The fauns. I sacrificed to the god of
the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing time.
Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I
saw at her night toilette through ill-closed curtains, with poor papa's
operaglasses. The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto
Bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their
crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The demon possessed me.
Besides, who saw?
(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf thrusts a ruminating head with
humid nostrils through the foliage.)
STAGGERING BOB Me. Me see.
BLOOM Simply satisfying a need. (With pathos.) No girl would when I
went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play.
(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes,
plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping curvants.)
THE NANNYGOAT (Bleats.) Megegaggegg! Nannannanny!
BLOOM (Hatless, flushed, covered with burn of thistledown and
gotrepine.) Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. (He gazes intently
downwards on the water.) Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Press
nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government printer's
clerk. (Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a
mummy, rolls rotatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the purple Waiting
waters.)
THE DUMMYMUMMY Bbbbblllllbbblblodschbg?
(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin's King
sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the
land.)
COUNCILLOR NANNETI (Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellow kitefaced,
his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.) When my country takes her
place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph
be written. I have...
BLOOM Done. Prff.
THE NYMPH (Loftily.) We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a
place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric
light. (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger
in her mouth.) Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you... ?
BLOOM (Pacing the heather abjectly.) O, I have been a perfect pig.
Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia, to which add
a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's syringe,
the ladies' friend.
THE NYMPH In my presence. The powderpuff. (She blushes and makes a
knee.) And the rest.
BLOOM (Dejected.) Yes. Peccavi! I have paid homage on that living altar
where the back changes name. (With sudden fervour.) For why should the
dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules... ?
(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems,
cooeeing.)
THE VOICE OF KITTY (In the thicket.) Show us one of them cushions.
THE VOICE OF FLORRY Here.
(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)
THE VOICE OF LYNCH (In the thicket.) Whew! Piping hot!
THE VOICE OF ZOE (From the thicket.) Came from a hot place.
THE VOICE OF VIRAG (A birdchief bluestreaked and feathered in war
panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over
beechmast and acorns.) Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull!
BLOOM It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit
where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to
grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white
sateen coatpans. So womanly full. It fills me full.
THE WATERFALL
Phillaphulla Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
THE YEWS Ssh! Sister, speak!
THE NYMPH (Eyeless, in nun's white habit, coif and huge winged wimple,
softly, with remote eyes.) Tranquilia convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel,
the apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. (She reclines her
head, sighing.) Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the
waters dull.
(Bloom half rises. His back trousers button snaps.)
THE BUTTON Bip!
(Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)
THE SLUTS
O Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
He didn't know what to do,
To keep it up,
To keep it up.
BLOOM (Coldly.) You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there
were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but
willing, like an ass pissing.
THE YEWS (Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms
ageing and swaying.) Deciduously!
THE NYMPH Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (A large moist stain appears
on her robe.) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a
pure woman. (She clutches in her robe.) Wait, Satan. You'll sing no more
lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (She draws a poniard and, clad in the
sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins.) Nekum!
BLOOM (Starts up, seizes her hand.) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat of nine lives!
Fair play, madam. No pruning knife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do
we lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? (He clutches her
veil.) A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless
statue of the watercarrier or good Mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?
THE NYMPH (With a cry, flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast
cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks.) Poli... !
BLOOM (Calls after her.) As if you didn't get it on the double
yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your
strength our weakness. What's our stud fee? What will you pay on the nail?
You fee men dancers on the Riviera, I read. (The fleeing nymph raises a
keen.) Eh! I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a
jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me.
(He sniffs.) But. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.
(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)
BELLA You'll know me the next time.
BLOOM (Composed, regards her.) PassÉe. Mutton dressed as lamb. Lone in
the tooth and superfluous hairs. A raw onion the last thing at night would
benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as
vapid as the glass eyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of
your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw propeller.
BELLA (Contemptuously.) You're not game, in fact. (Her sowcunt barks.)
Fohracht!
BLOOM (Contemptuously.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, the
cold spunk of your bully is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of
hay and wipe yourself.
BELLA I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!
BLOOM I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
BELLA (Turns to the piano.) Which of you was playing the dead march
from Saul?
ZOE Me. Mind your cornflowers. (She darts to the piano and bangs chords
on it with crossed arms.) The cat's ramble through the slag. (She glances
back.) Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? (She darts back to the table.)
What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
(Kitty disconcerted coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom
approaches Zoe.)
BLOOM (Gently.) Give me back that potato, will you? Zoe Forfeits, a
fine thing and a superfine thing.
BLOOM (With feeling.) It is nothing, but still a relic of poor mamma.
ZOE
Give a thing and take it back
God'll ask you where is that
You'll say you don't know
God'll send you down below.
BLOOM There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.
STEPHEN To have or not to have, that is the question.
ZOE Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh
and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) Those that hides knows
where to find.
BELLA (Frowns.) Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. And don't you
smash that piano. Who's paying here?
(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out
a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)
STEPHEN (With exaggerated politeness.) This silken purse I made out of
the sow's ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. (He
indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch
and Lynch. Dans ce bordel oÙ tenons nostre État.
LYNCH (Calls from the hearth.) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.
STEPHEN (Hands Bella a coin.) Gold. She has it.
BELLA (Looks at the money, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty.) Do you want
three girls? It's ten shillings here.
STEPHEN (Delightedly.) A hundred thousand apologies. (He fumbles again
and takes out and hands her two crowns.) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is
somewhat troubled.
(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to
himself in monosyllables. Zoe bounds over to the table. Kitty leans over
Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds
his head to the group.)
FLORRY (Strives heavily to rise.) Ow! My foot's asleep. (She limps over
to the table. Bloom approaches.)
BELLA, ZOE. KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM (Chattering and squabbling.) The
gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three allow me a moment... this
gentleman pays separate who's touching it?... ow... mind who you're
pinching... are you staying the night or a short time? who did?... you're a
liar, excuse me... the gentle man paid down like a gentleman... drink...
it's long after eleven.
STEPHEN (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.) No bottles!
What, eleven? A riddle.
ZOE (Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top
of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back.
LYNCH (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come!
KITTY Wait. (She clutches the two crowns.)
FLORRY And me?
LYNCH Hoopla! (He lifts her carries her and bumps her down on the
sofa.)
STEPHEN The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking
eleven. 'Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven.
BLOOM (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and
Florry.) So. Allow me. (He takes up the pound note.) Three times ten. We're
square.
BELLA (Admiringly.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss
you.
ZOE (Points.) Hum? Deep as a drawwell. (Lynch bends Kitty back over the
sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)
BLOOM This is yours.
STEPHEN How is that? Le distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles
again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls.) That
fell.
BLOOM (Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.) This.
STEPHEN Lucifer. Thanks.
BLOOM (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care
of. Why pay more?
STEPHEN (Hands him all his coins.) Be just before you are generous.
BLOOM I will but is it wise? (He counts.) One, seven, eleven, and five.
Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost.
STEPHEN Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next
Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly.) Burying his grandmother.
Probably he killed her.
BLOOM That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.
STEPHEN Doesn't matter a rambling damn.
BLOOM No, but...
STEPHEN (Comes to the table.) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a
cigarette from the sofa to the table.) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and
married. (A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.) Wonder.
Parlour magic. Married. Hm. (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the
cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)
LYNCH (Watching him.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if
you held the match nearer.
STEPHEN (Brings the match nearer his eye.) Lynx eye. Must get glasses.
Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat.
(He draws the match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable
modality of the visible. (He frowns mysteriously.) Hm. Sphinx. The beast
that has two backs at midnight. Married.
ZOE It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with
him.
FLORRY (Nods.) Mr Lambe from London.
STEPHEN Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.
LYNCH (Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem.
(The cigarette slips from Stephens fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it
into the grate.)
BLOOM Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. (To Zoe.) You
have nothing?
ZOE Is he hungry?
STEPHEN (Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the
bloodoath in the Dusk of the Gods.)
Hangende Hunger,
Fragende Frau,
Macht uns alle kaput.
ZOE (Tragically.) Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! (She takes his
hand.) Blue eyed beauty, I'll read your hand. (She points to his forehead.)
No wit, no wrinkles. (She counts.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage.
(Stephen shakes his head.) No kid.
LYNCH Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and
shake. (To Zoe.) Who taught you palmistry?
ZOE (Turns.) Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. (To Stephen.) I see it
in your face. The eye, like that. (She frowns with lowered head.)
LYNCH (Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.) Like that. Pandy bat.
(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open,
the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)
FATHER DOLAN Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little
schemer. See it in your eye.
(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises
from the pianola coffin.)
DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very
good little boy.
ZOE (Examining Stephen's palm.) Woman's hand.
STEPHEN (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE What day were you born?
STEPHEN Thursday. Today.
ZOE Thursday's child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.)
Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY (Pointing.) Imagination.
ZOE Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... (She peers at his hands
abruptly.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
BELLA Show. (She turns up Bloom's hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles,
for the women.
ZOE (Peering at Bloom's palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and
marry money.
BLOOM Wrong.
ZOE (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That
wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises,
stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)
BLOOM (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it twenty-two years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN See? Moves to one great goal. I am twenty two too. Sixteen
years ago I twentytwo tumbled, twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his
hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY What?
(A hackneycar number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook,
trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The
Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia
Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)
Haw, haw, have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE (To Florry.) Whisper.
(They whisper again.)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in a yachtsman's cap and white
shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder.)
LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a
few quims?
BOYLAN (Seated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN A good night's work.
BOYLAN (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes
Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell
that.
LENEHAN (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN bumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear. )
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom up yet?
BLOOM (In a flunkey's plum plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir, the last articles...
BOYLAN (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.
(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I
have a little private business with your wife. You understand?
BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing
out of the water.) Raoul, darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my
new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping!
BELLA What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll
write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise
weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and
stamped receipt.
BELLA (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM Thank you, sir, I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir?
Orangeflower?... Lukewarm water?...
KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.
(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur lip-lapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)
MINA KENNEDY (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck
together! Covered with kisses!
LYDIA DOUCE (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the
room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York.
Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
KITTY (Laughing.) Hee hee hee.
BOYLAN'S VOICE (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!
MARION'S VOICE (Hoarsely, sweetly rising to her throat.) O!
Weeshwashtkissima, pooisthnapoohuck!
BLOOM (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself) Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!
BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY. KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!
LYNCH (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu
hu.
(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)
SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.
Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit
his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!
BLOOM (Smiles yellowly at the whores.) When will I hear the joke?
ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower.
BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon, when measurements
were taken near the skin after his death...
(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunny's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her
bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's
everyday trousers and turnedup boots, lace eights. She holds a Scottish
widow's insurance policy and lace marqueeumbrella under which her brood runs
with her, Patsy hopping on one short foot, his collar loose, a hank of
porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cods mouth, Alice
struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)
FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!
SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!
SHAKESPEARE (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst.
(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeares
beardless face. The marqueeumbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside.
Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono
gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twisting japanesily.)
MRS CUNNINGHAM (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM
(Gazes on her impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep!
STEPHEN Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgross father made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the
house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open.
BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.
LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris.
ZOE (Runs to Stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.
(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace, where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on
his face.)
LYNCH (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrr rrrmmmmm.
STEPHEN (Gobbles, with marionette jerks. ) Thousand places of
entertainment to expenses your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and
other things perhaps her heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very
eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like
are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they
are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is
pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they
tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of
religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which
arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man
debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clocks his tongue
loudly.) Ho, la la! Ce pif qu'il a!
LYNCH Vive le vampire!
THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo!
STEPHEN (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles
big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable cos turned. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures
which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or
lifesize tompeeptoms virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.
Enter gentlemen to see in mirrors every positions trapezes all that machine
there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in
warm veal liver or omelette on the belly piÈce de Shakespeare.
BELLA (Clapping her belly, sinks back on the sofa with a shout of
laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... Omelette on the...
STEPHEN (Mincingly.) I love you, Sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.)
BELLA (Laughing.) Omelette...
THE WHORES (Laughing.) Encore! Encore!
STEPHEN Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.
ZOE Go abroad and love a foreign lady.
LYNCH Across the world for a wife.
FLORRY Dreams go by contraries.
STEPHEN (Extending his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine Avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the red
carpet spread?
BLOOM (Approaching Stephen.) Look.
STEPHEN No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free!
BLOOM I say, look...
STEPHEN Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture
talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho!
(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)
SIMON That's all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.)
Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes.
Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying!
An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! hai
hoop! (He makes the beagle's call giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblbrurblbl!
Hai, boy!
(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A
stout fox drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother,
runs swift for the open, bright-eyed, seeking badger earth, under the
leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their
quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrblng to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and
huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse,
Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, salmongaffs,
lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors
with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bowls of dicers,
crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse
bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)
THE CROWD
Card of the races. Racing card!
Ten to one the field!
Tommy on the clay here!
Tommy on the clay!
Ten to one bar one.
Ten to one bar one.
Try your luck on spinning Jenny!
Ten to one bar one!
Sell the monkey, boys!
Sell the monkey!
I'll give ten to one!
Ten to one bar one!
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses: Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the
Duke of Westminsters Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beauforts' Ceylon, prix
de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rusty armoured, leaping, leaping in their
saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain, on a broken-winded isabelle nag, Cock of
the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett
Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockey stick at the ready. His nag,
stumbling on whitegaitered feet, jogs along the rocky road.)
THE ORANGE LODGES (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You'll be home the night!
GARRETT DEASY (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postage stamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the
prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at a schooling gallop.) Per
vias rectas!
(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag, a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes.)
THE GREEN LODGES Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!
(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord.)
STEPHEN Hark! Our friend, noise in the street!
ZOE (Holds up her hand.) Stop!
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON and CISSY CAFFREY
Yet I've a sort a
Yorkshire relish for...
ZOE That's me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the
pianola.) Who has twopence?
BLOOM Who'll.
LYNCH (Handing her coins.) Here.
STEPHEN (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where's my
augur's rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot
in tripudium.)
ZOE (Turns the drumhandle.) There.
(She drops two pennies in the slot. Glow pink and violet lights start
forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in
a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent
in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering.
He sits tinily on the piano stool and lifts and beats handless sticks of
arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsels grace, his bowknot bobbing.)
ZOE (Twirls around herself heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there?
Who'll dance?
(The pianola, with changing lights, plays in waltz time the prelude to
My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and
seizes Zoe around the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the
fireplace. Stephen, aiming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her
around the room. Her sleeve, falling from gracing arms, reveals a white
fleshflower of vaccination. Bloom stands aside. Between the curtains,
Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat.
With a deft kick, he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates
in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a go-et of cream
tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief tight
lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is a
dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it
tight in his oxter. He places a hand limply on his breastbone, bows and
fondles his flower and buttons.)
MAGINNI The poetry of motion, art of callisthenics. No connection with
Madam Legget Byrne's or Levinstone's. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner steps. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Tout le
monde an avant! RÉvÉrence! Tout le monde en place!
(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms,shrivels,
shrinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air, in firmer waltz
time, pounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade,
gold, rose, violet.)
THE PIANOLA Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls,
girls, Sweethearts they'd left behind.
(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slim, in girlish
blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their
skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing linked,
high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting
their arms.)
MAGINNI (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) CarrÉ! Avant deux! Breathe
evenly! Balance!
(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing vis a vis. Cawaliers behind them
arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from
their shoulders.)
HOURS You may touch my.
CAVALIERS May I touch your?
HOURS O, but lightly!
CAVALIERS O, so lightly!
THE PIANOLA My little shy little lass has a waist.
(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance, from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze
with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)
MAGINNI Avant! huit! TraversÉ! Salut! Cours de mains! CroisÉ!
(The eight hours steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! ChaÎne de dames! La corbeille! Dos À dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI BoulangÈre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress
of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her,
a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)
BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the
beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi
oinopa ponton.
THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the
world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They said I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.)
You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery.
STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to all men.
THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Prayer is all powerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline
manual, and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that
boiled rice every night after your brain work. Years and years I loved you,
O my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting!
FLORRY (Points to Stephen) Look! He's white.
BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy.
THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN (Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened, withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen's breast with outstretched fingers.) Beware! God's hand! (A
green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in
Stephen's heart.)
STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey
and old.)
BLOOM (At the window.) What?
STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all
or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: DÉfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? Ça se voit aussi À Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea
eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened.
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
Ulysses 15: Circe
The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an
uncobbled transiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green
will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of flimsy houses with gaping
doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice
gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are
wedged lumps of coal and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly.
Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the
murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.
THE CALLS Wait, my love, and I'll be with you.
THE ANSWERS Round behind the stable.
(A deaf mute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling,
jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children's hands
imprisons him.)
THE CHILDREN Kithoguel Salute.
THE IDIOT (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!
THE CHILDREN Where's the great light?
THE IDIOT (Gobbing.) Ghaghahest.
(They release him. He jerks on. A pygmy woman swings on a rope slung
between the railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and
muffled by its arm and hat moves, groans, grinding growling teeth, and
snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbish tip crouches to
shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oil lamp
rams the last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew
his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair
swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a
papershuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt,
scrambles up. A drunken navvy ups with both hands the railings of an area,
lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shoulder capes, their hands
upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes; a woman screams; a
child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer
from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs
out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice,
still young, sings shrill from a lane.)
CISSY CAFFREY
I gave it to Molly
Because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters,
as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths
a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)
THE VIRAGO Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.
CISSY CAFFREY More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet.
(She sings.)
I gave it to Nelly
To stick in her belly
The leg of the duck
The leg of the duck.
(Private Cart and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics
bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond copper
polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the
redcoats.)
PRIVATE COMPTON (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.
PRIVATE CARR (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!
CISSY CAFFREY (Her voice soaring higher.)
She has it, she got it,
Wherever she put it
The leg of the duck.
(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy
the introit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockey cap low on his brow, attends
him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)
STEPHEN Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.
(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)
THE BAWD (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst.
STEPHEN (Altius aliqantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit acqua ista.
THE BAWD (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.
(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils.)
EDY BOARDMAN (Bickering.) And say the one: I seen you up Faithful place
with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat.
Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the
mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one
is. Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time,
Kildbride the enginedriver and lancecorporal Oliphant.
STEPHEN (Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti i sunt.
(He flourishes his ashplant shivering the lamp image, shattering light
over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him,
growling. Lynch scar's it with a kick.)
LYNCH So that?
STEPHEN (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music, not odours, would
be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay
sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.
LYNCH Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburg street!
STEPHEN We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even
the allwisest stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.
LYNCH Ba!
STEPHEN Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?
This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread and wine in Omar. Hold
my stick.
LYNCH Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?
STEPHEN Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson,
ad deam qui laetificat juventutem meam.
(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands,
his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned
in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher.)
LYNCH Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the
customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.
(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs
in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb.
The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The
navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects
from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he
staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset.
Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond
the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy staggering forward cleaves the
crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the
railway bridge Bloom appears flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate
into a side pocket. From Gillens hairdressers window a composite portrait
shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror at the side presents to
him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level
Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington but
in the con vex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops
of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.
At Antonio Babaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright
arclamps. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)
BLOOM Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!
(He disappears into Olhousen's, the pork butcher's, under the
downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the
shutter puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one
containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter
sprinkled with wholepepper He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one
side he presses a parcel against his rib and groans.)
BLOOM Stitch in my side. Why did I run?
(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset
siding. The glow leaps again.)
BLOOM What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.
(He stands at Cormack's corner watching.)
BLOOM Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course.
South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're safe.
(He hums cheerfully.) London's burning, London's burning! On fire, on fire!
(He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther
side of Talbot street.) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.
(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)
THE URCHINS Mind out, mister! (Two cyclists, with lighted paper
lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling.)
THE BELLS Haltyaltyaltyall.
BLOOM (Halts erect stung by a spasm.) Ow.
(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon
sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge
red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs
his footgong.)
THE GONG Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.
(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved
hand, blunders stifflegged, out of the track. The motorman thrown forward,
pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)
THE MOTORMAN Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hattrick?
BLOOM (Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a
mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.) No thoroughfare. Close shave
that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. On the
hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. (He feels
his trouser pocket.) Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch in tracks or
bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at
Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I
ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked
me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him
all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in
Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost
cattle. Mark of the beast. (He closes his eyes an instant.) Bit light in the
head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too
much for me now. Ow!
(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O'Beirnes wall, a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero
the figure regards him with evil eye.)
BLOOM Buenos noches, seÑorita Blanca, que calle es esta?
THE FIGURE (Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Password. Sraid Mabbot.
BLOOM Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (He mutters.) Gaelic league
spy, sent by that fireeater.
(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps
left, ragsackman left.)
BLOOM I beg. (He swerves, sidles, stepsaside, slips past and on.)
BLOOM Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a fingerpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost
my way and contributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter
headed, In darkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones,
at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off
his sins of the world.
(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)
BLOOM O!
(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepocket,
sweets of sin, potato soap.)
BLOOM Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.
(The retriever approaches sniffling, nose to the ground. A sprawled
form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of
an elder in Zion and a smoking cap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles
hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn
face.)
RUDOLPH Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with
drunken goy ever. So. You catch no money.
BLOOM (Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,
feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.
RUDOLPH What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (With feeble
vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom) Are you not my son
Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left
the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?
BLOOM (With precaution.) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's
left of him.
RUDOLPH (Severely.) One night they bring you home drunk as dog after
spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?
BLOOM (In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,
narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver
waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side
of him coated with stiffening mud.) Harriers, father. Only that once.
RUDOLPH Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make
you kaput, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.
BLOOM (Weakly.) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I
slipped.
RUDOLPH (With contempt) Ooim nachez. Nice spectacles for your poor
mother!
BLOOM Mamma!
ELLEN BLOOM (In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, crinoline and bustle,
widow Twankey's blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens
and cameo brooch, her hairplaited in a crisping net, appears over the
staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand and cries out in
shrill alarm.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling
salts! (She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped
blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid
doll fall out.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all, at all?
(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in
his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)
A VOICE (Sharply.) Poldy!
BLOOM Who? (He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) At your service.
(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in
Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet
trousers and jacket slashed with gold. A wide yells cummerbund girdles her.
A white yashmak violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her
lace dark eyes and raven hair.)
BLOOM Molly!
MARION Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to
me. (Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?
BLOOM (Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit.
(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air questions,
hopes, crubeens for her supper things to tell her excuses, desire,
spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled
toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a
camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable
rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with disgruntled
hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles
angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)
MARION Nebrakada! Feminimum.
(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a lace mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof then droops his head
and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back
for leapfrog.)
BLOOM I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer Mrs Marion...
if you...
MARION So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over her
trinketed stomacher. A slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy, Poldy,
you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world.
BLOOM I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower
water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning.
(He pats divers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah!
(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon
soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)
THE SOAP
We're a capital couple are Bloom and I;
He brightens the earth, I polish the sky.
(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appeals in the disc of the
soapsun.)
SWENY Three and a penny, please.
BLOOM Yes. For my wife, Mrs Marion. Special recipe.
MARION (Softly.) Poldy!
BLOOM Yes, ma'am?
MARION Ti trema un poco il cuore?
(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon,
humming the duet from Don Giovanni)
BLOOM Are you sure about that Voglio? I mean the pronunciati...
(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes
his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)
THE BAWD Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched.
Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk.
(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled Bridie
Kelly stands.)
BRIDIE Hatch street. Any good in your mind?
(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues
with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom.
Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)
THE BAWD (Her wolfeyes shining.) He's getting his pleasure. You won't
get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night before
the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.
(Leering Gerty MacDowell limps forward. She draws from behind ogling,
and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)
GERTY With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (She murmurs.) You did
that. I hate you.
BLOOM I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you.
THE BAWD Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman
false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the
strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.
GERTY (To Bloom.) When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.
(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Dirty married man! I love you for doing
that to me.
(She slides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat with
loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen,
smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)
MRS BREEN Mr.
BLOOM (Coughs gravely.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter
dated the sixteenth instant .
MRS BREEN Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you
nicely! Scamp!
BLOOM (Hurriedly.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think me? Don't
give me away. Walls have hears. How do you do? It's ages since I. You're
looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this time
of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting quarter.
Rescue of fallen women Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary...
MRS BREEN (Holds up a finger.) Now don't tell a big fib! I know
somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily.) Account for
yourself this very minute or woe betide you!
BLOOM (Looks behind.) She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. The
exotic, you see. Negro servants too in livery if she had money. Othello
black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at the Livermore
christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.
(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,
upstarched Sambo chokers and lace scarlet asters in their buttonholes leap
out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the
twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through a
breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to back, toe heel, heel
toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)
There's someone in the house with Dina
There's someone in the house, I know,
There's someone in the house with Dina
Playing on the old banjo.
(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling,
chortling, trumming, twanging they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)
BLOOM (With a sour tenderish smile.) A little frivol, shall we, if you
are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a
fraction of a second?
MRS BREEN (Screams gaily.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!
BLOOM For old sake'sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage
mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft corner
for you. (Gloomily.) 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle.
MRS BREEN Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. (She
puts out her hand inquisitively.) What are you hiding behind your back? Tell
us, there's a dear.
BLOOM (Seizes her wrist with his free hand.) Josie Powell that was,
prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in
a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night Georgina Simpson's
housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin
blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuff box?
MRS BREEN You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic
recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the
ladies.
BLOOM (Squire of dames, in dinner jacket, with watered-silk facings,
blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a
prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen, I give
you Ireland, home and beauty.
MRS BREEN The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song.
BLOOM (Meaningfully dropping his voice.) I confess I'm teapot with
curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot at
present.
MRS BREEN (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London's tea pot and I'm
simply teapot all over me. (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlour
mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase
ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.
BLOOM (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his
fingers and thumbs passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which
she surrenders gently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out
of this hand, carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby
ring.) LÀ ci darem la mano.
MRS BREEN (In a onepiece eveningfrock executed in moonlight blue, a
tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her
moonblue satin slipper curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e
non. You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.
BLOOM When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the
beast. I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his brow.)
Think what it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman, it's
breaking me! (Dennis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich
board, shuffles past them in cadet slippers, his dull beard thrust out,
muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the
ace of spaces, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)
ALF BERGAN (Points jeering at the sandwich boards.) U.p.: Up.
MRS BREEN (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him the glad
eye.) Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.
BLOOM (Shocked.) Molly's best friend! Could you?
MRS BREEN (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)
Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?
BLOOM (Off handedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without
potted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah. Mrs Bandman Palmer. Trenchant
exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling
good place round there for pig's feet. Feel.
(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears
weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a
skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He ins it and shows it
full of polonies, kippered, herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills.)
RICHIE Best value in Dub.
(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his
napkin, waiting to wait.)
PAT (Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.) Steak and
kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.
RICHIE Goodgod. Inev erate inall...
(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,
gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)
RICHIE (With a cry of pain, his hand to his back) Ah! Bright's! Lights!
BLOOM (Points to the navvy.) A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate
stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.
MRS BREEN Humbugging and delutbering as per usual with your cock and
bull story.
BLOOM I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here.
But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason.
MRS BREEN (All agog.) O, not for worlds.
BLOOM Let's walk on. Shall us?
MRS BREEN Let's.
(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The
terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)
THE BAWD Jewman's melt!
BLOOM (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel,
tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white
spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in
bandolier and a grey billycock hat.) Do you remember a long long time, years
and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when
we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?
MRS BREEN (In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider
veil.) Leopardstown.
BLOOM I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three
year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old
fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you
had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs
Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven,
a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I'll lay you what you like
she did it on purpose...
MRS BREEN She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser!
BLOOM Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky
little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on
you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to
kill it, you cruel creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of
a fullstop.
MRS BREEN (Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Naughty cruel I was.
BLOOM (Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) And Molly was eating a
sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Frankly,
though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style.
She was .
MRS BREEN Too.
BLOOM Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly
were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the
tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her
name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard
or read or knew or came across .
MRS BREEN (Eagerly.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on
towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet
apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to
a tale which their broken snouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An
armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.)
THE GAFFER (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairns
came down from the scaffolding in Beaver Street what was he after doing it
into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings
for Derwan's plasterers.
THE LOITERERS (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!
(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their
lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)
BLOOM Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad
daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.
THE LOITERERS Jays, that's a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the
men's porter.
(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled,
call from lanes, doors, corners.)
THE WHORES Are you going far, queer fellow? How's your middle leg? Got
a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.
(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. >From
a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In
the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)
THE NAVVY (Belching.) Where's the bloody house?
THE SHEBEENKEEPER Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout.
Respectable woman.
THE NAVVY (Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.) Come
on, you British army!
PRIVATE CARR (Behind his back.) He aint half balmy.
PRIVATE COMPTON (LAughs.) What ho!
PRIVATE CARR (To the navvy.) Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for
Carr. Just Carr.
THE NAVVY (Shouts.)
We are the boys. Of Wexford.
PRIVATE COMPTON Say! What price the sergeantmajor?
PRIVATE CARR Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett.
THENAVVY (Shouts.)
The galling chain.
And free our native land.
(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault.
The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)
BLOOM Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they
are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland
row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. Train with
engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding for the night or
collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What am I following him
for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't heard about Mrs Beaufoy
Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have met. Kismet. He'll lose that
cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye
lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have lost my life too with that
mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind. Can't
always save you, though. If I had passed Truelock's window that day two
minutes later would have been shot. Absence of body. Still if bullet only
went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. What was
he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper.
(He gazes ahead reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream
and a phallic design.)
Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. What's
that like? (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways, in window
embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed
floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths.)
THE WREATHS Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.
BLOOM My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get
all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much.
(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his
tail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak to
him first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like a polecat. Chacun
son goÛt. He might be mad. Fido. Uncertain in his movements. Good fellow!
Garryowen! (The wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with
begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.) Influence of his
surroundings. Give and have done with it. Provided nobody. (Calling
encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by
the setter into a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to
dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.) Sizeable for
threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why?
Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.
(With regret he lets unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiff
mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching
the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. They murmur
together.)
THE WATCH Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.
(Each lays a hand on Blooms shoulder.)
FIRST WATCH Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.
BLOOM (Stammers.) I am doing good to others.
(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with
Banbury cakes in their beaks.)
THE GULLS Kaw kave kankury kake.
BLOOM The friend of man. Trained by kindness.
(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high bars tool, sways over the
munching spaniel.)
BOB DORAN Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.
(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pigs knuckle
between his molars through which rabid scrumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran
falls silently into an area.)
SECOND WATCH Prevention of cruelty to animals.
BLOOM (Enthusiastically.) A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on
Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad
French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All
tales of circus life are highly demoralising.
(Signor Maffei, passion pale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs
in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paper hoop, a curling
carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the going boarhound.)
SIGNOR MAFFEI (With a sinister smile.) Ladies and gentlemen, my
educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my
patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted
thong. Block tackle and a strangling pully will bring your lion to heel, no
matter how fractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater. A redhot
crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of
Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. (He glares.) I possess the Indian sign. The
glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. (With a bewitching
smile.) I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.
FIRST WATCH Come. Name and address.
BLOOM I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! (He takes off his high
grade hat, saluting.) Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard of
von Bloom Pasha. Umpteen mil lions. Donnerwetter! Owns half Austria. Egypt.
Cousin.
FIRST WATCH Proof.
(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.)
BLOOM (In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a
false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and offers
it.) Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: Messrs John
Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk.
FIRST WATCH (Reads.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Un lawfully watching
and besetting.
SECOND WATCH An alibi. You are cautioned.
BLOOM (Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.) This is
the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don't know his name.
(Plausibly.) You know that old joke, rose of Castille. Bloom. The change of
name Virag. (He murmurs privately and confidentially.) We are engaged you
see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. (He shoulders the second
watch gently.) Dash it all. It's a way we gallants have in the navy. Uniform
that does it. (He turns gravely to the first watch.) Still, of course, you
do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old
Burgundy. (To the second watch gaily.) I'll introduce you, inspector. She's
game. Do it in shake of a lamb's tail.
(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)
THE DARK MERCURY The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of
the army.
MARTHA (Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the
Irish Times in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Henry! Leopold!
Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.
FIRST WATCH (Sternly.) Come to the station.
BLOOM (Scared, hats himself steps back, then, plucking at his heart and
lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of
fellowcraft.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity.
The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide
case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully
accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.
MARTHA (Sobbing behind her veil.) Breach of promise. My real name is
Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my brother,
the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.
BLOOM (Behind his hand.) She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. (He
murmurs vaguely the past of Ephraim.) Shitbroleeth.
SECOND WATCH (Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.) You ought to be thoroughly
well ashamed of yourself.
BLOOM Gentleman of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am a
man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable
married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. My
wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant
upstanding gentleman, who do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of
Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his majority for
the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift.
FIRST WATCH Regiment.
BLOOM (Turns to the gallery.) The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the
earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms up
there among you. The R. D. F. With our own Metropolitan police, guardians of
our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as physique, in
the service of our sovereign.
A VOICE Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?
BLOOM (His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.) My old dad too was
a J.P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the colours
for king and country in the absentminded war under General Gough in the park
and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches.
I did all a white man could. (With quiet feeling.) Jim Bludso. Hold her
nozzle again the bank.
FIRST WATCH Profession or trade.
BLOOM Well, I follow a literary occupation. Author-journalist. In fact
we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the
inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected with
the British and Irish press. If you ring up...
(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His
scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a hank
of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a telephone
receiver nozzle to his ear.)
MYLES CRAWFORD (His cock's wattles wagging.) Hello, seventyseven
eightfour. Hello. Freeman's Urinal and Weekly Arse wiper here. Paralyse
Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?
(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate
morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased
lavender trousers and patent boots. He cames a lace portfolio labelled
Matcham's Masterstrokes.)
BEAUFOY (Drawls.) No, you aren't, not by a long shot if I know it. I
don't see it, that's all. No born gentleman, no one with the most
rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly
loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak
masquerading as a literateur. It's perfectly obvious that with the most
inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling books, really
gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath
suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions with which your
lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom.
BLOOM (Murmurs with hangdog meekness.) That bit about the laughing
witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... ?
BEAUFOY (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.) You
funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully weird for words! I don't think
you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. My
literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, we
shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? We are considerably out
of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has
not even been to a university.
BLOOM (Indistinctly.) University of life. Bad art.
BEAUFOY (Shouts.) It's a damnably foul lie showing the moral rottenness
of the man! (He extends his portfolio.) We have here damning evidence, the
corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the
hallmark of the beast.
A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY
Moses, Moses, king of the jews,
Wiped his arse in the Daily News.
BLOOM (Bravely.) Overdrawn.
BEAUFOY You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you
rotter! (To the court.) Why, look at the man's private life! Leading a
quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be mentioned
in mixed society. The arch conspirator of the age.
BLOOM (To the court.) And he, a bachelor, how.
FIRST WATCH The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.
THE CRIER Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!
(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket
on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)
SECOND WATCH Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?
MARY DRISCOLL (Indignantly.) I'm not a bad one. I bear a respectable
character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, six
pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out, and I had to leave owing to
his carryings on.
FIRST WATCH What do you tax him with?
MARY DRISCOLL He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself
as poor as I am.
BLOOM (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless
slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled softly.) I treated you white. I gave
you mementoes, smart emerald garters far above your station. Incautiously I
took your part when you were accused of pilfering. There's a medium in all
things. Play cricket.
MARY DRISCOLL (Excitedly.) As God is looking down on me this night if
ever I laid a hand to them oysters!
FIRST WATCH The offence complained of? Did something happen?
MARY DRISCOLL He surprised me in the rere of the premises, your honour,
when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety
pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he
interfered twice with my clothing.
BLOOM She counterassaulted.
MARY DRISCOLL (Scornfully.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush,
so I had. I remonstrated with him, your lord, and he remarked: Keep it
quiet!
(General laughter.)
GEORGES FOTTRELL (Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Order in
court! The accused will now make a bogus statement.
(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a
long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his
stirring address to the grand-jury. He was down and out but, though branded
as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the
memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely
domestic animal. A seven months' child, he had been carefully brought up and
nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an
erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long
last in sight of the whipping post, to lead a homely life in the evening of
his days, permeated by the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of
the family. An acclimatised Britisher he had seen that summer eve from the
footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain
refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful
households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of
happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence
a dozen, innocent British born bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant,
youthful scholars grappling with their pensums, model young ladies playing
on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round
the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with
their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon
Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a
sacrifice, greatest bargain ever... )
(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that
they cannot hear.)
LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND (Without looking up from their notebooks.)
Loosen his boots.
PROFESSOR MACHUGH (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Cough it up,
man. Get it out in bits.
(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A lace bucket.
Bloom himself Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A
plasterers bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly
agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He
did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbits
back number.)
(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom, in a torn frockcoat stained with
whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of sticking-plaster
across his nose, talks inaudibly.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a
voice of pained protest.) This is no place for indecent levity at the
expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a beargarden
nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My client is an
infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is
now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a
momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such
familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my
client's native place, the land of the Pharaoh. Prima facie, I put it to you
that there was no attempt at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and
the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was
not repeated. I would deal inespecial with atavism. There have been cases of
shipwreck and somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak
he could a tale unfold one of the strangest that have ever been narrated
between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from
cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction
and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact.
BLOOM (Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar's vest and trousers,
apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about him
dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches his belt
sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court,
pointing one thumb heavenward.) Him makee velly muchee fine night. (He
begins to lilt simply.)
Li li poo lil chile,
Blingee pigfoot evly night.
Payee two shilly...
(He is howled down.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (Hotly to the populace.) This is a lonehand fight. By
Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this
fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has
superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically without
wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not
accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The
young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter.
(Bloom takes J. J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his lips.) I shall call
rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at
its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful
man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which
injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong
turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own
sweet will on her. He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man
I know. He is down on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his
extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which
will now be shown. (To Bloom.) I suggest that you will do the handsome
thing.
BLOOM A penny in the pound.
(The mirage of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in
silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in
blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an orange
citron and a pork kidney.)
DLUGACZ (Hoarsely.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.
(J. J. O'Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his
coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken
eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor. He
applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of
rosepink blood.)
J. J. O'MOLLOY (Almost voicelessly.) Excuse me, I am suffering from a
severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. (He
assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour
Bushe.) When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught that the pensive
bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves
to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the
doubt. (A paper with something written on it is handed into court.)
BLOOM (In court dress.) Can give best references. Messrs Callan,
Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon,
ex-lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest .
Queens of Dublin Society. (Carelessly.) I was just chatting this afternoon
at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer
royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said...
MRS YELVERTON BARRY (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength
ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brick quilted dolman, a comb of
brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.) Arrest him constable. He
wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the
North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He
said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of
the Theatre Royal at a command performance of La Cigale. I deeply inflamed
him, he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half
past four p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send
me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled The
Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays.
MRS BELLINGHAM (In cap and seal coneymantle, wrapped up to the nose,
steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzingglasses
which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.) Also to me. Yes, I
believe it is the same objectionable person. Because he closed my carriage
door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day during the cold snap of
February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and ballstop in my
bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss
culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour. I had it examined by a
botanical expert and elicited the information that it was a blossom of the
homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Shame on him!
(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins sues forward.)
THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS (Screaming.) Stop thief! Hurrah there,
Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!
SECOND WATCH (Produces handcuffs.) Here are the darbies.
MRS BELLINGHAM He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome
compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound
coachman Balmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of
his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my
person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial
bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck's head couped
or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves
in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden
treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged
me, stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me, to defile the
marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (In amazon costume, hard hat,
jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with
bra idea drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes
her welt constantly.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the
Phnix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes,
I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the
Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. This
plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in
double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris
boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. It represents a
partially nude senorita, frail and lovely (his wife as he solemnly assured
me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit intercourse with a
muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to do likewise, to
misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his
letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to
bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping.
MRS BELLINGHAM Me too.
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Me too.
(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters
received from Bloom.)
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Stamps her jingling spurs in a
sudden paroxysm of sudden fury.) I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge
the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive.
BLOOM (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (He squirms.)
Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS Very much so! I'll make it hot for
you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that.
MRS BELLINGHAM Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and
stripes on it!
MRS YELVERTON BARRY Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married
man!
BLOOM All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling
glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Laughs derisively.) O, did you, my
fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your life
now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. You
have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury.
MRS BELLINGHAM (Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)
Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an
inch of his life. The cat-o' nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.
BLOOM (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands with hangdog mien.) O
cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let
me off this once. (He offers the other cheek.)
MRS YELVERTON BARRY (Severely.) Don't do so on any account, Mrs
Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!
THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.)
I'll do no such thing. Pig dog and always was ever since he was pupped! To
dare address me! I'll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I'll
dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (She swishes
her hunting crop savagely in the air.) Take down his trousers without loss
of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?
BLOOM (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.
(Davy Stephens, ringleted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)
DAVY STEPHENS Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph with
Saint Patrick's Day Supplement. Containing the new addresses of all the
cuckolds in Dublin.
(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and
exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend John
Hughes S.J. bend low.)
THE TIMEPIECE (Unportalling.)
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo
(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)
THE QUOITS Jigjag, Jigajiga. Jigjag.
(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox
the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman silkhatted, Jack Power Simon
Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford,
Lenehan, Paddy Leonard Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of a
Nameless One.)
THE NAMELESS ONE Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised
her.
THE JURORS (All their heads turned to his voice.) Really?
THE NAMELESS ONE (Snarls.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.
THE JURORS (All their heads lowered in assent.) Most of us thought as
much.
FIRST WATCH He is a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted: Jack
the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward.
SECOND WATCH (Awed, whispers.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.
THE CRIER (Loudly.) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a
well-known dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold ad a public
nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes
the most honourable.
(His Honour sir Frederick Falkiner recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb
of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his arms an
umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.)
THE RECORDER I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid
Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap.) Let him be
taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in
custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure and there be hanged
by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the
Lord have-mercy on your soul. Remove him. (A black skullcap descends upon
his head.)
(The subsheriff long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry
Clay.)
LONG JOHN FANNING (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)
Who'll hang Judas Iscariot?
(H. Rumbold, master barber in a bloodcoloured jerk in and tanner's
apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder mounts the block. A life preserver
and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his
grapping hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)
RUMBOLD (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Hanging Harry,
your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing.
(The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)
THE BELLS Heigho! Heigho!
BLOOM (Desperately.) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence.
Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzees. (Breathlessly.) Pelvic
basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion.) I left the
precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may I
speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want a
little more .
HYNES (Coldly.) You are a perfect stranger.
SECOND WATCH (Points to the corner.) The bomb is here. FIRST WATCH
Infernal machine with a time fuse. BLOOM No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a
funeral. FIRST WATCH (Draws his truncheon.) Liar!
(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy
Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows
to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit.
His green eyeflashes bloodshot. Half of one ear all the nose and both thumbs
are ghouleaten.)
PADDY DIGNAM (In a hollow voice.) It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor
Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from
natural causes.
(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)
BLOOM (In triumph.) You hear?
PADDY DIGNAM Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list!
BLOOM The voice is the voice of Esau.
SECOND WATCH (Blesses himself.) How is that possible?
FIRST WATCH It is not in the penny catechism.
PADDY DIGNAM By metempsychosis. Spooks.
A VOICE O rocks.
PADDY DIGNAM (Earnestly.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton,
solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. Now
I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife
was awfully cut up. Dow is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of
sherry. (He looks round him.) A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That
buttermilk didn't agree with me.
(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker stands forth, holding a
bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain,
toad bellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding
sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.)
FATHER COFFEY (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.) Namine. Jacobs
Vobiscuits. Amen.
(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Dignam, Patrick T.,
deceased.
PADDY DIGNAM (With pricked up ears, winces.) Overtones.
(He wriggles forward, places an ear to the ground.) My masters' voice!
JOHN O'CONNELL Burial docket letter number U. P. Eightyfive thousand.
Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.
(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his
tailstiffpointed, his ears cocked.)
PADDY DIGNAM Pray for the repose of his soul.
(He worms down through a coal hole, his brown habit trailing its tether
over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus
turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is heard baying
under ground: Dignam's dead and gone below. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted,
in cap and breeches, jumps from his two-columned machine.)
TOM ROCHFORD (A hand to his breastbone, bows.) Reuben J. A florin I
find him. (He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) My turn now on.
Follow me up to Carlow.
(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the
coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloom
plodges forward again. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The
kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him, twittering, warbling,
cooing.)
THE KISSES (Warbling.) Leo! (Twittering.) Icky licky micky sticky for
Leo! (Cooing.) Coo coocoo! Yummyumm Wom worn! (Warbling.) Big comebig!
Pirouette! Leopopold! (Twittering.) Leeolee! (Warbling.) O Leo!
(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddyflecks,
silvery sequins.)
BLOOM A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.
(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three
bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips
down the steps and accosts him.)
ZOE Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend.
BLOOM Is this Mrs Mack's?
ZOE No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse.
Mother Slipperslapper. (Familiarly.) She's on the job herself tonight with
the vet, her tipster, that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in
Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. (Suspiciously.) You're
not his father, are you?
BLOOM Not I!
ZOE You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?
(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand slides over his
left thigh.)
ZOE How's the nuts?
BLOOM Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier I suppose. One
in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.
ZOE (In sudden alarm.) You've a hard chancre.
BLOOM Not likely.
ZOE I feel it.
(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard
black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.)
BLOOM A talisman. Heirloom.
ZOE For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?
(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket, then links his arm,
cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note,
oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed
with kohol. His smile softens.)
ZOE You'll know me the next time.
BLOOM (Forlornly.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to.
(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round
their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong
hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the
bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still,
cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur
of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely
murmuring.)
ZOE (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously
smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach,
benoith Hierushaloim.
BLOOM (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.
ZOE And you know what thought did?
(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth sending on him
a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre
of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)
BLOOM (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat
awkward hand.) Are you a Dublin girl?
ZOE (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.) No bloody
fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot?
BLOOM (As before.) Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish
device. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder of
rank weed.
ZOE Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.
BLOOM (In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating
tie and apache cap.) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Raleigh brought
from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence
by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will,
understanding, all. That is to say, he brought the poison a hundred years
before another person whose name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies.
All our habits. Why, look at our public life!
(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)
THE CHIMES Turn again, Leopold! Lord Mayor of Dublin!
BLOOM (In alderman's gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, Inns
Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, from
the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. That's my
programme. Cui Bono? But our buccaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom
ship of finance...
AN ELECTOR Three times three for our future chief magistrate!
(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)
THE TORCH BEARERS Hooray!
(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city
shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice
Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk
tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. They nod
vigorously in agreement.)
LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral
chain and lace white silk scarf) That alder man sir Leo Bloom's speech be
printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which he was
born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare
hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated
Boulevard Bloom.
COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK Carried unanimously.
BLOOM (Impassionedly.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they
recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines is
their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses,
supplanters, bug-bears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous
hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted
labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain
stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf
and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev...
(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring
up. A streamer bearing the legends Cead Mille Failte and Mah Ttob Melek
Israel spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers,
chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the royal Dublin Fusiliers,
the Kings Own Scottish Boraerers, the Cameron Highlanders and the Welsh
Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school
are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices,
gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The
pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance
playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted,
trailing banners and waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal
standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the
procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a
chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are
followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Dublin,
the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo
and Watedord, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and
maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire
Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of
precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor His Eminence Michael cardinal
Logue archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most
reverend Dr William Alexander archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland,
the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist,
anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the
society of friends. her them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with
flying colours: coopen, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers,
law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimney sweeps, lard
refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church
decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertaken, silk mercers, lapidaries,
salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners,
export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse
repository hands, bullion broken, cricket and archery outfitters,
riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bed chamber Black Rod, Deputy
Garter Gold Stick, the master of hone, the lord great chamberlain, the earl
marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's
iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet.
Beefeaten reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloom
appears bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing
Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is
seated on a milkwhite hone with long flowing crimson tail, richly
caparisoned, with golden heads tall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their
balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men
cheer. Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and
wrenbushes.)
BLOOM'S BOYS
The wren, the wren,
The king of all birds,
Saint Stephen's his day,
Was caught in the furze.
A BLACKSMITH (Murmurs.) For the Honour of God! And is that Bloom? He
scarcely looks thirtyone.
A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest
reformer. Hats off!
(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)
A MILLIONAIRESS (Richly.) Isn't he simply wonderful?
A NOBLEWOMAN (Nobly.) All that man has seen!
A FEMINIST (Masculinely.) And done!
A BELLHANGER A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.
(Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)
THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR I here present your un doubted emperor
president and king chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant
ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!
ALL God save Leopold the First!
BLOOM (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor
with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.
WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Will
you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments
in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?
BLOOM (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.
MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (Pours a cruse of hair oil over Bloom's
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold, Patrick,
Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!
(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on
at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church,
Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up
from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do
homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.)
THE PEERS I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly
worship.
(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental
and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)
BLOOM My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix
hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated our
former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the
splendour of night.
(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moon blue robes, a silver crescent on her
head, descends from a Sedan chair borne by two giants. An outburst of
cheering.)
JOHN HOWARD PARNELL (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!
BLOOM (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of our
common ancestors.
(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The
keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all
that he is wearing green socks.)
TOM KERNAN You deserve it, your honour.
BLOOM On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with
telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we
yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our
light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry,
Bonafide Sabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.
THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS Hear! Hear!
JOHN WYSE NOLAN There's the man that got away James Stephens.
A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY Bravo!
AN OLD RESIDENT You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you
are.
AN APPLEWOMAN He's a man like Ireland wants.
BLOOM My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere
long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the
Nova Hibernia of the future.
(Thirtytwo workmen wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland,
under the guidance of Derwan the builder construct the new Bloomusalem. It
is a colossal edifice, with crystal roof built in the shape of a huge pork
kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension
several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are
temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the
ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red
with the letters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the
walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)
THE SIGHTSEERS (Dying) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)
(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trap-door. He points
an elongated finger at Bloom.)
THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH Don't you believe a word he Says. That man is
Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.
BLOOM Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh!
(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his
sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful
enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees,
are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration
medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars,
free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives, in sealed envelopes tied with
gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of
cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of
Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' indulgences, spurious coins,
dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all
tram lines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny
dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy
and Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), So Meals for 7/6
(culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic),
Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric),
Canvasser's Vade Mecum (journalic), love-letters of Mother Assistant
(erotic), Who's Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart
(melodic), Pennywise's Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and
scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The lady
Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses
him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph
is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)
THE WOMEN Little father! Little father!
THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS
Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.
(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)
BABY BOARDMAN (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja.
BLOOM (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother!
(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear old friends!
(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.) Peep! Bopeep! (He
wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? (He performs
juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet
silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.) Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. (He
consoles a widow.) Absence makes the heart grow younger. (He dances the
Highland fling with grotesque antics.) Leg it, ye devils! (He kisses the
bedsores of a palsied veteran.) Honourable wounds! (He trips up a fat
policeman.) U.p.: up. U.p.: up. (He whispers in the ear of a blushing
waitress and laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty, naughty! (He eats a raw turnip
offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.) Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to
accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.) My dear
fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar.) Please accept. (He
takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.) Come
on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!
THE CITIZEN (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald
muffler.) May the good God bless him!
(The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)
BLOOM (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and
reads solemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur
Hanukah Ros chaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah
Talith.
(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)
JIMMY HENRY The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic
Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice,
solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this
our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the Paradisiacal Era.
PADDY LEONARD What am I to do about my rates and taxes?
BLOOM Pay them, my friend.
PADDY LEONARD Thank you.
NOSEY FLYNN Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?
BLOOM (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are
bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five
pounds.
J.J. O'MOLLY A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien!
NOSEY FLYNN Where do I draw the five pounds?
PISSER BURKE For bladder trouble?
BLOOM
Acid. nit. hydrochlor dil., 20 minims,
Tinct. mix. vom., 4 minims.
Extr. taraxel. lig., 30 minims.
Aq. dis. ter in die.
CHRIS CALLINAN What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of
Aldebaran?
BLOOM Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II.
JOE HYNES Why aren't you in uniform?
BLOOM When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the
Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?
BEN DOLLARD Pansies?
BLOOM Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.
BEN DOLLARD When twins arrive?
BLOOM Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.
LARRY O'ROURKE An eight day licence for my new premises. You remember
me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen of
stout for the missus.
BLOOM (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no
presents.
CROFTON This is indeed a festivity.
BLOOM (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.
ALEXANDER KEYES When will we have our own house of keys?
BLOOM I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten
commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile.
Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses.
Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and
night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must
now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival, with masked licence, bonuses
for all, esperanto the universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of
barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free love and a free lay
church in a free lay state.
O'MADDEN BURKE Free fox in a free henroost.
DAVY BYRNE (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!
BLOOM Mixed races and mixed marriage.
LENEHAN What about mixed bathing?
(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.
All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare Street Museum appears,
dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked
goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos Venus Metempsychosis, and plaster
figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic
Music, Amor Publicity, Manufacture, liberty of Speech, Plural Voting,
Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless
Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)
FATHER FARLEY He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an any thingarian
seeking to overthrow our holy faith.
MRS RIORDAN (Tears up her will.) I'm disappointed in you! You bad man!
MOTHER GROGAN (Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.) You beast! You
abominable person!
NOSEY FLYNN Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.
BLOOM (With rollicking humour.)
I vowed that I never would leave her,
She turned out a cruel deceiver.
With my tooraloom tooraloom tooralcom tooraloom.
HOPPY HOLOHAN Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all.
PADDY LEONARD Stage Irishman!
BLOOM What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of
Casteele. (Laughter.)
LENEHAN Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!
THE VEILED SIBYL (Enthusiastically.) I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it.
I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest man
on earth.
BLOOM (Winks at the bystanders.) I bet she's a bonny lassie.
THEODORE PUREFOY (In fishing cap and oilskin jacket.) He employs a
mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.
THE VEILED SIBYL (Stabs herself.) My hero god! (She dies.)
(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by
stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their
veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of
Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, asphyxiating
themselves by placing their heads in gas ovens, hanging themselves in
stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)
ALEXANDER J. DOWIE (Violently.) Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the
man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A
fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave
precocious signs of infantile debauchery recalling the cities of the plain,
with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the
white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman,
intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the
caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban!
THE MOB Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!
(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper
and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value,
hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheeps'
tails, odd pieces of fat.)
BLOOM (Excitedly.) This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again.
By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He
is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the viper, has
wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan
capall. I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist to give
medical testimony on my behalf.
DR MULLIGAN (In motor jerkin, green motoroggles on his brow.) Dr Bloom
is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's private
asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is
present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have
been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic
exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from
selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has
metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his
memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made
a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427
anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta.
(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)
DR MADDEN Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming
generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits
of wine in the national teratological museum.
DR CROTTHERS I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid.
Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.
DR PUNCH COSTELLO The fetor judaicus is most perceptible.
DR DIXON (Reads a bill of health.) Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many
have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on
the whole, coy though not feeble-minded in the medical sense. He has written
a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the
Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up everything. He is
practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw
litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer's peas. He wears a
hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I
understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory.
Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for
clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been
called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.
(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American
makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, bank cheques,
banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I.O.U.s,
wedding rings' watch-chains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly
collected.)
BLOOM O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORNTON (In nursetender's gown.) Embrace me tight, dear. You'll be
soon over it. Tight, dear.
(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white
children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive
plants. All are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade,
respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages
fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each has his name
printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger,
Chrysostomos, MaindorÉe, Silversmile, Silberselber Vifargent, Panargros.
They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several
different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of
railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vice chairmen of hotel
syndicates.)
A VOICE Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?
BLOOM (Darkly.) You have said it.
BROTHER BUZZ Then perform a miracle.
BANTAM LYONS Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.
(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes
through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the the ledge by
his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several
sufferers from kings evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many
historical personages, lord Beaconsfield, lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of
Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle,
Rossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe,
Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different
directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his
little finger.)
BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO (In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as
breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and
brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio. Moses begat Noah and Noah
begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat Guggenheim and
Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le
Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat
Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss
begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli began Aranjuez
and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and
Ichabudonosor begat O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum
and Christbaum begat Ben Maimun and Ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty
Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat
Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat
Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat
Virag and Virag begat Bloom et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel.
A DEADHAND (Writes on the wall.) Bloom is a cod. A CRAB (In bush
ranger's kit.) What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack?
A FEMALE INFANT (Shakes a rattle.) And under Ballybough bridge?
A HOLLYBUSH And in the devil's glen?
BLOOM (Blushes furiously all over from front to nates, three tears
falling from his left eye.) Spare my past.
THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS (In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook
fair shillelaghs.) Sjambok him!
(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms,
his feet protruding. He whistles Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. Artane orphans,
joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining
hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)
THE ARTANE ORPHANS
You big, you bog, you dirty dog!
You think the ladies love you!
THE PRISON GATE GIRLS
If you see kay
Tell him he may
See you in tea
Tell him from me.
HORNBLOWER (In ephod and huntingcap, announces.) And he shall carry the
sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to
Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from
Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham.
(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide
travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky and
Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards
at Bloom.)
MASTIANSKY AND CITRON Belial! Laemlein of Istria! the false Messiah!
Abulafia!
(George S. Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his
arm, presenting a bill.)
MESIAS To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.
BLOOM (Rubs his hands cheerfully.) Just like old times. Poor Bloom!
(Reuben J. Dodd, black bearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his
shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)
REUBEN J. (Whispers hoarsely.) The squeak is out. A split is gone for
the flatties. Nip the first rattler.
THE FIRE BRIGADE Pflaap!
BROTHER BUZZ (Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of
painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round his
neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.) Forgive him his
trespasses.
(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets
fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)
THE CITIZEN Thank heaven!
BLOOM (In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid
phoenix flames.) Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.
(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of
Erin, in black garments with lace prayerbooks and long lighted candles in
their hands, kneel down and pray.)
THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN Kidney of Bloom, pray for us. Flower of the Bath,
pray for us. Mentor of Menton, pray for us. Canvasser for the Freeman, pray
for us. Charitable Mason, pray for us. Wandering Soap, pray for us. Sweets
of Sin, pray for us. Music without Words, pray for us. Reprover of the
Citizen, pray for us. Friend of all Frillies, pray for us. Midwife Most
Merciful, pray for us. Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence,
pray for us.
(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Mr Vincent O'Brien, sings
the Alleluia chorus, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes
mute, shrunken, carbonised.)
ZOE Talk away till you're black in the face.
BLOOM (In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an
emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak pig
by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.) Let me be going now, woman of the
house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the father and
mother of a bating. (With a tear in his eye.) All insanity. Patriotism,
sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life's
dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. (He gazes far away
mournfully.) I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A
letter. Then lie back to rest. (He breathes softly.) No more. I have lived.
Fare. Farewell.
ZOE (Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.) Honest? Till the next
time. (She sneers.) Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too
quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts.
BLOOM (Bitterly.) Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle.
ZOE (In sudden sulks.) I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a
bleeding whore a chance.
BLOOM (Repentantly.) I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil.
Where are you from? London?
ZOE (Glibly.) Hog's Norton where the pigs play the organs. I'm
Yorkshire born. (She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.) I say,
Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short
time? Ten shillings?
BLOOM (Smiles, nods slowly.) More, houri, more.
ZOE And more's mother? (She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.) Are
you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll peel
off.
BLOOM (Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled
embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled
pears.) Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed
monster. (Earnestly.) You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you.
ZOE (Flattered.) What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for.
(She pats him.) Come.
BLOOM Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.
ZOE Babby!
BLOOM (In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,
fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a chubby
finger, his moist tongue tolling and lisping.) One two tlee: tlee tlwo
tlone.
THE BUCKLES Love me. Love me not. Love me.
ZOE Silent means consent. (With little parted talons she captures his
hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the pass touch of secret monitor,
luring him to doom.) Hot hands cold gizzard.
(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards
the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted
eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of
all the male brutes that have possessed her.)
THE MALE BRUTES (Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their
loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.) Good!
(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.
They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his
hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)
ZOE (Her lucky hand instantly saving him.) Hoopsa! Don't fall upstairs.
BLOOM The just man falls seven times. (He stands aside at the
threshold.) After you is good manners.
ZOE Ladies first, gentlemen after.
(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out
her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the an tiered rack of the hall hang a
man's hat and waterproof Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns,
then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is thrown open. A man
in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an apes gait,
his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar his
twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom
bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then,
his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve
tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies,
colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade
and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all
senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of
shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy.
The walls are tapes-tried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the
grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on
the hearth rug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he
beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume,
doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand,
sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at
herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of her corset lace
hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the
piano.)
KITTY (Coughs behind her hand.) She's a bit imbecilic. (She signs with
a waggling forefinger.) Blemblem. (Lynch lifts up her skirt and white
petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.) Respect yourself.
(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows,
red with henna.) O, excuse!
ZOE More limelight, Charley. (She goes to the chandelier and turns the
gas full cock.)
KITTY (Peers at the gasjet.) What ails it tonight?
LYNCH (Deeply.) Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.
ZOE Clap on the back for Zoe.
(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at the
pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats
once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat
whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in
the sofa corner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A
heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)
KITTY (Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.) O, excuse!
ZOE (Promptly.) Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift.
(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over
her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled
caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances
behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)
STEPHEN As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto
Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an old
hymn to Demeter or also illustrate Cla enarrant gloriam Domini. It is
susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian
and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's that is
Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip from the stable to
his chief bassoonist about his almightiness. Mais, nom de nom, that is
another pair of trousers. Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He
stops, points at Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs.) Which side is your knowledge
bump?
THE CAP (With saturnine spleen.) Bah! It is because it is. Woman's
reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of
life. Bah!
STEPHEN You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes.
How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone!
THE CAP Bah!
STEPHEN Here's another for you. (He frowns.) The reason is because the
fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval
which .
THE CAP Which? Finish. You can't.
STEPHEN (With on effort.) Interval which. Is the greatest possible
ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.
THE CAP Which? (Outside the gramophone begins to blare The Holy City.)
STEPHEN (Abruptly.) What went forth to the ends of the world to
traverse not itself. God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller,
having itself traversed in reality itself, becomes that self. Wait a moment.
Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self which it itself
was ineluctably preconditioned to become. Ecco!
LYNCH (With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe
Higgins.) What a learned speech, eh?
ZOE (Briskly.) God help your head, he knows more than you have
forgotten.
(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)
FLORRY They say the last day is coming this summer.
KITTY No!
ZOE (Explodes in laughter.) Great unjust God!
FLORRY (Offended.) Well, it was in the papers about Anti christ. O, my
foot's tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patterpast,
yelling.)
THE NEWSBOYS Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea
serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.
(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)
STEPHEN A time, times and half a time.
(Reuben J. Antichrist, wanderingjew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrims wallet from
which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his
shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled
mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its
breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked,
hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose,
tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)
ALL What?
THE HOBGOBLIN (His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping, with outstretched clutching arms, then all
at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient!
C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round and round
with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches
juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux son! faits!
(The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien n'va plus. (The
planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into
vacuum.)
FLORRY (Sinking into torpor, crosses herself secretly.) The end of the
world!
(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over
coughs and feetshuffling.)
THE GRAMOPHONE Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna...
(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tight-rope taut from zenith to nadir the End of
the World, a two headed octopus in gillies kilts, busby and tartan filibegs,
whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the fob of the Three Lugs of
Man.)
THE END OF THE WORLD (With a Scotch accent.) Wha'll dance the keel row,
the keel row, the keel row?
(Over the passing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh
as a corncrakes, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with
funnel sleeves he is seen, vergefaced above a rostrum about which the banner
of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)
ELIJAH No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole
Sue, Dave Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut.
Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's time is
12.25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick
ace. Join on right here! Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run.
Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent
came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe
Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to you to sense
that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of
the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You
can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this
vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck
joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener,
sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just
the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores.
It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and getting down to
bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that?
O.K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up
by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. (He shouts.) Now
then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! (He sings.)
Jeru...
THE GRAMOPHONE (Drowning his voice.) Whorusalaminyour highhohhhh.
(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)
THE THREE' WHORES (Covering their ears, squawk.) Ahhkkk!
ELIJAH (In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top
of his voice, his arms uplifted.) Big Brother up there, Mr President, you
hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe
strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and
Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don't
never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just
now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our
sisters dear. (He winks at his audience.) Our Mr President, he twig the
whole lot and he ain't saying nothing.
KITTY-KATE I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did
on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop. My mother's sister
married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was
pure.
ZOE-FANNY I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.
FLORRY-TERESA It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of
Hennessy's three stars I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the
bed.
STEPHEN In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without
end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.
(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,
Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast,
goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)
THE BEATITUDES (Incoherently.) Beer beef battledog buybull businum
barnum buggerum bishop.
LYSTER (In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says
discreetly.) He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the
light.
(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser attire, shinily laundered,
his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin's
kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizard-lettered, and a high pagoda hat.)
BEST (Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown
of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.) I was just
beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know. Yeats
says, or I mean, Keats says. (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and
flashes it towards a corner; with carping accent.) Esthetics and cosmetics
are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man.
Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.
(In the cone of the search light behind the coalscuttle, ollave,
holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaan MacLir broods, chin on knees. He
rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mantle. About his head
writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right
hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two
talons.)
MANANAAN MACLIR (With a voice of waves.) Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor!
Ma! White yoghin of the Gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. (With
a voice of whistling seawind.) Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't have my leg
pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult of Shakti. (With
a cry of stormbirds.) Shakti, Shiva! Dark hidden Father! (He smites with his
bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its co-operative dial glow
the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with the vehemence of the ocean.)
Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead, I am the dreamery
creamery butter.
(A skeleton judas hand strangles the light. The green light wanes to
mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)
THE GASJET Pooah! Pfuiiiiii!
(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.)
ZOE Who has a fag as I'm here?
LYNCH (Tossing a cigarette on to the table.) Here.
ZOE (Her head perched aside in mock pride.) Is that the way to hand the
pot to a lady? (She stretches up to light the cigarette over the flame,
twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch with his
poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up her flesh
appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly at her
cigarette.) Can you see the beauty spot of my behind?
LYNCH I'm not looking.
ZOE (Makes sheep's eyes.) No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you
suck a lemon?
(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom,
then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue
fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling
his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and
gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate,
chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the left
on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several overcoats and wears a
brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of parchment. In his left eye
flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On
his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.)
VIRAG (Heels together bows.) My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely.
(He coughs thoughtfully, drily.) Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence
hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not
wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular
devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good.
BLOOM Granpapachi. But...
VIRAG Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and
coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of
gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should
opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that
the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed
to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I
right?
BLOOM She is rather lean.
VIRAG (Not unpleasantly.) Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier
pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest
bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has
been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention
to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today.
Parallax! (With a nervous twitch of his head.) Did you hear my brain go
snap? Pollysyllabax!
BLOOM (An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.) She
seems sad.
VIRAG (Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left
eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus
mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by
Rualdus Colombus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially.) Well
then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty
of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable
matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party,
longcasted and deep in keel.
BLOOM (Regretfully.) When you come out without your gun.
VIRAG We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your
money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either...
BLOOM With?...
VIRAG (His tongue upcurling.) Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is
coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of
bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of
very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate,
while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of
potent rectum and tumescent for palpation which leave nothing to be desired
save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When
coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread
with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow
them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal
blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after.
Wallow in it. Lycopodium. (His throat twitches.) Slapbang! There he goes
again.
BLOOM The stye I dislike.
VIRAG (Arches his eyebrows.) Contact with a goldring, they say.
Argumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the
consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyo saurus. For the rest Eve's sovereign
remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. (He twitches.) It is a funny
sound.
(He coughs encouragingly.) But possibly it is only a wart. I presume
you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head?
Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.
BLOOM (Reflecting.) Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This
searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of
accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said .
VIRAG (Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.) Stop
twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten.
Exercise your mnemotechnic. La causa È santa. Tara. Tara. (Aside.) He will
surely remember.
BLOOM Rosemary also did I understand you to say or will power over
parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand
cures. Mnemo?
VIRAG (Excitedly.) I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. (He taps his
parchmentroll energetically.) This book tells you how to act with all
descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite,
melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about
amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with
horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and
the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in
male habiliments? (With a dry snigger.) You intended to devote an entire
year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1882 to
square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the
ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gusseted
knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations,
camiknickers? (He crows derisively.) Keekeereekee!
(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores, then gazes at the veiled
mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)
BLOOM I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence
this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is will
then tomorrow as now was be past yester.
VIRAG (Prompts into his ear in a pig's whisper.) Insects of the day
spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the
inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal verve in
dorsal region. Pretty Poll! (His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally.) They
had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five
hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend
Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. Bear's
buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time we may resume. We were
very pleased, we others. (He coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose
thoughtfully with a scooping hand.) You shall find that these night insects
follow the light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye.
For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of
Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation
of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are
automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun
nighttown. Chase me, Charley! Buzz!
BLOOM Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self
then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I...
VIRAG (His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.) Splendid!
Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. (He gobbles
gluttonously with turkey wattles.) Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are we?
Open Sesame! Cometh forth! (He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his
glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he claws.) Stay,
good friend. I bring thee thy answer Redbank oysters will shortly be upon
us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the
truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker,
were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they
stink yet they sting. (He wags head with cackling raillery.) Jocular. With
my eyeglass in my ocular.
BLOOM (Absently.) Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open
sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve and
the serpent contradict. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to my idea.
Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way through miles of
omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like those bubblyjocular
Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.
VIRAG (His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly
closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.) That the cows with their those
distended udders that they have been the known...
BLOOM I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. (He repeats.)
Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their teats
to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. (Profoundly.) Instinct rules the
world. In life. In death.
VIRAG (Head askew, arches his back and hunched wing- shoulders, peers
at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a homing claw and cries.) Who's
Ger Ger? Who's dear Gerald? O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned.
Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation
of firstclass tablenumpkin? (He mews.) Luss puss puss puss! (He sighs, draws
back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw.) Well, well. He doth
rest anon.
I'm a tiny tiny thing
Ever flying in the spring
Round and round a ringaring.
Long ago I was a king,
Now I do this kind of thing
On the wing, on the wing!
Bing!
(He rushes against the mauve shade flapping noisily.) Pretty pretty
pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.
(From left upper entrance with two sliding steps Henry Flower comes
forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed
sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed
bamboo Jacobs pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears dark
velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's face with
flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet
are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles down his goffered
ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his amorous tongue.)
HENRY (In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar.)
There is a flower that bloometh.
(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards
Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendent dewlap to the piano.)
STEPHEN (To himself.) Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my
belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my.
Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy
or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep
impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially drunk,
by the way. (He touches the keys again.) Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not
much however.
(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous
moustachework.)
ARTIFONI Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto.
FLORRY Sing us something. Love's old sweet song.
STEPHEN No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you
the letter about the lute?
FLORRY (Smirking.) The bird that can sing and won't sing.
(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober two Oxford dons with
lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew
Arnold's face.)
PHILIP SOBER Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with
the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you
got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney's en
ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street hospital,
Burke's. Eh? I am watching you.
PHILIP DRUNK (Impatiently.) Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way.
If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who
was it told me his name?
(His lawnmower begins to purr.) Aha, yes. Zoe mou sas agapo. Have a
notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have
somewhere? Mac somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on,
Swinburne, was it, no?
FLORRY And the song?
STEPHEN Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
FLORRY Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once.
STEPHEN Out of it now. (To himself.) Clever.
PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER (Their lawnmowers purring with a rigadoon
of grasshalms.) Clever ever. Out of it. Out of it. By the by have you the
book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow.
Keep in condition. Do like us.
ZOE There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of
business with his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to him.
I know you've a Roman collar.
VIRAG Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. (Harshly, his
pupils waxing.) To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the
Virag who disclosed the sex secrets of monks and maidens. Why I left the
Church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose.
Flipperty Jippert. (He wriggles.) Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt
of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's lingam. Short time after man
presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers
herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the
stiff one. (He cries.) Coactus volui. Then giddy woman will run about.
Strong man grasps woman's wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now
fierce angry, strikes woman's fat yadgana. (He chases his tail.) Piffpaff!
Popo! (He stops, sneezes.) Pchp! (He worries his butt.) Prrrrrht!
LYNCH I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for
shooting a bishop.
ZOE (Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.) He couldn't get a
connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush.
BLOOM Poor man!
ZOE (Lightly.) Only for what happened him.
BLOOM How?
VIRAG (A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage,
cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.)
