III
PREPARATORY
to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of the shavings and
handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up generally in orthodox
Samaritan fashion, which he very badly needed.
His (Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a
bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom,
in view of the hour it was and there being no pumps of Vartry water available
for their ablutions, let alone drinking purposes, hit upon an expedient by
suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was
called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt Bridge, where they might hit upon
some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but
inasmuch as they duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the
subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly
yawned. So far as he could see he was
rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable to get a
conveyance of some description which would answer in their then condition, both
of them being e.d. ed, particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was
such a thing to be found. Accordingly,
after a few such preliminaries, as, in spite of his having forgotten to take up
his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman service in the
shaving line, brushing, they both walked together along Beaver street, or, more
properly, lane, as far as the farrier's and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of
the livery stables at the corner of Montgomery [Foley] street where they made
tracks to the left from thence debouching into Amiens Street round by the corner
of Dan Bergin's. But, as he confidently
anticipated, there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire anywhere to be seen
except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows inside on the spree,
outside the North Star Hotel and there was no symptom of its budging a quarter
of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a professional whistler,
endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched
over his head, twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing
commonsense to bear on it, evidently there was nothing for it but put a good
face on the matter and foot it which they accordingly
did. So, bevelling around by Mullet's
and the Signal House, which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in
the direction of Amiens street railway terminus [Connolly station], Mr Bloom
being handicapped by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his
trousers had, to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons,
though, entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made
light of the mischance. So, as neither
of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and the temperature
refreshing since it cleared up after the second visitation of Jupiter Pluvius,
they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare
or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin
United Tramways Company's sandstrewer happening to be returning the elder man
recounted to his companion à propos of the incident his own truly
miraculous escape of some little while back.
They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway station, the
starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was suspended at that
late hour, and, passing the back door of the morgue (a not very enticing
locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more especially at night),
ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street,
famous for it C division police station.
Between this point and the high, at present unlit, warehouses of
Beresford Place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's, the
stonecutter's, in his mind somehow in Talbot Place, first turning on the right,
while the other, who was acting as his fidus Achates, inhaled with
internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, situated quite
close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread,
of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O
tell me where is fancy bread? At Rourke's
the baker's, it is said.
En route, to his taciturn, and,
not to put too fine a point on it, not yet perfectly sober companion, Mr Bloom,
who at all events, was in complete possession of his faculties, never more so,
in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution 're' the dangers of
nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once
in a while, though not as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular
deathtrap for young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired
drinking habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little juijitsu
for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could
administer a nasty kick if you didn't look out.
Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher
when Stephen was blissfully unconscious that, but for that man in the gap
turning up at the eleventh hour, the finis might have been that he might have
been a candidate for the accident ward, or, failing that, the Bridewell and an
appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias, or, he being the solicitor,
rather old Wall, he meant to say, or Malony which simply spelt ruin for a chap
when it got bruited about. The reason he
mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially
disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr
Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A Division in
- And that one was Judas, said Stephen,
who up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they
made a beeline across the back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop
Line [Butt] bridge when a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox, or
something like one, attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no
special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light
emanating form the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the
corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened,
or had been mentioned as having happened, before but it cost him no small
effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend
of his father's, Gumley. To avoid a
meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.
- Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl,
evidently, under the arches saluted again, calling: Night! Stephen, of course, started rather
dizzily and stopped to return the compliment.
Mr Bloom, actuated by motives of inherent delicacy, inasmuch as he
always believed in minding his own business, moved off but nevertheless
remained on the qui vive with just a shade of anxiety though not
funkyish in the least. Although unusual
in the Dublin area, he knew that it was not by any means unknown for
desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be about waylaying and
generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head
in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready
to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's
notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and
garotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting
figure came to close quarters, though he was not in any over sober state
himself, recognised Corley's breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley, some called him, and his
genealogy came about in this wise. He
was the eldest son of Inspector Corley of the G Division, lately deceased, who
had married a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather, Patrick Michael Corley, of
New Ross, had married the widow of a publican there whose maiden name had been
Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it,
though not proved, that she descended from the house of the Lords Talbot de
Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind
and well worth seeing, his mother or aunt or some relative had enjoyed the
distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This, therefore, was the reason why the still
comparatively young though dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken
of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the
customary doleful ditty to tell. Not as
much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had all deserted him. Furthermore, he had a row with Lenehan and
called him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of other uncalledfor
expressions. He was out of a job and
implored of Stephen to tell him where on God's earth he could get something,
anything at all to do. No, it was the
daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of
the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way, both
occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn't a complete
fabrication from start to finish.
Anyhow, he was all in.
- I wouldn't ask you, only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the rocks.
- There'll be a job tomorrow or the next
day, Stephen told him, in a boys' school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garret Deasy. Try it.
You may mention my name.
- Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I
couldn't teach in a school, man. I was
never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. Got stuck twice in the
junior at the Christian Brothers.
- I have no place to sleep myself,
Stephen informed him.
Corley, at the first go-off, was inclined
to suspect it was something to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing
in a bloody tart off the street. There
was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's, but it was only a tanner
touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told him you got a decent enough
do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive
to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too, though he hadn't said a
word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every
other night or very near it still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a
sense though he knew that Corley's brandnew rigmarole, on a par with the
others, was hardly deserving of much credence.
However, haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco, etcetera,
as the Latin poet remarks, especially as luck would have it he got paid his
screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of
the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was
demolished. But the cream of the joke
was nothing would get it out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence
and hadn't a thing to do but hand out the needful - whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow, not with
the idea of finding any food there, but thinking he might lend him anything up
to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get
sufficient to eat. But the result was in
the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of
his investigation. He tried his hardest
to recollect for the moment whether he had lost, as well he might have, or
left, because in that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the
reverse, in fact. He was altogether too
fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect about
biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now
exactly gave them, or where was, or did he buy?
