literary transcript
II
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
writingtable. 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.
-
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 liked lightly. Wonder if it is 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. Then 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
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
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 cattlemarket to the quays value would
go up like a shot.
Bald
head over the blind. Cute old
codger. No use canvassing him 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
Stop
and say a word: about the funeral perhaps.
Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr O'Rourke.
Turning
into
- 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
How much
would that tot to off the porter in the month?
Say ten barrels of stuff. Say he
got ten per cent off. Or more. Ten.
Fifteen. He passed
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 oldish. 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
-
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
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.
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:
Desolation.
Grey
horror seared his flesh. Folding the
page into his pocket he turned into
Quick
warm sunlight came running from
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: laugh Owel
picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's seaside girls.
The tea
was drawn. He filled his own
moustachecup, sham crown
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 Molly 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.
- 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 vorrei. 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 orangeyed 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
- 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:
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
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. Anaemic a
little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin's
King that day round the
All dimpled cheeks and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.
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 some time 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,
call 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.
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 raincloak. 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.
Deep
voice that fellow Dlugcaz 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 countinghouse. 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 Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoer's
club,
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 about his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke
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 lip, 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,
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 times 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!
____________________
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 sailor's home. He
turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through
In
So
warm. His right hand once more more
slowly went over again: choice blend, made of the finest
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 are 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
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
Doran,
- 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. His
brown boots with laces dangling.
Wellturned 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.
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.
- 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
- 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 strips of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old ...
- It's
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 might 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
Wonder
is her 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
-
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:
Là ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.
He
turned into
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 word. 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
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
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.
Some
notice on the door. Sermon by the very
reverend John Conmee S.J. on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save
The
cold smell of sacred stone called him.
He trod the worn steps, pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the
rear.
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
He
stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the isle, 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
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
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
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. Women 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
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. On 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
He
walked southward along
The
chemist turned back page after page.
- 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.
- 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
- 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 that I am.
Bantam
- 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.
-
- I was
just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam
-
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
- I'll
risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped
off towards
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
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
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
Enjoy a
bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid steam. 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.
_____________________
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.
Me
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.
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.
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 clattering wheels.
Me 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 costdrawer 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
- 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
He
cried above the clatter of the wheels.
- I
won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son.
A counterjumper'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
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.
Me
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 have 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 Alleyn'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 handier? 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 buffsuit 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
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
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
- 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
And Madame.
His
eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over the ears. Madame: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes 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 looking at 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 into 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. Life 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 or 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
Of
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
- 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
- Yes,
by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be
worth seeing, faith.
As they
turned into
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
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
- 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 said, 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 on the Bugabu.
Their
eyes watched him. On the slow weedy
waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over
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
unbuttened 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 skewways. 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
- I was
down there for the
- 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 front 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. Domine-namine. 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 bad gas round the
place. Butchers for instance: they get
like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling
me? Mervyn Brown. Down in the vaults of saint Warburgh's lovely
old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffin 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, mean with
beards, baldheaded business men, consumptive girls with little sparrow's
breasts. All the year round he prayed
the same thing over them all and 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 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 ree 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
- Her
grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said.
I'll 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 bravely, 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
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 innermost 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 A1, 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, Madame 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,
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's 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 hund 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 Keye'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 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. Embalming 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 never more 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. Momday 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.
They
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 name, 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. God 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 others 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.
Rtsstr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait.
Stop.
He
looked down intently into a stone crypt.
Some animal. Wait. There he goes.
An
obsese 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 how 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
putrified 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 acknowledgement.
- 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.
______________________
IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN
METROPOLIS
BEFORE Nelson's pillar trams
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 double-decker and a single-deck 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 showblacks 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 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 want 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.
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 DISSOLUTION 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 the workaday worker
tack for all it was worth. It's the ads
and 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 persuant 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, thump. 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
called 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 leant 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 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
when 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.
Want to
be sure of his spelling. Proof
fever. Martin Cunningham forgot to give
us his spellingbee conumdrum 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 phiz then.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine
jogged forwards its flyboard with sllt 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 sllt 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
hagadar 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 me 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 it 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 you 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 MacHugh 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 at 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
Xenophone 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 to 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 waits 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 blackspectacled 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 footsteps.