Verfluchte Goim! He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God!
He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchias, a Libyan eunuch, the pope's
bastard. (He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye
agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world.) A son of a
whore. Apocalypse.
KITTY And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from
Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow and
was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for
the funeral.
PHILIP DRUNK (Gravely.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position,
Philippe?
PHILIP SOBER (Gaily.) C'Était le sacrÉ pigeon, Philippe.
(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.
And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whores
shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)
LYNCH (Laughs.) And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated
anthropoid apes.
FLORRY (Nods.) Locomotor ataxy.
ZOE (Gaily.) O, my dictionary.
LYNCH Three wise virgins.
VIRAG (Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony epileptic
lips.) She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orange flower. Panther, the Roman
centurion, polluted her with his genitories. (He sticks out a flickering
phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork.) Messiah! He burst her
tympanum. (With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks his hips in the cynical
spasm.) Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk!
(Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled,
hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stands
forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing
bagslops.)
BEN POLLARD (Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels
jovially in base barreltone.) When love absorbs my ardent soul.
(The virgins, Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley, burst through the
ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)
THE VIRGINS (Gushingly.) Big Ben! Ben MacChree!
A VOICE Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.
BEN DOLLARD (Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.) Hold him now.
HENRY (Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs.) Thine
heart, mine love. (He plucks his lutestrings.) When first I saw.
VIRAG (Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting.) Rats!
(He yawns; showing a coalblack throat and closes his jaws by an upward push
of his parchment roll.) After having said which I took my departure.
Farewell. Fare thee well. Dreck!
(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb
and gives a cows lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to the
door his wild had slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two ungainly
stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a
pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)
THE FLYBILL K. 11. post no bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.
HENRY All is lost now.
(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)
VIRAG'S HEAD Quack!
(Exeunt severally.)
STEPHEN (Over his shoulder to Zoe.) You would have preferred the
fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes,
the dog sage, and the last end of Anus Heresiarchus. The agony in the
closet.
LYNCH All one and the same God to her.
STEPHEN (Devoutly.) And Sovereign Lord of all things.
FLORRY (To Stephen.) I'm sure you are a spoiled priest. Or a monk.
LYNCH He is. A Cardinal's son.
STEPHEN Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.
(His Eminence, Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland,
appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven
dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping
under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His thumbs are
stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary
of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he
invokes grace from on high with lace wave gestures and proclaims with
bloated pomp.)
THE CARDINAL
Conservio lies captured.
He lies in the lowest dungeon
With manacles and chains around his limbs
Weighing upwards of three tons.
(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left
cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and
fro, ads akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour.) O, the poor little
fellow Hi-hi-hi-hi-his legs they were yellow He was plump, fat and heavy and
brisk as a snake But some bloody savage To graize his white cabbage He
murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake.
(A multitude of midges swarms over his robe. He scratches himself with
crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims.) I'm suffering the agony
of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little
chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd walk me off the face of the
bloody globe.
(His head aslant, he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers,
imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat
from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his train bearers. The
dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag
behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, merciful, male, melodious.)
Shall carry my heart to thee, Shall carry my heart to thee, And the breath
of the balmy night Shall carry my heart to thee.
(The trick doorhandle turns.)
THE DOORHANDLE Theeee.
ZOE The devil is in that door.
(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the
waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and,
half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and
offers it nervously to Zoe.)
ZOE (Sniffs his hair briskly.) Hum. Thank your mother for the rabbits.
I'm very fond of what I like.
BLOOM (Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep,
pricks his ears.) If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event?
ZOE (Tears open the silverfoil.) Fingers was made before forks. (She
breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then
turns kittenishly to Lynch.) No objection to French lozenges? (He nods. She
taunts him.) Have it now or wait till you get it? (He opens his mouth, his
head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She
whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.) Catch.
(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it
through with a crack.)
KITTY (Chewing.) The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely
ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady.
The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still.
BLOOM (In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic
forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance
towards the door. Then, rigid, with left foot advanced, he makes a swift
pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his
right arm downwards from his left shoulder.) Go, go, go, I conjure you,
whoever you are.
(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside.
Blooms features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing calmly. Zoe
offers him chocolate.)
BLOOM (Solemnly.) Thanks.
ZOE Do as you're bid. Here.
(A firm heelclacking is heard on the stairs.)
BLOOM (Takes the chocolate.) Aphrodisiac? But I thought it. Vanilla
calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus.
Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This black makes me sad.
Eat and be merry for tomorrow. (He eats.) Influence taste too, mauve. But it
is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late
than never. Try truffles at Andrews.
(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress enters. She is
dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled
selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in
Carmen. On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply
carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly
sweated and fullnosed, with orangetainted nostrils. She has lace pendant
beryl eardrops.)
BELLA My word! I'm all of a mucksweat.
(She glances around her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom
with hard insistence. Her lace fan winnows wind towards her heated face,
neck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)
THE FAN (Flirting quickly, then slowly.) Married, I see.
BLOOM Yes... Partly, I have mislaid .
THE FAN (Half opening, then closing.) And the missus is master.
Petticoat government.
BLOOM (Looks down with a sheepish grin.) That is so.
THE FAN (Folding together, rests against her eardrop.) Have you
forgotten me?
BLOOM Yes. No.
THE FAN (Folded akimbo against her waist.) Is me her was you dreamed
before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we?
(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)
BLOOM (Wincing.) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which
women love.
THE FAN (Tapping.) We have met. You are mine. It is fate.
BLOOM (Cowed.) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your
domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak,
with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late
box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a
right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the
law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my
left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a
regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined
his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite,
he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle, as you
probably... (He winces.) Ah!
RICHIE GOULDING (Bagweighted, passes the door.) Mocking is catch. Best
value in Dub. Fit for a prince's liver and kidney.
THE FAN (Tapping.) All things end. Be mine. Now.
BLOOM (Undecided.) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman.
Rain, exposure at dewfall on the sea rocks, a peccadillo at my time of life.
Every phenomenon has a natural cause.
THE FAN (Points downwards slowly.) You may.
BLOOM (Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace. ) We are
observed.
THE FAN (Points downwards quickly.) You must.
BLOOM (With desire, with reluctance.) I can make a true black knot.
Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellet's.
Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once
before today. Ah!
(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the
edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom,
stifflegged ageing, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out
and in her laces.)
BLOOM (Murmurs lovingly.) To be a shoefitter in Mansfield's was my
love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up
crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly
small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily
to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris.
THE HOOF Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.
BLOOM (Crosslacing.) Too tight?
THE HOOF If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you.
BLOOM Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar
dance. Bad luck. Nook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That
night she met... Now!
(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises
his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in mid-brow. His eyes grow
dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)
BLOOM (Mumbles.) Awaiting your further orders, we remain, gentlemen.
BELLO (With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.) Hound of
dishonour!
BLOOM (Infatuated.) Empress!
BELLO (His heavy cheekchops sagging.) Adorer of the adulterous rump!
BLOOM (Plaintively.) Hugeness!
BELLO Dungdevourer!
BLOOM (With sinews semiflexed.) Magnificence.
BELLO Down! (He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.) Incline feet
forward! Slide left foot one pace back. You will fall. You are falling. On
the hands down!
BLOOM (Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing.) Truffles!
(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
snuffling, rooting at his feet, then lies, shamming dead with eyes shut
tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most
excellent master.)
BELLO (With bobbed hair purple gills, fat moustache rings round his
shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport
skirt and alpine hat with moor cock's feather, his hands stuck deep in his
breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in.) Feel my
entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot's glorious
heels, so glistening in their proud erectness.
BLOOM (Enthralled, bleats.) I promise never to disobey.
BELLO (Laughs loudly.) Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for
you. I'm the tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet
Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I
dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be
inflicted in gym costume.
(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.
ZOE (Widening her slip to screen her.) She's not here.
BLOOM (Closing her eyes.) She's not here.
FLORRY (Hiding her with her gown.) She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. She'll
be good, sir.
KITTY Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir.
BELLO (Coaxingly.) Come, ducky dear. I want a word with you, darling,
just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety.
(Bloom puts out her timid head.) There's a good girly now. (Bello grabs her
hair violently and drags her forward.) I only want to correct you for your
own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender behind? O, ever so gently,
pet. Begin to get ready.
BLOOM (Fainting.) Don't tear my.
BELLO (Savagely.) The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging
hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian
slave of old. You're in for it this time. I'll make you remember me for the
balance of your natural life. (His forehead veins swollen, his face
congested.) I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my
thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat ham rashers and a bottle of
Guinness's porter. (He belches.) And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange
cigar while I read the Licensed Victualler's Gazette. Very possibly I shall
have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice Of you
with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig
with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you.
(He twists her arm. Bloom squeaks, turning turtle.)
BLOOM Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't!
BELLO (Twisting.) Another!
BLOOM (Screams.) O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like
mad!
BELLO (Shouts.) Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best
bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn you.
(He slaps her face.)
BLOOM (Whimpers.) You're after hitting me. I'll tell...
BELLO Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.
ZOE Yes. Walk on him! I will.
FLORRY I will. Don't be greedy.
KITTY No, me. Lend him to me.
(The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib,
men's grey and green socks and brogues, flour-smeared, a rollingpin stuck
with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)
MRS KEOCH (Ferociously.) Can I help? (They hold and pinion Bloom.)
BELLO (Squats, with a grunt, on Bloom's upturned face, puffing
cigar-smoke, nursing a fat leg.) I see Keating Clay is elected chairman of
the Richmond Asylum and bytheby Guinness's preference shares are at sixteen
three quarters. Curse me for a fool that I didn't buy that lot Craig and
Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned
outsider Throwaway at twenty to one. (He quenches his cigar angrily on
Bloom's ear.) Where's that Goddamned cursed ashtray?
BLOOM (Goaded, buttocksmothered.) O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!
BELLO Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg, pray for it as you never
prayed before. (He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar.) Here, kiss
that. Both. Kiss. (He throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman's
knees, calls in a hard voice.) Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I'll
ride him for the Eclipse stakes. (He bends sideways and squeezes his mount's
testicles roughly, shouting.) Ho! off we pop! I'll nurse you in proper
fashion. (He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the saddle.) The lady goes a
pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a
gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop.
FLORRY (Pulls at Bello.) Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked
before you.
ZOE (Pulling at Florry.) Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet,
suckeress?
BLOOM (Stifling.) Can't.
BELLO Well, I'm not. Wait. (He holds in his breath.) Curse it. Here.
This bung's about burst. (He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his
features, farts loudly.) Take that! (He recorks himself) Yes, by Jingo,
sixteen three quarters.
BLOOM (A sweat breaking out over him.) Not man. (He sniffs.) Woman.
BELLO (Stands up.) No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has
come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under
the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments,
you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over
head and shoulders and quickly too.
BLOOM (Shrinks.) Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I
tip-touch it with my nails?
BELLO (Points to his whores.) As they are now, so will you be, wigged,
singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape
measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel
force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille, with whalebone busk, to
the diamond trimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure,
plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty
two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my
houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice.
Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at
first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round
your bare knees will remind you...
BLOOM (A chafing soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and lace
male hands and nose, leering mouth.) I tried her things on only once, a
small prank, in Holles street. When we were hardup I washed them to save the
laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift.
BELLO (Jeers.) Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh! and showed off
coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind close-drawn blinds your
unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders, in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho!
Ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunk
leg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam
Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne Hotel, eh?
BLOOM Miriam, Black. Demimondaine.
BELLO (Guffaws.) Christ Almighty, it's too tickling, this! You were a
nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning
in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade, about to be violated by
Lieutenant Smythe Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell, M.P., Signor Laci
Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henry Fleury of Gordon
Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Cr&Aelig;sus, the varsity wetbob eight
from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess
of Manorhamilton. (He guffaws again.) Christ, wouldn't it make a Siamese cat
laugh?
BLOOM (Her hands and features working.) It was Gerald converted me to
be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play
Vice Versa. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister's
stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult
of the beautiful.
BELLO (With wicked glee.) Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took
your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the
smoothworn throne.
BLOOM Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. (Earnestly.)
And really it's better the position... because often I used to wet.
BELLO (Sternly.) No insubordination. The sawdust is there in the corner
for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll
teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles.
Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your
past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.
THE SINS OF THE PAST (In a medley of voices.) He went through a form of
clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black
Church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an
address in d'Olier Street while he presented himself indecently to the
instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he encouraged a nocturnal
strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse
attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled
messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by
the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by
loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he
not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of
wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by
gingerbread and a postal order?
BELLO (Whistles loudly.) Say! What was the most revolting piece of
obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out. Be
candid for once.
(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering,
Eooloohoom. Poldy Hock, Bootlaces a penny, cassidy's hag, blind stripling,
Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other the... )
BLOOM Don't ask me. Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought
the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath...
BELLO (Peremptorily.) Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing.
Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good-ghoststory or a line of
poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give
you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... !
BLOOM (Docile, gurgles.) I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant...
BELLO (Imperiously.) O get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when
you're spoken to.
BLOOM (Bows.) Master! Mistress! Mantamer!
(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)
BELLO (Satirically.) By day you will souse and bat our smelling
underclothes, also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with
dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be nice? (He
places a ruby ring on her finger.) And there now! With this ring I thee own.
Say, thank you, mistress.
BLOOM Thank you, mistress.
BELLO You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in
the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. Ay,
and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink
me piping hot. Hop! you will dance attendance or I'll lecture you on your
misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the
hairbrush. You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night your
wellcreamed braceleted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered
with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights
of old laid down their lives. (He chuckles.) My boys will be no end charmed
to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all. When they come here the
night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First,
I'll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta
Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the
Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a
short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? (He
points.) For that lot trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth.
(He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva.) There's fine
depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? (He shoves his arm in a
bidder's face.) Here, wet the deck and wipe it round!
A BIDDER A florin!
(Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.)
A VOICE One and eightpence too much.
THE LACQUEY Barang!
CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.
BELLO (Gives a rap with his gavel.) Two bar. Rockbottom figure and
cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine his points.
Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had
only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a
day. A pure stock getter, due to lay within the hour. His sire's milk record
was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up!
Whoa! (He brands his initial Con Bloom's croup.) So! Warranted Cohen! What
advance on two bob, gentlemen?
A DARKVISAGED MAN (In disguised accent.) Hoondert punt sterlink.
VOICES (Subdued.) For the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid.
BELLO (Gaily.) Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short
skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent
weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight
seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the
blasÉ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis XV
heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees
modestly kissing. Bring all your power of fascination to bear on them.
Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.
BLOOM (Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with
forefinger in mouth.) O, I know what you're hinting at now.
BELLO What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (He
stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suetfolds of
Bloom's haunches.) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your curly
teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's
as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or
sell your pump. (Loudly.) Can you do a man's job?
BLOOM Eccles Street.
BELLO (Sarcastically.) I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but
there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay
young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you,
you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it.
He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to
belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking
out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy
ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That
makes you wild, don't it? Touches the spot? (He spits in contempt.)
Spittoon!
BLOOM I was indecently treated, I... inform the police. Hundred pounds.
Unmentionable. I.
BELLO Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want, not your
drizzle.
BLOOM To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll!... We... Still...
BELLO (Ruthlessly.) No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will
since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years.
Return and see.
(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)
SLEEPY HOLLOW Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!
BLOOM (In tattered moccasins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tip toeing,
fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond
panes, cries out.) I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! But
that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he.
BELLO (Laughs mockingly.) That's your daughter, you owl, with a
Mullingar student.
(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her bluescab in
the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls,
her young eyes wonderwide.)
MILLY My! It's Papli! But. O Papli, how old you've grown!
BELLO Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writing table where we never wrote,
Aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his
men friends are living there in clover. The Cuckoos' Rest! Why not? How many
women had you, say? Following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them
by your smothered grunts. What, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with
parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander, O.
BLOOM They... I
BELLO (Cuttingly.) Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet
you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find
the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried
home in the rain for art for art's sake. They will violate the secrets of
your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to
make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender
from Hampton Leedom's.
BLOOM Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return.
I will prove...
A VOICE Swear!
(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowie knife between his
teeth.)
BELLO As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your
secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are
down and out and don't you forget it, old bean.
BLOOM Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody... ?
(He bites his thumb.)
BELLO Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or
grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you skipping to
hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have. If you have none
see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury you in our shrubbery
jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I
married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his
neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, what ever the buggers' names
were, suffocated in the one cess pool. (He explodes in a loud phlegmy
laugh.) We'll manure you, Mr Flower! (He pipes scoffingly.) Byby, Poldy!
Byby, Papli!
BLOOM (Clasps his head.) My will power! Memory! I have sinned! I have
suff... (He weeps tearlessly.)
BELLO (Sneers.) Crybabby! Crocodile tears!
(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the
earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in
sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph
Goldwater Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie
Watchman, 0. Mastiansky, the Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With
swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.)
THE CIRCUMCISED (In a dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit
upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad.
VOICES (Sighing.) So he's gone. Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never
heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, yes.
(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of
incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oak frame a nymph with hair
unbound, lightly clad in teabrown art colours, descends from her grotto and
passing under interlacing yews, stands over Bloom.)
THE YEWS (Their leaves whispering.) Sister. Our sister. Ssh.
THE NYMPH (Softly.) Mortal! (Kindly.) Nay, dost not weepest!
BLOOM (Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight,
with dignity.) This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit.
THE NYMPH Mortal! You found me in evil company, high kickers, coster
picnic makers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in flesh
tights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the
hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil.
I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow
youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary
articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman.
Useful hints to the married.
BLOOM (Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.) We have met before. On
another star.
THE NYMPH (Sadly.) Rubber goods. Neverrip. Brand as sup plied to the
aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited
testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust
developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo.
BLOOM You mean Photo Bits?
THE NYMPH I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me
above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four
places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame.
BLOOM (Humbly kisses her long hair.) Your classic curves, beautiful
immortal. I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty,
almost to pray.
THE NYMPH During dark nights I heard your praise.
BLOOM (Quickly.) Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst
side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of my bed or
rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is
that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago,
incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless inoffensive vent. (He
sighs.) 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage.
THE NYMPH (Her fingers in her ears.) And words. They are not in my
dictionary.
BLOOM You understood them?
THE YEWS Ssh.
THE NYMPH (Covers her face with her hand.) What have I not seen in that
chamber? What must my eyes look down on?
BLOOM (Apologetically.) I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up
with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea, long ago.
THE NYMPH (Bends her head.) Worse! Worse!
BLOOM (Reflects precautiously.) That antiquated commode. It wasn't her
weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after
weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed
utensil which has only one handle.
(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)
THE WATERFALL
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
THE YEWS (Mingling their boughs.) Listen. Whisper. She is right, our
sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer
days.
JOHN WYSE NOLAN (In the background, in Irish National For ester's
uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Prosper! Give shade on languorous days,
trees of Ireland!
THE YEWS (Murmuring.) Who came to Poulaphouca with the high school
excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?
BLOOM (Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript
juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes,
bordered stockings with turnover tops, and a red school cap with badge.) I
was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the
mingling odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned
tight on the old Royal stairs, for they love crushes, instincts of the herd,
and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice. Even a pricelist of their
hosiery. And then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school.
And tipsycake. Halcyon days.
(Halcyon Days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and
shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen
Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing of
the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)
THE HALCYON DAYS Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray!
(They cheer.)
BLOOM (Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, stunned with spent
snowballs, struggles to rise.) Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let's
ring all the bells in Montague Street. (He cheers feebly.) Hurray for the
High School!
THE ECHO Fool!
THE YEWS (Rustling.) She is right, our sister. Whisper. (Whispered
kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the
boles and among the leaves and break blossoming into bloom.) Who profaned
our silent shade?
THE NYMPH (Coyly through parting fingers.) There! In the open air?
THE YEWS (Sweeping downward.) Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward.
THE WATERFALL
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca.
THE NYMPH (With wide fingers.) O! Infamy!
BLOOM I was precocious. Youth. The fauns. I sacrificed to the god of
the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing time.
Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I
saw at her night toilette through ill-closed curtains, with poor papa's
operaglasses. The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto
Bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their
crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The demon possessed me.
Besides, who saw?
(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf thrusts a ruminating head with
humid nostrils through the foliage.)
STAGGERING BOB Me. Me see.
BLOOM Simply satisfying a need. (With pathos.) No girl would when I
went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play.
(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes,
plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping curvants.)
THE NANNYGOAT (Bleats.) Megegaggegg! Nannannanny!
BLOOM (Hatless, flushed, covered with burn of thistledown and
gotrepine.) Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. (He gazes intently
downwards on the water.) Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Press
nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government printer's
clerk. (Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a
mummy, rolls rotatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the purple Waiting
waters.)
THE DUMMYMUMMY Bbbbblllllbbblblodschbg?
(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the Erin's King
sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the
land.)
COUNCILLOR NANNETI (Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellow kitefaced,
his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.) When my country takes her
place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph
be written. I have...
BLOOM Done. Prff.
THE NYMPH (Loftily.) We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a
place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric
light. (She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger
in her mouth.) Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you... ?
BLOOM (Pacing the heather abjectly.) O, I have been a perfect pig.
Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia, to which add
a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's syringe,
the ladies' friend.
THE NYMPH In my presence. The powderpuff. (She blushes and makes a
knee.) And the rest.
BLOOM (Dejected.) Yes. Peccavi! I have paid homage on that living altar
where the back changes name. (With sudden fervour.) For why should the
dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules... ?
(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems,
cooeeing.)
THE VOICE OF KITTY (In the thicket.) Show us one of them cushions.
THE VOICE OF FLORRY Here.
(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)
THE VOICE OF LYNCH (In the thicket.) Whew! Piping hot!
THE VOICE OF ZOE (From the thicket.) Came from a hot place.
THE VOICE OF VIRAG (A birdchief bluestreaked and feathered in war
panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over
beechmast and acorns.) Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull!
BLOOM It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit
where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to
grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white
sateen coatpans. So womanly full. It fills me full.
THE WATERFALL
Phillaphulla Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.
THE YEWS Ssh! Sister, speak!
THE NYMPH (Eyeless, in nun's white habit, coif and huge winged wimple,
softly, with remote eyes.) Tranquilia convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel,
the apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. (She reclines her
head, sighing.) Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o'er the
waters dull.
(Bloom half rises. His back trousers button snaps.)
THE BUTTON Bip!
(Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)
THE SLUTS
O Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
He didn't know what to do,
To keep it up,
To keep it up.
BLOOM (Coldly.) You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there
were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but
willing, like an ass pissing.
THE YEWS (Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms
ageing and swaying.) Deciduously!
THE NYMPH Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! (A large moist stain appears
on her robe.) Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a
pure woman. (She clutches in her robe.) Wait, Satan. You'll sing no more
lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. (She draws a poniard and, clad in the
sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins.) Nekum!
BLOOM (Starts up, seizes her hand.) Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat of nine lives!
Fair play, madam. No pruning knife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do
we lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? (He clutches her
veil.) A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless
statue of the watercarrier or good Mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard?
THE NYMPH (With a cry, flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast
cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks.) Poli... !
BLOOM (Calls after her.) As if you didn't get it on the double
yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your
strength our weakness. What's our stud fee? What will you pay on the nail?
You fee men dancers on the Riviera, I read. (The fleeing nymph raises a
keen.) Eh! I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a
jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me.
(He sniffs.) But. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease.
(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)
BELLA You'll know me the next time.
BLOOM (Composed, regards her.) PassÉe. Mutton dressed as lamb. Lone in
the tooth and superfluous hairs. A raw onion the last thing at night would
benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as
vapid as the glass eyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of
your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw propeller.
BELLA (Contemptuously.) You're not game, in fact. (Her sowcunt barks.)
Fohracht!
BLOOM (Contemptuously.) Clean your nailless middle finger first, the
cold spunk of your bully is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of
hay and wipe yourself.
BELLA I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!
BLOOM I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!
BELLA (Turns to the piano.) Which of you was playing the dead march
from Saul?
ZOE Me. Mind your cornflowers. (She darts to the piano and bangs chords
on it with crossed arms.) The cat's ramble through the slag. (She glances
back.) Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? (She darts back to the table.)
What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
(Kitty disconcerted coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom
approaches Zoe.)
BLOOM (Gently.) Give me back that potato, will you? Zoe Forfeits, a
fine thing and a superfine thing.
BLOOM (With feeling.) It is nothing, but still a relic of poor mamma.
ZOE
Give a thing and take it back
God'll ask you where is that
You'll say you don't know
God'll send you down below.
BLOOM There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.
STEPHEN To have or not to have, that is the question.
ZOE Here. (She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh
and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.) Those that hides knows
where to find.
BELLA (Frowns.) Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. And don't you
smash that piano. Who's paying here?
(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out
a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)
STEPHEN (With exaggerated politeness.) This silken purse I made out of
the sow's ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. (He
indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.) We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch
and Lynch. Dans ce bordel oÙ tenons nostre État.
LYNCH (Calls from the hearth.) Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me.
STEPHEN (Hands Bella a coin.) Gold. She has it.
BELLA (Looks at the money, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty.) Do you want
three girls? It's ten shillings here.
STEPHEN (Delightedly.) A hundred thousand apologies. (He fumbles again
and takes out and hands her two crowns.) Permit, brevi manu, my sight is
somewhat troubled.
(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to
himself in monosyllables. Zoe bounds over to the table. Kitty leans over
Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, adds
his head to the group.)
FLORRY (Strives heavily to rise.) Ow! My foot's asleep. (She limps over
to the table. Bloom approaches.)
BELLA, ZOE. KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM (Chattering and squabbling.) The
gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three allow me a moment... this
gentleman pays separate who's touching it?... ow... mind who you're
pinching... are you staying the night or a short time? who did?... you're a
liar, excuse me... the gentle man paid down like a gentleman... drink...
it's long after eleven.
STEPHEN (At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.) No bottles!
What, eleven? A riddle.
ZOE (Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top
of her stocking.) Hard earned on the flat of my back.
LYNCH (Lifting Kitty from the table.) Come!
KITTY Wait. (She clutches the two crowns.)
FLORRY And me?
LYNCH Hoopla! (He lifts her carries her and bumps her down on the
sofa.)
STEPHEN The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking
eleven. 'Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven.
BLOOM (Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and
Florry.) So. Allow me. (He takes up the pound note.) Three times ten. We're
square.
BELLA (Admiringly.) You're such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss
you.
ZOE (Points.) Hum? Deep as a drawwell. (Lynch bends Kitty back over the
sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)
BLOOM This is yours.
STEPHEN How is that? Le distrait or absentminded beggar. (He fumbles
again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls.) That
fell.
BLOOM (Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.) This.
STEPHEN Lucifer. Thanks.
BLOOM (Quietly.) You had better hand over that cash to me to take care
of. Why pay more?
STEPHEN (Hands him all his coins.) Be just before you are generous.
BLOOM I will but is it wise? (He counts.) One, seven, eleven, and five.
Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost.
STEPHEN Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next
Lessing says. Thirsty fox. (He laughs loudly.) Burying his grandmother.
Probably he killed her.
BLOOM That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.
STEPHEN Doesn't matter a rambling damn.
BLOOM No, but...
STEPHEN (Comes to the table.) Cigarette, please. (Lynch tosses a
cigarette from the sofa to the table.) And so Georgina Johnson is dead and
married. (A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.) Wonder.
Parlour magic. Married. Hm. (He strikes a match and proceeds to light the
cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)
LYNCH (Watching him.) You would have a better chance of lighting it if
you held the match nearer.
STEPHEN (Brings the match nearer his eye.) Lynx eye. Must get glasses.
Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat.
(He draws the match away. It goes out.) Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable
modality of the visible. (He frowns mysteriously.) Hm. Sphinx. The beast
that has two backs at midnight. Married.
ZOE It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with
him.
FLORRY (Nods.) Mr Lambe from London.
STEPHEN Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.
LYNCH (Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem.
(The cigarette slips from Stephens fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it
into the grate.)
BLOOM Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. (To Zoe.) You
have nothing?
ZOE Is he hungry?
STEPHEN (Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the
bloodoath in the Dusk of the Gods.)
Hangende Hunger,
Fragende Frau,
Macht uns alle kaput.
ZOE (Tragically.) Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! (She takes his
hand.) Blue eyed beauty, I'll read your hand. (She points to his forehead.)
No wit, no wrinkles. (She counts.) Two, three, Mars, that's courage.
(Stephen shakes his head.) No kid.
LYNCH Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and
shake. (To Zoe.) Who taught you palmistry?
ZOE (Turns.) Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. (To Stephen.) I see it
in your face. The eye, like that. (She frowns with lowered head.)
LYNCH (Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.) Like that. Pandy bat.
(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open,
the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)
FATHER DOLAN Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little
schemer. See it in your eye.
(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises
from the pianola coffin.)
DON JOHN CONMEE Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very
good little boy.
ZOE (Examining Stephen's palm.) Woman's hand.
STEPHEN (Murmurs.) Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.
ZOE What day were you born?
STEPHEN Thursday. Today.
ZOE Thursday's child has far to go. (She traces lines on his hand.)
Line of fate. Influential friends.
FLORRY (Pointing.) Imagination.
ZOE Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... (She peers at his hands
abruptly.) I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to know?
BLOOM (Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.) More harm than good.
Here. Read mine.
BELLA Show. (She turns up Bloom's hand.) I thought so. Knobby knuckles,
for the women.
ZOE (Peering at Bloom's palm.) Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and
marry money.
BLOOM Wrong.
ZOE (Quickly.) O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That
wrong?
(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises,
stretches her wings and clucks.)
BLACK LIZ Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.
(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)
BLOOM (Points to his hand.) That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it twenty-two years ago. I was sixteen.
ZOE I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.
STEPHEN See? Moves to one great goal. I am twenty two too. Sixteen
years ago I twentytwo tumbled, twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his
hobbyhorse. (He winces.) Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?
(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)
FLORRY What?
(A hackneycar number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook,
trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The
Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia
Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)
THE BOOTS (Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)
Haw, haw, have you the horn?
(Bronze by gold they whisper.)
ZOE (To Florry.) Whisper.
(They whisper again.)
(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan, in a yachtsman's cap and white
shoes, officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan s shoulder.)
LENEHAN Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a
few quims?
BOYLAN (Seated, smiles.) Plucking a turkey.
LENEHAN A good night's work.
BOYLAN (Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.) Blazes
Kate! Up to sample or your money back. (He holds out a forefinger.) Smell
that.
LENEHAN (Smells gleefully.) Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!
ZOE AND FLORRY (Laugh together.) Ha ha ha ha.
BOYLAN bumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear. )
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom up yet?
BLOOM (In a flunkey's plum plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig.) I'm afraid not, sir, the last articles...
BOYLAN (Tosses him sixpence.) Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash.
(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head.) Show me in. I
have a little private business with your wife. You understand?
BLOOM Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.
MARION He ought to feel himself highly honoured. (She plops splashing
out of the water.) Raoul, darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only my
new hat and a carriage sponge.
BOYLAN (A merry twinkle in his eye.) Topping!
BELLA What? What is it?
(Zoe whispers to her.)
MARION Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll
write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise
weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and
stamped receipt.
BELLA (Laughing.) Ho ho ho ho.
BOYLAN (To Bloom, over his shoulder.) You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.
BLOOM Thank you, sir, I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness
the deed and take a snapshot? (He holds an ointment jar.) Vaseline, sir?
Orangeflower?... Lukewarm water?...
KITTY (From the sofa.) Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What.
(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur lip-lapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)
MINA KENNEDY (Her eyes upturned.) O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck
together! Covered with kisses!
LYDIA DOUCE (Her mouth opening.) Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round the
room doing it! Ride a cock horse. You could hear them in Paris and New York.
Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.
KITTY (Laughing.) Hee hee hee.
BOYLAN'S VOICE (Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.) Ah!
Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht!
MARION'S VOICE (Hoarsely, sweetly rising to her throat.) O!
Weeshwashtkissima, pooisthnapoohuck!
BLOOM (His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself) Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!
BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY. KITTY Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!
LYNCH (Points.) The mirror up to nature. (He laughs.) Hu hu hu hu hu
hu.
(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare,
beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the
reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)
SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible.
Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit
his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!
BLOOM (Smiles yellowly at the whores.) When will I hear the joke?
ZOE Before you're twice married and once a widower.
BLOOM Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon, when measurements
were taken near the skin after his death...
(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunny's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her
bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband's
everyday trousers and turnedup boots, lace eights. She holds a Scottish
widow's insurance policy and lace marqueeumbrella under which her brood runs
with her, Patsy hopping on one short foot, his collar loose, a hank of
porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cods mouth, Alice
struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)
FREDDY Ah, ma, you're dragging me along!
SUSY Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!
SHAKESPEARE (With paralytic rage.) Weda seca whokilla farst.
(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeares
beardless face. The marqueeumbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside.
Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono
gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twisting japanesily.)
MRS CUNNINGHAM (Sings.) And they call me the jewel of Asia.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM
(Gazes on her impassive.) Immense! Most bloody awful demirep!
STEPHEN Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti. Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgross father made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the
house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open.
BELLA None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.
LYNCH Let him alone. He's back from Paris.
ZOE (Runs to Stephen and links him.) O go on! Give us some parleyvoo.
(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace, where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on
his face.)
LYNCH (Pommelling on the sofa.) Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrr rrrmmmmm.
STEPHEN (Gobbles, with marionette jerks. ) Thousand places of
entertainment to expenses your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and
other things perhaps her heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very
eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like
are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for
bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they
are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is
pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they
tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of
religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which
arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man
debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clocks his tongue
loudly.) Ho, la la! Ce pif qu'il a!
LYNCH Vive le vampire!
THE WHORES Bravo! Parleyvoo!
STEPHEN (Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles
big damn ruffians. Demimondaines nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very
amiable cos turned. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns
pleasure turpitude of old mans? (He points about him with grotesque gestures
which Lynch and the whores reply to.) Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or
lifesize tompeeptoms virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times.
Enter gentlemen to see in mirrors every positions trapezes all that machine
there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in
warm veal liver or omelette on the belly piÈce de Shakespeare.
BELLA (Clapping her belly, sinks back on the sofa with a shout of
laughter.) An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... Omelette on the...
STEPHEN (Mincingly.) I love you, Sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for double entente cordiale. O yes, mon loup. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. (He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.)
BELLA (Laughing.) Omelette...
THE WHORES (Laughing.) Encore! Encore!
STEPHEN Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.
ZOE Go abroad and love a foreign lady.
LYNCH Across the world for a wife.
FLORRY Dreams go by contraries.
STEPHEN (Extending his arms.) It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine Avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the red
carpet spread?
BLOOM (Approaching Stephen.) Look.
STEPHEN No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. (He cries.) Pater! Free!
BLOOM I say, look...
STEPHEN Break my spirit, will he? O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture
talons sharpened.) Hola! Hillyho!
(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)
SIMON That's all right. (He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.)
Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes.
Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying!
An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! hai
hoop! (He makes the beagle's call giving tongue.) Bulbul! Burblblbrurblbl!
Hai, boy!
(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A
stout fox drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother,
runs swift for the open, bright-eyed, seeking badger earth, under the
leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their
quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrblng to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and
huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse,
Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, salmongaffs,
lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors
with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bowls of dicers,
crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse
bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)
THE CROWD
Card of the races. Racing card!
Ten to one the field!
Tommy on the clay here!
Tommy on the clay!
Ten to one bar one.
Ten to one bar one.
Try your luck on spinning Jenny!
Ten to one bar one!
Sell the monkey, boys!
Sell the monkey!
I'll give ten to one!
Ten to one bar one!
(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses: Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the
Duke of Westminsters Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beauforts' Ceylon, prix
de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rusty armoured, leaping, leaping in their
saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain, on a broken-winded isabelle nag, Cock of
the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett
Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockey stick at the ready. His nag,
stumbling on whitegaitered feet, jogs along the rocky road.)
THE ORANGE LODGES (Jeering.) Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You'll be home the night!
GARRETT DEASY (Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postage stamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the
prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at a schooling gallop.) Per
vias rectas!
(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag, a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes.)
THE GREEN LODGES Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!
(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord.)
STEPHEN Hark! Our friend, noise in the street!
ZOE (Holds up her hand.) Stop!
PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON and CISSY CAFFREY
Yet I've a sort a
Yorkshire relish for...
ZOE That's me. (She claps her hands.) Dance! Dance! (She runs to the
pianola.) Who has twopence?
BLOOM Who'll.