However, in another pocket he came across what he surmised in the dark
were pennies, erroneously, however, as it turned out.
- Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley
corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out
to be. Stephen lent him one of them.
- Thanks, Corley answered. You're a gentleman. I'll pay you back some time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse
in
Subsequently, being not quite so down in
the mouth after the two-and-six he got, he informed Stephen about a fellow by
the name of Bags Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the
shipchandler's bookkeeper there, that used to be often round in Nagle's back
with O'Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow, he was lagged the night before last
and fined ten bob for a drink and disorderly and refusing to go with the
constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging
about in the vicinity of the cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of
the corporation watchman's sentrybox, who, evidently a glutton for work, it
struck him, was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his
own private account while Dublin slept.
He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at Stephen's anything
but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere
or other though where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he
the remotest idea when. Being a
levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd
observation, he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing
apparel generally, testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Probably he was one of his hangerson but for
the matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor
neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for the
matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock himself penal
servitude, with or without the option of a fine, would be a very 'rare avis'
altogether. In any case he had a
consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night
or morning. Pretty thick that was
certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen
rejoined Mr Bloom, who, with his practised eye, was not without perceiving that
he had succumbed to the blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,
laughingly, Stephen, that is:
- He's down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he
seemingly evinced little interest, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of
a half a second or so in the direction of a bucket dredger, rejoicing in the
farfamed name of Eblana, moored alongside Customhouse Quay and quite possibly
out of repair, whereupon he observed evasively:
- Everybody gets their own ration of
luck, they say. Now you mention it his
face was familiar to me. But leaving
that for the moment, how much did you part with, he queried, if I am not too
inquisitive?
- Half-a-crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep somewhere.
- Needs, Mr Bloom ejaculated,
professing not the least surprise at the intelligence, I can quite credit the
assertion and I guarantee he invariably does.
Everyone according to his needs and everyone according
to his deeds. But talking about
things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the question
and, even supposing you did, you won't get in after what occurred at Westland
Row [Pearse] station. Simply fag out
there for nothing. I don't mean to
presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your
father's house?
- To seek misfortune, was Stephen's
answer.
- I met your respected father on a recent
occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned.
Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at
present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
- I believe he is in
- A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr
Dedalus senior, in more respects than one a born raconteur if ever there
was one. He takes great pride, quite
legitimately, out of you. You could go
back, perhaps, he hazarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at
Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two,
Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually
euchred their third companion, were patently trying, as if the whole bally
station belonged to them, to give Stephen the slip in the confusion.
There was no response forthcoming to the
suggestion, however, such as it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily
engaged in repicturing his family hearth the last time he saw it, with his
sister, Dilly, sitting by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some
weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that
she and he could drink it with the oatmeal water for milk after the Friday
hearings they had eaten at two a penny, with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and
Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and
charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper in accordance with the
third precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being
quarter tense or, if not, ember days or something like that.
- No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't
personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes
the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I
were in your shoes. He knows which side
his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never realised what it is
to be without regular meals. Of course
you didn't notice as much as I did but it wouldn't occasion me the least
surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your
drink for some ulterior object.
He understood, however, from all he
heard, that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to
medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the
report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too
distant future as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his
services in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from
certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid at
Skerries, or Malahide was it? was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky
deed which he could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a
loss to fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it
down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
- Except it simply amounts to one thing
and he is what they call picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude,
half curiosity, augmented by friendliness, which he gave at Stephen's at
present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at
all in fact, on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly
bamboozled, to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop, or, the
other way about, saw through the affair, and, for some reason or other best
known to himself, allowed matters to more or less ... Grinding poverty did have
that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities
though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends
meet.
Adjacent to the men's public urinal he
perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated
altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language
in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the
parties.
- Putana madonna,
che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!
- Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piu ...
- Dice lui, pero.
- Farabutto! Mortacci sui!
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's
shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had
rarely, if ever, been before; the former having previously whispered to the latter
a few hints anent the keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat,
Fitzharris, the invincible, though he wouldn't vouch for the actual facts,
which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our two noctambules
safely seated in a discreet corner, only to be greeted by stares from the
decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript
specimens of the genus homo, already there engaged in eating and
drinking, diversified by conversation, for whom they
seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity.
- Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom
ventured to plausibly suggest to break the ice, it
occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of solid food, say a
roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with
characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or
stevedores, or whatever they were, after a cursory examination, turned their
eyes, apparently dissatisfied, away, though one redbearded bibulous individual,
a portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor, presumably, still stared for
some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right
of free speech, he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in
dispute though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked
to his protégé in an audible tone of voice, apropos of the battle
royal in the street which was still raging fast and furious:
- A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Who do you not write your poetry in that
language? Bella poetria! it is so melodious and full.
Belladonna voglio.
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to
yawn, if he could, suffering from dead lassitude generally, replied:
- To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
- Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the
inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle
of this tête-à-tête put a boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction
labelled coffee on the table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so
it seemed, after which he beat a retreat to his counter. Mr Bloom determining to have a good square
look at him later on so as not to appear to ... for which reason he encouraged
Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by surreptitiously
pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually
nearer him.