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 doorframe.
- 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 CORTÈGE
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. Cloacae: 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 Romans, 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 water-closet.
- 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'Malloy 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.
- Good
day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing.
The letter is not mine. Mr
Garrett Deasy asked me to ...
SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT
- 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.
A 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 of 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 AEgospotami. 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 the 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 little idle schemer.
- Foot
and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great nationalist meeting in
Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldozing the public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn its soul. Father Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes 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 part, 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. Time 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
a 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 ... 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
Dudly 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 tue 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 or 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 you Cork legs are
running away with you. Why not bring in
Henry Gratton 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
-
Gratton 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 one 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 though 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 really think 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, has 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 upon the black rim, 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 hand 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 of 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 of 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 every
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 boozing 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 four 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 him.
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 a 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 ...
K. M. R. I. A.
- 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 out 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 bread 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 thei
r 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 haec otia fecit.
- No,
Stephen said, I call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the
Plums.
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 towards 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.
_______________________
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 of 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 drink 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 pats 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 to. 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 our 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 selfcovered 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 of 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?
- O, 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.
Pastille 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.
- 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 on 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 his 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 gate.
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 shopfronts. 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 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 fortyfour of
them. Wanted smart lady typist to aid
gentleman in literary work. I called you
naughty darling because I do not like that other word. 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 made 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 the pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes?
Mrs Miriam Dundrade 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 with 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 tory 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. 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's 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. Lucky 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 mortarboards. 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
with 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 weather 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.
Squarepushing 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.
Docoy 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 inveighling 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. Dignmam 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 silverware 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. Eater 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 Sheey 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: secondtime. Coming events
cast their shadows before. With the
approval of the eminent poet Mr Geo Russell.
That might be Lizzy 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 before 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 ethereal 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? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz 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 cloakrooms. 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
form Dunsink. Must go out there some
first Saturday of the month. If I could
get an 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 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 the 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? Twentyeight 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 woman
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 Cambridge'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 wetter 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 boozer'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 on 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, priest, parsons, fieldmarshals, archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans'
dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor 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
makes 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 foul. 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 one.
What
will I have now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?
-
Hello, 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 MacTrigger. 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
country 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 booze, 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.
Vintner's
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
going 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 thunderstorm, Rothchild's filly, with wadding in his 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 stomachs
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 wind 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 the by 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 or 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 gumjelly
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 Junoian. 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 young enjoyed her, to the yard.
When
the sound of his boot 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:
-
Iiiiichaaaaaaach!
- There
was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find out what they
do be doing. But he 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,
gentleman.
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, Bantan 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
me 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 Rontgen rays
searchlight you could.
At Duke
lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the cobblestones 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 inside
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. Prescott'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 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
dropping. 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 pikehoses. Dear,
dear, dear. Pity of course: but somehow
you can't cotton on to them someway.
Sir
Frederick Falkiner going into the freemason's 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!
____________________
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 judgements are so true.
True in the larger analysis.
Twicecreakingly
analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most
zealous by the door he gave his large ear 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 sizer's laugh of Trinity: unanswered.
Orchestral Satan, weeping away 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 space 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 Phaeacians.
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 tome 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:
- Pièce
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 Swinbourne.
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 the place. Ignatius Loyola, make
haste to help me!
- The
play begins. A player comes on under the
shadow, make 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
debt. 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 achrons 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 bed chamber of every
light-of-love in London. Is Katharine
the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls
her young and beautiful. Do you think
the writer of Anthony 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, light, 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. Argal, 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 lonelist 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 to 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 brain of
men. Still: but an inch 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 is 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 quiet 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 if 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 like 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 for 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 heat 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 Du verlachst
wirst Du noch dienen.
Brood
of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most.
He Who
Himself begot, middler of 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.
Glo-o-ri-a
in ex-cel-cis De-o
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 brillancies of theorising. I hear
that an actress played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeight 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
the 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 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 as 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 bowling 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 Georgias, 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 Fitton, 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 Ferard,
herbalist, he walks, greyedauborn. 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 flees
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 cannot 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 fellow player 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 theologicophilolological.
Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere.