LYNCH (Handing her coins.) Here.
STEPHEN (Cracking his fingers impatiently.) Quick! Quick! Where's my
augur's rod? (He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot
in tripudium.)
ZOE (Turns the drumhandle.) There.
(She drops two pennies in the slot. Glow pink and violet lights start
forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in
a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent
in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering.
He sits tinily on the piano stool and lifts and beats handless sticks of
arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsels grace, his bowknot bobbing.)
ZOE (Twirls around herself heeltapping.) Dance. Anybody here for there?
Who'll dance?
(The pianola, with changing lights, plays in waltz time the prelude to
My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and
seizes Zoe around the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the
fireplace. Stephen, aiming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her
around the room. Her sleeve, falling from gracing arms, reveals a white
fleshflower of vaccination. Bloom stands aside. Between the curtains,
Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat.
With a deft kick, he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates
in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a go-et of cream
tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief tight
lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is a
dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it
tight in his oxter. He places a hand limply on his breastbone, bows and
fondles his flower and buttons.)
MAGINNI The poetry of motion, art of callisthenics. No connection with
Madam Legget Byrne's or Levinstone's. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner steps. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. (He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet.) Tout le
monde an avant! RÉvÉrence! Tout le monde en place!
(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms,shrivels,
shrinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air, in firmer waltz
time, pounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade,
gold, rose, violet.)
THE PIANOLA Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls,
girls, Sweethearts they'd left behind.
(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slim, in girlish
blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their
skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing linked,
high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting
their arms.)
MAGINNI (Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) CarrÉ! Avant deux! Breathe
evenly! Balance!
(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing vis a vis. Cavaliers behind them
arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from
their shoulders.)
HOURS You may touch my.
CAVALIERS May I touch your?
HOURS O, but lightly!
CAVALIERS O, so lightly!
THE PIANOLA My little shy little lass has a waist.
(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance, from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze
with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)
MAGINNI Avant! huit! TraversÉ! Salut! Cours de mains! CroisÉ!
(The eight hours steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight
hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets
of dull bells. Weary, they curchycurchy under veils.)
THE BRACELETS Heigho! Heigho!
ZOE (Twisting, her hand to her brow.) O!
MAGINNI Los tiroirs! ChaÎne de dames! La corbeille! Dos À dos!
(Arabesquing wearily, they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twisting, simply swirling.)
ZOE I'm giddy.
(She frees herself droops on a chair, Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)
MAGINNI BoulangÈre! Los ronds! Los ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!
(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands, the night hours link,
each with arching arms, in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn
cumbrously.)
MAGINNI Dansez avec vos dames! Changes de dames! Donnes le petit
bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!
THE PIANOLA
Best, best of all,
Baraabum!
KITTY (Jumps up.) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus
bazaar!
(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bit tern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft's
cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)
THE PIANOLA My girl's a Yorkshire girl.
ZOE Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!
(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)
STEPHEN Pas seul!
(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arm's, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel, whirl, waltz, twirl. Bloombella,
Kittylynch, Florryzoe, jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in
middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh,
with clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho horn blower blue green yellow flashes.
Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled,
bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)
THE PIANOLA
Though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scotlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)
TUTTI Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!
SIMON Think of your mother's people!
STEPHEN Dance of death.
(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer piglings,
Conmee on Christass lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded
ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe' through and through, Baraabum! On nags,
hogs, bellhorses, Gadarene swine, Corny in coffin. Steel shark stone one
handled Nelson, two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling
bawling. Gum, he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong love
on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no
fancy clothes. Then in last wiswitchback lumbering up and down bump mash tub
sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)
(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes
closed, he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn
roundabout. Bright midges dance on wall. He stops dead.)
STEPHEN Ho!
(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orange blossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face
worn and noseless, green with grave mould. Her hair is scant and lank. She
fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless
mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing
voicelessly.)
THE CHOIR
Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
Iubilantium te virginum...
(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress
of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her,
a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)
BUCK MULLIGAN She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. (He upturns his eyes.) Mercurial Malachi.
THE MOTHER (With the subtle smile of death's madness.) I was once the
beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.
STEPHEN (Horrorstruck.) Lemur, who are you? What bogey man's trick is
this?
BUCK MULLIGAN (Shakes his curling capbell.) The mockery of it! Kinch
killed her dogsbody bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. (Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes into the scone.) Our great sweet mother! Epi
oinopa ponton.
THE MOTHER (Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.) All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the
world. You too. Time will come.
STEPHEN (Choking with fright, remorse and horror.) They said I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.
THE MOTHER (A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.)
You sang that song to me. Love's bitter mystery.
STEPHEN (Eagerly.) Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word
known to all men.
THE MOTHER Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers?
Prayer is all powerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline
manual, and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN The ghoul! Hyena!
THE MOTHER I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that
boiled rice every night after your brain work. Years and years I loved you,
O my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.
ZOE (Fanning herself with the grate fan.) I'm melting!
FLORRY (Points to Stephen) Look! He's white.
BLOOM (Goes to the window to open it more.) Giddy.
THE MOTHER (With smouldering eyes.) Repent! O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN (Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
THE MOTHER (Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.) Beware! (She raises her blackened, withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen's breast with outstretched fingers.) Beware! God's hand! (A
green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in
Stephen's heart.)
STEPHEN (Strangled with rage.) Shite! (His features grow drawn and grey
and old.)
BLOOM (At the window.) What?
STEPHEN Ah non, par exemple! The intellectual imagination! With me all
or not at all. Non serviam!
FLORRY Give him some cold water. Wait. (She rushes out.)
THE MOTHER (Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.) O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O divine Sacred
Heart!
STEPHEN No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can! I'll bring
you all to heel!
THE MOTHER (In the agony of her deathrattle.) Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love,
grief and agony on Mount Calvary.
STEPHEN Nothung!
(He hits his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier.
Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all
space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)
THE GASJET Pwfungg!
BLOOM Stop!
LYNCH (Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand.) Here! Hold on! Don't
run amok!
BELLA Police!
(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark,
beats the ground and flees from the room past the whores at the door.)
BELLA (Screams.) After him!
(The two whores rush to the halldoors. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)
THE WHORES (Jammed in the doorway, pointing.) Down there.
ZOE (Pointing.) There. There's something up.
BELLA Who pays for the lamp? (She seizes Bloom's coattail.) There. You
were with him. The lamp's broken.
BLOOM (Rushes to the hall, rushes back.) What lamp, woman?
A WHORE He tore his coat.
BELLA (Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.) Who's to pay for
that? Ten Shillings. You're a witness.
BLOOM (Snatches up Stephen's ashplant.) Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you
lifted enough off him? Didn't he...
BELLA (Loudly.) Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A
ten shilling house.
BLOOM (His hand under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.) Only the
chimney's broken. Here is all he...
BELLA (Shrinks back and screams.) Jesus! Don't!
BLOOM (Warding off a blow.) To show you how he hit the paper. There's
not a sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!
FLORRY (With a glass of water enters.) Where is he?
BELLA Do you want me to call the police?
BLOOM O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. (He makes a
masonic sign.) Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You don't
want a scandal.
BELLA (Angrily.) Trinity! Coming down here ragging after the boat races
and paying nothing. Are you my commander here? Where is he? I'll charge him.
Disgrace him, I will. (She shouts.) Zoe! Zoe!
BLOOM (Urgently.) And if it were your own son in Oxford! (Warningly.) I
know.
BELLA (Almost speechless.) Who are you incog?
ZOE (In the doorway.) There's a row on.
BLOOM What? Where? (He throws a shilling on the table and shouts.)
That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. (He hurries out through
the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted
tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to
the right where the fog has cleared off From the left arrives a jingling
hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor
perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two
silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall uses on her
whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with
a ghostly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and
Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's
hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Baschid, he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho
cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the
scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their
tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags,
gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps,
biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, womans slipperslappers. After
him, freshfound, the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my
leader: 65 C 66 C night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V.B. Dillon,
Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O'Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O'Dowd
Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen,
Whatdoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatslike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwith,
Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T.M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly,
Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row
postmistress, C.P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, man in the street,
other man in the street, Footballboots, pugnosed driver rich protestant
lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher George Lidwell,
Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of
the Collector Generals, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs
Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemamedwomanrubbed againstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of
Sweets of Sin, Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus
Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmies colonel Hayes, Mastiansky,
Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E. Geraghty,
Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner old
doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever Mrs
Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.
THE HUE AND CRY (Helterskelterelterwelter) He's Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stop him on the corner!
(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot
what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)
STEPHEN (With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.) You are
my guests. The uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of
Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy Caffrey.) Was he insulting you?
STEPHEN Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.
VOICES No, he didn't. The girl's telling lies. He was in Mrs Cohen's.
What's up? Soldiers and civilians.
CISSY CAFFREY I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do
- you know and the young man ran up behind me. But I'm faithful to the man
that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore.
STEPHEN (Catches sight of Kitty's and Lynch's heads.) Hail, Sisyphus.
(He points to himself and the others.) Poetic. Neopoetic.
VOICES She's faithfultheman.
CISSY CAFFREY Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.
PRIVATE COMPTON He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.
PRIVATE CARR (To Cissy.) Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?
LORD TENNYSON (In Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded,
flowingbearded.) Their's not to reason why.
PRIVATE COMPTON Biff him, Harry.
STEPHEN (To Private Compton. ) I don't know your name but you are quite
right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their
shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.
CISSY CAFFREY (To the crowd.) No, I was with the private.
STEPHEN (Amiably.) Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every
lady for example...
PRIVATE CARR (His cap awry, advancing to Stephen.) Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?
STEPHEN (Looks up in the sky.) How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
self-pretence. Personally, I detest action. (He waves his hand) Hand hurts
me slightly. Enfin, ce sont vos oignons.
(To Cissy Caffrey.) Some trouble is on here. What is it, precisely?
DOLLY GRAY (From her balcony waves her handkerchief giving the sign of
the heroine of Jericho.) Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly.
Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.
(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)
BLOOM (Elbowing through the crowd plucks Stephen's sleeve vigorously.)
Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.
STEPHEN (Turns.) Eh? (He disengages himself) Why should I not speak to
him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? (He
points his finger.) I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye.
Retaining the perpendicular.
(He staggers a pace back.)
BLOOM (Propping him.) Retain your own.
STEPHEN (Laughs emptily.) My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for
life is the law of existence but modern philirenists, notably the tsar and
the king of England, have invented arbitration. (He taps his brow.) But in
here it is I must kill the priest and the king.
BIDDY THE CLAP Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor
out of the college.
CUNTY KATE I did. I heard that.
BIDDY THE CLAP He expresses himself with much marked refinement of
phraseology.
CUNTY KATE Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.
PRIVATE CARR (Pulls himself free and comes forward.) What's that you're
saying about my king?
(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched, with the insignia of Garter
and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinners' and Probyns'
horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of
Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect
and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked made in Germany. In his left
hand he holds a plasterers bucket on which is printed: DÉfense d'uriner. A
roar of welcome greets him.)
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.) Peace, perfect
peace. For identification bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. (He turns to his
subjects.) We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we
heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.
(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and
Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts the bucket graciously in
acknowledgement.)
PRIVATE CARR (To Stephen.) Say it again.
STEPHEN (Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point
of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of
patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point.
You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr's
sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me.
Up to the present it has done so. I don't want it to die. Damn death. Long
live life!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with
the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)
My methods are new and are causing surprise.
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.
STEPHEN Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and
we'll... What was that girl saying?...
PRIVATE COMPTON Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.
BLOOM (To the privates, softly.) He doesn't know what he's saying.
Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster.
I know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right.
STEPHEN (Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and
judge of impostors.
PRIVATE CARR I don't give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON We don't
give a bugger who he is.
STEPHEN I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.
(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day
boys hat signs to Stephen.)
KEVIN EGAN H'lo. Bonjour! The vieille ogresse with the dents jaunes.
(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbit face nibbling a quince
leaf.)
PATRICE Socialiste!
DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY (In medieval hauberk, two
wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand
against the privates.) Were those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of
johnyellows todos covered of gravy!
BLOOM (To Stephen.) Come home. You'll get into trouble.
STEPHEN (Swaying.) I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.
BIDDY THE CLAP One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.
THE VIRAGO Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.
THE BAWD The red's as good as the green, and better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!
A ROUGH (Laughs.) Ay! Hands up to De Wet.
THE CITIZEN (With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)
May the God above
Send down a cove
With teeth as sharp as razors
To slit the throat
Of the English dogs
That hanged our Irish leaders.
THE CROPPY BOY (The rope noose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)
I bear no hate to a living thing,
But love my country beyond the king.
RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER (Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with a gladstone bag which he opens.) Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered
the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the
unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing
arsenic retrieved from the body of Miss Barrow which sent Seddon to the
gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victims legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boys tongue protrudes violently.)
THE CROPPY BOY Horhot ho hray ho rhother's hest.
(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of
sperm spouting through his death clothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush
forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)
RUMBOLD I'm near it myself. (He undoes the noose.) Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time as applied to His Royal Highness. (He
plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head
again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.) My painful duty has now
been done. God save the king!
EDWARD THE SEVENTH (Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket and
sings with soft contentment.)
On coronation day, on coronation day,
O, Won't We have a merry time,
Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
PRIVATE CARR Here. What are you saying about my king?
STEPHEN (Throws up his hands.) O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He
wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish
empire of his. Money I haven't. (He searches his pockets vaguely.) Gave it
to someone.
PRIVATE CARR Who wants your bleeding money?
STEPHEN (Tries to move off.) Will some one tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? Ça se voit aussi À Paris. Not that
I... But by Saint Patrick!...
(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)
STEPHEN Aha! I know you, grammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Rocking to and fro.) Ireland's sweetheart, the king
of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them!
(She keens with banshee woe.) Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! (She wails.)
You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?
STEPHEN How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.
CISSY CAFFREY (Shrill.) Stop them from fighting!
A ROUGH Our men retreated.
PRIVATE CARR (Tugging at his belt.) I'll wring the neck of any bugger
says a word against my fucking king.
BLOOM (Terrified.) He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.
THE CITIZEN Erin go bragh! _
(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)
PRIVATE COMPTON Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer.
STEPHEN Did I? When?
BLOOM (To the redcoats.) We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our
monarch.
THE NAVVY (Staggering past.) O, yes. O, God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!
(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spear
points. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap
with hackle plume and accoutrements, with epaulette, gilt chevrons and
sabretache, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the
pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Growls gruffly.) Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them!
Mahal shalal hashbaz.
PRIVATE CARR I'll do him in.
PRIVATE COMPTON (Waves the crowd back.) Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger.
(Massed bands blare Garryowen and God save the king.)
CISSY CAFFREY They're going to fight. For me!
CUNTY KATE The brave and the fair.
BIDDY THE CLAP Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.
CUNTY KATE (Blushing deeply.) Nay, Madam. The gules doublet and merry
Saint George for me!
STEPHEN The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave old
Ireland's windingsheet.
PRIVATE CARR (Loosening his belt, shouts.) I'll wring the neck of any
fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.
BLOOM (Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders.) Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred
lifegiver.
CISSY CAFFREY (Alarmed seizes Private Carr's sleeve.) Amn't I with you?
Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. (She cries.) Police!
STEPHEN (Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)
White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
VOICES Police!
DISTANT VOICES Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire!
(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses.
Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from
marsh lands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, connorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlin, blackgrouse, sea
eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened.
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
Ulysses 16: Eumaeus
PREPARATORY TO ANYTHING ELSE MR BLOOM BRUSHED OFF THE GREATER bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion, which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit
unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom, in
view of the hour it was and there being no pumps of Vartry water available
for their ablutions, let alone drinking purposes, hit upon an expedient by
suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was
called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt Bridge, where they might hit
upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how
to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but
inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the
subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly
yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it
occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description
which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e. d. ed,
particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be
found. Accordingly, after a few such preliminaries, as, in spite of his
having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, brushing, they both walked together
along Beaver street, or, more properly, lane, as far as the farrier's and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching
into Amiens Street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But, as he
confidently anticipated, there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire
anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows
inside on the spree, outside the North Star Hotel and there was no symptom
of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a
professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a
whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing commonsense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which
they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullet's and the Signal House,
which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of
Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the
circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the
timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons, though, entering thoroughly
into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So,
as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and
the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation
of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was
waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United
Tramways Company's sandstrewer happening to be returning the elder man
recounted to his companion À propos of the incident his own truly miraculous
escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course
all traffic was suspended at that late hour, and, passing the back door of
the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree,
more especially at night), ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due
course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station.
Between this point and the high, at present unlit, warehouses of Beresford
Place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's, the
stonecutter's, in his mind somehow in Talbot Place, first turning on the
right, while the other, who was acting as his fidus Achates, inhaled with
internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, situated
quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily
bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable.
Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread?
At Rourke's the baker's, it is said.
En route, to his taciturn, and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion, Mr Bloom, who at all events, was in complete
possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober,
spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and
swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while, though not as a
habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young
fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under
the influence of liquor unless you knew a little juijitsu for every
contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a
nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on
the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious that,
but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour, the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward, or,
failing that, the Bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before
Mr Tobias, or, he being the solicitor, rather old Wall, he meant to say, or
Malony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The
reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he
cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown
and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A Division in
Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never
on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the City, Pembroke Road, for
example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason
being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he
commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any
description, liable to go off at any time, which was tantamount to inciting
them against civilians should by any chance they fall nut over anything. You
frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also
character besides which the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
demimonde ran away with a lot of #. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest
danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed
question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as
both nourishing and blood-making and possessing aperient virtues (notably a
good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a
certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble
all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others
practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen
by all his pubhunting confrÈres but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on
the part of his brother medicos under all the circs.
-- And that one was Judas, said Stephen, who up to then had said
nothing whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge when a brazier of
coke burning in front of a sentrybox, or something like one, attracted their
rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special
reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating
from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation
watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this
had happened, or had been mentioned as having happened, before but it cost
him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
quondam friend of his father's Gumley. To avoid a meeting be drew nearer to
the pillars of the railway bridge.
-- Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl, evidently, under the arches
saluted again, calling: Night! Stephen, of course, started rather dizzily
and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom, actuated by motives of
inherent delicacy, inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own
business, moved off but nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a
shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Although unusual in the
Dublin area, he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes
who had next to nothing to live on to be about waylaying and generally
terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders
ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a
moments notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral,
gagged and garotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in any over sober state himself, recognised Corley's
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley, some called him, and
his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of Inspector
Corley of the G Division, lately deceased, who had married a certain
Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather, Patrick
Michael Corley, of New Ross, had married the widow of a publican there whose
maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it, though not
proved, that she descended from the house of the Lords Talbot de Malahide in
whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well
worth seeing, his mother or aunt or some relative had enjoyed the
distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This, therefore, was the
reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now
addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord
John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had
all deserted him. Furthermore, he had a row with Lenehan and called him to
Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of other uncalled-for
expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where
on God's earth he could get something, anything at all to do. No, it was the
daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir
of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way,
both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn't a
complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow, he was ill in.
-- I wouldn't ask you, only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God
knows I'm on the rocks.
-- There'll be a job tomorrow or the next day, Stephen told him, in a
boys' school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garret Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.
-- Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I
was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. Got stuck
twice in the junior at the Christian Brothers.
-- I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley, at the first go-off, was inclined to suspect it was something
to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart
off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's,
but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told
him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street
(which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for
a bob. He was starving too though he hadn't said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew
that Corley's brandnew rigmarole, on a par with the others, was hardly
deserving of much credence. However, haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere
disco, etcetera, as the Latin poet remarks, especially as luck would have it
he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which
was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the
wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get
it Out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing
to do but hand out the needful - whereas. He put his hand in a pocket
anyhow, not with the idea of finding any food there, but thinking he might
lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at
all events and get sufficient to eat. But the result was in the negative
for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were
all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for
the moment whether he had lost, as well he might have, or left, because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse, in
fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though
he tried to recollect about biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly
gave them, or where was, or did he buy? However, in another pocket he came
across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously, however, as
it turned out.
-- Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen lent him one of
them.
-- Thanks, Corley answered. You're a gentleman. I'll pay you back some
time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in
Camden street with Boylan the billsticker. You might put in a good word for
us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the
office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've to
book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a shite
anyway so long as I get a job even as a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently, being not quite so down in the mouth after the
two-and-six he got, he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags
Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's
bookkeeper there, that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara
and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow, he was lagged
the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and
refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman's
sentrybox, who, evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a
quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account
while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at
Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen
that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to
truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded
individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd
observation, he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy
wearing apparel generally, testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Probably
he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a
question of one preying on his next door neighbour all round, in every deep,
so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the
street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude, with or without
the option of a fine, would be a very rara avis altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour
of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom, who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,
laughingly, Stephen, that is:
-- He's down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucket dredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse Quay and quite possibly Out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:
-- Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention
it his face was familiar to me. But leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
-- Half-a-crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.
-- Needs, Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably
does. Everyone according to his needs and everyone according to his deeds.
But talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you
sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is Out of the question and, even
supposing you did, you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row
station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don't mean to presume to
dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's
house?
-- To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer.
-- I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned. Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
-- I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?
-- A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride,
quite legitimately, Out of you. You could go back, perhaps, he hazarded,
still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it
was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that
English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion,
were patently trying, as if the whole bally station belonged to them, to
give Stephen the slip in the confusion.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion, however, such as
it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it, with his sister, Dilly, sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa
that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink
it with the oatmeal water for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten
at two a penny, with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat
meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish
heads and bones on a square of brown paper in accordance with the third
precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being
quarter tense or, if not, ember days or something like that.
-- No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr
Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes. He
knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never
realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn't notice
as much as I did but it wouldn't occasion me the least surprise to learn
that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some
ulterior object.
He understood, however, from all he heard, that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade
fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony
medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to
which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by
artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide
was it? was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he
could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to
fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down
to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
-- Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call
picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude, half curiosity, augmented by
friendliness, which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact, on the problem
as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled, to judge by two or
three low spirited remarks he let drop, or, the other way about, saw through
the affair, and, for some reason or other best known to himself, allowed
matters to more or less... Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more
than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he
experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.
Adjacent to the men's public urinal he perceived an icecream car round
which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid
of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly
animated way, there being some little differences between the parties.
-- Putana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!
-- Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piÙ
-- Dice lui, pero.
-- Farabutto! Mortacci sui!
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before;
the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the
keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the
invincible, though he wouldn't vouch for the actual facts, which quite
possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our
two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner, only to be greeted by
stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and
other nondescript specimens of the genus homo, already there engaged in
eating and drinking, diversified by conversation, for whom they seemingly
formed an object of marked curiosity.
-- Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape
of solid food, say a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order
these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores, or
whatever they were, after a cursory examination, turned their eyes,
apparently dissatisfied, away, though one redbearded bibulous individual, a
portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor, probably, still stared for some
appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just
a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute though, to be sure,
rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his protÉgÉ in an audible tone
of voice, apropos of the battle royal in the street which was still raging
fast and furious:
-- Beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? Bella Poetria! it is so melodious and
full. Belladonna voglio.
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn, if he could, suffering
from dead lassitude generally, replied:
-- To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
-- Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at
the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this tÊte-À-tÊte put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and
a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed, after which he
beat a retreat to his counter. Mr Bloom determining to have a good square
look at him later on so as not to appear to... for which reason he
encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by
surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be
called coffee gradually nearer him.
-- Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little
time. Like names, Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody, Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name?
-- Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our
name was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor, who had his weather eye on the newcomers,
boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular,
squarely by asking:
-- And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure, from an unexpected
quarter, answered:
-- Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old Hollands
and water.
-- You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
-- I've heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.
-- He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.
-- All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the
sailor, of his own accord, turned to the other Occupants of the shelter with
the remark: I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over
his shoulder. The left hand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
-- Bottle Out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely, then
he screwed his features up some way sideways and glared out into the night
with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
-- Pom, he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.
-- Pom, he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:
Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,
Never missed nor he never will.
A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like
asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley.
-- Beg pardon, the sailor said.
-- Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.
-- Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the
magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years.
He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in
Stockholm.
-- Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.
-- Murphy's my name, the sailor continued, W. B. Murphy, of Carrigaloe.
Know where that is?
-- Queenstown Harbour, Stephen replied.
-- That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's
where I hails from. My little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I
know. For England, home and beauty. She's my own true wife I haven't seen
for seven years now, sailing about.
Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene - the homecoming
to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones - a rainy
night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a number of
stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and
Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a
favourite and most trying declamation piece, by the way, of poor John Casey
and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way? Never about the runaway
wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the
window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and
the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his
affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and make a fresh
start. There she sits, a grass widow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me
dead. Rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or
Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in
shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Boo! The
wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, post mortem child. With a high
ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy O! Bow to the inevitable.
Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband, W. B.
Murphy.
The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one
of the jarvies with the request:
-- You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you, do
you?
The jarvey addressed, as it happened, had not but the keeper took a die
of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was
passed from hand to hand.
-- Thank you, the sailor said.
He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing, and with some slow
stammers, proceeded:
-- We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster Rosevean
from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon.
There's my discharge. See? W. B. Murphy, A. B. S.
In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket
and handed to his neighbours a not very clean looking folded document.
-- You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,
leaning on the counter.
-- Why, the sailor answered, upon reflection upon it, I've
circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was
in China and North America and South America. I seen icebergs plenty,
growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles, under
Captain Dalton the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship. I seen Russia.
Gospodi pomilooy. That's how the Russians prays.
-- You seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in a jarvey.
-- Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug, I seen
queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an
anchor same as I chew that quid.
He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his
teeth, bit ferociously.
-- Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and
the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent me.
He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket, which seemed
to be in its way a species of repository, and pushed it along the table. The
printed matter on it stated: Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia.
All focused their attention on the scene exhibited, at a group of
savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning,
sleeping, amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of
them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.
-- Chews coca all day long, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs
like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more
children. See them there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver raw.
His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns
for several minutes, if not more.
-- Know how to keep them off? he inquired genially.
Nobody volunteering a statement, he winked, saying:
-- Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass.
Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the
card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as
follows: Tarjeta Postal. SeÑor A. Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile.
There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. Though not an
implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the eggsniping transaction
for that matter despite William Tell and the Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan
incident depicted in Maritana on which occasion the former's ball passed
through the latter's hat), having detected a discrepancy between his name
(assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing
under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t.
somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him
nourish some suspicions of our friend's bona fides, nevertheless it reminded
him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some
Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that
he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a
born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a
landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. Martin
Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but some deuced
hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that the scheme fell
through. But even suppose it did come to planking down the needful and
breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at
the outside, considering the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was
five and six there and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the
bracing ozone and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a
chap whose liver was out of order, seeing the different places along the
route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on, culminating in an
instructive tour of the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our
modern Babylon where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement tower,
abbey, wealth of Park Lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just
struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around on
the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert tour of
summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with
mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, Scarborough,
Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel islands and similar
bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative. Not, of course, with a
hole and corner scratch company or local ladies on the job, witness Mrs C.
P. M'Coy type - lend me your valise and I'll post you the ticket. No,
something top notch, an all star Irish cast, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera
company with its own legal consort as leading lady as a sort of counterblast
to the Elster Grimes and Moody-Manners, perfectly simple matter and he was
quite sanguine of success, providing puffs in the local papers could be
managed by some fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable
wires and thus combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub.
Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was
to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the
times apropos of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted, was once
more on the tapis in the Circumlocution departments with the usual quantity
of red tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally.
A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet the
travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e. Brown,
Robinson and Co.
It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no
small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the
system really needed toning up, for a matter of a couple of paltry pounds,
was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being
always cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife. After
all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum months of it and
merited a radical change of venue after the grind of city life in the
summertime, for choice, when Dame Nature is at her spectacular best,
constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. There were equally
excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home island, delightful
sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as
a bracing tonic for the system in and around Dublin and its picturesque
environs, even, Poulaphouca, to which there was a steam tram, but also
farther away from the madding crowd, in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden
of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen, so long as it
didn't come down, and in the wilds of Donegal, where if report spoke true,
the coup d'il was exceedingly grand, though the lastnamed locality was
not easily getatable so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that
it might be considering the signal benefits to be derived from it, while
Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace
O'Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a
favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men, especially in the
spring when young men s fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by
falling off the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on
their left leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour's run from the
pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in
its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be desired.
Interesting to fathom, it seemed to him, from a motive of curiosity pure and
simple, was whether it was the traffic that created the route or vice-versa
or the two sides in fact. He turned back the other side of the card picture
and passed it along to Stephen.
-- I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had
little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened, and
every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house,
another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, the
Chinese does.
Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces, the
globetrotter went on adhering to his adventures.
-- And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his
back. Knife like that.
Whilst speaking he produced a dangerous looking clasp knife, quite in
keeping with his character, and held it in the striking position.
-- In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers.
Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. Prepare to meet
your God, says he. Chuck! It went into his back up to the butt.
His heavy glance, drowsily roaming about, kind of defied their further
questions even should they by any chance want to. That's a good bit of
steel, repeated he, examining his formidable stiletto.
After which harrowing dÉnouement sufficient to appal the stoutest he
snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his
chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.
-- They're great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite
in the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought the
park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them
using knives.
At this remark, passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance is
bliss, Mr Bloom and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both
instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the
strictly entre nous variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, alias the
keeper, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His inscrutable
face, which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring
description, conveyed the impression that he didn't understand one jot of
what was going on. Funny very.
There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading by fits and
starts a stained by coffee evening journal; another, the card with the
natives choza de; another, the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he
was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly
recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday,
some score of years previously, in the days of the land troubles when it
took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the
eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen.
-- Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers.
The request being complied with, he clawed them up with a scrape.
-- Have you seen the Rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired.
The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay,
or no.
-- Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking
he had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but
he failed to do so, simply letting spurt a jet of spew into the sawdust, and
shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.
-- What year would that be about? Mr Bloom interpolated. Can you recall
the boats?
Our soi-disant sailor munched heavily awhile, hungrily, before
answering.
-- I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and
ships. Salt junk all the time.
Tired, seemingly, he ceased. His questioner, perceiving that he was not
likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell
to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe.
Suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered
fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant,
to rule the waves. On more than one occasion - a dozen at the lowest - near
the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt,
evidently derelict, seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea
on the wall, staring quite obliviously at it and it at him, dreaming of
fresh woods and pastures new as someone somewhere sings. And it left him
wondering why. Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself,
floundering up and down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over
and under - well, not exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were
twenty to nil there was really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless,
without going into the minutiae of the business, the eloquent fact remained
that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things
somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though
it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of
onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and
insurance, which were run on identically the same lines so that for that
very reason, if no other, lifeboat Sunday was a very laudable institution to
which the public at large, no matter where living, inland or seaside,-is the
case might be, having it brought home to them like that, should extend its
gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man
the rigging and push off and out amid the elements, whatever the season,
when duty called Ireland expects that every man and so on, and sometimes had
a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights,
Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment rounding which he once with
his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy,
weather.
-- There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog,
himself a rover, proceeded. Went ashore and took up a soft job as
gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and
he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, shaving and
brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, run off to sea and
his mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where he could be drawing easy
money.
-- What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the
side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away from
the carking cares of office, unwashed, of course, and in a seedy getup and a
strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage.
-- Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance. My son
Danny? He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it.
The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow
shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to be
seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink, intended to represent an anchor.
-- There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked. Sure as
nuts. I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects
to. I hate those buggers. Sucks your blood dry, they does.
Seeing they were all looking at his chest, he accommodatingly dragged
his shirt more open so that, on top of the time honoured symbol of the
mariner's hope and rest, they had a full view of the figure 16 and a young
man's sideface looking frowningly rather.
-- Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying
becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton Fellow the name of
Antonio done that. There he is himself, a Greek.
-- Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor.
That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the
someway in his. Squeezing or...
-- See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is, cursing the mate.
And there he is now, he added. The same fellow, pulling the skin with his
fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn.
And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did
actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the
unreserved admiration of everybody, including Skin-the-Goat who this time
stretched over.
-- Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He's
gone too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay.
He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression
of before.
-- Neat bit of work, longshoreman one said.
-- And what's the number for? loafer number two queried.
-- Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor.
-- Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this time,
with some sort of a half smile, for a brief duration only, in the direction
of the questioner about the number. A Greek he was.
And then he added, with rather gallowsbird humour, considering his
alleged end:
-- As bad as old Antonio,
For he left me on my ownio.
The face of a streetwalker, glazed and haggard under a black straw hat,
peered askew round the door of the shelter, palpably reconnoitring on her
own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr Bloom, scarcely
knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment, flusterfied but
outwardly calm, and picking up from the table the pink sheet of the Abbey
street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside, he picked it
up and looked at the pink of the paper though why pink? His reason for so
doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the same face he had
caught a fleeting glimpse of that afternoon on Ormond Quay, the partially
idiotic female, namely, of the lane, who knew the lady in the brown costume
does be with you (Mrs B.), and begged the chance of his washing. Also why
washing, which seemed rather vague than not?
Your washing. Still, candour compelled him to admit that he had washed
his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles Street and women would and
did too a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper's marking
ink (hers were, that is) if they really loved him, that is to say. Love me,
love my dirty shirt. Still, just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the
female's room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the
keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the
Evening Telegraph he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the
side of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was
not exactly all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers
round Skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her.
-- The gunboat, the keeper said.
-- It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking,
how a wretched creature like that from the Lock Hospital, reeking with
disease, can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober
senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of
course, I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition.
Still no matter what the cause is from...
Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely
remarking:
-- In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a
roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy
the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.
The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a
prude, said that it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be
put a stop to instanter to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from
any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not
licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing he could
truthfully state he, as a paterfamilias, was a stalwart advocate of from the
very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of that sort, he said, and
ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody
concerned.
-- You, as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul,
believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as
such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup?
I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as
the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such
inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you?
Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try
and concentrate and remember before he could say:
-- They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and
therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the
possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause, Who, from all I can
hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other practical
jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by
court etiquette.
Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the
mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he felt
bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining:
-- Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I
grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a
blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for
instance to invent those rays RÖntgen did, Or the telescope like Edison,
though I believe it was before his time, Galileo was the man I mean. The
same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon
such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour to say you
believe in the existence of a supernatural God.
-- O, that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by
several of the best known passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial
evidence. On this knotty point, however, the views of the pair, poles apart
as they were, both in schooling and everything else, with the marked
difference in their respective ages, clashed.
-- Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his
original point. I'm not so sure about that. That's a matter of every man's
opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side of the business, I beg
to differ with you in toto there. My belief is, to tell you the candid
truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks
most probably or it's the big question of our national poet over again, who
precisely wrote them, like Hamlet and Bacon, as you who know your
Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't
you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it and take a piece of that
bun. It's like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still, no one can give
what he hasn't got. Try a bit.
-- Couldn't, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the
moment refusing to dictate further.
Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat, Mr Bloom thought well to
stir, or try to, the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with
something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and
lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or nay
did a world of good. Shelters such as the present one they were in run on
teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings, and
useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower orders. On
the other hand, he had a distinct and painful recollection they paid his
wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently associated with it at one
time, a very modest remuneration indeed for her pianoplaying. The idea, he
was strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a profit, there
being no competition to speak of. Sulphate of copper poison, SO4 or
something in some dried peas he remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse
somewhere but he couldn't remember when it was or where. Anyhow, inspection,
medical inspection, of all eatables, seemed to him more than ever necessary
which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's Vi-Cocoa on account of
the medical analysis involved.
-- Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being
stirred.
Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it, Stephen lifted the heavy mug
from the brown puddle - it clopped out of it when taken up - by the handle
and took a sip of the offending beverage.
-- Still, it's solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for
solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but
regular meals as the sine qua non for any kind of proper work, mental or
manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man.
-- Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But oblige me by taking away that
knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.
Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated
article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman
or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least
conspicuous point about it.
-- Our mutual friend's stories are like himself, Mr Bloom, apropos of
knives, remarked to his confidente sotto voce. Do you think they are
genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie
like old boots. Look at him.
Yet still, though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air, life was
full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was
quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication
though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the
spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate gospel.
He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and
Sherlockholmesing him up, ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a
wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, there
was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery
and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a
weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even
have done for his man, supposing it was his own case he told, as people
often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself and had served
his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say nothing of the
Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage of identical name
who sprang from the pen Of our national poet) who expiated his crimes in the
melodramatic manner above described. On the other hand he might be only
bluffing, a pardonable weakness, because meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin
residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad, would tempt any
ancient mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the
schooner Hesperus and etcetera. And when all was said and done, the lies a
fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle to the
wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him.
Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he resumed.
Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though,
that is rather a far cry you see once in a way. Marcella, the midget queen.
In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as they are
called, sitting bowlegged. They couldn't straighten their legs if you paid
them because the muscles here, you see, he proceeded, indicating on his
companion the brief outline, the sinews, or whatever you like to call them,
behind the right knee, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long
cramped up, being adored as gods. There's an example again of simple souls.
However, reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who
reminded him a bit of Ludwig, alias Ledwidge, when he occupied the boards of
the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the management in the
Flying Dutchman, a stupendous success, and his host of admirers came in
large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him though ships of any
sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually fell a bit flat as also
did trains), there was nothing intrinsically incompatible about it, he
conceded. On the contrary, that stab in the back touch was quite in keeping
with those Italianos, though candidly he was none the less free to admit
those ice creamers and friers in the fish way, not to mention the chip
potato variety and so forth, over in little Italy there, near the Coombe,
were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to
pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others
at night so as to have a good old succulent tuck in with garlic de rigueur
off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.
-- Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like
that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own
hands and give you your quietus double quick with those poignards they carry
in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is,
so to speak, Spanish, half, that is. Point of fact she could actually claim
Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in (technically) Spain,
i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite dark, regular brunette,
black. I, for one, certainly believe climate accounts for character. That's
why I asked you if you wrote your poetry in Italian.
-- The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very
passionate about ten shillings. Roberto ruba roba sua.
-- Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed.
-- Then, Stephen said, staring and rambling on to himself or some
unknown listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the
isosceles triangle, Miss Portinari, he fell in love with and Leonardo and
san Tommaso Mastino.
-- It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the
blood of the sun. Coincidence, I just happened to be in the Kildare street
Museum today, shortly prior to our meeting, if I can so call it, and I was
just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid proportions of
hips, bosom. You simply don't knock against those kind of women here. An
exception here and there. Handsome, yes, pretty in a way you find, but what
I'm talking about is the female form. Besides, they have so little taste in
dress, most of them, which greatly enhances a woman's natural beauty, no
matter what you say. Rumpled stockings - it may be, possibly is, a foible of
mine, but still it's a thing I simply hate to see.
Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and the
others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog,
collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy, of course, had
his own say to say. He had doubled the Cape a few odd times and weathered a
monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all those perils of
the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him, or words to that
effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.
So then after that they drifted on to the wreck of Daunt's rock, wreck
of that illfated Norwegian barque - nobody could think of her name for the
moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell
remembered it, Palme, on Booterstown Strand, that was the talk of the town
that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original verse of
distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish Times) breakers running over
her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified with horror.
Then someone said something about the case of the s. s. Lady Cairns of
Swansea, run into by the Mona, which was on an Opposite tack, in rather
muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck. No aid was given. Her
master, the Mona's, said he was afraid his collision bulkhead would give
way. She had no water, it appears, in her hold.
At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him
to unfurl a reef, the sailor vacated his seat.
-- Let me cross your bows, mate, he said to his neighbour, who was just
gently dropping off into a peaceful dose.
He made tracks heavily, slowly, with a dumpy sort of a gait to the
door, stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and
bore due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings, Mr Bloom,
who noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's rum
sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning
interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it, or unscrew, and, applying
its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a
gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a shrewd suspicion
that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the counterattraction in
the shape of a female, who, however, had disappeared to all intents and
purposes, could, by straining, just perceive him, when duly refreshed by his
rum puncheon exploit, gazing up at the piers and girders of the Loop Line,
rather out of his depth, as of course it was all radically altered since his
last visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed
him to the male urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place
for the purpose but, after a brief space of time during which silence
reigned supreme, the sailor, evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself
close at hand, the noise of his bilge-water some little time subsequently
splashing on the ground where it apparently woke a horse of the cabrank.
A hoof scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled.
Slightly disturbed in his sentrybox by the brasier of live coke, the watcher
of the corporation, who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was
none other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on
the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human
probability, from dictates of humanity, knowing him before - shifted about
and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in the arms of
Morpheus. A truly amazing piece of hard times in its most virulent form on a
fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent home comforts
all his life who came in for a cool #100 a year at one time which of course
the double-barrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks and drakes of. And
there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town
tolerably pink, without a beggarly stiver. He drank, needless to be told,
and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a
large way of business if - a big if, however - he had contrived to cure
himself of his particular partiality.
All, meantime, were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping,
coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same
thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra Basin, the
only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no ships
ever called.
There were wrecks and wrecks, the keeper said, who was evidently au
fait.
What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only
rock in Galway Bay when the Galway Harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr
Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask her captain, he advised them,
how much palmoil the British Government gave him for that day's work.
Captain John Lever of the Lever line.
-- Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor now returning after
his private potation and the rest of his exertions.
That worthy, picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words,
growled in wouldbe music, but with great vim, some Kind of chanty or other
in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the
plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time
being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found
it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in he rolled after
his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink
into the soirÉe, boisterously trolling, like a veritable son of a seacook:
-- The biscuits was as hard as brass,
And the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse.
O Johnny Lever!
Johnny Lever, O!
After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene
and, regaining his seat, he sank rather than sat heavily on the form
provided.
Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was
airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent the natural
resources of Ireland, or something of that sort, which he described in his
lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God's
earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in large quantities, six
million pounds' worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between
butter and eggs, and all the riches drained out of it by England levying
taxes on the poor people that paid through the nose always, and gobbling up
the best meat in the market, and a lot more surplus steam in the same vein.
Their conversation accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a
fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there
was Colonel Everard down there in Cavan growing tobacco. Where would you
find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated
crescendo with no uncertain voice - thoroughly monopolising all the
conversation - was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on
account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in
history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he
affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was
toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, which
he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the Greek hero
- a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped their
attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His advice to every
Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live
for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her
sons.
Silence all round marked the termination of his finale. The impervious
navigator heard these lurid tidings undismayed.
-- Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a
bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism.
To which cold douche, referring to downfall and so on, the keeper
concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.
-- Who's the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately
interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and
generals we've got? Tell me that.
-- The Irish for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial
blemishes apart.
-- That's right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic
peasant. He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins?
While allowing him his individual opinions, as every man, the keeper
added he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no
Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few
irascible words, when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to
the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long as they
didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows.
>From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was
rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for,
pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was
fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, unless
they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed their
strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea in
certain quarters that in a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister
island would be played out and if, as time went On, that turned Out to be
how the cat jumped all he could personally say on the matter was that as a
host of contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then
it was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both
countries, even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the
amours of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him
Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in
fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of
the place, rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible,
and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours
with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged, as the
lookeron, a student of the human soul, if anything, the others seeing least
of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn't the other
person at all, he (Bloom) couldn't help feeling, and most properly, it was
better to give people like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot
altogether and refuse to have anything to do with them as a golden rule in
private life and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a
Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence - or king's now - like
Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that,
he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though
such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any
shape or form, he certainly did feel, and no denying it (while inwardly
remaining what he was), a certain kind of admiration for a man who had
actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his political
convictions though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing,
off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south - have her or swing
for her - when the husband frequently, after some words passed between the
two concerning her relations with the other lucky mortal (the man having had
the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on
his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial liaison by
plunging his knife into her until it just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed
Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the
outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the
ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal luminary saved his
skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our
friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his
welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high.
Like actresses, always farewell - positively last performance then come up
smiling again. Generous to a fault, of course, temperamental, no economising
or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So
similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of
some #. s. d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in the
congenial atmosphere of the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on.
Then as for the others, he had heard not so long before the same identical
lingo, as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the
offender.
He took umbrage at something or other, that much injured but on the
whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew, and in a
heated fashion, offensively. So I, without deviating from plain facts in the
least, told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too, and all his family,
like me, though in reality I'm not. That was one for him. A soft answer
turns away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself as everyone saw. Am I
not right?
He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride
at the soft impeachment, with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to
glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly .
-- Ex quibus, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or
four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name is, or, after all, any
other, secundum carnem.
-- Of course, Mr Bloom proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both
sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to
right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is though
every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it
deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast
of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality? I resent violence or
intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops
anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It's a patent
absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the
corner and speak another vernacular, so to speak.
-- Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes' war, Stephen
assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond market.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that
was overwhelmingly right and the whole world was overwhelmingly full of that
sort of thing.
-- You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of
conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely.
All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad
blood - bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to
be about a punctilio of honour and a flag - were very largely a question of
the money question which was at the back of everything, greed and jealousy,
people never knowing when to stop.
-- They accuse - remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others,
who probably... and spoke nearer to, so as the others... in case they...
-- Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused
of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History - would
you be surprised to learn? - proves up to' the hilt Spain decayed when the
Inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an
uncommonly able ruffian, who, in other respects, has much to answer for,
imported them. Why? Because they are practical and are proved to be so. I
don't want to indulge in any... because you know the standard works on the
subject, and then, orthodox as you are... But in the economic, not touching
religion, domain, the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the
war, compared with goahead America. Turks, it's in the dogma. Because if
they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven when they die they'd try to
live better - at least, so I think. That's the juggle on which the p.p.'s
raise the wind on false pretences. I'm, he resumed, with dramatic force, as
good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I
want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes pro rata having a
comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something in the
neighbourhood of #300 per annum That's the vital issue at stake and it's
feasible and would be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and
man. At least that's my idea for what it's worth. I call that patriotism.
Ubi patria, as we learned a small smattering of in our classical day in Alma
Mater, vita bene. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you work.
Over his untasteable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this
synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He
could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs
about Ringsend in the morning, burrowing quickly into all colours of
different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or
seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn't say the
words the voice he heard said - if you work.
-- Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning to work.
The eyes were surprised at this observation, because as he, the person
who owned them pro. tem. observed, or rather, his voice speaking did: All
must work, have to, together.
-- I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest
possible sense. Also literary labour, not merely for the kudos of the thing.
Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That's
work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after
all the money expended on your education, you are entitled to recoup
yourself and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by
your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both
belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important.
-- You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I
may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint Patrice called
Ireland for short.
-- I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.
-- But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important
because it belongs to me.
-- What belongs? queried Mr Bloom, bending, fancying he was perhaps
under some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately I didn't catch the
latter portion. What was it you?...
Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of
coffee, Or whatever you like to call it, none too politely, adding:
-- We can't change the country. Let us change the subject.
At this pertinent suggestion, Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked
down, but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell exactly what construction to
put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some kind
was clearer than the other part. Needless to say, the fumes of his recent
orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way, foreign to his
sober state. Probably the home life, to which Mr Bloom attached the utmost
importance, had not been all that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised
with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear for the young man beside
him, whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some consternation
remembering he had just come back from Paris, the eyes more especially
reminding him forcibly of father and sister, failing to throw much light on
the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultured fellows that
promised so brilliantly, nipped in the bud of premature decay, and nobody to
blame but themselves. For instance, there was the case of O'Callaghan, for
one, the half crazy faddist, respectably connected, though of inadequate
means, with his mad vagaries, among whose other gay doings when rotto and
making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit of
ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then
the usual dÉnouement after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got
landed into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a
strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as
not to be made amenable under section two of the Criminal Law Amendment Act,
certain names of those subpoenaed being handed in but not divulged, for
reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, putting
two and two together, six sixteen, which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to,
Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the
go in the seventies or thereabouts, even In the House of Lords, because
early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir apparent, the other
members of the upper ten and other high personages simply following in the
footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected about the errors of
notorieties and crowned heads running counter to morality such as the
Cornwall case a number of years before under their veneer in a way scarcely
intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy as the law stands was terribly
down on, though not for the reason they thought they were probably, whatever
it was, except women chiefly, who were always fiddling more or less at one
another, it being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies
who like distinctive underclothing should, and every well tailored man must,
trying to make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a
genuine fillip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his
and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal
islands, say, at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a continental.
However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others who
had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their
bootstraps. Sheer force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir.
For which and further reasons he felt it was interest and duty even to
wait on and profit by the unlooked for occasion, though why, he could not
exactly tell, being, as it was, already several shillings to the bad,
having, in fact, let himself in for it. Still, to cultivate the acquaintance
of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection
would amply repay any small... Intellectual stimulation as such was, he
felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. Added to which was
the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, old salt, of the here
today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the whole galaxy of events, all
went to make up a miniature cameo of the world we live in, especially as the
lives of the submerged tenth, viz., coalminers, divers, scavengers, etc.,
were very much under the microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he
wondered whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr
Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing. Suppose he were to pen something
out of the common groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one
guinea per column, My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman's Shelter.
The pink edition, extra sporting, of the Telegraph, tell a graphic lie,
lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling
again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding
rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed to A.
Boudin, find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly over the respective
captions which came under his special province, the allembracing give us
this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a start but it turned out to
be only something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or
something like that. Great battle Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish #200 damages.
Gordon Bennett. Emigration swindle. Letter from His Grace William. Ascot
Throwaway recalls Derby of '92 when Captain Marshall's dark horse, Sir Hugo
, captured the blue riband at long odds. New York disaster, thousand lives
lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam.
So to change the subject he read about Dignam, R.I.P., which, he
reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff.
-- This morning (Hynes put it in, of course), the remains of the late
Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue,
Sandymount, for internment in Clasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a most
popular and genial personality in city life and his demise, after a brief
illness, came as great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply
regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were
present, were carried out (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny)
by Messrs. H. J. O'Neill & Son, 164 North Strand road. The mourners
included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (motherinlaw), John Henry
Menton, solr., Martin Cunningham, John Power eatondph 1/8 ador dorador
douradora (must be where he called Monks the dayfather about Keyes's ad),
Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, Stephen Dedalus, B. A., Edward J. Lambert,
Cornelius Kelleher, Joseph M'C. Hynes, L. Boom, C. P. M'Coy, - M'Intosh, and
several others.
Nettled not a little by L. Boom (as it incorrectly stated) and the line
of bitched type, but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M'Coy and
Stephen Dedalus, B. A., who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their
total absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh), L. Boom pointed it out to his
companion B. A., engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness, not
forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints.
-- Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked, as soon as his
bottom jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.
-- It is, really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to
the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could be
no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit
flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing the thing, there.
While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the
nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits and
starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, his
sidevalue 1,000 sovs., with 3,000 sovs. In specie added for entire colts and
fillies, Mr F. Alexander's Throwaway, b.h. by Rightaway, 5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs,
Thrale (W. Lane) 1. Lord Howard de Walden's Zinfandel (M. Cannon) 2. Mr W.
Bass's Sceptre, 3. Betting 5 to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off).
Throwaway and Zinfandel stood close order. It was anybody's race then the
rank outsider drew to the fore got long lead, beating lord Howard de
Walden's chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile
course. Winner trained by Braine so that Lenehan's version of the business
was all pure buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1,000
sovs., with 3,000 in specie. Also ran J. de Bremond's (French horse Bantam
Lyons was anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute)
Maximum II. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages.
Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get
left. Of course, gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing
though, as the event turned out, the poor fool hadn't much reason to
congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced
itself to eventually.
-- There was every indication they would arrive at that, Mr Bloom said.
-- Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.
One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read,
Return of Parnell. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was in
that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was
killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a time
after Committee Room No. 15 until he was his old self again with no-one to
point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone down on their
marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his senses. Dead he
wasn't. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they brought over was full of
stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer general. He made a mistake
to fight the priests. And so forth and so on.
All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their
memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels, and not
singly but in their thousands, and then complete oblivion because it was
twenty odd years. Highly unlikely, of course, there was even a shadow of
truth in the stories and, even supposing, he thought a return highly
inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in his
death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his
various different political arrangements were nearing completion or whether
it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to change his boots
and clothes after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to consult a
specialist he being confined to his room till he eventually died of it amid
widespread regret before a fortnight was at an end or quite possibly they
were distressed to find the job was taken out of their hands. Of course
nobody being acquainted with his movements even before, there was absolutely
no clue as to his whereabouts which were decidedly of the Alice, where art
thou order even prior to his starting to go under several aliases such as
Fox and Stewart, so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be
within the bounds of possibility. Naturally then, it would prey on his mind
as a born leader of men, which undoubtedly he was, and a commanding figure,
a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet,
whereas Messrs So-and-So who, though they weren't even a patch on the former
man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and far
between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay. And then
seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual mudslinging.
And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back - that haunting
sense kind of drew you - to show the understudy in the title rÔle how to. He
saw him once on the auspicious occasion when they broke up the type in the
Insuppressible or was it United Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated,
and, in point of fact, handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and
he said Thank you, excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid expression
notwithstanding the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the
lip - what's bred in the bone. Still, as regards return, you were a lucky
dog if they didn't set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot
of shillyshally usually followed. Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And
then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to
produce your credentials, like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger
Charles Tichborne. Bella was the boat's name to the best of his recollection
he, the heir, went down in, as the evidence went to show, and there was a
tattoo mark too in Indian ink, Lord Bellew, was it? As he might very easily
have picked up the details from some pal on board ship and then, when got up
to tally with the description given, introduce himself with, Excuse me, my
name is So-and-So or some such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, Mr
Bloom said to the not over effusive, in fact like the distinguished
personage under discussion beside him, would have been to sound the lie of
the land first.
-- That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor
commented. She put the first nail in his coffin.
-- Fine lump of a woman, all the same, the soi-disant town-clerk, Henry
Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. I seen her picture in a barber's. Her
husband was a captain or an officer.
-- Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added. He was, and a cottonball one.
This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair
amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom, he, without the
faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and
reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary interest
at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public with the
usual affectionate letters that passed between them, full of sweet nothings.
First, it was strictly platonic till nature intervened and an attachment
sprang up between them, till bit by bit matters came to a climax and the
matter became the talk of the town till the staggering blow came as a
welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed however, who were resolved
upon encouraging his downfall though the thing was public property all along
though not to anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently
blossomed into. Sino their names were coupled, though, since he was her
declared favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the
rank and file from the housetops, the fact namely, that he had shared her
bedroom, which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through
the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses
swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the
act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a
ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same fashion, a
fact that the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply coined
shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was it was
simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch with nothing in
common between them beyond the name and then a real man arriving on the
scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms
and forgetting home ties. The usual sequel, to bask in the loved one's
smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped
up. Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case,
exist between married folk? Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if
he regarded her with affection carried away by a wave of folly. A
magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly, augmented obviously by gifts
of a high order as compared with the other military supernumerary, that is
(who was just the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of an
individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate), and
inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own
peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely
to carve his way to fame, which he almost bid fair to do till the priests
and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents and
his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural
parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that
exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his
matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head, much in the
same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking back now in a retrospective kind
of arrangement, all seemed a kind of dream. And the coming back was the
worst thing you ever did because it went without saying you would feel out
of place as things always moved with the times. Why, as he reflected,
Irishtown Strand, a locality he had not been in for quite a number of years,
looked different somehow since, as it happened, he went to reside on the
north side. North or south however, it was just the wellknown case of hot
passion, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just
bore out the very thing he was saying, as she also was Spanish or half so,
types that wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south,
casting every shred of decency to the winds.
-- Just bears out what I was saying, he with glowing bosom said to
Stephen. And, if I don't greatly mistake, she was Spanish too.
-- The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or
other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the
first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and so many.
-- Was she? Bloom ejaculated surprised, though not astonished by any
means. I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there it was,
as she lived there. So, Spain.
Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket Sweets of, which reminded him
by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his
pocketbook and, turning over the various contents rapidly, finally he.
-- Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a fades
photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type?
Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large
sized lady, with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion, as she
was in the full bloom of womanhood, In evening dress cut ostentatiously low
for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than vision
of breasts, her full lips parted, and some perfect teeth, standing near,
ostensibly with gravity, a piano, on the rest of which was In old Madrid, a
ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady's)
eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about something to be
admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's premier photographic
artist, being responsible for the esthetic execution.
Mrs Bloom, my wife the prima donna, Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom
indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about '96. Very like her then.
Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his
legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major Brian
Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a singer
having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered barely sweet
sixteen. As for the face, it was a speaking likeness in expression but it
did not do justice to her figure, which came in for a lot of notice usually
and which did not come out to the best advantage in that getup She could
without difficulty, he said, have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on
certain opulent curves of the... He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his
spare time, on the female form in general developmentally because, as it so
happened, no later than that afternoon, he had seen those Grecian statues,
perfectly developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could
give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry. All the rest, yes,
Puritanism. It does though, St Joseph's sovereign... whereas no photo could,
because it simply wasn't art, in a word.
The spirit moving him, he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's
good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak
for itself on the plea he... so that the other could drink in the beauty for
himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the
camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional
etiquette so, though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet
wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm... And
he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a kind of
inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless,
he sat tight, just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent
curves, none the worse for wear, however, and looked away thoughtfully with
the intention of not further increasing the other's possible embarrassment
while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint. In fact, the slight
soiling was only an added charm, like the case of linen slightly soiled,
good as new, much better, in fact, with the starch out. Suppose she was gone
when he?... I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but
merely as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning
littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (sic)
in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the
domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray.
The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,
distinguÉ, and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the
bunch, though you wouldn't think he had it in him... yet you would. Besides
he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was, though at
the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of
make-believe went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur with
the usual splash page of letterpress about the same old matrimonial tangle
alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite
instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole business. How they
were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up between the two so that their
names were coupled in the public eye was told in court with letters
containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions, leaving no
loophole, to show that they openly cohabited two or three times a week at
some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal
course, became in due course intimate. Then the decree nisi and the King's
Proctor to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, nisi was made
absolute. But as for that, the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely
were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely
did till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor, who filed a
petition for the party wronged in due course. He, Bloom, enjoyed the
distinction of being close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the
thing occurred in the historic fracas when the fallen leader's - who
notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the
mantle of adultery - (leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a
dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of
the Insuppressible or no it was United Ireland (a by no means, by the by,
appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or
something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from the
facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation,
reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though palpably a
radically altered man, he was still a commanding figure, though carelessly
garbed as usual, with that look of settled purpose which went a long way
with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture
that their idol had feet of clay, after placing him upon a pedestal, which
she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot
times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a nasty
prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that of course congregated lodging
some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of a grave
character. His hat (Parnell's) was inadvertently knocked off and, as a
matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush
after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it
to him he did with the utmost celerity) who, panting and hatless and whose
thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time, being a gentleman born
with a stake in the country, he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it
more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone,
instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of knowing
what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and
thanked him with perfect aplomb, saying: Thank you, sir though in a very
different tone of voice from the ornament of the legal profession whose
headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the course of the day, history
repeating itself with a difference; after the burial of a mutual friend when
they had left him alone in his glory after the grim task of having committed
his remains to the grave.
On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes
of the cabmen and so on, who passed it all off as a jest, laughing
immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the
wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case for
the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate husband
happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from the usual
boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial moment in a
loving position locked in one another's arms drawing attention to their
illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic rumpus and the erring fair
one begging forgiveness of her lord and master upon her knees and promising
to sever the connection and not receive his visits any more if only the
aggrieved husband would overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones, with
tears in her eyes, though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the
same time, as quite possibly there were several others. He personally, being
of a sceptical bias, believed, and didn't make the smallest bones about
saying so either, that man, or men in the plural, were always hanging around
on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in
the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument,
when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life, and was
on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on
her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred on
another, the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women
getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as several famous
cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt.
It was a thousand pities a young fellow blessed with an allowance of
brains, as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with
profligate women, who might present him with a nice dose to last him his
lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto
himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim ladies'
society was a conditio sine qua non though he had the gravest possible
doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss
Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who brought him down
to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he would find much
satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea and the company of
smirking misses without a penny to their names bi- or tri-weekly with the
orthodox preliminary canter of complimentpaying and walking out leading up
to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To think of him house and
homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too
bad at his age. The queer suddenly things he popped out with attracted the
elder man who was several years the other's senior or like his father. But
something substantial he certainly ought to eat, were it only an eggflip
made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty
Dumpty boiled.
-- At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and
tired though unwrinkled face.
-- Some time yesterday, Stephen said.
-- Yesterday, exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already
tomorrow, Friday. Ah, you mean it's after twelve!
-- The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself.
Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence, Bloom reflected.
Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything, a certain analogy there
somehow was, as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one
train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of
years previously when he had been a quasi aspirant to parliamentary honours
in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in retrospect (which was a
source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a sneaking regard for those
same ultra ideas. For instance, when the evicted tenants' question, then at
its first inception, bulked largely in people's minds though, it goes
without saying, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to
its dictums, some of which wouldn't exactly hold water, he at the outset in
principle, at all events, was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession,
as voicing the trend of modern Opinion, a partiality, however, which,
realising his mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of, and even was
twitted with going a step further than Michael Davitt in the striking views
he at one time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he
strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion at the
gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, though often
considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of mortals, be it
repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him (metaphorically) one
in the gizzard though so far as politics themselves were concerned, he was
only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda
and displays of mutual animosity and the misery and suffering it entailed as
a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the
fittest, in a word.
Anyhow, upon weighing the pros and cons, getting on for one as it was,
it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it was a bit
risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody
having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on
the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame paw,
not that the cases were either identical or the reverse, though he had hurt
his hand too, to Ontario Terrace, as he very distinctly remembered, having
been there, so to speak. On the other hand it was altogether far and away
too late for the Sandymount or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some
perplexity as to which of the two alternatives... Everything pointed to the
fact that it behoved him to avail himself to the full of the opportunity,
all things considered. His initial impression was that he was a bit
standoffish or not over effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing
he mightn't what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly
worried him was he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly,
supposing he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great
personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or
some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding,
eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and a
shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled
into a pillow. At least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on
a trivet. He failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always
with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. A move had to be made
because that merry old soul, the grasswidower in question, who appeared to
be glued to the spot, didn't appear in any particular hurry to wend his way
home to his dearly beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some
sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties off Sheriff street lower would be
the best clue to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to
come, alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber
revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow
of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with
rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large potations of potheen
and the usual blarney about himself for as to who he in reality was let XX
equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra remarks passim. At the same
time he inwardly chuckled over his repartee to the blood and ouns champion
about his God being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf
but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable
point too of tender Achilles, your God was a jew, because mostly they
appeared to imagine he came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhere about in
the county Sligo.
-- I propose, our hero eventually suggested, after mature reflection
while prudently pocketing her photo, as it's rather stuffy here, you just
come with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the
vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Wait, I'll just pay this lot.
The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain
sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper of
the shanty, who didn't seem to...
-- Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen, to whom for the matter of
that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less.
All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (Bloom's) busy
brain. Education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize
titbits, up to date billing, hydros and concert tours in English watering
resorts packed with theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the
accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity
of course to tell the world and his wife from the housetops about it and a
slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected
he had his father's voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the
cards he had so it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the
conversation in the direction of that particular red herring just to.
The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former
viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association dinner in
London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this thrilling
announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared to have some
spark of vitality left read out that Sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston
for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect. To which absorbing
piece of intelligence echo answered why. - Give us a squint at that
literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner put in, manifesting some
natural impatience.
-- And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.
The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles
which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears.
-- Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the town
clerk queried.
-- Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was
a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of sea-green
portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading. Sand
in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, manner
of speaking. The Arabian Nights' Entertainment was my favourite and Red as a
Rose is She.
Thereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows
what, found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a
hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which time
(completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied loosening
an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched him, as he
muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were sufficiently
awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, that is to say,
either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial remark.
To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first
to rise to his feet so as not to outstay their welcome having first and
foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for the
occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as
a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were not looking
to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a grand total of
fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally
the last of the Mohicans) he having previously spotted on the printed
pricelist for all who ran to read opposite to him in unmistakable figures,
coffee 2d., confectionery do., and honestly well worth twice the money once
in a way, as Wetherup used to remark. - Come, he counselled, to close the
sÉance.
Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear, they left the
shelter or shanty together and the Élite society of oil skin and company
whom nothing short Of an earthquake would move out of their dolce far
niente. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out,
paused at the, for a moment... the door to...
-- One thing I never understood, he said, to be original on the spur of
the moment, why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside
down on the tables In cafes.
To which impromptu the never failing Bloom replied without a moment's
hesitation, saying straight off:
-- To sweep the floor in the morning.
So saying he skipped around nimbly, considering frankly, at the same
time apologetic, to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the by,
the right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The night air
was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit weak on his
pins.
-- It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in
a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. It's
not far. Lean on me.
Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on
accordingly.
-- Yes, Stephen said uncertainly, because he thought he felt a strange
kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all
that.
Anyhow, they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier, etc. where the
municipal supernumerary, ex-Gumley, was still to all intents and purposes
wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming of fresh fields
and pastures new. And apropos of coffin of stones, the analogy was not at
all bad, as it was in fact a stoning to death on the part of seventytwo out
of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the time of the split and
chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the selfsame evicted tenants he
had put in their holdings.
So they passed on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made tracks
arm-in-arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though confessedly grand
in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the first
go-off but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots, Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words
on the Cross, and Mozart's Twelfth Mass, he simply revelled in, the Gloria
in that being to his mind the acme of first class music as such, literally
knocking everything else into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the
sacred music of the catholic church to anything the opposite shop could
offer in that line such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or Bid me to live
and I will live thy protestant to be. He also yielded to none in his
admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, a work simply abounding in immortal
numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable
sensation, he might safely say greatly adding to her other laurels and
putting the others totally in the shade in the jesuit fathers' church in
Upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to
hear her with virtuosos, or virtuosi rather. There was the unanimous opinion
that there was none to come up to her and, suffice it to say in a place of
worship for music of a sacred character, there was a generally voiced desire
for an encore. On the whole, though favouring preferably light opera of the
Don Giovanni description, and Martha, a gem in its line, he had a penchant,
though with only a surface knowledge, for the severe classical school such
as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about
the old favourites, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's air in Martha,
M'appari, which, curiously enough, he heard, or overheard, to be more
accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the lips of
Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the number, in
fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a
politely put query, said he didn't but launched out into praises of
Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that period, the lutenist
Dowland who lived in Fetter Lane near Gerard the herbalist, who anno ludendo
hausi, Doulandus, an instrument he was contemplating purchasing from Mr
Arnold Dolmetsch, whom Bloom did not quite recall, though the name certainly
sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their dux
and comes conceits and Byrd (William), who played the virginals, he said, in
the Queen's Chapel or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made
toys or airs and John Bull.
On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond
the swing chain, a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground,
brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not
perfectly certain whether he had caught a right the allusion to sixtyfive
guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political
celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a
striking coincidence.
By the chains, the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving
Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual plucked the other's sleeve
gently, jocosely remarking:
-- Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.
They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth
anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite
near, so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh,
because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a
taildangler, a headhanger, putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord
of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such a good
poor brute, he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he wisely
reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might
crop up. He was just a big foolish nervous noodly kind of a horse, without a
second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel in
Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it
was no animal's fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel,
ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths
of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring
the bees; whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator, tickle the small of his
back and he sees the joke; chalk a circle for a rooster; tiger, my eagle
eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his
mind, somewhat distracted from Stephen's words, while the ship of the street
was manoeuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old...
-- What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging
in medias res, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your
acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.
He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,
image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual blackguard
type they unquestionably had an indubitable hankering after as he was
perhaps not that way built.
Still, supposing he had his father's gift, as he more than suspected,
it opened up new vistas in his mind, such as Lady Fingall's Irish industries
concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general.
Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air Youth here has End
by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come from.
Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes Jeep about the clear sea
and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which boggled Bloom a bit:
Von der Sirenen Listigkeit
Tun die Poeten dichten.
These opening bars he sang and translated extempore. Bloom, nodding,
said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means, which he
did.
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, if
properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as
Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its own
price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate
possessor in the near future an entrÉe into fashionable houses in the best
residential quarters, of financial magnates in a large way of business and
titled people where, with his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its
way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good impression
he would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains
which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his
clothes were properly attended to, so as to the better worm his way into
their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society's sartorial niceties,
hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you.
It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him
participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the
festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in
the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for
sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record, in fact,
without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to,
could easily have... Added to which of course, would be the pecuniary
emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition
fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need
necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy
space of time but a step in the required direction it was, beyond yea or
nay, and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his
dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed
a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though
taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that,
different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue, as it
would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical world after the usual
hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St
Austell and Hilton St Just and their genus omne. Yes, beyond a shadow of a
doubt, he could, with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening
to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city's esteem where
he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for
the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were
forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak - a big if, however - with
some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination
which often tripped up a too much feted prince of good fellows and it need
not detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would
have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous
of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or containing
anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In
fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason why the
other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat of any sort,
hung on to him at all.
The horse was just then... and later on, at a propitious opportunity he
purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying Into his private affairs on the
fools step in where angels principle advising him to sever his connection
with a certain budding practitioner, who, he noticed, was prone to
disparage, and even, to a slight extent, with some hilarious pretext, when
not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it, which, in
Bloom's humble opinion, threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a person's
character - no pun intended.
The horse, having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted,
and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall
on the floor, which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking
globes of turds. Slowly, three times, one after another, from a full
crupper, he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had
ended, patient in his scythed car.
Side by side Bloom, profiting by the contretemps, with Stephen passed
through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping over a
strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, Stephen singing
more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad:
Und alle Schiffe brÜcken
The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent. He merely
watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black - one
full, one lean - walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father
Maher. As they walked, they at times stopped and walked again, continuing
their tÊte-À-tÊte (which of course he was utterly out of), about sirens,
enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same
category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the man in the
sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper car who in any case
couldn't possibly hear because they were too far simply sat in his seat near
the end of lower Gardiner street and looked after their lowbacked car.
Ulysses 17: Ithaca
WHAT PARALLEL COURSES DID BLOOM AND STEPHEN FOLLOW REturning?
Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they
followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and Mountjoy
square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left, Gardiner's place by
an inadvertance as far as the farther corner of Temple street, north: then
at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing right, Temple street,
north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking
pace they crossed both the circus before George's church diametrically, the
chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends.
Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?
Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman,
prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and
glow-lamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed
corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, ecclesiastical
celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the study of
medicine, the past day, the male-cent influence of the presabbath, Stephen's
collapse.
Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their
respective like and unlike reactions to experience?
Both were sensitive to artistic impressions musical in preference to
plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner of
life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both indurated by
early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance
professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social and
ethical doctrines. Both admitted the alternately stimulating and obtunding
influence of heterosexual magnetism.
Were their views on some points divergent?
Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's view on the importance of dietary
and civic self help while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views on
the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom assented
covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism involved in assigning
the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to christianity from druidism
by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, son of Odyssus, sent by pope
Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of Leary to the year 260 or
thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (266 A.D.) suffocated by imperfect
deglutition of aliment at Sletty and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse
which Bloom ascribed to gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of
varying degrees of adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by
mental exertion and the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing
atmosphere, Stephen attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud
(perceived by both from two different points of observation, Sandycove and
Dublin) at first no bigger than a woman's hand.
Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative?
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining
paraheliotropic trees.
Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in
the past?
In 1884 with Ower Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public
thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's
corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue. In 1885 with
Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall between Gibraltar
villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony of Uppercross. In 1886
occasionally with casual acquaintances and prospective purchasers on
doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class railway carriages of suburban
lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian Tweedy and his daughter Miss
Marion Tweedy, together and separately on the lounge in Matthew Dillon's
house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once in 1893 with Julius Mastiansky, on
both occasions in the parlour of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street,
west.
What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885,
1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at their
destination?
He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual
development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction of
the converse domain of interindividual relations.
As in what ways?
>From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received:
existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence to
nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived.
What action did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers,
number 7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back
pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.
Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.
Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.
What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly
(respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple?
To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock.
Bloom's decision?
A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the
area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at the
lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its length of
five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the area
pavement, and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating himself
from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of the fall.
Did he fall?
By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in
avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for periodical
selfweighing in the premises of Francis Fraedman, pharmaceutical chemist of
19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast of the Ascension, to wit, the
twelfth day of May of the bissextile year one thousand nine hundred and four
of the Christian era (jewish era five thousand six hundred and sixtyfour,
mohammedan era one thousand three hundred and twentytwo), golden number $,
epact 13, solar cycle 9, dominical letters C B, Roman indication 2, Julian
period 6617, MXMIV.