- Sounds are impostures, Stephen said
after a pause of some little time. Like
names,
- Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly
concurred. Of course. Our name was changed too, he added, pushing
the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor, who had his
weather eye on the newcomers, boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for
attention in particular, squarely by asking:
- And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched
his companion's boot but Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure,
from an unexpected quarter, answered:
- Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a
pair of drowsy baggy eyes, rather bunged up from excessive use of booze,
preferably good old
- You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
- I've heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment,
seeing the others evidently eavesdropping too.
- He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed,
staring still in much the same way and nodding.
All Irish.
- All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head
nor tail of the whole business and he was just asking himself what possible
connection when the sailor, of his own accord, turned to the other occupants of
the shelter with the remark:
- I seen him shoot two eggs off two
bottles at fifty yards over his shoulder.
The left hand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an
occasional stammer and his gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did
his best to explain.
- Bottle out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. Cocks his gun over his
shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up
his right eye completely, then he screwed his features up some way sideways and
glared out into the night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
- Pom, he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating
an additional detonation, there being still a further egg.
- Pom, he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded
and winked, adding bloodthirstily:
-
Never missed nor he never will.
A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for
agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it was for a marksmanship
competition like the Bisley.
- Beg pardon, the sailor said.
- Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without
flinching a hairsbreadth.
- Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a
certain extent under the magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a
matter of ten years. He toured the wide
world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in
- Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided
to Stephen unobtrusively.
- Murphy's my name, the sailor continued,
W.B. Murphy, of Carrigaloe. Know where
that is?
-
- That's right, the sailor said.
Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent
on this scene - the homecoming to the mariner's roadside shieling after having
diddled Davy Jones - a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a
wife. Quite a number of stories
there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and Rip van
Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a favourite and most
trying declamation piece, by the way, of poor John Casey and a bit of perfect
poetry in its own small way? Never about
the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment
when he finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent
his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay
and make a fresh start. There she sits,
a grass widow, at the selfsame fireside.
Believes me dead. Rocked in the cradle of the
deep. And there sits uncle Chubb
or
The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a
- You don't happen to have such a thing
as a spare chaw about you, do you?
The jarvey addressed, as it happened, had
not but the keeper took a die of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail
and the desired object was passed from hand to hand.
- Thank you, the sailor said.
He deposited the quid in his gob and,
chewing, and with some slow stammers, proceeded:
- We come up this morning
In confirmation of which statement he
extricated from an inside pocket and handed to his neighbours a not very
cleanlooking folded document.
- You must have seen a fair share of the
world, the keeper remarked, leaning on the counter.
- Why, the sailor answered, upon
reflection upon it, I've circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the
- You seen queer sights, don't be
talking, put in a jarvey.
- Why, the sailor said, shifting his
partially chewed plug, I seen queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an
anchor same as I chew that quid.
He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid
and, lodging it between his teeth, bit ferociously.
- Khaan!
Like that. And I
seen maneaters in
He fumbled out a picture postcard from
his inside pocket, which seemed to be in its way a species of repository, and
pushed it along the table. The printed
matter on it stated: Choza de Indios.
All focused their attention on the scene
exhibited, at a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted,
blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping, amid a swarm of infants (there must
have been quite a score of them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.
- Chews coca all day long, the communicative
tarpaulin added. Stomachs like
breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies
when they can't bear no more children. See them there stark ballocknaked eating a
dead horse's liver raw.
His postcard proved a centre of
attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for several minutes, if not more.
- Know how to keep them off? he inquired genially.
Nobody volunteering a statement, he
winked, saying:
- Glass.
That boggles 'em. Glass.
My Bloom, without evincing surprise,
unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated
address and postmark. It ran as follows:
Tarjeta Postal. Señor
A. Boudin, Galeria Becche,
Also, without being actually positive, it
struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line of opening up new
routes to keep pace with the times apropos of the Fishguard-Rosslare
route which, it was mooted, was once more on the tapis in the
circumlocution departments with the usual quantity of red tape and
dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for
push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the
average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co.
It was a subject of regret and absurd as
well on the face of it and no small blame to our vaunted society that the man
in the street, when the system really needed toning up, for a matter of a
couple of paltry pounds, was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived
in instead of being always cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for
a wife. After all, hang it, they had
their eleven and more humdrum months of it and merited a radical change of venue
after the grind of city life in the summertime, for choice, when Dame
Nature is at her spectacular best, constituting nothing short of a new lease of
life. There were equally excellent
opportunities for vacationists in the home island, delightful sylvan spots for
rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for
the system in and around Dublin and its picturesque environs, even,
Poulaphouca, to which there was a steam tram, but also farther away from the
madding crowd, in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal
neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen, so long as it didn't come down, and in the
wilds of Donegal, where if report spoke true, the coup d'oeil was
exceedingly grand, though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable
[accessible] so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be
considering the signal benefits to be derived form it, while Howth with its
historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV,
rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt with
all sorts and conditions of men, especially in the spring when young men's
fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the cliffs by design
or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left leg, it being only about
three quarters of an hour's run from the pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling
was as yet merely in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much
to be desired. Interesting to fathom, it
seemed to him, from a motive of curiosity pure and simple, was whether it was
the traffic that created the route or vice-versa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the other side of the card
picture and passed it along to Stephen.
- I seen a Chinese one time, related the
doughty narrator, that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water
and they opened, and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower.
Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, the Chinese does.
Possibly perceiving an expression of
dubiosity on their faces, the globetrotter went on adhering to his adventures.
- And I seen a man killed in
Whilst speaking he produced a dangerous
looking claspknife, quite in keeping with his character, and held it in the
striking position.
- In a knockingshop it was count of a
tryon between two smugglers. Fellow hid
behind a door, come up behind him. Like
that. Prepare to meet your God,
says he. Chuck! It went into his back up to the butt.