- Prove
that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared, expectantly. Your dean of studies holds he was a holy
Roman.
Suffaminandus
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! Acushla 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 intermarriage. 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.
-
Gentile 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 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 loves. 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. Mr? 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 Davey ...
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. Bous 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
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 if
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 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's 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. What 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
sport 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 père 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 gonorrhoeal ladies, Fresh Nelly and Rosalie, the coalquay whore.
He
broke away.
- Come
Kinch. Come wandering AEngus of the
birds.
Come
Kinch, you have eaten all we left. Ay, I
will serve you your oats 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 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 Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his
polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet mad? The quaker's pate godily 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 hair hair.
Eh ...
I just eh ... wanted ... I forgot ... he ...
-
Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there ...
Puck
Mulligan footed featly, trilling:
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. AEngus of
the birds. They go, they come. Last night I flew. Easily flew.
Men wondered. 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 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.
_______________
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 alms
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 Sheey 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 Sheey 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 Sheey M.P. looking so well and
he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheey M.P. Yes, he would certainly call.
- Good
afternoon, Mrs Sheey.
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
Dennis 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 [Richmond
Place]. 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
Alderborough 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 porkbutcher's, Father Conmee observed pigs
puddings, white and black and red, lying neatly curled in tubes.
Moored
under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a turfbarge, 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
walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came to Res
in Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas: in eternum omnia
iudicia iustitioe tuoe.
A
flushed young man came down 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 the 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 carewarn 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 yellowslobbered 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 close steaming kitchen.
- Did
you put it 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.
Boody
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
blond 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.'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 Merchant's 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 knobbly 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 de queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said, Quand' ero giovine come
Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo
è una bestia. É peccato. Perché 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
refletta.
By the
stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram unloaded
straggling Highland soldiers of a band.
- Ci
rifletteró, Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.
- Ma,
sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said in a 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 barekneed 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
tall whitehatted sandwichmen between Moneypeny'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! 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 early 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 Fitzgeralds 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.
Hold hard.
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 said
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 how 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 stepped 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 he 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 viceregal 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 darkbacked 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 curacao 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
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 hand 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
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, Paddy? 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 Dennis 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! Sulpher 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 judgement in the case of Harvey verses
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. And 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 in 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 William'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 hand 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.
Me
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 order he had
booked for Pulbrook Robertson boldly along James's street, past Shackelton'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 American 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 cramped 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
windows and the showtrays. Dust darkened
the toiling fingers with their vulture nails.
Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinabar, 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
Londonbridge 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
keep famous time. You are 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 Arts. 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? Eight
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 arms folded:
- Se
el 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 in 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'Conner 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 sharaums 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 grimmace 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 leapers, rode outriders.
- What
was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase.
- The
lord lieutenantgeneral 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 longfaced 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 AEngus 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 forebearance. 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 threemastered schooner Rosevean from Bridgewater 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 stipling 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 Madam 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 sergeantmajor 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 twentysecond. 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 Fitzsimmons. 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 Fitzsimmons
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 boozed he
was standing on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to
Tunny's for to booze 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 Sunday 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 quay. 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 his costbag 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
whereupon 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 cortege:
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, Hornblower, 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.
___________________
BRONZE by gold heard the
hoofirons, steelringing 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: Idolores.
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. Lizst'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 say 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.
Fiff! Oo!
Where
bronze from anear? Where gold from
afar? Where hoofs?
Rrrpr. Kraa.
Kraandl.
Then,
not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwitt.
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
he? 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 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 spying point.
- 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.
-
Imperthnthn 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 imperthnthnthn like a shout in quest.
- O!
Shrieking, Miss Kennedy cried. Will you
ever forget his 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 Lore's
huguenot name. By Bassi's blessed virgin
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 gigglegiggled. 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 each to peal after
peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold goldbronze, shrilldeep, to laughter after
laughter. And they 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
Idoleres, 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 salon 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 dinner. Lager without alacrity she served.
With
patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jingle jaunty blazes
boy.
Unholding
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 one 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 is jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. Follow.
Risk it. Go quick. At four.
Near now. Out.
-
Twopence, 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. A call 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
duedene 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 Blazed 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, Blazed 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 titled 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 a humming, tugged Blazes Boylan's
elbowsleeves.