Did he rise uninjured by concussion?
Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by
the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force at
its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied at its
fulcrum gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent
scullery, ignited a Lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal gas
by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he
reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle.
What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?
Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent
kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 C P, a man lighting a
candle, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man leaving the
kitchen holding a candle of ICP.
Did the man reappear elsewhere?
Alter a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible
through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the halldoor.
The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space of the
doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle.
Did Stephen obey his sign?
Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and
followed softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted
candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down a
turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's house.
What did Bloom do?
He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its
flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen
with its back to the area window, the other for himself when necessary,
knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped
sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram coal
at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and M'Donald of
14 D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting points of paper with one
ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing the potential energy contained in
the fuel by allowing its carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free
union with the oxygen of the air.
Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think?
Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two,
had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the
college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the county of
Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room of his first
residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: of his godmother
Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss Julia Morkan at 15
Usher's Island: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of
number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of Saint
Francis-Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the physics'
theatre of university College, 16 Stephen's green, north: of his sister
Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra.
What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from
the fire towards the opposite wall?
Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope,
stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the chimney
pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs folded unattached
consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of ladies' grey hose with
lisle suspendertops and feet in their habitual position clamped by three
erect wooden pegs two at their outer extremities and the third at their
point of junction.
What did Bloom see on the range?
On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left
(larger) hob a black iron kettle.
What did Bloom do at the range?
He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron
kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let
it flow.
Did it flow?
Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of
2,400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of filter
mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant cost of
#5 per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of the Downs and
Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a distance of 22 statute
miles, and thence, through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250
feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though
from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the
water had fallen below the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the
borough surveyor and waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C.E., on the
instructions of the waterworks committee, had prohibited the use of
municipal water for purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the
possibility of recourse being had to the importable water of the Grand and
Royal canals as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians,
notwithstanding their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied
through a 6 inch meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons
per night by a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of
the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the
detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers,
solvent, sound.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier
returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature
in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's
projection: its umplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific
exceeding 8,000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles
visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units:
the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its
hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after
devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic:
its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over
the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square
leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the
multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: Its
capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including
billions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of
peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its
weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland
tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid
zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and
confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic
currents: gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in
seaquakes, waterspouts, artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies,
freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers,
cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its
vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs, and latent
humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and
exemplified by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air,
distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent
parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues:
its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness
in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for
cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its
infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist,
cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety
of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and
atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal
estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its
docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power
stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals,
rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable
from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its
submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe) numerically, if not
literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90% of
the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes,
pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon.
Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he
return to the stillflowing tap?
To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of
Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered (bought
thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh cold
neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a long
redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller.
What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer?
That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by
submersion in cold water (his last bath having taken place in the month of
October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of glass
and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language.
What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and
prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a preliminary
wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with rapid splashing of
the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region in case of sea or river
bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most sensitive to cold being the
nape, stomach, and thenar or sole of foot?
The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius.
What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress?
Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric
energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the
lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed.
Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest?
Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and
recuperation.
What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the
agency of fire?
The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of
ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was
communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral masses of
bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the foliated
fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn derived their
vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat (radiant),
transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous ether. Heat
(convected), a mode of motion developed by such combustion, was constantly
and increasingly conveyed from the source of calorification to the liquid
contained in the vessel, being radiated through the uneven unpolished dark
surface of the metal iron, in part reflected, in part absorbed, in part
transmitted, gradually raising the temperature of the water from normal to
boiling point, a rise in temperature expressible as the result of an
expenditure of 72 thermal units needed to raise I pound of water from 50
to 212 Fahrenheit.
What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature?
A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at
both sides simultaneously.
For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled?
To shave himself.
What advantages attended shaving by night?
A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from
shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly
encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours:
quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when
awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and
perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper read,
reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a shoot, with
thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might cause a faster
rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut and
humected and applied adhered which was to be done.
Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noises
Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine
feminine passive active hand.
What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting
influence?
The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human
blood even when the end justified the means, preferring in their natural
order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic surgery.
What lay under exposure on the lower middle and upper shelves of the
kitchen dresser opened by Bloom?
On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal
breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a moustachecup,
uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white goldrimmed eggcups, and
open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly copper, and a phial of aromatic
violet comfits. On the middle shelf a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a
drum of table salt, four conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an
empty pot of Plumtree's potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre
and containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and
Co's white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue
paper, a packet of Epps's soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's choice
tea at 2/- per lb. in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical canister
containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one the larger,
Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with augmented surface
and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's cream, a jug of brown
crockery containing a noggin and a quarter of soured adulterated milk,
converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and semisolidified curds,
which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom's and Mrs Fleming's
breakfasts made one imperial pint, the total quantity originally delivered,
two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish containing a slice of fresh
ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of jamjars of various sizes and
proveniences.
What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser?
Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets,
numbered 887, 886.
What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow?
Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction,
preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official and
definitive result of which he had read in the Evening Telegraph, late pink
edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge.
Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected,
been received by him?
In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain
street: in David Byrne's licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in O'Connell
street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had placed in his hand
a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah, restorer of the
church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of F. W. Sweny and Co
(Limited) dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had
rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy of the
current issue of the Freeman's Journal and National Press which he had been
about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the
oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the
light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the
secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.
What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations?
The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event
followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the
electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by
failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally
from a successful interpretation.
His mood?
He hid not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he
was satisfied.
What satisfied him?
To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to
others. Light to the gentiles.
How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile?
He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's
soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed on
the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the prescribed
ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity prescribed.
What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his
guest?
Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation
Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly), he
substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served
extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the viscous
cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion (Molly).
Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of
hospitality?
His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely and he accepted
them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct, the
creature cocoa.
Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed,
reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to complete
the act begun?
The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right
side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four lady's
handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable condition.
Who drank more quickly?
Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation ad taking,
from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady flow
of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent's one, six to two, nine to
three.
What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act?
Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was
engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from
literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had applied
to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the solution of
difficult problems in imaginary or real life.
Had he found their solution?
In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages,
aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, the
answers not bearing on all points.
What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him,
potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering of
three prizes at 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively by the Shamrock, a weekly
newspaper?
An ambition to squint
At my verses in print
Makes me hope that for these you'll find room.
If you so condescend
Then please place at the end
The name of yours truly, L. Bloom.
Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him?
Name, age, race, creed.
What anagrams had he made on his name in youth?
Leopold Bloom
Ellpodbomool
Molldopeloob.
Bollo edoom
Old Ollebo, M. P.
What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic
poet) sent to Miss Marion Tweedy on the 14 February 1888?
Poets oft have sung in rhyme
Of music sweet their praise divine.
Let them hymn it nine times nine.
Bearer far than song or wine,
You are mine. The world is mine.
What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G.
Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual years,
entitled If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now,
commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49
South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the valley of
diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand annual
Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor (written by Greenleaf Whittier,
scenery by George A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss
Whelan, produced by R. Shelton 26 December 1892 under the personal
supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir, harlequinade by
Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist principal girl?
Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest,
the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded 1837)
and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market: secondly,
apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the questions of the
respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses, the duke and duchess of York
(real), and of His Majesty King Brian Boru (imaginary); thirdly, a conflict
between professional etiquette and professional emulation concerning the
recent erections of the Grand Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal
in Hawkins street: fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly
Bouverist's non-intellectual, non-political, nontopical expression of
countenance and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist's revelations of
white articles of nonintellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing
while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the difficulties
of the selection of appropriate music and humorous allusions from
Everybody's Book of Jokes (1,000 pages and a laugh in every one); sixthly,
the rhymes homophonous and cacophonous, associated with the names of the new
lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new
solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket Barton.
What relation existed between their ages?
16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen
was 6.16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present age
Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54 their ages
initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13 1/2, the
proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according as arbitrary
future years were added, for if the proportion existing in 1883 had
continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then 1904 when
Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen would be 38, as
Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when Stephen would have
attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom, being 1190 years alive
having been born in the year 714, would have surpassed by 221 years the
maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, 969 years, while, if Stephen
would continue to live until he would attain that age in the year 3072 A.D.,
Bloom would have been obliged to have been alive 83,300 years, having been
obliged to have been born in the year 81,396 B.C.
What events might nullify these calculations?
The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a new
era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination
of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.
How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance?
Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house, Medina
Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen's mother,
Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his hand in
salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a rainy
Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen's father and
Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older.
Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and
afterwards seconded by the father?
Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative
gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined.
Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a
third connecting link between them?
Mrs Riordan, a widow of independent means, had resided in the house of
Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and had also
resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City Arms Hotel owned by
Elizabeth O'Dowd of 54 Prussia street where during parts of the years 1893
and 1894 she had been a constant informant of Bloom who resided also in the
same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the employment of Joseph Cuffe of
5 Smithfield for the superintendence of sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle
market on the North Circular road.
Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her?
He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow
of independent, if limited means, in her convalescent bathchair with slow
revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road
opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she had remained for a
certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular fieldglasses
unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles, equipped with
inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired
landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix
Park and vice versa.
Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity?
Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel of
bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with continual
changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, velocipedes,
vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round and round the rim
of a round precipitous globe.
What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years
deceased?
The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her
suppositions wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient catarrhal
deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue of the
Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles Stewart
Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers.
Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation
which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the more
desirable?
The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently
abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's Physical Strength and How To Obtain
It which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in sedentary
occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in front of a mirror
so as to bring into play the various families of muscles and produce
successively a pleasant relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of
juvenile agility.
Had any special agility been his in earlier youth?
Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full
circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High School scholar he had
excelled in his table and protracted execution of the half lever movement on
the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed abdominal
muscles.
Did either openly allude to their racial difference?
Neither.
What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts
about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's
thoughts about Bloom's thoughts about Stephen?
He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he
knew that he knew that he was not.
What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective
parentages?
Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag
(subsequently Rudolf Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London
and Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born
Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty); Stephen, eldest surviving male
consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary,
daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier).
Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or
layman?
Bloom (three times) by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A. alone in
the protestant church of Saint Nicolas Without, Coombe; by James O'Connor,
Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump in the village
of Swords; and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in the church of the
Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend Charles Malone, C.
C., alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar.
Did they find their educational careers similar?
Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively
through a dame's school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for Stephen
Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, junior,
middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the matriculation,
first arts, second arts and arts degree course of the royal university.
Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the
university of life?
Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation
had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him.
What two temperaments did they individually represent?
The scientific. The artistic.
What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards
applied, rather than towards pure, science?
Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining in
a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his appreciation
of the importance of inventions now common but once revolutionary for
example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting telescope, the spiral
corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water siphon, the canal lock with
winch and sluice, the suction pump.
Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of
kindergarten?
Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard,
catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve
constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical
orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with
zoological biscuits, globemap playingballs, historically costumed dolls.
What also stimulated him in his cogitations?
The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James,
the former by his 1d. bazaar at 42 George's street, South, the latter at his
6 1/2d. shop and world's fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30 Henry
street, admission 2d., children 1d.; and the infinite possibilities hitherto
unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed in triliteral
monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility (divined), horizontally
of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of magnetising efficacy to arrest
involuntary attention, to interest, to convince, to decide.
Such as?
K. 11. Kino's 111- Trousers.
House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes.
Such as not?
Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive
gratis I pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed I candle power.
Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot Street.
Bacilikil (Insect Powder).
Veribest (Boot Blacking).
Uwantit (Combined pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and
pipecleaner).
Such as never?
What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants' quay, Dublin, put up in
4 oz. pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda
Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries of
deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree is a meatpot,
registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Montpat.
Plamtroo.
Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that
originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably conduce to
success?
His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn
by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be seated
engaged in writing.
What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen?
Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark
corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She sits.
She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks. On solitary
hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs. Wheels and hoofs.
She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He seizes solitary paper. He
holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads. Solitary
What?
In sloping, upright and backhands: Queen's hotel, Queen's hotel,
Queen's Ho...
What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom?
The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, County, Glare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf
Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated, in
consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in the
form of a neuralgic liniment, composed of 2 parts of aconite liniment to 1
of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on the morning of 27
June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 Church street, Ennis)
after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at 3.15 p.m. on
the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater straw hat, extra smart (after
having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at the hour and in
the place aforesaid, the toxin aforesaid), at the general drapery store of
James Cullen, 4 Main street, Ennis.
Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or
intuition?
Coincidence.
Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see?
He preferred himself to see another's face and listen to another's
words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament
relieved.
Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to
him, described by the narrator as A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable
of the Plums?
It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by
implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms
(e.g. My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the Thief of Time) composed
during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and in conjunction
with the personal equation certain possibilities of financial, social,
personal and sexual success, whether specially collected and selected as
model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent merit) for the use of preparatory
and junior grade students or contributed in printed form, following the
precedent of Philip Beaufoy or Doctor Dick or Heblon's Studies in Blue, to a
publication of certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as
intellectual stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of
successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement,
during the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer
solstice on the day but three following, videlict, Tuesday, 21 June (S.
Aloysius Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m.
Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other
frequently engaged his mind?
What to do with our wives.
What had been his hypothetical singular solutions?
Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spillikins, cup and ball,
nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess
or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the policeaided clothing
society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano and flute, guitar and
piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: biweekly visits to variety
entertainments: commercial activity as pleasantly commanding and pleasingly
obeyed mistress proprietress in a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the
clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state
inspected and medically controlled: social visits, at regular infrequent
prevented intervals and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to
and from female acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity:
courses of evening instruction specially designed to render liberal
instruction agreeable.
What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him
in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution?
In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper
with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and
Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals as
to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of a city
in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political complications,
internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating the addenda of bills
she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After completion of laconic
epistolary compositions she abandoned the implement of calligraphy in the
encaustic pigment exposed to the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol
and nutgall. Unusual polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted
phonetically or by false analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike
hoses), alias (a mendacious person mentioned in sacred Scripture).
What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and
such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things?
The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all
balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her proficiency
of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment.
How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance?
Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a
certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent
knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other's ignorant
lapse.
With what success had he attempted direct instruction?
She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with
interest, comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater
difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered,
rerepeated with error.
What system had proved more effective?
Indirect suggestion implicating self-interest.
Example?
She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she
disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new hat
with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat.
Accepting the analogy implied in his guest's parable which examples of
postexilic eminence did he adduce?
Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides,
author of More Neubkim (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn of
such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there arose
none like Moses (Maimonides).
What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth
seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by
Stephen?
That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher,
name uncertain.
Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a
selected or rejected race mentioned?
Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher),
Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist).
What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish
languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts by
guest to host and by host to guest?
By Stephen: suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus, suil go cuin
(walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care).
By Bloom: Kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m'baad l'zamatejch (thy temple
amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate).
How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages
made in substantiation of the oral comparison?
On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior literary style,
entitled Sweets of Sin (produced by Bloom and so manipulated that its front
cover came in contact with the surface of the table) with a pencil (supplied
by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple
and modified, and Bloom in turn wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph,
daleth and (in the absence of mem) a substituted goph, explaining their
arithmetical values as ordinal and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1,4 and
100.
Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the
extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical?
Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence
and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary.
What points of contact existed between these languages and between the
peoples who spoke them?
The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and
servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been taught
on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary instituted
by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant
of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their archeological,
genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homilectic, toponomastic,
historical and religious literatures comprising the works of rabbis and
culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara) Massor, Pentateuch, Book of the
Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, Book of Kells: their
dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the isolation of their
synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary's Abbey) and
masshouse (Adam and Eve's tavern): the proscription of their national
costumes in penal laws and Jewish dress acts: the restoration in Chanan
David of Zion and the possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution.
What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple,
ethnically irreductible consummation?
Kolod balejwaw pnimali
Nefesch, jehudi, homijah.
Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich?
In consequence of defective mnemotechnic.
How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency? By a periphrastic
version of the general text.
In what common study did their mutual reflections merge?
The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic
hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of modern
stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) and
the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic).
Did the guest comply with his host's request?
Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters.
What was Stephen's auditive sensation?
He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation
of the past.
What was Bloom's visual sensation?
He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a
future.
What were Stephen's and Bloom's quasisimultaneous volitional
quasisensations of concealed identities?
Visually, Stephen's: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted by
Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as
leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair.
Auditively, Bloom's: The traditional accent of the ecstasy of
catastrophe.
What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with
what exemplars?
In the church, Roman, Anglican, or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very
reverend John Conmee S.J., the reverend T. Salmon, D.D., provost of Trinity
college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: exemplars,
Seymour Bushe, K.C., Rufus Isaacs, K.C. On the stage, modern or
Shakespearean exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian, Osmond Tearle
(1901), exponent of Shakespeare.
Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a
strange legend on an allied theme?
Reassuringly, their place where none could hear them talk being
secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid residual
sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream plus cocoa,
having been consumed.
Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend?
d Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all Went out for to play
ball
And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played
He drove it o'er the jew's garden wall.
And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played
He broke the jew's windows all.
How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part?
With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw
the unbroken kitchen window.
Recite the second part (minor) of the legend.
Then out there came the jew's daughter
And she all dressed in green.
`Come back, come back, you pretty little boy,
And play your ball again.'
`I can't come back and I won't come back
Without my schoolfellows all,
For if my master he did hear
He'd make it a sorry ball.'
She took him by the lilywhite hand
And led him along the hall
Until she led him to a room
Where none could hear him call.
She took a penknife out of her pocket
And cut off his little head,
And now he'll play his ball no more
For he lies among the dead.
How did the father of Millicent receive this second part?
With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's
daughter, all dressed in green.
Condense Stephen's commentary.
One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by
inadvertence, twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is
abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and
youth holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a
secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting.
Why was the host (victim predestined) sad?
He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him
should by him not be told.
Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still?
In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy.
Why was the host (secret infidel) silent?
He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the
incitation of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the
propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of
opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of
atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic
suggestion and somnambulism.
>From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not
totally immune?
>From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his
sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an indefinite
time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism: once,
sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a
heatless fire and, having attained its destination, there, curled, unheated
in night attire had lain, sleeping.
Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member
of his family?
Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent
(Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an exclamation of
terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night attire
with a vacant mute expression.
What other infantile memories had he of her?
15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and
lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks her
moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons one, tloo, tlee: a doll,
a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark, she had blond
ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, Austrian army,
proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British navy.
What endemic characteristics were present?
Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct line
of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant intervals to
its most distant intervals.
What memories had he of her adolescence?
She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke's lawn
entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and take
away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South Circular
road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual of sinister
aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned abruptly back
(reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the 15th anniversary of her
birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county Westmeath, making a brief
allusion to a local student (faculty and year not stated).
Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him?
Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped.
What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly
if differently?
A temporary departure of his cat.
Why similarly, why differently?
Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male
(Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, because of
different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the habitation.
In other respects were their differences similar?
In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in
unexpectedness.
As?
Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it
for her (cf. neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake in
Stephen's green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented spit,
describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the constancy of
its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf. mousewatching
cat). Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and
consequences of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair
(cf. earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had an
unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been Joseph
to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had
appeared to have accepted (cf. hearthdreaming cat). Hence in passivity, in
economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences
were similar.
In what way had he utilised gifts 1) an owl, 2) a clock, given as
matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her?
As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous
animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of vision,
the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the pendulum,
exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation in terms of
human or social regulation of the various positions clockwise of movable
indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the recurrence per hour of
an instant in each hour, when the longer and the shorter indicator were at
the same angle of inclination, videlicet, 5 5/11 minutes past each hour per
hour in arithmetical progression.
In what manners did she reciprocate?
She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to
him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation crown Derby porcelain ware. She
provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had been made
by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his necessities,
anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon having been
explained by him not for her she expressed the immediate desire to possess
without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the
quarter, a thousandth part.
What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist,
make to Stephen, noctambulist?
To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and
Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately
above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of his
host and hostess.
What various advantages would or might have resulted from a
prolongation of such extemporisation?
For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the
host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess:
disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation.
Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a
hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent eventuality
of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew's daughter?
Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother
through daughter.
To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest
return a monosyllabic negative answer?
If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at
Sydney Parade railway station, 14 October 1903.
What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the
host?
A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment
of Mrs Mary Dedalus, born Goulding, 26 June 1903, vigil of the anniversary
of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag).
Was the proposal of asylum accepted?
Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined.
What exchange of money took place between host and guest?
The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money
(?1.7s.0.), one pound seven shillings, advanced by the latter to the former.
What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified,
declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed?
To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place the
residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal instruction,
place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate a series of static,
semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, places the residence of
both speakers (if both speakers were resident in the same place), the Ship
hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street (W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the
National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare street, the National Maternity
Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, a public garden, the vicinity of a
place of worship, a conjunction of two or more public thoroughfares, the
point of bisection of a right line drawn between their residences (if both
speakers were resident in different places).
What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually
selfexcluding propositions?
The irreparability of the past: once at a performance of Albert
Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive
particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring to a
place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had publicly
declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his (the clown's)
papa. The imprevidibility of the future: once in the summer of 1898 he
(Bloom) had marked a florin (2s.) with three notches on the milled edge and
tendered it in payment of an account due to and received by J. and T. Davy,
family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand Canal, for circulation on the
waters of civic finance, for possible, circuitous or direct, return.
Was the clown Bloom's son?
No.
Had Bloom's coin returned?
Never.
Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him?
Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to
amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and
international animosity.
He believed then that human life was infinitely perfectible,
eliminating these conditions?
There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct
from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of
destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of the
ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and death:
the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human females
extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable accidents at
sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies and their
resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital criminality,
decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make terror the basis of
human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres of which are located in
densely populated regions: the fact of vital growth, through convulsions of
metamorphosis from infancy through maturity to decay.
Why did he desist from speculation?
Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other
more acceptable phenomena in place of the less acceptable phenomena to be
removed.
Did Stephen participate in his dejection?
He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding
syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational
reagent between a micro- and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the
incertitude of the void.
Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom?
Not verbally. Substantially.
What comforted his misapprehension?
That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from
the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void.
I n what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the
exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation effected?
Lighted Candle in Stick borne by
BLOOM.
Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by
STEPHEN.
With what intonation secreto of what commemorative psalm?
The 113th, modus peregrinus: In exitu IsraËl de Egypto: domus Jacob de
populo barbaro.
What did each do at the door of egress?
Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his
head.
For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress?
For a cat.
What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the
guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the
rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?
The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his
companion of various constellations?
Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in
incipent lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous
scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an observer
placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep sunk
from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius (alpha in Canis
Major) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant and in volume 900
times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the precession of
equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100
of our solar systems could be contained: of moribund and of nascent new
stars such as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging towards the constellation
of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars,
in reality evermoving from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote
futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted
human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity.
Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast?
Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of
the earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed
in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of
microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the incalculable
trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by
cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe of human
serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void
space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of
divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of
redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing
without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough,
nought nowhere was never reached.
Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result?
Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem of
the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a number
computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude and of so
many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9, that, the result
having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 pages each of
innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to be requisitioned
in order to contain the complete tale of its printed integers of units,
tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands,
millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, the nucleus of
the nebula of every digit of every series containing succinctly the
potentiality of being raised to the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power
of any of its powers.
Did he find the problem of the inhabitability of the planets and their
satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and moral
redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution?
Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism,
normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, when
elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere suffered
with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the line of
demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was approximated, from
nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, when proposing this
problem for solution he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could
not be proved impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically
constructed race of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial,
Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent
conditions, though an apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms
with finite differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another
would probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to
vanities, to vanities of vanities and all that is vanity.
And the problem of possible redemption?
The minor was proved by the major.
Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered?
The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white,
yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy: their
magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions: the
waggoner's star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular cinctures
of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the interdependent
gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous discoveries of
Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, Galle: the
systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes of distances and
squares of times of revolution: the almost infinite compressibility of
hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive and reentrant orbits from
perihelion to aphelion: the sidereal origin of meteoric stones: the Libyan
floods on Mars about the period of the birth of the younger astroscopist:
the annual recurrence of meteoric showers about the period of the feast of
S. Lawrence (martyr, 10 August): the monthly recurrence known as the new
moon with the old moon in her arms: the posited influence of celestial on
human bodies: the appearance of a star (1st magnitude) of exceeding
brilliancy dominating by night and day (a new luminous sun generated by the
collision and amalgamation in incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about
the period of the birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent
neversetting constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (2nd magnitude) of
similar origin but lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and disappeared
from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about the period of the
birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of (presumably) similar origin
which had (effectively or presumably) appeared in and disappeared from the
constellation of Andromeda about the period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus,
and in and from the constellation of Auriga some years after the birth and
death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in and from other constellations some
years before or after the birth or death of other persons: the attendant
phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, from immersion to emersion,
abatement of wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged creatures,
emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of infernal
light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of human beings.
His (Bloom's) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and
allowing for possible error?
That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not
a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from the
known to the unknown: an infinity, renderable equally finite by the
suppositions probable apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same
and of different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in
space, remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a
present before its future spectators had entered actual present existence.
Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle?
Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the
delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection
invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the satellite
of their planet.
Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological
influences upon sublunary disasters?
It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the
nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to
verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of dreams, the sea
of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity.
What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and
woman?
Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian
generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her
luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising, and setting
by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her
aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her
potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify,
to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency:
the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated
dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of
calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the
admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when
visible: her attraction, when invisible.
What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's
gaze?
In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom's) house the light of a
paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller blind
supplied by Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving shutter
manufacturer, 16 Aungier street.
How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible person, his wife
Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp?
With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued
affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with
suggestion.
Boa then were silent?
Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal
flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces.
Were they indefinitely inactive?
At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's instigation both, first Stephen,
then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs of
micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, their
gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's, elevated to the projected luminous and
semiluminous shadow.
Similarly?
The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations
were dissimilar: Bloom's longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of the
bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter who in his ultimate year at High
School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point of greatest altitude
against the whole concurrent strength of the institution, 210 scholars:
Stephen's higher, more sibilant, who in the ultimate hours of the previous
day had augmented by diuretic consumption an insistent vesical pressure.
What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the
invisible audible collateral organ of the other?
To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity,
reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pelosity. To Stephen: the problem of
the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised (1st January, holiday of
obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the
problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy
Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of
simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the
abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails.
What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed?
A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament
from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the Tress of
Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo.
How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal
departer?
By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an
unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and turning
its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its staple, pulling
inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and revealing an aperture
for free egress and free ingress.
How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation?
Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its
base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming
any angle less than the sum of two right angles.
What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of
their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands?
The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the
bells in the church of Saint George.
What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard?
By Stephen:
Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet.
Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat.
By Bloom:
Heigho, heigho,
Heigho, heigho.
Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day
at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south to
Glasnevin in the north?
Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in
bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Ned Lambert (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed), John
Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in bed),
Paddy Dignam (in the grave).
Alone, what did Bloom hear?
The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth,
the double vibration of a jew's harp in the resonant lane.
Alone, what did Bloom feel?
The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing
point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or RÉaumur: the
incipient intimations of proximate dawn.
Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind
him?
Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct: Percy
Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis, Jervis
Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin Bay), Philip
Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart (phthisis, Mater
Misericordi&Aelig; hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount).
What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain?
The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of day-break, the
apparition of a new solar disk.
Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena?
Once, in 1887 after a protracted performance of charades in the house
of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition of the
diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the direction of
Mizrach, the east.
He remembered the initial paraphenomena?
More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at
various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer, the
visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the first
golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon.
Did he remain?
With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering
the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the
candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room,
hallfloor, and reentered.
What suddenly arrested his ingress?
The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into
contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible
fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in consequence
of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered.
Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of
furnitures?
A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite
the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an
alteration which he had frequently intended to execute): the blue and white
checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the door in the
place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard (a projecting
angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had been moved from its
position beside the door to a more advantageous but more perilous position
in front of the door: two chairs had been moved from right and left of the
ingleside to the position originally occupied by the blue and white checker
inlaid majolicatopped table.
Describe them.
One: a squat stuffed easychair with stout arms extended and back
slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an
irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply
upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. The
other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed directly
opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat to base being
varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of white plaited rush.
What significances attached to these two chairs?
Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of
circumstantial evidence, of testimonial supermanence.
What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard?
A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin
supporting a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves and an emerald ashtray
containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two
discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in the
key of G natural for voice and piano of Love's Old Sweet Song (words by G.
Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam Antoinette
Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications ad libitum,
forte, pedal, animato, sustained, pedal, ritirando, close.
With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects?
With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right
temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focusing his gaze on a large
dull passive and slender bright active: with solicitation, bending and
downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi
Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the gradation of green: with
pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through
various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant
tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration.
His next proceeding?
>From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black
diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on a
small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the
mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus
(illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it
superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the
candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the latter
reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the
candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate
total combustion.
What followed this operation?
That truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted
a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense.
What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the
mantelpiece?
A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46
a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf tree
of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of
Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John
Hooper.
What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and
Bloom?
In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the
dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror
the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise
bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure
tranquil profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial
gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle.
What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his
attention?
The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.
Why solitary (ipsorelative)?
Brothers and sisters had he none,
Yet that man's father was his grandfather's son.
Why mutable (aliorelative)?
>From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix.
From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal
creator.
What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror?
The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged
and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles on
the two bookshelves opposite.
Catalogue these books.
Thorn's Dublin Post Office Directory, 1886.
Denis Florence M'Carthy's Poetical Works (copper beechleaf bookmark at
p. 5).
Shakespeare's Works (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled).
The Useful Ready Reckoner (brown cloth).
The Secret History of the Court of Charles II (red cloth, tooled
binding).
The Child's Guide (blue cloth).
When We Were Boys by William O'Brien M.P. (green cloth, slightly faded,
envelope bookmark at p. 217).
Thoughts from Spinoza (maroon leather).
The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth).
Ellis's Three Trips to Madagascar (brown cloth, title obliterated).
The Stark-Munro Letters by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of
Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel Street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve) 1904, due
4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white
letternumber ticket).
Voyages in China by `Viator' (recovered with brown paper, red ink
title).
Philosophy of the Talmud (sewn pamphlet).
Lockhart's Life of Napoleon (cover wanting, marginal an notations,
minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist).
Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters,
cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24).
Hozier's History of the Russo-Turkish War (brown cloth, 2 volumes, with
gummed label, Garrison Library, Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of
cover).
Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland by William Allingham (second edition,
green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's name on recto of flyleaf
erased).
A Handbook of Astronomy (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates,
antique letterpress long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal
clues brevier, captions small pica).
The Hidden Life of Christ (black boards).
In the Track of the Sun (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent
title intestation).
Physical Strength and How to Obtain It by Eugene Sandow (red cloth).
Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry written in French by F. Ignat.
Pardies and rendered into Englifh by John Harris D. D. London, printed for
R. Knaplock at the Bifhop's Head MDCCXI, with dedicatory epiftle to his
worthy friend Charles Cox, efquire, Member of Parliament for the burgh of
Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the flyleaf certifying
that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, dated this 10th day of
May 1822 and requefting the perfon who should find it, if the book should be
loft or go aftray, to reftore it to Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery
Gate, Ennifcorthy, county Wicklow, the fineft place in the world.
What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of
the inverted volumes?
The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its
place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: the
incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella inclined
in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document behind,
beneath or between the pages of a book.
Which volume was the largest in bulk?
Hozier's History of the Russo - Turkish War.
What among other data did the second volume of the work In question
contain?
The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a
decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered).
Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question?
Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an
interval of amnesia, when seated at the central table, about to consult the
work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the military
engagement, Plevna.
What caused him consolation in his sitting posture?
The candour, nudity, pose, tranquillity, youth, grace, sex, counsel of
a statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased
by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor's Walk.
What caused him irritation in his sitting posture?
Inhibitory pressure of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two
articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and
inelastic to alterations of mass by expansion.
How was the irritation allayed?
He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible
stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He unbuttoned
successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt and vest along
the medial line of irregular incrispated black hair extending in triangular
convergence from the pelvic basin over the circumference of the abdomen and
umbilicular fossicle along the medial line of nodes to the intersection of
the sixth pectoral vertebr&Aelig;, thence produced both ways at right angles
and terminating in circles described about two equidistant points, right and
left, on the summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively
each of six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which
one incomplete.
What involuntary actions followed?
He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice
in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a sting
inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee. He scratched
imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of prurition, various
points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly abluted skin. He inserted
his left hand into the left lower pocket of his waistcoat and extracted and
replaced a silver coin (1 shilling), placed there (presumably) on the
occasion (17 October 1903) of the interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney
Parade.
Compile the budget for 16 June 1904.
#. s. d. #. s. d.
1 Pork kidney 0. 0. 3 Cash in hand 0.4.9
2 Copy Freeman's Journal 0.0.2 Commission recd. Freeman's Journal
1 Bath and gratification 0. 1.6 2.7.6
Tramfare 0. 0. 2 Loan (Stephen Dedalus) 1.7.0
2 In Memoriam Patrick
Dignam 0.5.0
2 Banbury cakes 0.0.1
2 Lunch 0.0.7
1 Rental fee for book 0.1.0
2 Packet notepaper and
envelopes 0.0.2
2 Dinner and gratification 0.2.0
2 Postal order and stamp 0.2.8
Tramfare 0.0.1
1 Pig's Foot 0.0.4
1 Sheep's Trotter 0.0.3
2 Cake Fry's plain choco
late 0.0.
1 Square soda bread 0.0.4
1 Coffee and bun 0.0.4
Loan (Stephen Dedalus)
refunded 2.7.0
BALANCE 0.27.5
#.2.29. 3 #.2.19.3
Did the process of divestiture continue?
Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended
his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient
points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in
several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots,
unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the
second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the fore
part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised his
right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, took off
his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin of the seat of
his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding part of the great
toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of
the quick, then with satisfaction threw away the lacerated unguinal
fragment.
Why with satisfaction?
Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other
unguinal fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs
Ellis's juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief
genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation.
In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions
now coalesced?
Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English,
or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of
acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation #42), of grazing
turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage drive nor,
on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa, described as Rus in
Urbe or Qui si Sana, but to purchase by private treaty in fee simple a
thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse of southerly aspect,
surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, connected with the earth, with
porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia creeper), halldoor, olive
green, with smart carriage finish and neat doorbrasses, stucco front with
gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, if possible, upon a gentle eminence
with agreeable prospect from balcony with stone pillar parapet over
unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent pastures and standing in 5 or 6
acres of its own ground, at such a distance from the nearest public
thoroughfare as to render its houselights visible at night above and through
a quickset hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not
less than 1 statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time
limit of not more than 5 minutes from tram or train line (e.g., Dundrum,
south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to
resemble the terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical
subjects), the premises to be held under feefarmgrant, lease 999 years, the
message to consist of 1 drawingroom with baywindow (2 lancets), thermometer
affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms, 2 servants rooms, tiled kitchen with
close range and scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed
oak sectional bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and New
century Dictionary, transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons,
dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone
receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream
ground and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with
massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed
timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart,
comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby plush
with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen and
cuspidors (club style, rich wine-coloured leather, gloss renewable with a
minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and pyramidically
prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with a fingertame parrot
(expurgated language), embossed mural paper at 10/-per dozen with transverse
swags of carmine floral design and top crown frieze, staircase, three
continuous flights at successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained
oak, treads and risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with stepped-up panel
dado, dressed with camphorated wax, bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining
and shower: water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong
window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod brace, armrests, footstool
and artistic oleograph on inner face of door: ditto, plain: servant's
apartments with separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general
and betweenmaid (salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of #2, with
comprehensive fidelity insurance annual bonus (#1), and retiring allowance
(based on the 65 system) after 30 years service), pantry, buttery, larder,
refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still and
sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if entertained to dinner
(evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply throughout.
What additional attractions might the grounds contain?