His heavy glance, drowsily roaming about,
kind of defied their further questions even should they by any chance want
to. That's a good bit of steel, repeated
he, examining his formidable stiletto.
After which harrowing dénouement
sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon
in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.
- They're great for the cold steel,
somebody who was evidently quite in the dark said for the benefit of them
all. That was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account
of them using knives.
At this remark, passed obviously in the
spirit of where ignorance is bliss, Mr Bloom and Stephen, each in his
own particular way, both instinctively exchanged meaningful glances, in a
religious silence of the strictly entre nous variety however, towards
where Skin-the-Goat, alias the keeper, was drawing spurts of liquid form
his boiler affair. His inscrutable face,
which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring
description, conveyed the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what
was going on. Funny
very.
There ensued a somewhat lengthy
pause. One man was reading by fits and
stars a stained-by-coffee evening journal; another, the card with the natives choza de; another, the seaman's
discharge. Mr Bloom, so far a he was
personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence
alluded to took place as well as yesterday, some score of years previously, in
the days of the land troubles when it took the civilised world by storm,
figuratively speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he
was just turned fifteen.
- Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them
papers.
The request being complied with, he
clawed them up with a scrape.
- Have you seen the Rock of Gibraltar? Mr
Bloom inquired.
The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way
that might be read as yes, ay, or no.
- Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom
said, Europa point, thinking he had in the hope that the rover might possibly
by some reminiscences but he failed to do so, simply letting spurt a jet of
spew into the sawdust, and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.
- What year would that be about? Mr Bloom
interpolated. Can you recall the boats?
Our soi-disant sailor munched
heavily awhile, hungrily, before answering.
- I'm tired of all them
rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships.
Salt junk all the time.
Tired, seemingly, he ceased. His questioner, perceiving that he was not
likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering
on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe. Suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at
the map revealed, it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised
accordingly what it meant, to rule the waves.
On more than one occasion - a dozen at the lowest - near the North Bull
at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt, evidently derelict,
seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring
quite obliviously at it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new
as someone somewhere sings. And it left
him wondering why. Possibly he had tried
to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes and
all that sort of thing and over and under - well, not exactly under, tempting
the fates. And the odds were twenty to
nil there was really no secret about it at all.
Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the business,
the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the
natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the
face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived
to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the
lottery and insurance, which were run on identically the same lines so that for
that very reason, if no other, lifeboat Sunday was a very laudable institution
to which the public at large, no matter where living, inland or seaside, as the
case might be, having it brought home to them like that, should extend its
gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the
rigging and push off and out amid the elements, whatever the season, when duty
called Ireland expects that every man and so on, and sometimes had a
terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and
others, liable to capsize at any moment rounding which he once with his
daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather.
- There was a fellow sailed with me in
the Rover, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded. Went ashore and took up a soft job as
gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on me and he gave me an oilskin
and that jackknife. I'm game for that
job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming
about. There's my son now, Danny, run
off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper's in
- What age is he? queried one hearer who,
by the way, seen form the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell,
the townclerk, away from the carking cares of office, unwashed, of course, and
in a seedy getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage.
- Why, the sailor answered with a slow
puzzled utterance. My
son Danny? He'd be about eighteen
now, way I figure it.
The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open
his grey or unclean anyhow shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his
chest on which was to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink, intended
to represent an anchor.
- There was lice
in that bunk in
Seeing they were all looking at his
chest, he accommodatingly dragged his shirt more open so that, on top of the
timehonoured symbol of the mariner's hope and rest, they had a full view of the
figure 16 and a young man's sideface looking frowningly rather.
- Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying becalmed off
- Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor.
That worthy, however, was busily engaged
in collecting round the someway in his.
Squeezing or ...
- See here, he said, showing
Antonio. There he is, cursing the
mate. And there he is now, he
added. The same
fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers, some special knack evidently, and he
laughing at a yarn.
And in point of fact the young man named
Antonio's livid face did actually look like forced smiling and the curious
effect excited the unreserved admiration of everybody, including Skin-the-Goat
who this time stretched over.
- Ay, ay, sighed
the sailor, looking down on his manly chest.
He's gone too. Ate
by sharks after. Ay, ay.
He let go of the skin so that the profile
resumed the normal expression of before.
- Neat bit of work, longshoreman one
said.
- And what's the number for? loafer number two queried.
- Eaten alive? a
third asked the sailor.
- Ay, ay, sighed again the latter
personage, more cheerily this time, with some sort of a half smile, for a brief
duration only, in the direction of the questioner about the number. A Greek he was.
And then he added, with rather
gallowsbird humour, considering his alleged end:
-
As bad as old Antonio,
For he left me on my ownio.
The face of a streetwalker, glazed and
haggard under a black straw hat, peered askew round the door of the shelter,
palpably reconnoitring on her own with the object of bringing more grist to her
mill. Mr Bloom, scarcely knowing which
way to look, turned away on the moment, flusterfied but outwardly calm, and
picking up from the table the pink sheet of the Abbey street organ which the
jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink
of the paper though why pink? His reason
for so doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the same face he
had caught a fleeting glimpse of that afternoon on Ormond Quay, the partially
idiotic female, namely, of the lane, who knew the lady in the brown costume
does be with you (Mrs B.), and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing, which seemed rather vague
than not?
Your
washing. Still, candour compelled him to
admit that he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles Street
and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and
Draper's marking ink (hers were, that is), if they really loved him, that is to
say. Love me, love my dirty shirt. Still, just then, being on tenterhooks, he
desired the female's room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief
when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he
just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door with a
kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all there,
viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round Skipper Murphy's
nautical chest and then there was no more of her.
- The gunboat, the keeper said.