- 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
pleased 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, list 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.
Boylan,
eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his
chalice, drankoff his tiny chalice, sucking the last fat violet syrupy
drops. His 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.
Alf Bergin 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 yodelled 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 Dollard 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?), smitted (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 Jaspers 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 have 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
jaunted 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' rows 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 roofpanes.
- 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 soul
I 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, grummy
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 scrapers
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.
Dollar
and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.
- With
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
silk 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 whatdoyoucallthem 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 chachous, 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 langour 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, chestnote, 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 sand 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 chords. 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 to 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. Bib Spanish 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, 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.
Number
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 as 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 word 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 at all. Useless pain.
If they don't see. Woman. Sauce for the gander.
A
hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfive, 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 say 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 rosary of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. 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 worse. 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 love 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 cat. 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 quis
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
Boylan 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 deepsounding 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 womanless 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, corpusnomini. 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
breast 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 of 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. They 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 speak. 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. For, 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 to 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
Boyle Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall Farrell, Waaaaaaalk.
Well I
must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes.
Blmstup. O'er ryrhigh 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 delores! 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 backslapping, 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.
Bib
Benaben Dollard, Bib 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 tankard one.
- 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 wround 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 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 the 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 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 'de 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
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 Mark'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 salesmen 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
Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.
Bloom
viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Mark'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.
________________
I WAS just passing the time of day with old Troy of
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
- 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 Joe.
- 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 the 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 cranberries 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, 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'Gillcuddy'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
widemouthed 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 fieldlark 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, Marshall MacMahon, 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 Guttenberg, Patricio Valasquez,
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 hand 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 round 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 Risdale 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 David 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 booze. 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! Ow!
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, and 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 toll, 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 therefore 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 wellbeloved, 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 a 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
Willy Murray with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim'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 heavenworld 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 the 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 abovementioned 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 terms 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 didn'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 corpora
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 denominated 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 galloped 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 bezique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and
not eating meat on a Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw
and taking the lout out for a walk. And
one time he lead 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 blackdraped 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 mirthprovoking 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 semiparalysed 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 Pokethankerscheff, the
Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága
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, Nationalgymnasiummuseum-sanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecial-professordoctor
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 advisor 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 worldrenouned 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 roomkeepers'
association as a token of his regard and esteem. The nec and non plus ultra of
emotions 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 citizen
begins 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 I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost.
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 pro 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 that
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.
- Than 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 mortgage 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 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. Boozed at
five o'clock. Night he was near being
lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the bobby, 14A.
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 smugging. 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 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 Phoenix 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 of 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
anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it.
His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly
enhanced 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. Queensbury 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, My Boylan. You what?
The water rate, My 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 comedy 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, he'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 win 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's what 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.
- Recorded, 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 sanhedrim 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 the
rood that they should well and truly try and true deliverance 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 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 Joe Wyse:
- Full many a flower
is born to blush unseen.
And says Lenehan that
knows a bit of the lingo:
- Conspuez les
Anglais! Perfide 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 has 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 textile, 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 while 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 farfamed 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.
- Here, here 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'll 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, 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 heaven, 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 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, the 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
Francais, 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 booze 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.:
- Consideration of
space influenced their lordships' 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, it 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 of 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, a 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 of 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 said 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 gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, loves
- 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
- 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
- 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 whiteeyed
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
every one.
- 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.
- Bistir thyself,
sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look
to our steeds. And for ourselves give us
of your best for ifaith 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 you say, 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 Edmond 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. 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. Terrence 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. Fachhtna 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. Kiernan 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 and 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 Issac and Jacob and made 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 coelum 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 verbo
sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde super creaturas istas: et
praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione
usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et
animae 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 the bloody dog woke
up and let a growl.
- Bye, bye all, says
Martin.
And he got them out as
quickly 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 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's 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 not 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'll 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 Nagyasagos uram
Lipoti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the
occasion of his departure for the distant clime of
Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great éclat
was characterized 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 strain of Come back to Erin, followed immediately by Rakóczy'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, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the
Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and Bograghs, the
Connemara hills, the reeks of M'Gillcuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Benagh 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 Pigeonhouse. Visszontlátásra,
kedvés baraton! 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 on, 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 residences 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, in 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 débris 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., K.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.