As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse
with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner a rockery with
waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval flowerbeds in
rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of scarlet and chrome
tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet William, sweat pea, lily
of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James W. Mackey (Limited)
(wholesale and retail) seed and bulb merchant and nurseryman, agent for
chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper), an orchard, kitchen garden
and vinery, protected against illegal trespassers by glasstopped mural
enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various inventoried implements.
As?
Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone,
clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth rake,
washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and
so on.
What improvements might be subsequently introduced?
A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2
hammocks (lady's and gentleman's), a sundial shaded and sheltered by
laburnum or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle
gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious waterbutt, a
lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with hydraulic
hose.
What facilities of transit were desirable?
When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their
respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound velocipedes,
a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar attached, or
draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart phaeton with good
working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14h).
What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence?
Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville.
Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville?
In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful
garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned young
firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling a weedladen
wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the scent of newmown
hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving longevity.
What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible?
Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative
to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the
celestial constellations.
What lighter recreations?
Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways,
ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and
unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge
anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation),
vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with inspection of
sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers' fires of smoking
peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor discussion in tepid security of
unsolved historical and criminal problems: lecture of unexpurgated exotic
erotic masterpieces: house carpentry with toolbox containing hammer, awl,
nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers, bullnose plane and turnscrew.
Might he become a gentleman farmer of field produce and live stock?
Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and
requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip pulper
etc.
What would be his civic functions and social status among the county
families and landed gentry?
Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that
of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his
career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest and
coat of arms and appropriate classical motto (Semper paratus), duly recorded
in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C., K. P., L. L. D.
honoris cause, Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in court and fashionable
intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left Kingstown for England).
What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity?
A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: the
dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, incessantly
rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality of unbiassed
homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants of the widest
possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing with confiscation
of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted
power in the land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be
the strict maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though
not of all simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a
preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the
upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant)
against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of
bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of
kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund
instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international
animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant
violators of domestic connubiality.
Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth.
To master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his
disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his
father Rudolf Virag, later Rudolph Bloom, had been converted from the
Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting
Christianity among the Jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of Roman
catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in 1888. To
Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882 during a juvenile friendship
(terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he had advocated
during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of colonial (e.g.
Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin,
expounded in The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species. In 1885 he had
publicly expressed his adherence to the collective and national economic
programme advocated by James Fintan Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel,
J. F. X. O'Brien and others, the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the
constitutional agitation of Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City),
the programme of peace, retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone
(M. P. for Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions,
had climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree on
Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February 1888) into the capital
of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000, divided into 120 trade
corporations, bearing 2,000 torches in escort of the marquess of Ripon and
John Morley.
How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence?
As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised
Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum of #60
per annum, being 116th of an assured income, derived from giltedged
securities, representing at 5% simple interest on capital of #1,200
(estimate of price at 20 years purchase) of which 1/3rd to be paid on
acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. #800 plus 2
1/2% interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual instalments
until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for purchase within a
period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of #64, headrent included,
the titledeeds to remain in possession of the lender or lenders with a
saving clause envisaging forced sale, foreclosure and mutual compensation in
the event of protracted failure to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the
messuage to become the absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry
of the period of years stipulated.
What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate
purchase?
A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash
system the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase) of 1
or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1 at 3 hr. 8
m. p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time) the message being received and available
for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink time). The unexpected
discovery of an object of great monetary value: precious stone, valuable
adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7-shilling, mauve, imperforate,
Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue paper perforate, Great Britain, 1866: 1
franc, stone, official, rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxembourg, 1878):
antique dynastical ring, unique relic in unusual repositories or by unusual
means: from the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the
carbonised remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam,
jetsam, lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl).
A Spanish prisoner's donation of a distant treasure of valuables or specie
or bullion lodged with a solvent banking corporation 100 years previously at
5% compound interest of the collective worth of #5,000,000 stg (five million
pounds sterling). A contract with an inconsiderate contractee for the
delivery of 32 consignments of some given commodity in consideration of cash
payment on delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d. to be increased constantly
in the geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d., 1/2d., 1d., 2d., 4d., 8d., 1s.
4d., 2s. 8d. to 32 terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of
probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular
problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium #1,000,000
sterling.
Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels?
The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the
prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.15 by the
cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation. The
utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement
possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the first,
vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third, every normal
human being of average vitality and appetite producing annually, cancelling
byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed animal and vegetable
diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035 the total population of Ireland
according to the census returns of 1901.
Were there schemes of wider scope?
A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour
commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power), obtained
by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at head of water at
Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main streams for the
economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity. A scheme to enclose
the peninsular delta of the North Bull at Dollymount and erect on the space
of the foreland, used for golf links and rifle ranges, an asphalted
esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting galleries, hotels, boardinghouses,
readingrooms, establishments for mixed bathing. A scheme for the use of
dogvans and goatvans for the delivery of early morning milk. A scheme for
the development of Irish tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of
petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between island
bridge and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure
steamers for coastwise navigation (10/- per person per day, guide
(trilingual) included). A scheme for the repristination of passenger and
goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed from weedbeds. A scheme to
connect by tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road and Prussia
street) with the quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East Wall), parallel with
the Link line railway laid (in conjunction with the Great Southern and
Western railway line) between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus
of Midland Great Western railway 43 to 45 North Wall, in proximity to the
terminal stations or Dublin branches of Great Central Railway, Midland
Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, Lancashire
Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and Glasgow Steam Packet Company, Glasgow
Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet Company (Laird line), British and Irish
Steam Packet Company, Dublin and Morecambe Steamers, London and North
Western Railway Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and
transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship owners, agents for
steamers from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland
and for animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the Dublin
United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers' fees.
Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes
become a natural and necessary apodosis?
Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of gift
and transfer vouchers during donor's lifetime or by bequest after donor's
painless extinction, of eminent financiery (Blum Pasha, Rothschild,
Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller) possessing fortunes in
6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and joining capital with
opportunity the thing required was done.
What eventually would render him independent of such wealth?
The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore.
For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation?
It was one or his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic
relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil
recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for the
night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and renovated
vitality.
His justifications?
As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human
life at least 2/7ths, viz., 20 years passed in sleep. As a philosopher he
knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an infinitesimal part
of any person's desires has been realised. As a physiologist he believed in
the artificial placation of malignant agencies chiefly operative during
somnolence.
What did he fear?
The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of
the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence situated
in the cerebral convolutions.
What were habitually his final meditations?
Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in
wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded, reduced
to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span of casual
vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life.
What did the first drawer unlocked contain?
A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent)
Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings marked Papli, which
showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in profile, the
trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot: 2 fading
photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud Branscombe, actress
and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing on it a pictorial
representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah, the date Xmas 1892,
the name of the senders, from Mr and Mrs M. Comerford, the versicle: May
this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome glee: a butt of red
partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the stores department of Messrs
Hely's, Ltd., 89, 90 and 91 Dame street: a box containing the remainder of a
gross of gilt `J' pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm: an
old sandglass which rolled containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy
(never unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the
consequences of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule
bill of 1886 (never passed into law): a bazaar ticket No 2004, of S. Kevin's
Charity Fair, price 6d. 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small em
monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of
interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature
with flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo brooch, property of Ellen
Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry
Flower, c/o P. O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o P. O.
Dolphin's Barn: the transliterated name and address of the addresser of the
3 letters in reserved alphabetic boustrophedontic punctated quadrilinear
cryptogram (vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI.UU. OX/W. OKS. MH/Y. IM: a press
cutting from an English weekly periodical Modern Society, subject corporal
chastisement in girls' schools: a pink ribbon which had festooned an Easter
egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled rubber preservatives with reserve
pockets, purchased by post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W.C.:
1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid envelopes and faintruled notepaper, watermarked,
now reduced by 3: some assorted Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the
Royal and Privileged Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2
erotic photocards showing: a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere
presentation, superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation,
inferior position): b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes
abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by post
from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W.C.: a press cutting of recipe
for renovation of old tan boots: a 1d. adhesive stamp, lavender, of the
reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of measurements of Leopold Bloom compiled
before, during and after 2 months of consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley's
pulley exerciser (men's 15/-, athlete's 20/-) viz., chest 28 in. and 29 1/2
in., biceps 9 in. and 10 in., forearm 8 1/2 and 9 in., thigh 10 in. and 12
in., calf 11 in. and 12 in.: 1 prospectus of the Wonderworker, the world's
greatest remedy for rectal complaints direct from Wonderworker, Coventry
House, South Place, London E. C., addressed to Mrs L. Bloom with brief
accompanying note commencing: Dear Madam.
Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for
this thaumaturgic remedy.
It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking
wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant relief in
discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural action, an initial
outlay of 7/6 making anew man of you and life worth living. Ladies find
Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise when they note
delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring water on a sultry
summer's day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen friends, lasts a
lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker.
Were there testimonials?
Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city
man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar.
How did absentminded beggar's concluding testimonial conclude?
What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers
during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been!
What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects?
A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.)
from Martha Clifford (find M. C.).
What pleasant reflection accompanied this action?
The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic
face, form and address had been favourably received during the course of the
preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie Powell); a nurse,
Miss Calian (Christian name unknown), a maid, Gertrude (Gerty, family name
unknown).
What possibility suggested itself?
The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the most
immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in the
company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately mercenary,
variously instructed, a lady by origin.
What did the and drawer contain?
Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment
assurance policy of #500 in the Scottish Widows' Assurance Society
intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 years as with
profit policy of #430, #462--10--0 and #500 at 60 years or death, 65 years
or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy (paidup) of
#299--10--0 together with cash payment of #133--10--0, at option: a bank
passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch showing statement
of a/c for half year ending 31 December 1903, balance in depositor's favour:
#18--14--6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings and six pence, sterling),
net personalty: certificate of possession of #900 Canadian 4% (inscribed)
government stock (free of stamp duty): dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries'
(Glasnevin) Committee, relative to a graveplot purchased: a local press
cutting concerning change of name by deedpoll.
Quote the textual terms of this notice.
I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin,
formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice that I
have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all times to be
known by the name of Rudolph Bloom.
What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the
2nd drawer?
An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolph Virag and his father Leopold
Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their
(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar, Hungary. An
ancient hagadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex spectacles
inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual prayers for
Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen's Hotel, Ennis, proprietor,
Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed To my Dear Son Leopold.
What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words
evoke?
Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to
be... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all
for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always... of
me... das Herr... Gott... dein...
What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive
melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom?
An old man widower, unkempt hair, in bed, with head covered, sighing:
an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses of grains and
scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the face in death of a
septuagenarian suicide by poison.
Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse?
Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain
beliefs and practices.
As?
The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal, the
hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete
mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of male infants:
the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the ineffability of the
tetragrammaron: the sanctity of the sabbath.
How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him?
Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than
other beliefs and practices now appeared.
What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?
Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a
retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between
Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely, with
statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresa,
empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having taken
care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom
(aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant consultation of a
geographical map of Europe (political) and by suggestions for the
establishment of affiliated business premises in the various centres
mentioned.
Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these
migrations in narrator and listener?
In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of
narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of the
action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.
What idiosyncrasies of the narrator were concomitant product$ of
amnesia?
Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat.
Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an
inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food by
means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper.
What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent?
The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon
repletion.
What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences?
The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the
possession of scrip.
Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which
these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values to a
negligible negative irrational unreal quantity.
Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor
hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and doubtful
debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy: that of the
fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. in the #,
sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, insinuating
sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated bailiff's man,
marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock
seated on bench of public park under discarded perforated umbrella.
Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal Hospital), Kilmainham, the
inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but respectable men permanently
disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of misery: the aged impotent
disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper.
With which attendant indignities?
The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the
contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the
simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate
unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed vegetable
missiles, worth little or nothing or less than nothing.
By what could such a situation be precluded?
By decease (change of state), by departure (change of place).
Which preferably?
The latter, by the line of least resistance.
What considerations rendered it not entirely undesirable?
Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects.
The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity to
counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest.
What considerations rendered it not irrational?
The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which
being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if now
disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, which was
absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting parties, which was
impossible.
What considerations rendered it desirable?
The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in
special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and hachures.
In Ireland?
The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the pastures of
royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island shipyard in
Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.
Abroad?
Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for
Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame street,
Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate of Damascus,
goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique birthplace of
Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues, nude Grecian divinities),
the Wall street money market (which controlled international finance), the
Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where O'Hara of the camerons had slain
the bull), Niagara (over which no human being had passed with impunity), the
land of the Eskimos (eaters of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from
which no traveller returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die),
the Dead Sea.
Under what guidance, following what signs?
At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of
intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Major produced and
divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the rightangled triangle
formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the line alpha delta of Ursa
Major. On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed in imperfect
varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice of the
imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating female, a
pillar of the cloud by day.
What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the
departed?
#5 reward lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street,
missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy),
height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since grown
a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for
information leading to his discovery.
What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and
nonentity?
Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman.
What tributes his?
Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph
immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman.
Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?
Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his
cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic
planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space,
passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere
imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey the
summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of the
Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the
constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination
return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark
crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial resources (by supposition)
surpassing those of Rothschild or of the silver King.
What would render such return irrational?
An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through
reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible
time.
What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable?
The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity of
the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares, rendering
perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the proximity of an
occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of warmth (human)
tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and rendering desirable:
the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, desired desire.
What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an
unoccupied bed?
The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human
(mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation of
matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in the case
of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between the spring
mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit section).
What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of
accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate?
The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering): intestinal congestion
and premeditative defecation (holy of holies): the bath (rite of John): the
funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of Alexander Keyes (Urim and
Thummin): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchizedek): the visit to museum
and national library (holy place): the bookhunt along Bedford row,
Merchants' Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah): the music in the Ormond
Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a truculent troglodyte in Bernard
Kiernan's premises (holocaust): a blank period of time including a cardrive,
a visit to a house of mourning, a leavetaking (wilderness): the eroticism
produced by feminine exhibitionism (rite of Onan): the prolonged delivery of
Mrs Mina Purefoy (heave offering): the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs
Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone street, lower, and subsequent brawl and chance medley
in Beaver street (Armageddon): nocturnal perambulation to and from the
cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge (atonement).
What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to
conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend?
The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by
the insentient material of a strainveined timber table.
What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering
multicoloured multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily apprehending,
not comprehend?
Who was M'Intosh?
What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30
years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the extinction of
artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend?
Where was Moses when the candle went out?
What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, silently,
successively, enumerate?
A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement, to obtain
a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook, Robertson
and Co, 5 Dame street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing lane, London, E. C.), to
certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in the case of
Hellenic female divinities, to obtain admission (gratuitous or paid) to the
performance of Leah by Mrs Bandman Palmer at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48,
49, South King street.
What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall?
The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin's Barn.
What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by the hypothesis?
Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens
street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines meeting at
infinity, if produced: along parallel lines, reproduced from infinity, with
constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway,
Amiens street, returning.
What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were
perceived by him?
A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies' hose, a pair of new
violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies' drawers of India mull, cut on
generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti's Turkish
cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded
curvilinear, a camisole of baptiste with thin lace border, an accordion
underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed
irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened, having
capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its fore side in
white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy).
What impersonal objects were perceived?
A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne
cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady's black straw hat. Orangekeyed
ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware and ironmongery
manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore street, disposed irregularly on the washstand
and floor, and consisting of basin, soapdish and brushtray (on the
washstand, together), pitcher and night article (on the floor, separate).
Bloom's acts?
He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining
articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the bed a
folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the proper
apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to the foot of
the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the bed.
How?
With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or
not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress being
old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous under
stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of lust or adder:
lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of conception and of
birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of marriage, of sleep and
of death.
What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter?
New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form,
female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, some
flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.
If he had smiled why would he have smiled?
To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to
enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the
first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last,
only and alone, whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a
series originating In and repeated to infinity.
What preceding series?
Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell
d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father
Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, Maggot
O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of Dublin),
Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown gentleman
in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser)
Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady,
Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office,
Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to nolast term.
What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and
late occupant of the bed?
Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a
billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a boaster).
Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal
proportion and commercial ability?
Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding
members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably transmitted
first with alarm, then with understanding, then with desire, finally with
fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene comprehension and
apprehension.
With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections
affected?
Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity.
Envy?
Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the
superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic piston
and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of a constant
but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental female organism,
passive but not obtuse.
Jealousy?
Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately
the agent and reagent of attraction. Because action between agents and
reagents at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of increase and
decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial reentrance. Because
the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of attraction produced, if
desired, a fluctuation of pleasure.
Abnegation?
In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the
establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden Quay,
b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and
reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of
ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d)
extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, e)
an imminent provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net proceeds
divided.
Equanimity?
As natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or
understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in accordance
with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar similarity. As not as
calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the planet in consequence of
collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than theft, highway
robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money under false
pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public money, betrayal
of public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel,
blackmail, contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny on the high
seas, trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice,
desertion from armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury,
intelligence with the king's enemies, impersonation, criminal assault,
manslaughter, wilful and premeditated murder. As not more abnormal than all
other altered processes of adaptation to altered conditions of existence,
resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism and its
attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged
inclinations, significant disease. As more than inevitable, irreparable.
Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity?
>From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but
outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially
violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the
adulterously violated.
What retribution, if any?
Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by
combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic
bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witness), not yet. Suit for
damages by legal influence or simulation of assault with evidence of
injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly. If any, positively,
connivance, introduction of emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency
of publicity: moral, a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation,
alienation, humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from the
other, protecting separator from both.
By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void
incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments?
The preordained frangibility of the hymen, the presupposed
intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion
between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the
self abbreviating relaxation of the thing done: the fallaciously inferred
debility of the female, the muscularity of the male: the variations of
ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no
alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine
subject, monosyllabic onomatopic transitive verb with direct feminine
object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite
proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb and
quasimonosyllabic onomatopic past participle with complementary
masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators
by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the
futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled
virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.
In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and
reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge?
Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial
hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored (the
land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of Greece,
the land of promise) of adipose posterior female hemispheres, redolent of
milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and seminal warmth, reminiscent of
secular families of curves of amplitude, insusceptible of moods of
impression or of contrarieties of expression, expressive of mute immutable
mature animality.
The visible signs of antesatisfaction?
An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a
tentative revelation; a silent contemplation.
Then?
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each
plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure
prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a
solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.
What followed this silent action?
Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation,
catechetical interrogation.
With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation?
Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between
Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in the
vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, Limited, 8, 9
and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and response thereto
caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), surname unknown. Positive:
he included mention of a performance by Mrs Bandman Palmer of Leah at the
Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street, an invitation to supper at
Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel, 35, 36, and 37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of
peccaminous pornographical tendency entitled Sweets of Sin, anonymous,
author a gentleman of fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely
calculated movement in the course of postcenal gymnastic display, the victim
(since completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author,
eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an
aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness,
the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and
gymnastic flexibility.
Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications?
Absolutely.
Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration?
Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.
What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were
perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the course
of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration?
By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been
celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8
September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with
female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated on
the 10 September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse, with
ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last taken
place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29 December
1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894, aged 11 days,
there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days during which
carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation of semen within
the natural female organ. By the narrator a limitation of activity, mental
and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental intercourse between himself and
the listener had not taken place since the consummation of puberty,
indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the female issue of narrator and
listener, 15 September 1903, there remained a period of 9 months and 1 day
during which in consequence of a preestablished natural comprehension in
incomprehension between the consummated females (listener and issue),
complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed.
How?
By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine
destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration for
which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences, projected or
effected.
What moved visibly above the listener's and the narrator's invisible
thoughts?
The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of
concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow.
In what directions did listener and narrator lie?
Listener, S. E. by E.; Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel of
latitude, N. and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45Ø to the
terrestrial equator.
In what state of rest or motion?
At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being
each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the
proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of
neverchanging space.
In what posture?
Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right leg
extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the attitude
of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator: reclined
laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the indexfinger and thumb
of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in the attitude
depicted on a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the childman weary,
the manchild in the womb.
Womb? Weary?
He rests. He has travelled.
With?
Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and
Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad
the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer
and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the Quailer and
Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.
When?
Going to a dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc's
auk's egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad
the Brightdayler.
Where?
Ulysses 18: Penelope
YES BECAUSE HE NEVER DID A THING LIKE THAT BEFORE AS ASK To get his
breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City arms hotel when he
used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to
make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he
had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for
herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d
for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old
chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us
have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort
down on bathing-suits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear I
suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope I'll
never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was
a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and
Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog
smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially
then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and
beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got
anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go into
a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into
him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the
carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like
the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so
weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose
bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south
circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf
Mountain the day I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst
old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get
into a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying
on account of her to never see thy face again though he looked more like a
man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate
bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns
afraid hed get blood poisoning but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see
what attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble
they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its not or
hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those night
women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he made up a
pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me who did I meet ah yes I
met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see that big babbyface I
saw him and he not long married flirting with a young girl at Pooles
Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite
conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well
done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever
met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in
bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with
somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes
because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I
came into the front room for the matches to show him Dignams death in the
paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper
pretending to be thinking about business so very probably that was it to
somebody who thinks she has a softy in him because all men get a bit like
that at his age especially getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle
any money she can out of him no fool like an old fool and then the usual
kissing my bottom was to hide it not that I care two straws who he does it
with or knew before that way though Id like to find out so long as I dont
have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary we
had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough
to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice I had a
suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his
coat without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was
drinking water I woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of course
ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table on Christmas
if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing my potatoes and the
oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see her aunt if you please common robbery
so it was but I was sure he had something on with that one it takes me to
find out a thing like that he said you have no proof it was her proof O yes
her aunt was very fond of oysters but I told her what I thought of her
suggesting me to go out to be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy
on them the garters I found in her room the Friday she was out that was
enough for me a little bit too much I saw too that her face swelled up on
her with temper when I gave her her weeks notice better do without them
altogether do out the rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and
throwing out the dirt I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the
house I couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced
liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the
place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he
couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the
last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a
great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another I
just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back singing
the young May Moon shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me
hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to the Gaiety though Im
not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes change in a
way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat unless] paid some
nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me
Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my garters
the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what
boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the
thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that and the other
with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some
Dean or Bishop was sitting beside me in the jews Temples gardens when I was
knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and so on
about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging him making
him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of
who is it tell me his name who tell me who the German Emperor is it yes
imagine Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me
what he never will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply
ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it till
( he comes and then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your lips pale
anyhow its done now once and for all with all the talk of the world about it
people make its only the first time after that its just the ordinary do it
and think no more about it why cant you kiss a man without going and
marrying him first you sometimes love to wildly when you feel that way so
nice all over you you cant help yourself I wish some man or other would take
me sometime when hes there and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a
kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that
confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and
what harm if he did where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but
whereabouts on your person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes
rather high up was it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom
right out and have done with it what has that got to do with it and did you
whatever way he put it I forget no father and I always think of the real
father what did he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he
had a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither
would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know me
in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never turn
or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost for a
woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them Id like to
be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense off him like
the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if youre married hes too
careful about himself then give something to H H the pope for a penance I
wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didnt like his slapping me
behind going away so familiarly in the hall though I laughed Im not a horse
or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of his father I wonder is he awake
thinking of me or dreaming am I in it who gave him that flower he said he
bought he smelt of some kind of drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the
sweety kind of paste they stick their bills up with some liquor Id like to
sip those richlooking green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor
johnnies drink with the opera hats I tasted one with my finger dipped out of
that American that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he
could do to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time we took the
port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely and
tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped straight
into bed till that thunder woke me up as if the world was coming to an end
God be merciful to us I thought the heavens were coming down about us to
punish when I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful
thunderbolts in Gibraltar and they come and tell you theres no God what
could you do if it was running and rushing about nothing only make an act of
contrition the candle I lit that evening in Whitefriars street chapel for
the month of May see it brought its luck though hed scoff if he heard
because he never goes to church mass or meeting he says your soul you have
no soul inside only grey matter because he doesnt know what it is to have
one yes when I lit the lamp yes because he must have come 3 or 4 times with
that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or
whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not
so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours
dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick
crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen
he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one
the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep
after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us
like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all they want out of
you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes
still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull
it out and do it on me considering how big it is so much the better in case
any of it wasnt washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me
nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if
someone gave them a touch of it themselves theyd know what I went through
with Milly nobody would believe cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys
husband give us a swing out of your whiskers filling her up with a child or
twins once a year as regular as the clock always with a smell of children
off her the one they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock
of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a black the last time I was there a
squad of them falling over one another and bawling you couldnt hear your ear
supposed to be healthy not satisfied till they have us swollen out like
elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked having another not off him
though still if he was married I m sure hed have a fine strong child but I
dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose
it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan
set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good I
know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene he was dancing and
sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming and then he
wanted to ram it down my neck on account of not liking to see her a
wallflower that was why we had the standup row over politics he began it not
me when he said about Our Lord being a carpenter at last he made me cry of
course a woman is so sensitive about everything I was fuming with myself
after for giving in only for I knew he was gone on me and the first
socialist he said He was he annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a
temper still he knows a lot of mixed up things especially about the body and
the insides I often wanted to study up that myself what we have inside us in
that family physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room
was crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had on a coolness with
her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he
asked who are you going to and I aid over to Floey and he made me the
present of lord Byrons poems and the three pairs of gloves so that finished
that I could quite easily get him to make it up any time I know how Id even
supposing he got in with her again and was going out to see her somewhere Id
know if he refused to eat the onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck
down the collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going
out 1 kiss then would send them all spinning however alright well seen then
let him go to her she of course would only be too delighted to pretend shes
mad in love with him that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and ask
her do you love him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool me but
he might imagine he was and make a declaration with his plabbery kind of a
manner to her like he did to me though I had the devils own job to get it
out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could hold in and wasnt
to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me too the night in the
kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I want to say to you
only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper with my hands and arms
full of pasty flour in any case I let out too much the night before talking
of dreams so I didnt want to let him know more than was good for him she
used to be always embracing me Josie whenever he was there meaning him of
course glauming me over and when I said I washed up and down as far as
possible asking me did you wash possible the women are always egging on to
that putting it on thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a
bit putting on the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he
is what spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome
at that time trying to look like lord Byron I said I liked though he was too
beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged afterwards
though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of laughing with the
giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling one after another with
the mass of hair I had youre always in great humour she said yes because it
grigged her because she knew what it meant because I used to tell her a good
bit of what went on between us not all but just enough to make her mouth
water but that wasnt my fault she didnt darken the door much after we were
married I wonder what shes got like now after living with that dotty husband
of hers she had her face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time
I saw her she must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the
moment she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk
about him to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes he
used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him just
imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that that might murder you
any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes mad Poldy
anyway whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in
wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes off his
hat when he comes up in the street like that and now hes going about in his
slippers to look for #10000 for a postcard up up O Sweetheart May wouldnt a
thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction actually too stupid even
to take his boots off now what could you make of a man like that Id rather
die 20 times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find
another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep
with me yes and he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs
Maybrick that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other
man yet it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do
a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you
mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them
for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on without
us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they
call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek leave us as wise as
we were before she must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run
the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what
could she do besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely
are they
theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he
noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C with
Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both ordered 2
teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his two old maids of
sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was what do I care with
it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he made me buy takes
you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always with some
brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede gloves
on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he
wanted me to put it in the Irish Times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C
Dame street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet
going out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back and I
went there for tea 2 days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that
excite him because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first
he meant the shoes that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that
if I only had a ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick
him for one and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him
spend once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so
cold and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire
wasnt black out when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the
hearthrug in Lombard street well and another time it was my muddy boots hed
like me to walk in all the horses dung I could find but of course hes not
natural like the rest of the world that I what did he say I could give 9
points in 10 to Katty Lanner and beat her what does that mean I asked him I
forget what he said because the stoppress edition just passed and the man
with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so polite I think I saw his
face before somewhere I noticed him when I was tasting the butter so I took
my time Bartell dArcy too that he used to make fun of when he commenced
kissing me on the choir stairs after I sang Gounods Ave Maria what are we
waiting for O my heart kiss me straight on the brow and part which is my
brown part he was pretty hot for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was
always raving about if you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth
singing then he said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that
I dont see anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day
not now and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very
place too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks
nothing can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till
we were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was 10
times worse himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off my
drawers that was the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed me in
the eye of my glove and I had to take it off asking me questions is it
permitted to inquire the shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it as if I
forgot it to think of me when I saw him slip it into his pocket of course
hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at
those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to
their navels even when Milly and I were out with him at the open air fete
that one in the cream muslin standing right against the sun so he could see
every atom she had on when he saw me from behind following in the rain I saw
him before he saw me however standing at the corner of the Harolds cross
road with a new raincoat on him with the muffler in the Zingari colours to
show off his complexion-and the brown hat looking slyboots as usual what was
he doing there where hed no business they can go and get whatever they like
from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions
but they want to know where were you where are you going I could feel him
coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been keeping away
from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I half turned and
stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly
watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for the rain anything
for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers the whole blessed
time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll to carry about in his
waistcoat pocket O Maria santissima he did look a big fool dreeping in the
rain splendid set of teeth he had made me hungry to look at them and
beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with sunray pleats
that there was nobody he Said hed kneel down in the wet if I didnt so
persevering he would too and ruin his new raincoat you never know what freak
theyd take alone with you theyre so savage for it if anyone was passing so I
lifted them a bit and touched his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner
after with my ring hand to keep him from doing worse where it was too public
I was dying to find out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all
over they want to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out if it
and father waiting all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my
purse in the butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he
wrote me that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face
to any woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we
met asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw I
wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henry Doyle he was always
breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky man and if I
knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake dont understand
you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course it used to be written up
with a picture of a womans on that wall in Gibraltar with that word I
couldnt find anywhere only for children seeing it too young then writing a
letter every morning sometimes twice a day I liked the way he made love then
he knew the way to take a woman when he sent me the 8 big poppies because
mine was the 8th then I wrote the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn
I couldnt describe it simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he
never knew how to embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he
said at the same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the
door you think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or
the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface
Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after dinner
all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me professor I had
to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his way it was
impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you have to peep
out through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought it was a putoff
first him sending the port and the peaches first and I was just beginning to
yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a fool of me when I knew his
tattarrattat at the door he must have been a bit late because it was 1/4
after 3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls coming from school I never know the
time even that watch he gave me never seems to go properly Id want to get it
looked after when I threw the penny to that lame sailor for England home and
beauty when I was whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even
put on my clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were
to go to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary
the 27th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel
were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt tell
him to stop and not bother me with him in the next room or perhaps some
protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the wall then he wouldnt
believe next day we didnt do something its all very well a husband but you
cant fool a lover after me telling him we never did anything of course he
didnt believe me no its better hes going where he is besides something
always happens with him the time going to the Mallow Concert at Maryborough
ordering boiling soup for the two of us then the bell rang out he walks down
the platform with the soup splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he
the nerve and the waiter after him making a holy show of us screeching and
confusion for the engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the
two gentlemen in the 3rd class Carriage said he was quite right so he was
too hes so pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job
he was able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us
on to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting
in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take a 1st
class for me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the guard well O
I suppose therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at us with their eyes as
stupid as ever they can possibly be that was an exceptional man that common
workman that left us alone in the carriage that day going to Howth Id like
to find out something about him 1 or 2 tunnels perhaps then you have to look
out of the window all the nicer then coming back suppose I never came back
what would they say eloped with him that gets you on on the stage the last
concert I sang at where its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall
Clarendon St little chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney
and her like on account of father being in the army and my singing the
absentminded beggar and wearing a brooch for lord Roberts when I had the map
of it all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I
wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to sing in the Stabat Mater by
going around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up
to that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano
lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about with
some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves talking his
usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed me without the
neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffith is he well he doesnt look
it thats all I can say still it must have been him he knew there was a
boycott I hate the mention of politics after the war that Pretoria and
Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner Lieut Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd East
Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely fellow in khaki and just the
right height over me Im sure he was brave too he said I was lovely the
evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock my Irish beauty he was pale with
excitement about going away or wed be seen from the road he couldnt stand
properly and I so hot as I never felt they could have made their peace in
the beginning or old oom Paul and the rest of the old Krugers go and fight
it out between them instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking
men there were with their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have
been so bad I love to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the
Spanish cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay from
Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham battles on
the 15 acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the march past the
10th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O the lancers theyre
grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made his money over selling
the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me a nice present up in Belfast
after what I gave theyve lovely linen up there or one of those nice kimono
things I must buy a mothball like I had before to keep in the drawer with
them it would be exciting going around with him shopping buying those things
in a new city better leave this ring behind want to keep turning and turning
to get it over the knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in
their papers or tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let
them all go and smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of
money and hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I
could find out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when I
looked close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the
expression besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big
hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having to
lie down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way Mrs
Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and stick out
her tongue as far as ever she could and he so quiet and mild with his
tingating either can you ever be up to men the way it takes them lovely
stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish tie and socks with the skyblue
silk things on them hes certainly welloff I know by the cut his clothes have
and his heavy watch but he was like a perfect devil for a few minutes after
he came back with the stop press tearing up the tickets and swearing blazes
because he lost 20 quid he said he lost over that outsider that won and half
he put on for me on account of Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits
that sponger he was making free with me after the Glencree dinner coming
back that long joult over the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor
looking at me with his dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first
noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I
could have picked every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so
tasty and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat
everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver
too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when
I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for money in a
restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to be thankful for
our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be noticed the way the
world is divided in any case if its going to go on I want at least two other
good chemises for one thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he
likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar
never wore them either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her
Manola she didnt make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair
of silkette stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought
them back to Lewers this morning and kick up a row and made that one change
them only not to upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and
ruining the whole thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want
advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved
the one I have but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful
figure line 11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower
back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the
stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from
ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they call
him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a bottle of
hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get anyone to drink
God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or I must do a few
breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it thin
ones are not so much the fashion now garters that much I have the violet
pair I wore today thats all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the
first O no there was the face lotion I finished the last of yesterday that
made my skin like new I told him over and over again get that made up in the
same place and dont forget it God only knows whether he did after all I said
to him Ill know by the bottle anyway if not I suppose Ill only have to wash
in my piss like beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet
I thought it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath
is much finer where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a
pity it isnt all like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about 6/- in
all sure you cant get on in this world without style all going in food and
rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style I always want
to throw a handful of tea into the pot measuring and mincing if I buy a pair
of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes how much were they Ive
no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at
the cleaners 3 whats that for any woman cutting up this old hat and patching
up the other the men wont look at you and women try to walk on you because
they know youve no man then with all the things getting dearer every day for
the 4 years more I have of life up to 35 no Im what am I at all Ill be 33 in
September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than
me I saw her when I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a
lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it
back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street 1st thing I did every
morning to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of
it pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that Mrs Langtry
the Jersey Lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes like the
first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all made the
one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what was she 45
there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what was it all and
an oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind of a tin thing around her
and the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster knife cant be true a thing
like that like some of those books he brings me the works of Master Francois
somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because
her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her a-e as if
any fool wouldnt know what that meant I hate that pretending of all things
with the old blackguards face on him anybody can see its not true and that
Ruby and Fair Tyrants he brought me that twice I remember when I came to
page 50 the part about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord
flagellate sure theres nothing for a woman in that all invention made up
about he drinking the champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over
like the infant Jesus In the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms
sure no woman could have a child that big taken out of her and I thought
first it came out of her side because how could she go to the chamber when
she wanted to and she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H. R. H. he
was in Gibraltar the year I gas born I bet he found lilies there too where
he planted the tree he planted more than that in his time he might have
planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as I am he
ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings he knocks out of
it and go into an office or something where hed get regular pay or a bank
where they could put him up on a throne to count the money all the day of
course he prefers plottering about the house so you cant stir with him any
side whats your programme today I wish hed even smoke a pipe like father to
get the smell of a man or pretending to be mooching about for advertisements
when he could have been in Mr Cuffes still only for what he did then sending
me to try and patch it up I could have got him promoted there to be the
manager he gave me a great mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as the
mischief really and truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old
rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but
theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it
was no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Burns
as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot
of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me
altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and
cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I went
by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes take that
thats alright the one like a wedding cake standing up miles off my head he
said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and
needles about the shop girl in that place in Grafton street I had the
misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with
her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble whats she there
for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he
changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but
I could see him looking very hard at my chest when he stood up to open the
door for me it was nice of him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry
Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time after him
being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I
know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry
and Im sure you were
yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long be
made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow
stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up and
Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him what are
all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the same in case of
twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there like those statues
in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with her hand are they so
beautiful of course compared with what a man looks like with his two bags
full and his other thing hanging down out of him or sticking up at you like
a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a cabbageleaf the woman is beauty of
course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a picture naked to some
rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling
the clothes and strumming in the coffee palace would I be like that bath of
the nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that
dirty bitch in that Spanish photo he has the nymphs used they go about like
that I asked him that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market
or that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue of
the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing standing
out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one side the Queens own they
were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved them theyre always trying to
show it to you every time nearly I passed outside the mens greenhouse near
the Harcourt street station just to try some fellow or other trying to catch
my eye or if it was 1 of the 7 wonders of the world O and the stink of those
rotten places the night coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party
oranges and lemonade to make you feel nice and watery I went into 1 of them
it was so biting cold I couldnt keep it when was that 93 the canal was
frozen yes it was a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent
there to see me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a
picture of it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder
theyre not afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang or something there
and that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some
jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply the
way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of the pan
all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his teeth still
where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent they fearful
trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly enough for two
what was the reason of that he said I could have got a pound a week as a wet
nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate looking student that stopped
in No 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly caught me washing through the
window only for I snapped up the towel to my face that was his studenting
hurt me they used to weaning her till he got doctor Brady to give me the
Belladonna prescription I had to get him to suck them they were so hard he
said it was sweeter and thicker than cows then he wanted to milk me into the
tea well hes beyond everything I declare somebody ought to put him in the
budget if I only could remember the one half of the things and write a book
out of it the works of Master Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin
much an hour he was at them Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big
infant I had at me they want everything in their mouth all the pleasure
those men get out of a woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch
myself I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with and come again
like that I feel all fire inside me or if I could dream it when he made me
spend the 2nd time tickling me behind with his finger I was coming for about
5 minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him after O Lord I wanted to
shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to
look ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way hed take it you
want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank God some of
them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does it and
doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the
tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage brute Thursday
Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait till Monday
frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those
engines have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out
of them all sides like the end of Loves old sweet synnnng the poor men that
have to be out all the night from their wives and families in those roasting
engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half of those old
Freemans and Photo bits leaving things like that lying around hes getting
very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C Ill get him to cut
them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for the next year to get a
few pence for them have him asking wheres last Januarys paper and all those
old overcoats I bundled out of the hall making the place hotter than it is
the rain was lovely just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get
like Gibraltar my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black
as night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant
compared with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with the red
sentries here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the mosquito
nets and the smell of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the
time weltering down on you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs
Stanhope sent me from the B Marche Paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina
she wrote on what she was very nice whats this her other name was just a P C
to tell you I sent the little present have just had a jolly warm bath and
feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give
anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing in old Madrid or Waiting
Concone is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some
word Icouldn't make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing
still theyre lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas we
had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well
now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out regards to
your father also Captain Grove with love yrs affly x x x x x she didnt look
a bit married just like a girl he was years older than her wogger he was
awfully fond of me when he held down the wire with his foot for me to step
over at the bullfight at La Linea when that matador Gomez was given the
bulls ear clothes we have to wear whoever invented them expecting you to
walk up Killiney hill then for example at that picnic all staysed up you
cant do a blessed thing in them in a crowd run or jump out of the way thats
why I was afraid when that other ferocious old Bull began to charge the
banderillos with the sashes and the 2 things in their hats and the brutes of
men shouting bravo toro sure the women were as bad in their nice white
mantillas ripping all the whole insides out of those poor horses I never
heard of such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his heart at me
taking off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became
of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all
through a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had
everything all to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair mine
was thicker than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back when I put
it up and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with the one hand
we were like cousins what age was I then the night of the storm I slept in
her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting in the morning with
the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he got an opportunity at the
band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with father and Captain Grove I
looked up at the church first and then at the windows then down and our eyes
met I felt something go through me like all needles my eyes were dancing I
remember after when I looked at myself in the glass hardly recognised myself
the change I had a splendid skin from the sun and the excitement like a rose
I didn't get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been nice on account of her but
I could have stopped it in time she gave me the Moonstone to read that was
the first I read of Wilkie Collins East Lynne I read and the shadow of
Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by that other woman I lent him
afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he see I wasnt without and Lord
Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford on account of
the name I dont like books with a Molly in them like that one he brought me
about the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting anything she could
cloth and stuff and yards of it this blanket is too heavy on me thats better
I havent even one decent nightdress this thing gets all rolled up under me
besides him and his fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the
heat my shift drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on
the chair when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the
sofa cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night
and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems
centuries of course they never come back and she didnt put her address right
on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were always going away
and we never I remember that day with the waves and the boats with their
high heads rocking and the swell of the ship those Officers uniforms on
shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he was very serious I had
the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing she kissed me six or
seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near it my lips were
taittering when I said goodbye she had a Gorgeous wrap of some special kind
of blue colour on her for the voyage made very peculiarly to one side like
and it was extremely pretty it got as dull as the devil after they went I
was almost planning to run away mad out of it somewhere were never easy
where we are father or aunt or marriage waiting always waiting to guiiiide
him toooo me waiting nor speeeed his flying feet their damn guns bursting
and booming all over the shop especially the Queens birthday and throwing
everything down in all directions if you didnt open the windows when general
Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed
off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood
dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old
reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of
soldiers walking about with messtins smelling the place more than the old
longbearded jews in their jellibees and levites assembly and sound clear and
gunfire for the men to cross the lines and the warden marching with his keys
to lock the gates and the bagpipes and only Captain Groves and father
talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at
Khartoum lighting their pipes for them everytime they went out drunken old
devil with his grog on the windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking
his nose trying to think of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner
but he never forgot himself when I was there sending me out of the room on
some blind excuse paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking of
course but hed do the same to the next woman that came along I supposed he
died of galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a
living soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them
so bored sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab
with the one eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah aheah
all my compriments on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now with the
hands hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a nice fellow
even in the opposite house that medical in Holles street the nurse was after
when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out not a
notion what I meant arent they thick never understand what you say even youd
want to print it up on a big poster for them not even if you shake hands
twice with the left he didnt recognise me either when I half frowned at him
outside Westland row chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id
like to know grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me those
country gougers up in the City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less
than the bulls and cows they were selling the meat and the coalmans bell
that noisy bugger trying to swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of
his hat what a pair of paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken
bottles for a poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his cheques
or some advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him addressed dear
Madam only his letter and the card from Milly this morning see she wrote a
letter to him who did I get the last letter from O Mrs Dwenn now whatever
possessed her to write after so many years to know the recipe I had for
pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since she wrote to say she was married to a
very rich architect if Im to believe all I hear with a villa and eight rooms
her father was an awfully nice man he was near seventy always good humour
well now Miss Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the pyannyer that was a solid
silver coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far
away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody has
their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute pneumonia
well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend more than
mine its a bother having to answer he always tells me the wrong things and
no stops to say like making a speech your sad bereavement sympathy I always
make that mistake and newphew with 2 double yous in I hope hell write me a
longer letter the next time if its a thing he really likes me O thanks be to
the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some
heart up into me youve no chances at all in this place like you used long
ago I wish somebody would write me a love-letter his wasnt much and I told
him he could write what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in Old Madrid silly
women believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose
thered be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life
always something to think about every moment and see it all around you like
a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just
a few words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used to write to the
fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted her after out of
the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few simple words he could
twist how he liked not acting with precipit precipitancy with equal candour
the greatest earthly happiness answer to a gentlemans proposal affirmatively
my goodness theres nothing else its all very fine for them but as for being
a woman as soon as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom
of the ash pit.
Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio
brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her to
hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin to open
it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her in the face
with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her appearance ugly as
she was near 80 or a 100 her face a mass of wrinkles with all her religion
domineering because she never could get over the Atlantic fleet coming in
half the ships of the world and the Union Jack flying with all her
carabineros because 4 drunken English sailors took all the rock from them
and because I didnt run into mass often enough in Santa Maria to please her
with her shawl up on her except when there was a marriage on with all her
miracles of the saints and her black blessed virgin with the silver dress
and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter Sunday morning and when the priest was
going by with the bell bringing the vatican to the dying blessing herself
for his Majestad an admirer he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I
wanted to pick him up when I saw him following me along the Calle Real in
the shop window then he tipped me just in passing I never thought hed write
making an appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it
up in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill instructing to
find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I remember
shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock to
near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my
sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till he
put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my knee up to
him a few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was engaged for fun
to the son of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de la Flora and he
believed that I was to be married to him in 3 years time theres many a true
word spoken in jest there is a flower that bloometh a few things I told him
true about myself just for him to be imagining the Spanish girls he didnt
like I suppose one of them wouldnt have him I got him excited he crushed all
the flowers on my bosom he brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the
perragordas till I taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the
Blackwater but it was too short then the day before he left May yes it was
May when the infant king of Spain was born Im always like that in the spring
Id like a new fellow every year up on the tiptop under the rockgun near
OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning and all about the old
Barbary apes they sent to Clapham without a tail careering all over the show
on each others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock scorpion
robbing the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you went
anear he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open at the front to
encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just beginning
to be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove a wild place I
suppose it must be the highest rock in existence the galleries and casemates
and those frightful rocks and Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or
whatever they call them hanging down and ladders all the mud plotching my
boots Im sure thats the way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when
they die the ships out far like chips that was the Malta boat passing Yes
the sea and the sky you could do what you liked lie there for ever he
caressed them outside they love doing that its the roundness there I was
leaning over him with my white ricestraw hat to take the newness out of it
the left side of my face the best my blouse open for his last day
transparent kind of shirt he had I could see his chest pink he wanted to
touch mine with his for a moment but I wouldn't let him he was awfully put
out first for fear you never know consumption or leave me with a child
embarazada that old servant Ines told me that one drop even if it got into
you at all after I tried with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and
get lost up in me somewhere yes because they once took something down out of
a woman that was up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to
get in there where they come out of youd think they could never get far
enough up and then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes
because theres a wonderful feeling there all the time so tender how did we
finish it off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not
to be excited but I opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my
petticoat I had a skirt opening up the side I tortured the life out of him
first tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssst
awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was shy all the same
I liked him like that morning I made him blush a little when I got over him
that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and drew back the skin it
had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men down the middle on the wrong
side of them Molly darling he called me what was his name Jack Joe Harry
Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant he was rather fair he had a laughing
kind of a voice so I went around to the whatyoucallit everything was
whatyoucallit moustache had he he said hed come back Lord its just like
yesterday to me and if I was married hed do it to me and I promised him yes
faithfully Id let him block me now flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a
Captain or admiral its nearly 20 years if I said firtree cove he would if he
came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes to guess who I might
recognise him hes young still about 40 perhaps hes married some girl on the
black water and is quite changed they all do they havent half the character
a woman has she little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he
ever dreamt of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you
might say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I was a
bit wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from Benady
Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons
screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round by
the old guardhouse and the jews burial place pretending to read out the
Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he didnt
know what to make of me with his peaked cap on that he always wore crooked
as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat that old
Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans higher
functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak caps and the
new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I suppose theyre
called after him I never thought that would be my name Bloom when I used to
write it in print to see how it looked on a visiting card or practising for
the butcher and oblige M Bloom youre looking blooming Josie used to say
after I married him well its better than Breen or Briggs does brig or those
awful names with bottom in them Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a
bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs
Boylan my mother whoever she was might have given me a nicer name the Lord
knows after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running
along Willis road to Europa point twisting in and out all round the other
side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like Millys
little ones now when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at them I
was jumping up at the pepper trees and the white poplars pulling the leaves
off and throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the voyages
those men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least they
might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be drowned
or blown up somewhere I went up windmill hill to the flats that Sunday
morning with Captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the sentry had he
said hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock from the B Marche
Paris and the coral necklace the straits shining I could see over to Morocco
almost the bay of Tangierwhite and the At!as mountain with snow on it and
the straits like a river so clear Harry Molly Darling I was thinking of him
on the sea all the time after at mass when my petticoat began to slip down
at the elevation weeks and weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for
the smell of him there was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar
only that cheap peau despagne that faded and left a stink on you more than
anything else I wanted to give him a memento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh
ring for luck that I gave Gardner going to South Africa where those Boers
killed him with their war and fever but they were well beaten all the same
as if it brought its bad luck with it like an opal or pearl must have been
pure 16 carat gold because it was very heavy I can see his face clean shaven
Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone once in the dear
deaead days beyond recall close my eyes breath my lips forward kiss sad look
eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began I hate that istsbeg comes
loves sweet ssooooooong Ill let that out full when I get in front of the
footlights again Kathleen Kearney and her lot of squealers Miss This Miss
That Miss Theother lot of sparrowfarts skitting around talking about
politics they know as much about as my backside anything in the world to
make themselves someway interesting Irish homemade beauties soldiers
daughter am ay and whose are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon
coach I thought you were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if
ever they got a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like
me on the bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help
their poor head I knew more about men and life when I was 15 than theyll all
know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no man
could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that end not think of it I was
afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father left me in
spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow he always said
theyre so snotty about themselves some of those cads he wasnt a bit like
that he was dead gone on my lips let them get a husband first thats fit to
be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they can excite a swell with
money that can pick and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5
times locked in each others arms or the voice either I could have been a
prima donna only I married him comes loooves old deep down chin back not too
much make it double My Ladys Bower is too long for an encore about the
moated grange at twilight and vaulted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow
from the south that he gave after the choirstairs performance Ill change
that lace on my black dress to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get
that big fan mended make them burst with envy my hole is itching me always
when I think of him I feel I want to I feel some wind in me better go easy
not wake him have him at it again slobbering after washing every bit of
myself back belly and sides if we had even a bath itself or my own room
anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give
us room even to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them
like that a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away
pianissimo eeeeeeee one more song that was a relief wherever you be let your
wind go free who knows if that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was
quite good with the heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that
queerlooking man in the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is
not smoking fill my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the
gas on all night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up
to see why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter
its more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was only
about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes dressing
her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those mountains the
something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with the little bit of a
short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing about in it then make a
race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite used to be there the whole
time watching with the lights out in the summer and I in my skin hopping
around I used to love myself then stripped at the washstand dabbing and
creaming only when it came to the chamber performance I put out the light
too so then there were 2 of us Goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I
hope hes not going to get in with those medicals leading him astray to
imagine hes young again coming in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more
still he had the manners not to wake me what do they find to gabber about
all night squandering money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they
drink water then he starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea Findon
haddy and hot buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like the
king of the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down in his
egg wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling up the
stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then play with
the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she fleas shes
as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their claws I wonder
do they see anything that we cant staring like that when she sits at the top
of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always what a robber too that
lovely fresh plaice I bought I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today
is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like
long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and
Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as far only for the bones I hate
those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for
3 forgetting anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys
loin chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck
the very name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let
him pay and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drive out to
the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses
toenails first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes
with some cold veal and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down at
the bottom of the banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he says
not a bank holiday anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes out for
the day Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him better
the seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat with him after
him at Bray telling the boatmen he knew how to row if anyone asked could he
ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say yes then it came on to get
rough the old thing crookeding about and the weight all down my side telling
me to pull the right reins now pull the left and the tide all swamping in
floods in through through the bottom and his oar slipping out of the
stirrupits a mercy we werent all drowned he can swim of course me no theres
no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in his flannel trousers Id like to
have tattered them down off him before all the people and give him what that
one calls flagellate till he was black and blue do him all the good in the
world only for that longnosed chap I dont know who he is with that other
beauty Burke out of the City Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on
the slip always where he wasnt wanted if there was a row on you vomit a
better face there was no love lost between us thats I consolation I wonder
what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion
some other Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going
about with his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new
white shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that
feather all blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the
smell of the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan
bay round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens
baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall old
chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to climb up to go get at I
suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago besides I dont like being alone
in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have to put up with
it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved in the confusion
musical academy he was going to make on the first floor drawingroom with a
brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go and ruin himself
altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like all the things he told
father he was going to do and me but I saw through him telling me all the
lovely places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the
gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out of some paper of and
mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I liked he was going to
do immediately if not sooner will you be my man will you carry my can he
ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he invents
then leaving us here all day you never know what old beggar at the door for
a crust with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to
prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he was
called in Lloyds Weekly News 20 years in jail then he comes out and murders
an old woman for her mofley imagine his poor wife or mother or whoever she
is such a face youd run miles away from I couldnt rest easy till I bolted
all the doors and windows to make sure but its worse again being locked up
like in a prison or a madhouse they ought to be all shot or the cat of nine
tails a big brute like that that would attack a poor old woman to murder her
in her bed Id cut them off so I would not that hed be much use still better
than nothing the night I was sure I heard burglars in the kitchen and he
went down in his shirt with a candle and a poker as if he was looking for a
mouse as white as a sheet frightened out of his wits making as much noise as
he possibly could for the burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed
the Lord knows still its the feeling especially now with Milly away such an
idea for him to send the girl down there to learn to take photographs on
account of his grandfather instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where
shed have to learn not like me getting all at school only hed do a thing
like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did it Im
certain the way he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn round with
her in the place lately unless I bolted the door first gave me the fidgets
coming in without knocking first when I put the chair against the door just
as I was washing myself there below with the glove get on your nerves then
doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase with two at a time to look
at her if he knew she broke off the hand off that little gimcrack statue
with her roughness and carelessness before she left that I got that little
Italian boy to mend so that you cant see the join for 2 shillings wouldnt
even teem the potatoes for you of course shes right not to ruin her hands I
noticed he was always talking to her lately at the table explaining things
in the paper and she pretending to understand sly of course that comes from
his side of the house and helping her into her coat but if there was
anything wrong with her its me shed tell not him he Cant say I pretend
things can he Im too honest as a matter of fact I suppose he thinks Im
finished out and laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well
see well see now shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons
imitating me whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can
Milly come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her
round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well he
sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to go on
the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I smelt it
off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button I sewed on to
the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I tell you only I
oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a parting and the last
plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes out no matter what they say
her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your blouse is open too low she
says to me the pan calling the kettle blackbottom and I had to tell her no!
to cock her legs up like that on show on the windowsill before all the
people passing they all look at her like me when I was her age of course any
old rag looks well on you then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the
Only Way in the Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people
touching me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of
that touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always
trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the pit at the Gaiety
for Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed
like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me there
and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to get near
two stylish dressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same little game I
recognised him on the moment the face and everything but he didn't remember
me and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the Broadstone going away well
I hope shell get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did when she
was down with the mumps her glands swollen wheres this and wheres that of
course she cant feel anything deep yet I never came properly till I was what
22 or so it went into the wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense
and giggling that Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper
sealed with sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because
he looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and
supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man gives up
his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are few men like that
left its hard to believe in it though unless it really happened to me the
majority of them with not a particle of love in their natures to find two
people like that nowadays full up of each other that would feel the same way
as you do theyre usually a bit foolish in the head his father must have been
a bit queer to go and poison himself after her still poor old man I suppose
he felt lost always making love to my things too the few old rags I have
wanting to put her hair up at 15 my powder too only ruin her skin on her
shes time enough for that all her life after of course shes restless knowing
shes pretty with her lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too
but theres no use going to the fair with the thing answering me like a
fishwoman when I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we met
Mrs Joe Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to see us in
her trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I gave her 2
damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering me
like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of course
contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was a weed in
the tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it and I told her
over and over again not to leave knives crossed like that because she has
nobody to command her as she said herself well if he doesnt correct her
faith I will that was the last time she turned on the teartap I was just
like that myself they darent order me about the place its his fault of
course having the two of us slaving here instead of getting in a woman long
ago am I ever going to have a proper servant again of course then shed see
him coming Id have to let her know or shed revenge it arent they a nuisance
that old Mrs Fleming you have to be walking round after her putting the
things into her hands sneezing and farting into the pots well of course shes
old she cant help it a good job I found that rotten old smelly dishcloth
that got lost behind the dresser I knew there was something and opened the
window to let out the smell bringing in his friends to entertain them like
the night he walked home with a dog if you please that might have been mad
especially Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser with his glasses
up with his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great big hole in his
sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all those prizes
for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing over the
railings if anybody saw him that knew us wonder he didnt tear a big hole in
his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt enough for
anybody hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he right in his
head I ask pity it wasn't washing day my old pair of drawers might have been
hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed ever care with the
ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them he might think was
something else and she never even rendered down the fat I told her and now
shes going such as she was on account of her paralysed husband getting worse
theres always something wrong with them disease or they have to go under an
operation or if its not that its drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt
around again for someone every day I get up theres some new thing on sweet
God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose Ill have
some peace I want to get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that
thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the
poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday
Saturday Sunday wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes
it some men do God knows theres always something wrong with us 5 days every
3 or 4 weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it
came on me like that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael
Gunn gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he
did about insurance for him Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I wouldnt
give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his glasses
and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul thats dead I
suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could all in a swamp
leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it out then to the last
tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry supposed to be a fast play
about adultery that idiot in the gallery hissing the woman adulteress he
shouted I suppose he went and had a woman in the next lane running round all
the back ways after to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo
I bet the cat itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us
or what O patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt
make me pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets the
clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn it and they always want to
see a stain on the bed to know youre a virgin for them all thats troubling
them theyre such fools too you could be a widow or divorced 40 times over a
daub of red ink would do or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy
let me up out of this pooh sweets of sin whoever suggested that business for
women what between clothes and cooking and children this damned old bed too
jingling like the dickens I suppose they could hear us away over the other
side of the park till I suggested to put the quilt on the floor with the
pillow under my bottom I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I
think Ill cut all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a
young girl wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my
clothes on me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy
Ive a holy horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder
was I too heavy sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair
purposely when I took off only my blouse and skirt first in the other room
he was so busy where he oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my breath was
sweet after those kissing comfits easy God I remember one time I could scout
it out straight whistling like a man almost easy O Lord how noisy I hope
theyre bubbles on it for a wad of money from some fellow Ill have to perfume
it in the morning dont forget I bet he never saw a better pair of thighs
than that look how white they are the smoothest place is right there between
this bit here how soft like a peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and
get up on a lovely woman O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey lily
easy O how the waters come down at Lahore
who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I
something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when was it
last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to go to the doctor
only it would be like before I married him when I had that white thing
coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr Collins for
womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I suppose thats
how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round those rich ones
off Stephens green running up to him for every little fiddlefaddle her
vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of course so theyre all right I
wouldnt marry him not if he was the last man in the world besides there
something queer about their children always smelling around those filthy
bitches all sides asking me if what I did had an offensive odour what did he
want me to do but the one thing gold maybe what a question if I smathered it
all over his wrinkly old face for him with all my compriment I suppose hed
know then and could you pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking
about the rock of Gibraltar the way he puts it thats a very nice invention
too by the way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I
can squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles
still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by Millys when
she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the same paying him
for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and asking me had I
frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words they have
omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked sideways I wouldnt trust
him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what else still I liked him
when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so severe his nose
intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O anything no matter who
except an idiot he was clever enough to spot that of course that was all
thinking of him and his mad crazy letters my Precious one everything
connected with your glorious Body everything underlined that comes from it
is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever something he got out of some
nonsensical book that he had me always at myself 4 or 5 times a day
sometimes and I said I hadnt are you sure O yes I said I am quite sure in a
way that shut him up I knew what was coming next only natural weakness it
was he excited me I dont know how the first night ever we met when I was
living in Rehoboth terrace we stood staring at one another for about 10
minutes as if we met somewhere I suppose on account of my being jewess
looking after my mother he used to amuse me the things he said with the half
sloothering smile on him and all the Doyles said he was going to stand for a
member of Parliament O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his blather
about home rule and the land league sending me that long strool of a song
out of the Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O beau pays de la
Touraine that I never even sang once explaining and rigmaroling about
religion and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything naturally then might
he as a great favour the very 1st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton
square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his hands to wash
it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and the gelatine
still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day Id better not make an
all night sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a natural size
so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to do it I suppose
there isnt in all creation another man with the habits he has look at the
way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he without a hard bolster
its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out all my teeth breathing with
his hand on his nose like that Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday
in the museum in Kildare street all yellow in a pinafore lying on his side
on his hand with his ten toes sticking out that he said was a bigger
religion than the jews and Our Lords both put together all over Asia
imitating him ashes always imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at
the foot of the bed too with his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn
this stinking thing anyway wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I
hope the old press doesnt creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a
good time somewhere still she must have given him great value for his money
of course he has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope
theyll have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves up
God help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly bed always
reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it often enough
and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used to admire when I
was a little girl because I told him easy piano O I like my bed God here we
are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in at all Raymond
Terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street and he goes
about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or the frogs
march pretending to help the men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the
City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the
landing always somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after
them always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right
something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr
Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old
lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives
impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman
too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the Freemasons then
well see if the little man he showed me dribbling along in the wet all by
himself round by Coadys lane will give him much consolation that he says is
so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed judging by the sincerity of the
trousers I saw on him wait theres Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the
hour wait 2 oclock well thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming
home at to anybody climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock
him off that little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill
see if he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks
I dont know deceitful men all their 20 pockets arent enough for their lies
then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you
then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece he
brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life without
some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more with those
rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the kind of
villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another thing in their empty
heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then tea and toast for
him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose Im nothing any more
when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one night man man tyrant as
ever for the one thing he slept on the floor half the night naked the way
the jews used when somebody dies belonged to them and wouldnt eat any
breakfast or speak a word wanting to be petted so I thought I stood out
enough for one time and let him he does it all wrong too thinking only of
his own pleasure his tongue is too flat or I dont know what he forgets that
we then I dont Ill make him do it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock
him down to sleep in the coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it
her Josie off her head with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed
never have the courage with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan
though as for her Denis as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you
couldn't call him a husband yes its some little bitch hes got in with even
when I was with him with Milly at the College races that Hornblower with the
childs bonnet on the top on his nob let us into by the back way he was
throwing his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried
to wink at him first no use of course and thats the way his money goes this
is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the
grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers
funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse
walking behind in black L Bloom and Tom Kernan that drunken little barrelly
man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk in some place or
other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys husband
white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in her eye trying to sing my
songs shed want to be born all over again and her old green dress with the
lowneck as she cant attract them any other way like dabbling on a rainy day
I see it all now plainly and they call that friendship killing and then
burying one another and they all with their wives and families at home more
especially Jack Power keeping that barmaid he does of course his wife always
sick or going to be sick or just getting better of it and hes a good-looking
man still though hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all
of them well theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if
I can help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he
goes on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every
penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after his wife and family
goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im sorry in a way for him
what are his wife and 5 children going to do unless he was insured comical
little teetotum always stuck up in some pub corner and her or her son
waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come home her widows weeds wont improve
her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if youre goodlooking what men
wasn't he yes he was at the Glencree dinner and Ben Dollard base barreltone
the night he borrowed the swallowtail to sing out of in Holles street
squeezed and squashed into them and grinning all over his big Dolly face
like a wellwhipped childs botty didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough
that must have been a spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the
preserved seats for that to see him and Simon Dedalus too he was always
turning up half screwed singing the second verse first the old love is the
new was one of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough he was
always on for flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers
private opera he had a delicious glorious voice Phbe dearest goodbye
sweetheart he always sang it not like Bartell dArcy sweet tart goodbye of
course he had the gift of the voice so there was no art in it all over you
like a warm showerbath O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though
it was a bit too high for my register even transposed and he was married at
the time to May Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good
out of it hes a widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an
author and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take
lessons what is he driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I
ought to have got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion still
I look young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it altogether and
me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the Kingsbridge station
with his father and mother I was in mourning thats 11 years ago now yes hed
be 11 though what was the good in going into mourning for what was neither
one thing nor the other of course he insisted hed go into mourning for the
cat I suppose hes a man now by this time he was an innocent boy then and a
darling little fellow in his lord Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a
prince on the stage when I saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember
they all do wait by God yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this
morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark
nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a
stranger either besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th
card after that the 10 of spaces for a Journey by land then there was a
letter on its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a
rise in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look
at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about poetry
in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or standing up
like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only getting
themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry when I was a
girl first I thought he was a poet like Byron and not an ounce of it in his
composition I thought he was quite different I wonder is he too young hes
about wait 88 I was married 88 Milly is 15 yesterday 89 what age was he then
at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I suppose hes 20 or more Im not too old for him
if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not that stuck up university student sort no
otherwise he wouldnt go sitting down in the old kitchen with him taking
Eppss cocoa and taking of course he pretended to understand it all probably
he told him he was out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I
hope hes not a professor like Goodwin was he was a patent professor of John
Jameson they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he
wont find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where
poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully coming
back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point the guitar
that fellow played was so expressive will I never go back there again all
new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that for him theyre my
eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star
arent those beautiful words as loves young star itll be a change the Lord
knows to have an intelligent person to talk to about yourself not always
listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad
then, if anything goes wrong in their business we have to suffer Im sure hes
very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not those other ruck
besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand
bathing place from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a
God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men
like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little
statue he bought I could look at him all-day long curly head and his
shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for
you I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock
there so simply I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking
as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looked with his
boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if some of it went down what
its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed be so clean
compared with those pigs of men I suppose never dream of washing it from 1
years end to the other the most of them only thats what gives the women the
moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I can only get in with a handsome young
poet at my age Ill throw them the 1st thing in the morning till I see if the
wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing the lady herself and see if he comes
out Ill read and study all I can find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew
who he likes so he wont think me stupid if he thinks all women are the same
and I can teach him the other part Ill make him feel all over him till he
half faints under me then hell write about me lover and mistress publicly
too with our 2 photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous O but
then what am I going to do about him though
no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no
nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because I
didn't call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a cabbage
thats what you get for notkeeping them in their proper place pulling off his
shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so barefaced without even
asking permission and standing out that vulgar way in the half of a shirt
they wear to be admired like a priest or a butcher or those old hypocrites
in the time of Julius Caesar of course hes right enough in his way to pass
the time as a joke sure you might as well be in bed with what with a lion
God Im sure hed have something better to say for himself an old Lion would O
well I suppose its because they were so plump and tempting in my short
petticoat he couldnt resist they excite myself sometimes its well for men
all the amount of pleasure they get off a womans body were so round and
white for them always I wished I was one myself for a change just to try
with that thing they have swelling upon you so hard and at the same time so
soft when you touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those
cornerboys saying passing the corner of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a
thing hairy because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it didnt
make me blush why should it either its only nature and he puts his thing
long into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be you put the
handle in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick and choose what
they please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl for their different
tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no but were to be always
chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn fear once I start I
tell you for stupid husbands jealousy why cant we all remain friends over it
instead of quarrelling her husband found it out what they did together well
naturally and if he did can he undo it hes coronado anyway whatever he does
and then he going to the other mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of
course the man never even casts a 2nd thought on the husband or wife either
its the woman he wants and he gets her what else were we given all those
desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a
wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold
never embracing me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not
knowing I suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my
hat at him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent 1 atom of
any kind of expression in us all of us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever
I do that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought is enough I kiss
the feet of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss our
halldoor yes he did what a madman nobody understands his cracked ideas but
me still of course a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost to
make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by
somebody if the fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the Lord God I was
thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark evening where
nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be hot on for it and
not care a pin whose I was only to do it off up in a gate somewhere or one
of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their camp pitched near the
Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if they could I only sent
mine there a few times for the name model laundry sending me back over and
over some old ones old stockings that blackguardlooking fellow with the fine
eyes peeling a switch attack me in the dark and ride me up against the wall
without a word or a murderer anybody what they do themselves the fine
gentlemen in their silk hats that K C lives up somewhere this way coming out
of Hardwicke lane the night he gave us the fish supper on account of winning
over the boxing match of course it was for me he gave it I knew him by his
gaiters and the walk and when I turned round a minute after just to see
there was a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he
goes home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors
are rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for
the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so well
he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if he knew
how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to sigh for a
dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for Lord knows what
he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around down in the kitchen
to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled up like a mummy will I
indeed did you ever see me running Id just like to see myself at it show
them attention and they treat you like dirt I dont care what anybody says
itd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it you
wouldnt see women going and killing one another and slaughtering when do you
ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny
they have and losing it on horses yes because a woman whatever she does she
knows where to stop sure they wouldn't be in the world at all only for us
they dont know what it is to be a woman and a mother how could they where
would they all of them be if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what
I never had thats why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from
his books and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowdy
house I suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like
that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my
fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind in
the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I suppose I
oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as
was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our
1st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to think
myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the
night I felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of
roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets
his poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining himself for life
perhaps still its a lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after
dances the air of the night they have friends they can talk to weve none
either he wants what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife
in you I hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a
dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so
snappy Im not like that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa in the
other room suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young hardly 20 of me
in the next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah what harm Dedalus I
wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia they had the
devils queer names there father Vial plana of Santa Maria that gave me the
rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and
Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown myself in the
first river if I had a name like her O my and all the bits of streets
Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the
devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a
bit I declare to God I dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get
my tongue round any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted
see I haven't forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun
is the name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that
novel cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all
upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can tell him
the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so ignorant what
a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and wanted a
good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with a bit
of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the woman
was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty there
are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of
them in Abrines I could do the criada the room looks all right since I
changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time Id
have to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im
his wife or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods
notion where he is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things come
into my head sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us why not
theres the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room he could do
his writing and studies at the table in there for all the scribbling he does
at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning like me as hes making
the breakfast for I he can make it for 2 Im sure Im not going to take in
lodgers off the street for him if he takes a gesabo of a house like this Id
love to have a long talk with an intelligent well-educated person Id have to
get a nice pair of red slippers like those Turks with the fez used to sell
or yellow and a nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a
peachblossom dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or
18/6 Ill just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im
sick of Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all
the vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of
splendid fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st man
Id meet theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used to say
they are and the night too that was her massgoing Id love a big juicy pear
now to melt in your mouth like when I used to be in the longing way then Ill
throw him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup she gave him to make his
mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what Ill do Ill go
about rather gay not too much singing a bit now and then mi fa pieti Masetto
then Ill start dressing myself to go out presto non son pill forte Ill put
on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make
his micky stand for him Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his
wife is fucked yes and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him
5 or 6 times handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I
wouldnt bother to even iron it out that ought to satisfy him if you dont
believe me feel my belly unless I made him stand there and put him into me
Ive a mind to tell him every scrap and make him do it in front of me serve
him right its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in the
gallery said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in this vale
of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they hide it I suppose
thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or He wouldnt have made us
the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to kiss my bottom Ill
drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he
can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes there my brown part then Ill
tell him I want #1 or perhaps 30/- Ill tell him I want to buy underclothes
then if he gives me that well he wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all
out of him like other women do I could often have written out a fine cheque
for myself and write his name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he
forgot to lock it up besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me
behind provided he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be
helped Ill do the indifferent I or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when
hes like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten
my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or
the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait now
sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O but I was
forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldn't know which to
laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have to wear the
old things so much the better itll be more pointed hell never know whether
he did it nor not there thats good enough for you any old thing at all then
Ill wipe him off me just like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill
have him eyeing up at the ceiling where is she gone now make him want me
thats the only way a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre
just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well
soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil
their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office the alarmclock
next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I
can dose off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like the
stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me
was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and
try again so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters
and get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he
brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first I
want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im asleep
then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I must clean
the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or
those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop at 71/2d a
lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky sugar lid a
couple of lbs of course a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that
cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love
to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like
nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the
beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and
all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers
and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing
up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them
saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their
learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or
whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first
then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because
theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them
well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that
made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they
might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for
you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in
the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes
first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear
like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath
yes he said was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans
body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for
you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt
what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all
the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I
wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking
of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and
father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I
say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in
front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor
devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their
tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the
Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke
street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharans and the poor
donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in
the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the
old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white
and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop
and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid
for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the
castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going
about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea
the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the
figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and
pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and
geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the
mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used
or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I
thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask
again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and
first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel
my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said
yes I will Yes.
Trieste-ZÜrich-Paris, 1914--1921
ðÏÐÕÌÑÒÎÏÓÔØ: 41, Last-modified: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:54:00 GmT