- It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to
Stephen, medically I am speaking, how a wretched creature like that from the
Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged
his shoulders, merely remarking:
- In this country people sell much more
than she ever had and do a roaring trade.
Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the
soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.
The elder man, though not by any manner
of means an old maid or a prude, said that it was nothing short of a crying
scandal that ought to be put a stop to instanter to say that women of that
stamp (quite apart from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a
necessary evil, were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper
authorities, a thing he could truthfully state he, as a paterfamilias,
was a stalwart advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort, he
said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on
everybody concerned.
- You, as a good catholic, he observed,
talking of body and soul, believe in the soul.
Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, as distinct
from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup? I believe in that myself because it has been
explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such inventions
as X rays, for instance. Do you?
Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a
superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could
say:
- They tell me on the best authority it
is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for
the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause, Who, from all I can
hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other practical jokes,
corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded
by court etiquette.
Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the
general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his
sublunary depth. Still he felt bound to
enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining:
- Simple?
I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue
moon. But what i am anxious to arrive at
is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Röntgen did, or the
telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time, Galileo was the
man I mean. The same applies to the
laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but
it's a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of a
supernatural God.
- O, that, Stephen expostulated, has been
proved conclusively by several of the best known passages in Holy Writ, apart
form circumstantial evidence.
On this knotty point, however, the views
of the pair, poles apart as they were, both in schooling and everything
else, with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed.
- Has been? the
more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point. I'm not so sure about that. That's a matter of every man's opinion and,
without dragging in the sectarian side of the business,
I beg to differ with you in toto there.
My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine
forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of
our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them, like Hamlet and
Bacon, as you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I
needn't tell you. Can't you drink that
coffee, by the way? Let me stir it and
take a piece of that bun. It’s like one
of our skipper's bricks disguised.
Still, no-one can give what he hasn't got. Try a bit.
- Couldn't, Stephen contrived to get out,
his mental organs for the moment refusing to dictate further.
Faultfinding being a proverbially bad
hat, Mr Bloom thought well to stir, or try to, the clotted sugar from the
bottom and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace
and its temperance (and lucrative) work.
To be sure, it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or nay did a world
of good. Shelters such as the present
one they were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts,
dramatic evenings, and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for
the lower orders. On the other hand, he had a distinct and
painful recollection they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been
prominently associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed
for her pianoplaying. The idea, he was
strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a
profit, there being no competition to speak of.
Sulphate of copper poison, SO4 or something in some dried peas he
remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't remember
when it was or where. Anyhow, inspection,
medical inspection, of all eatables, seemed to him more than ever necessary
which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's Vi-Cocoa on account of
the medical analysis involved.
- Have a shot at it now,
he ventured to say of the coffee after being stirred.
Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste
it, Stephen lifted the heavy mug from the brown puddle - it clopped out of it
when taken up - by the handle and took a sip of the offending beverage.
- Still, it's
solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food, his one and
only reason being not gormandising in the least but regular meals as the sine
qua non for any kind of proper work, mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man.
- Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But oblige me by taking away that knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.
Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and
removed the incriminated article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing
particularly Roman or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point
was the least conspicuous point about it.
- Our mutual friend's stories are like
himself, Mr Bloom, apropos of knives, remarked to his confidante
sotto voce. Do you think they are
genuine? He could spin those yarns for
hours on end all night long and lie like old boots. Look at him.
Yet still, though his eyes were thick
with sleep and sea air, life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a
terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was
not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent
probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate
gospel.
He had been meantime taking stock of the
individual in front of him and Sherlockholmesing him up, ever since he clapped
eyes on him. though
a wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, there
was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a fail delivery and
it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a weirdlooking
specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even have done for his man,
supposing it was his own case he told, as people often did about others,
namely, that he killed him himself and had served his four or five goodlooking
years in durance vile to say nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to
the dramatic personage of identical name who sprang from the pen of our
national poet) who expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above
described. On the other hand he might be
only bluffing, a pardonable weakness, because meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin
residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad, would tempt any ancient
mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus
and etctera. And when all was said and
done, the lies a fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a proverbial
candle to the wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him.
- Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all
a pure invention, he resumed. Analogous
scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though, that is rather a far cry you
see once in away. Marcella,
the midget queen. In those
waxworks in
However, reverting to friend Sinbad and
his horrifying adventures (who reminded him a bit of Ludwig, alias
Ledwidge, when he occupied the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was
identified with the management in the Flying Dutchman, a stupendous
success, and his host of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply
flocking to hear him though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the
stage usually fell a bit flat as also did trains), there was nothing
intrinsically incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary, that stab in the back touch
was quite in keeping with those Italianos, though candidly he was none the less
free to admit those ice creamers and friers in the fish way, not to mention the
chip potato variety and so forth, over in little Italy there, near the Coombe,
were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to
pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at
night so as to have a good old succulent tuck in with garlic de rigueur off
him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.
- Spaniards, for instance, he continued,
passionate temperaments like that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking
the law into their own hands and give you your quietus double quick with those
poignards they carry in the abdomen. It
comes from the great heat, climate generally.
My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half, that is. Point of fact she could actually claim
Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in (technically)
- The temperaments at the door, Stephen
interposed with, were very passionate about ten shillings. Roberto ruba roba sua.
- Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed.
- Then, Stephen said, staring and
rambling on to himself or some unknown listener somewhere, we have the
impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles triangle, Miss Portinari, he fell in
love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino.
- It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at
once. All are washed in the blood of the
sun. Coincidence, I just happened to be
in the
Interest, however, was starting to flag
somewhat all round and the others got on to talking about accidents at sea,
ships lost in a fog, collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy, of course, had his
own say to say. He had doubled
the Cape a few odd times and weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China
seas and through all those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared,
stood to him, or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.