______________________
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 stormtossed 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 rock 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 wouldbe 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 brown 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 was 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.H. 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 of 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 shopspoiled 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 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 twentytwo 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 goldenbrown 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 flower 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's 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 be 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 made 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 storm 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 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.
- Haja ja ja haja.
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 halfblanket 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
no 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
Baily light of 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 matinee 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 retroussé 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 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 hearth 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 confessionbox 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 fair 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 mantlepiece 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 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 expose 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 ergo 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 cheeks 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 she her tingling
in every nerve. She put on her hat so
that she could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled show 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 coelo paestitisti 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 if 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 is 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 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 treasure 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, hotblooded, 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 skirtdancers 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 wrung through the ages.
And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman
candle burst and it was light 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 lovely! 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 met 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 walked 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 that can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes.
Mutoscope 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. Girlfriends at
school, arms round each other's necks 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 poor 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. What? I think so.
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. What 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 Glencree dinner that was
when we drove home the featherbed mountain.
Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord
Mayor had his eye on her too. Val
Dillon. Apoplectic.
There she is with them
down there for the fireworks. Mr
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 Prescott'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 things 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! See!
Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, I saw you. 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 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.
Cocoanut 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 if 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 the drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of
stale booze. 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
hubbies. 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 be cause 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 always 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
backstreets 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 oilpainting 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 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 Henry 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 birds 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 tortoiseshell in the City
Arms 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 at 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, telegraphy wires. Dreadful life
sailors have too. Big brutes of
oceangoing 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, lifebelt
wround 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 shed a 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 linstock 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 air 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.
Gibralter. 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. Buenas 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 Leah, 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. House 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 porkpie 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.
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 her 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 word? 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 lovely 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 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.
___________________
DESHIL Holles Eamus.
Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil
Holles 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, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa.
Universally that
person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever
matters are being held as most profitably 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 omnipotent 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 latulent 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 the 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 descrepant
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 thereward
carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on 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 for 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 reproductive, 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 the 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 mildhearted 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. Then 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 harkened 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 left after long years a handmaid.
Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her children.
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 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 the
castle for to make merry with them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should
go otherwither for he was a man of cautels and a subtle. Also the lady was of his avis and reproved
the learning knight thought she trowed well that the traveller had said thing
that was false for his subtility. But
the learning knight would not hear say 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 more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and
knives that are made in 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 thought 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 wonderously like to 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 half 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 nist not of his while. 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 ycept junior of saint Mary Merciable's
with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the franklin
that hight 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. But 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 impossibilise, 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 for 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 foldest 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 if 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 up 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 afeared 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 caro 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 Bernadus 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, vegine 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 no
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 its 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 while 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 troth, 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 they tower it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest
bed. Orate, frates, pro memetipso. And all the people shall say, 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, they 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
mutiplicit 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 Étienne chanson but he loudly bid them lo, wisdom hath
built herself a house, this vast majestic longestablished 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. Come 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 the
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.
That was it what all
that company that sat there at common 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 the
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 by dry flag 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 poor 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 langour he had but was now better, he having dreamed tonight a strange
fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a 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 of 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 women, 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, waistcoaters, 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 boilingcook'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 with 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 of 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 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 livestock and meadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in
Prussia street. I question with you
there, says he. More like 'tis the house
of the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a
little moved but very handsomely, told him so much 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 than 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 Connamara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a
handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he ran 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's 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
the 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. They 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 propose 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 nostrae 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 some 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 livelist 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 sine 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 blessings 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 his 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 Fecondateur, 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 tell 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
cowflesh! 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 is it 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 youngblood 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 whats 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 suffering 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
excitations 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 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 difficulty 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 here in that expectation or at least it
ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers,
clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory
Allelujerum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring
through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelemina, 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
those 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 seedfield that lies
fallow for the want of a ploughshare? A
habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle
life. 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
rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured the
acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the right of primogeniture and king's
bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated
and dissimulated, acardiac foetus in foetu, 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 monstruous 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
masterpiece 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 Caledonian 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 how 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 event 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 ansunder 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 Clanbrassil street to the high school,
his booksatchel 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 in 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 baisemains. 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 luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two
raincapped 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 sagegreeen 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
antilucan hours, 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 suppose it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullock-befriending
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 man's 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 from 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 arms
with which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when I pressed too
close. 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 orangefiery shipload from
planet Alpha of the lunar chain, would not assume the etheric doubles and these
were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured 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
bottles 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. Crotthers 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 the 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. 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 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 factors 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 about 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 her 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, d ear
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 flowerclose with a faint
shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alles Vergangliche) 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 shepherd and of angels about a
crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago. But
sa 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 in 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 the 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 has 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 their
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 they 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
Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trubsal
melkest Du. Nun Trinksts Du die susse
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 the 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. And brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevill's sawbones and ole
clo? Sorra one of 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 uz, 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 marieé. 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, 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' boozebox. 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 Ubermench. Dittoh.
Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's caudle. 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 sleepin 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 beest a gert vool. Well, doc?
Back fro Lapland? Your
corporosity sagaciating O K? 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
alltogether. 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. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn!
Have a glint, do. Gum, I'm
jiggered. And been to barber we 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. Gospeltrue.
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 come again. Right Boniface! Absinthe the lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum
diabolus capiat posteriora nostra.
Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome booze 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 doggone my shins if this beent the
bestest puttiest 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 ums blubble bisgplash crytears cos frien
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 tha 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 where
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 boozeguzzling existences! Come on, you doggone, bullnecked,
beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, 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.
__________________
(THE Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which
stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeletontracks, 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.
'(A deafmute 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: Kithogue!
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 pigmy 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 rubbishtip 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 grips 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 Carr 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 Carr 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 aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua
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 says 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, Kilbride 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 scares 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 claps 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 Gillen's hairdresser's
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 convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck
cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy.
At Antonio Rabaiotti'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 lanters 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 trolly 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'Beirne's wall,
a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury.
From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)
BLOOM: Buenas noches, senorita 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 parallel 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 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 to 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 the 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) Goim 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 hair plaited in a crispine 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 custume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers
and jacket slashed with gold. A wide
yellow cummerbund girdles her. A white
yashmak violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her large 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 large 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 his 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 morning 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, appears 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. And 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, plungers 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 to 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 large 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
an 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 snuffbox?
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: To 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 teapot 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 evening frock 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 sandwichboard,
shuffles past them in carpet 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: (Offhandedly) Kosher. A snack for super. 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 opens 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 deluthering 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 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 as 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 men, Leopardstown.
And Molly won seven shillings on a three year old names 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 Haynes 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 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 of 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.
THE NAVVY: (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 me.
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 Trulock'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
held 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? (Gawdy 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 gout. 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 Bloom's 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 barstool, sways over the munching spaniel.)
BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us
the paw. Give the paw.
(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig's
knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle 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 gorging 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 posses 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 millions. 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. Unlawfully 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: Gentlemen 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 is 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 Arsewiper 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 carries a large 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 verses 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 momentos, 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 rear 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 grandjury. 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 Britishborn 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 medodeon
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 large bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes.
Quite bad. A plasterer's
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 stickingplaster 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 occurrences 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 in especial
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 Nataim 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 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 gloves 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 BELLINGHAN: (In cap and seal conymantle, 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 surges 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
braided 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
Phoenix 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 with 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 quizzingglasses
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 my 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 huntingcrop
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 wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist,
bawd and cuckold and 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 jerkin 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 grappling 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
pricincts. (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 dachshound coat becomes a brown mortuary
habit. His green eye flashes
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. How 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 toadbellied, 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.
JOHN O'CONNELL: (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 tail
stiffpointed, his ears cocked.)
PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.
(He worms down through a coalhole, 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
twocolumned 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 Womwom! (Warbling) Big comebig! Pirouette!
Leopopold! (Twittering) Leeolee! (Warbling)
O Leo!
(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy
flecks, 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) Schoarach 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 TORCHBEARERS: 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.
The y nod vigorously in agreement.)
LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold
mayoral chain and large white silk scarf)
That alderman 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, bugbears, 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 Caed Mile 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 King's own Scottish
Borderers, the Cameron Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention,
keep back the crowd. Boys from High
school are perched on the lampposts, telegraphy 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 chyrselephantine 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 Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars,
grandees, and maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan
Fire Brigade, the chapter of 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. After them march the guilds and trades and
trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper
canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps,
lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen,
church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers,
lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and
cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heralidic seal
engravers, horse repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery
outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen
of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse,
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. Beefeaters 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 horse with long
flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. 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 undoubted
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
judgements 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 hairoil 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
moonblue 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 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 trapdoor. 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,
butterscotch, 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), 50 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 Mercum (journalic),
Loveletters 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 Gweldolen 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. (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 stand 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 Roschaschana 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 1 of the Paradisaical 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'MOLLOY: 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
Alderbaran?
BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. 11.
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
anythingarian 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 tooraloom 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 anti-Bloomites, 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. Fellow countrymen, 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 motorgoggles 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: Hypospadia is also marked. In the interests 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 feebleminded 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, watchchains, lockets,
necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.)
BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.
MRS THORTON: (In nursetender's gown) Embrace me tight, dear. You'll soon be 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, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber,
Vifargent, Panargyros. 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 top ledge
by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several
sufferers from king's 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,
Kossuth, 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 begat 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 bushranger'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
hig, you hog, 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, blackbearded 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 CITIZENS: 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
large 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 the 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 suguan, with a smile in his eye) Let me be going now, woman of the house,
for by all the goats in Connemera 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 quickly 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 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 passtouch 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 antlered 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 ape's 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
tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock
feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on
the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to 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 imbecillic. (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 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 Coela enarrant gloriam
Domini. It is susceptible of nodes
or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent
as priests hailhooping 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. Maid, 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 an 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 Antichrist.
O, my foot's tickling.
(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past,
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, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins
is slung a pilgrim's 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 primigène! (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 sont 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 tightrope taut
from zenith to nadir the End of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's
kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in
the form of the Three Legs 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 corncrake's, jars on high.
Perspiring in a loose surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen,
vergerfaced, 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 a 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. Bumboozers, 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) Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh ... (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, lizardlettered, 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.
JOHN EGLINTON: (Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes
it towards a corner; with carping accent)
Esthetics and cosmetics are for the bourdoir. 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 searchlight 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
cooperative 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 judashand 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 flits
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 on 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 your 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 rear 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 style I dislike.
VIRAG: (Arches his eyebrows)
Contact with a goldring, they say.
Augumentum ad feminam, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece
in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichtyosaurus. 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 a 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 willpower 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 them 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 as 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 they 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 horning 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 catastophics 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
Every
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 Jacob's 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, then 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 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 Drink 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. Who 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 Shorthall 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 whore's 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 DOLLARD: (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 Quigly, 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 cow's lick to his hair.
Steered by his rapier, he glides to the door, his wild harp 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!
(Exuent 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 Arius Heresiarchus. The agony of 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 wars 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 large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp.)
THE CARDINAL:
Conservio
lies captured.
He
lies in the lowest dungeon
With
manacles and chains round 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, arms 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 trainbearers. 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 the 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 form 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. Bloom's 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 Carmem. On
her left hand are wedding and keeper rings.
Her eyes are deeply carboned. She
has a sprouting moustache. Her love face
is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed, with orangetainted nostrils. She has large 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 large 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: (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 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 midbrow. 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 moorcock'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 ottomansaddleback 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 Licenced 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, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck
with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)
MRS KEOGH: (Ferociously)
Can I help? (They hold and
pinion Bloom.)
BELLO: (Squats, with a grunt, on Bloom's upturned face, puffing
cigarsmoke, 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 Goddammed outsider Throwaway
at twenty to one. (He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear) Where's that Goddammed 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! scrap! Must I tiptouch it with my nails?
BELLO: (Points to the 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 charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair
and large 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 closedrawn 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 Shelborne 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 August Blockwell, M.P., Signore Laci
Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henry Fleury of Gordon
Bennet-fame, Sheridan, the quadroom Croesus, 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,
Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, 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 goodghoststory 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 rearrepugnosed in rearrepugnant ...
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 a 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 stockgetter, 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 C on 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 blase 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 Gommorrahan vices.