So then after that they drifted on to the
wreck of Daunt's rock, wreck of that illfated Norwegian barque - nobody could
think of her name for the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of
Henry Campbell remembered it, Palme, on Booterstown Strand, that was the
talk of the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original
verse of distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish Times) breakers
running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified with
horror. Then someone said something
about the case of the s.s. Lady Cairns of
At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him to unfurl
a reef, the sailor vacated his seat.
- Let me cross your bows, mate, he said
to his neighbour, who was just gently dropping off into a peaceful calm.
He made tracks heavily, slowly, with a
dumpy sort of a gait to the door, stepped heavily down the one step there was
out of the shelter and bore due left.
While he was in the act of getting his bearings, Mr Bloom, who noticed
when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's rum sticking one
out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning interior, saw him
produce a bottle and uncork it, or unscrew, and, applying its nozzle to his
lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a
shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the
counterattraction in the shape of a female, who, however, had disappeared to
all intents and purposes, could, by straining, just perceive him, when duly
refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gazing up at the piers and girders of
the Loop Line, rather out of his depth, as of course it was radically altered
since his last visit and greatly improved.
Some person or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected
by the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but, after a
brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme, the sailor, evidently
giving it a wide berth, eased himself close at hand, the noise of his bilgewater
some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where it apparently woke
a horse of the cabrank.
A hoof scooped anuway for new foothold
after sleep and harness jingled.
Slightly disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke, the watcher
of the corporation, who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none
other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the parish
rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human probability, from
dictates of humanity, knowing him before - shifted about and shuffled in his
box before composing his limbs again in the arms of Morpheus. A truly amazing piece of hard times in its
most virulent form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with
decent home comforts all his life who came in for a cool £100 a year at one
time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks
and drakes of. And there he was at the
end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink, without a
beggarly stiver. He drank, needless to
be told, and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in
a large way of business if - a big if, however - he had contrived to cure
himself of his particular partiality.
All, meantime, were loudly lamenting the
falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well, which was all
part and parcel of the same thing. A
Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at
There were wrecks and wrecks, the keeper
said, who was evidently au fait.
What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only rock in
Galway Bay when the Galway Harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr Worthington or
some name like that, eh? Ask her
captain, he advised them, how much palmoil the British Government gave him for
that day's work. Captain
John Lever of the Lever line.
- Am I right, skipper?
he queried of the sailor now returning after his
private potation and the rest of his exertions.
That worthy, picking up the scent of the
fagend of the song or words, growled in wouldbe music, but with great vim, some
kind of chanty or other in seconds or thirds.
Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate the plug probably
(which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time being in his fist
while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found it a bit sour after
the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in
he rolled after his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an
atmosphere of drink into the soiree, boisterously trolling, like a
veritable son of a seacook:
- The
biscuits was as hard as brass,
And the beef as salt as
O Johnny Lever!
Johnny Lever, O!
After which effusion the redoubtable
specimen duly arrived on the scene and, regaining his seat, he sank rather than
sat heavily on the form provided.
Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he,
evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble
philippic anent the natural resources of Ireland, or something of that sort,
which he described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none
on the face of God's earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in
large quantities, six million pounds' worth of pork exported every year, ten
millions between butter and eggs, and all the riches drained out of it by
England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the nose always, and
gobbling up the best meat in the market, and a lot more surplus steam in the
same vein. Their conversation
accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish
soil, he stated, and there was Colonel Everard down there in Cavan growing
tobacco. Where would you find anywhere
the like of Irish bacon? But a day of
reckoning, he stated crescendo with no uncertain voice - thoroughly
monopolising all the conversation - was in store for mighty
Silence all round marked the termination
of his finale. The impervious
navigator heard these lurid tidings undismayed.
- Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated
that rough diamond palpably a bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism.
To which cold douche, referring to
downfall and so on, the keeper concurred but nevertheless held to his main
view.
- Who's the best troops
in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately
interrogated. And the
best jumpers and racers? And the
best admirals and generals we've got?
Tell me that.
- The Irish for choice, retorted the
cabby like
- That's right, the old tarpaulin
corroborated. The
Irish catholic peasant. He's the
backbone of our empire. You know Jem
Mullins?
While allowing him his individual
opinions, as every man, the keeper added he cared nothing for any empire, ours
or his, and considered no Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few irascible
words, when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to the listeners
who followed the passage of arms with
interest so long as they didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows.
From inside information extending over a
series of years Mr Bloom was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as
egregious baldersash for, pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be
wished for, he was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the
channel, unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather
concealed their strength than the opposite.
It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in
a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out
and if, as time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could
personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, equally relevant
to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly advisable in the interim to
try to make the most of both countries, even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours
of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish
soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact. And now, why?
So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the place,
rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and the other,
obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours with the
confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged, as the lookeron, a
student of the human soul, if anything, the others seeing least of the
game. And as for the lessee or keeper,
who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (Bloom) couldn't help feeling,
and most properly, it was better to give people like that the goby unless you
were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have anything to do with them
as a golden rule in private life and their felonsetting, there always being the
offchance of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence - or king's
now - like Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that, he disliked those
careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle.
Yet, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his
bosom in any shape or form, he certainly did feel, and no denying it (while
inwardly remaining what he was), a certain kind of admiration for a man who had
actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his political
convictions though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing,
off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south - have her or swing for
her - when the husband frequently, after some words passed between the two
concerning her relations with the other lucky mortal (the man having had the
pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on his adored one as a result of an
alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her until it
just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for
the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably
informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea
some legal luminary saved his skin on.