BLOOM: (Bends his blushing face into his armpits 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 suet folds 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,
tiptoeing, 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 blue
scarf 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, or writing table where we never wrote, Aunt Hegarty's armchair, our
classic reprints of old masters. A man
and his menfriends are living there in clover.
The Cuckoo's 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 will 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
verses 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 when 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, whatever the buggers' names
were, suffocated in the one cesspool. (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 willpower! 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, O. 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, highkickers, coster picnic makers, pugilists, popular
generals, immoral panto boys in flesh tights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La
Aurora and Karini, musical acts, 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 supplied 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 understand 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
Forester'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
the 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 snapshots 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 toilet through illclosed 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 currents.)
THE NANNYGOAT: (Bleats) Megegaggegg! Nannannanny!
BLOOM: (Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and
gorsepine) 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 NANNETTI: (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 with sateen coatpants. 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) Tranquilla
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 Raynard?
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 muscosities all over
you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What's our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You 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. Long 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.
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 ou tenons
notre 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 gentleman 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 poundnote) 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) But 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 Stephen's 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 twentytwo years ago.
I was sixteen.
ZOE: I see, says the blind man.
Tell us news.
STEPHEN: See? Moves to one
great goal. I am twentytwo 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 I do 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: (Jumps 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 his 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 liplapping
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!
Weeshwashtkissimapooisthnapoohuck!
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, window 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, large eights. She holds a Scottish widow's insurance policy
and large 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 cod's 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 Shakespeare's
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
grandoldgrossfather 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 outspread, a painted smile on
his face.)
LYNCH: (Pommelling on the sofa)
Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmmm.
STEPHEN: (Gabbles, 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 clacks 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 of diamonds very amiable costumed.
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, brighteyed, seeking
badger earth, under the leaves. The pack
of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying,
burblbrbling 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 bawls 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 Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the
Duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, prix de Paris.
Dwarfs ride them, rusty armoured, leaping, leaping in their
saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain, on a
brokenwinded 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 of
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 auger'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. Gold 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 damsel's 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, arming 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 gorget 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 en 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:
The 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 à vis. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their
arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising form 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 night 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: Les tiroirs!
Chaine 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! Les
ronds! Les 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!
Changez de dames! Donnez le petit
bouquet à 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 bittern'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 arms, 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
hornblower 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
onehandled 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 mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for
tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraarbum!)
(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 gasping 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 bogeyman'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
onto 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 allpowerful. Prayer for
the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual,
for 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 lifts 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,
non 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. His 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
vicechancellor. 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! (Warmingly) 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 form the car with two silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall urges 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 Raschid,
his flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the railings with fleet
step of a pard stewing 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, woman's
slipperslappers. After him, freshfound,
the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65C 66C
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 General's,
Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick,
Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwidebehindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of Sweets of Sin Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and
Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmie's, 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 Dundrade and all her lovers.)
THE HUE AND CRY: (Helterskelterpelterwelter) 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 the 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 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 of 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 selfpretence. 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, Skinner's and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn
bencher and ancient and honourble artillery company of Massachusetts. He suck 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
plasterer's 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
imposters.
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 boy's 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 his privates) Werf
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 Percy 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 send Seddon to the gallows.
(He jerks the rope, the assistants leap at the victim's legs and
drag him downward, grunting: the croppy boy's 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 someone tell me where I am leas likely to meet these necessary
evils? Ca se voit aussi a 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) Yet 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 marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants,
vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, 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 goatfell
cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm
opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom
Rochford, winner in athlete's 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
Gratton, Smith O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac
Butt, Justin M'Carthy against Lear 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 front, celebrates camp
mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines
Love M.A. in a plain cassock and mortar board,
his head and collar back to front, holds over the celebrant's 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 petticoat, 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 rof,
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 Orange 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 boozed. 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 ferociously) Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.
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.)
A HAG: 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: (Nudges the second watch) Come and wipe your name off the slate. (He
lilts, wagging his head) With my
tooraloom torraloom 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 know,
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 to 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 speciality. 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 Bloom's
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 Stephen's 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!
STEPHEN: (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.
(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 fairly 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
mauve face. On his suit he has diamond
and ruby buttons. In his free left hand
he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat
pocket.)