In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend,
the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on
the scaffold high. Like actresses,
always farewell - positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault, of
course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping
at the bone for the shadow. So
similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some
£.s.d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial
atmosphere of the Old Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the others, he had heard not so
long before the same identical lingo, as he told Stephen how he simply but
effectually silenced the offender.
- He took umbrage at something or other,
that muchinjured but on the whole eventempered person declared, I let
slip. He called me a jew,
and in a heated fashion, offensively. So
I, without deviating from plain facts in the least, told him his God, I mean
Christ, was a jew too, and all his family, like me,
though in reality I'm not. That was once
for him. A soft answer turns away
wrath. He hadn't a word to say for
himself as everyone saw. Am I not right?
He turned a long you are wrong gaze on
Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment, with a glance also of
entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly ...
- Ex quibus, Stephen mumbled in a
noncommittal accent, their two or four eyes conversing, Christus or
Bloom his name is, or, after all, any other, secundum carnem.
- Of course, Mr Bloom proceeded to
stipulate, you must look at both sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast
rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly
is though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the
government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all very fine to boast of mutual
superiority but what about mutual equality?
I resent violence or intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments
plan. It's a patent absurdity on the
face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another
vernacular, so to speak.
- Memorable bloody bridge battle and
seven minutes' war, Stephen assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond
market.
- Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed,
entirely endorsing the remark, that was overwhelmingly right and the whole
world was overwhelmingly full of that sort of thing.
- You just took the words out of my
mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of
conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely ...
All those wretched quarrels, in his
humble opinion, stirring up bad blood - bump of combativeness or gland of some
kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag - were
very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of
everything, greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop.
- They accuse - remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others, who probably
... and spoke nearer to, so as the others ... in case they
...
- Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in
Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining.
Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History - would you be surprised to learn? -
proves up to the hilt
Over his untasteable apology for a cup of
coffee, listening to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at
nothing in particular. He could hear, of
course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the
morning, burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same sand
where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said
or didn't say the words the voice he heard said - if you work.
- Count me out,
he managed to remark, meaning to work.
The eyes were surprised by this
observation, because as he, the person who owned them pro. tem.
observed, or, rather, his voice speaking did: All must
work, have to, together.
- I mean, of course, the other hastened
to affirm, work in the widest possible sense.
Also literary labour, not merely for the kudos of the
thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That's work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you,
after all the money expended on your education, you are entitled to recoup
yourself and command your price. You
have every bit as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy
as the peasant has. What? You both belong to
- You suspect, Stephen retorted with a
sort of half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the faubourg
Saint-Patrice called
- I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom
insinuated.
- But I suspect,
Stephen interrupted, that
- What belongs? queried
Mr Bloom, bending, fancying he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Excuse me.
Unfortunately I didn't catch the latter portion. What was it you? ...
Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated
and shoved aside his mug of coffee, or whatever you like to call it, none too
politely, adding:
- We can't change the country. Let us change the subject.
At this pertinent suggestion, Mr Bloom,
to change the subject, looked down, but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell
exactly what construction to put on 'belongs to' which sounded rather a far
cry. The rebuke of some kind was clearer
than the other part. Needless to say,
the fumes of his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter
way, foreign to his sober state.
Probably the home life, to which Mr Bloom attached the utmost
importance, had not been all that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised
with the right sort
of people. With a touch of fear for the
young man beside him, whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some
consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, the eyes more
especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister, failing to throw much
light on the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultural fellows
that promised so brilliantly, nipped in the bud of premature decay, and nobody
to blame but themselves. For instance,
there was the case of O'Callaghan, for one, the half crazy faddist respectably
connected, though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries, among whose other
gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he
was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a
fact). And then the usual dénouement
after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got landed into hot water and had
to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint to a blind horse from
John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to be made amenable under section
two of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, certain names of those subpoenaed being
handed in but not divulged, for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick
of brains. Briefly, putting two and two
together, six sixteen, which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to, Antonio and so
forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the go in the
seventies or thereabouts, even in the House of Lords, because early in life the
occupant of the throne, then heir apparent, the other members of the upper ten
and other high personages simply following in the footsteps of the head of the
state, he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running
counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under
their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy as
the law stands was terribly down on, though not for the reason they thought
they were probably, whatever it was, except women chiefly, who were always
fiddling more or less at one another, it being largely a matter of dress and
all the rest of it. Ladies who like
distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must, trying to
make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine fillip
to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied
her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety
degrees in the shade not caring a continental.
However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others
who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their
bootstraps. Sheer force of natural
genius, that. With
brains, sir.
For which and further reasons he felt it
was interest and duty even to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion,
though why, he could not exactly tell, being, as it was, already several
shillings to the bad, having, in fact, let himself in for it. Still, to cultivate the acquaintance of
someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection would
amply repay any small ... Intellectual stimulation as such was, he felt, from
time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind.
Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row,
old salt, of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the whole
galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the world we live
in, especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz., coalminers, divers,
scavengers, etc., were very much under the microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered
whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip
Beaufoy if taken down in writing.
Suppose he were to pen something out of the common groove (as he fully intended
doing) at the rate of one guinea per column, My Experiences, let us say,
in a Cabman's Shelter.
The pink edition, extra sporting, of the Telegraph,
tell a graphic lie, lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was
just puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and
the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgewater and the postcard was
addressed to A. Boudin, find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly over
the respective captions which came under his special province, the allembracing
give us this day our daily press. First
he got a bit of a start but it turned out to be only something about somebody
named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish £200
damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration swindle. Letter from His Grace William +.
So to change the subject he read about
Dignam, R.I.P., which, he reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff.
- This morning (Hynes put it in,
of course), the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his
residence, no. 9 Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a most popular and
genial personality in city life and his demise, after a brief illness, came as
a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the
deceased were present, were carried out (certainly Hynes wrote it with a
nudge from Corny) by Messrs. H.J. O'Neill & Son, 164
Nettled not a little by L. Boom (as
it incorrectly stated) and the line of botched type, but ticked to death
simultaneously by C.P. M'Coy and Stephen Dedalus, B.A., who were conspicuous,
needless to say, by their total absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh), L. Boom
pointed it out to his companion B.A., engaged in stifling another yawn, half
nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints.
- Is that first epistle to the Hebrews,
he asked, as soon as his bottom jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put they foot in it.
- It is, really, Mr Bloom said (though
first he fancied he alluded to the archbishop till he added about foot and
mouth with which there could be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his
mind at rest and a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing the
thing, there.
While the other was reading it on page
two Boom (to give him for the nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd
leisure moments in fits and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot
on page three, his sidevalue 1,000 sovs., with 3,000 sovs. in
specie added for entire colts and fillies, Mr F. Alexander's Throwaway,
b.h. by Rightaway, 5 yrs, 9st 4lbs, Thrale (W. Lane) 1. Lord Howard de Walden's Zinfandel (M. Cannon) 2. Mr W. Bass's Sceptre, 3. Betting 5
to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Throwaway and Zinfandel
stood close order. It was
anybody's race then the rank outsider drew to the fore got long lead, beating
lord Howard de Walden's chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre
on a 2½ mile course. Winner trained by
Braine so that Lenehan's version of the business was all pure buncombe. Secured the verdict
cleverly by a length. 1,000 sovs., with 3,000 in specie.
Also ran J. de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was anxiously
inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) Maximum II. Different ways of bringing
off a coup. Lovemaking
damages. Though
that halfbaked
- There was every indication they would
arrive at that, Mr Bloom said.
- Who? the
other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.
One morning you would open the paper, the
cabman affirmed, and read, Return of Parnell. He bet them what they liked. A
All the same, Bloom (properly so dubbed)
was rather surprised at their memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a
case of tarbarrels, and not singly but in their thousands, and then complete
oblivion because it was twenty odd years.
Highly unlikely, of course, there was even a shadow of truth in the
stories and, even supposing, he thought a return highly inadvisable, all things
considered. Something evidently riled
them in his death. Either he petered out
too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his various different political
arrangements were nearing completion or whether it transpired he owed his death
to his having neglected to change his boots and clothes after a wetting when a
cold resulted and failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room
till he eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at
an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken out of
their hands. Of course nobody being
acquainted with his movements even before, there was absolutely no clue as to
his whereabouts which were decidedly of the Alice, where art thou order
even prior to his starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart,
so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of
possibility. Naturally then, it would
prey on his mind as a born leader of men, which undoubtedly he was, and a
commanding figure, a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his
stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So-and-So who, though they weren't even a patch
on the former man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few
and far between. It certainly pointed a
moral, the idol with feet of clay. And then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with
mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back - that haunting sense
kind of drew you - to show the understudy in the title rôle how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion
when they broke up the type in the Insuppressible or was it United
Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed
him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said Thank you, excited
as he undoubtedly was under his frigid expression notwithstanding the little
misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip - what's bred in the
bone. Still, as regards return, you were
a lucky dog if they didn't set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually
followed. Tom for and
Dick and Harry against. And then,
number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to produce your
credentials, like the claimant in the Tichborne case. Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was the
boat's name to the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in, as the
evidence went to show, and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, Lord
Bellew, was it? As he might very easily
have picked up the details form some pal on board ship and then, when got up to
tally with the description given, introduce himself with, Excuse me, my name
is So-and-So or some such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, Mr Bloom said to the not
over effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside
him, would have been to sound the lie of the land first.
- That bitch, that English whore, did for
him, the shebeen proprietor commented.
She put the first nail in his coffin.
- Fine lump of a woman, all the same, the
soi-disant townclerk, Henry Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. I seen her picture
in a barber's. Her husband was a captain
or an officer.
- Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added. He was, and a cottonball one.
This gratuitous contribution of a
humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom, he, without the faintest
suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected
upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary interest at the time
when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public with the usual
affectionate letters that passed between them, full of sweet nothings. First, it was strictly platonic till nature
intervened and an attachment sprang up between them, till bit by bit matters
came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering
blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed however, who were
resolved upon encouraging his downfall though the thing was public property all
along though not to anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently
blossomed into. Since their names were
coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, where was the particular
necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops, the fact
namely, that he had shared her bedroom, which came out in the witnessbox on
oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying
everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such
and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs
apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained
admittance in the same fashion, a fact that the weeklies, addicted to the lubric
a little, simply called shoals of money out of.
Whereas the simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the
husband not being up to the scratch with nothing in common between them beyond
the name and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of
weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and
forgetting home ties. The
usual sequel, to bask in the loved one's smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial,
needless to say, cropped up. Can real
love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist between
married folk? Though
it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with affection
carried away by a wave of folly.
A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly, augmented obviously by
gifts of a high order as compared with the other military supernoumerary, that
is (who was just the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of
an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate), and
inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own
peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to
carve his way to fame, which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and
ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents and his
beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts
of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that exceeded
their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose,
thereby heaping coals of fire on his head, much in the same way as the fabled
ass's kick. Looking back now in a
retrospective kind of arrangement, all seemed a kind of dream. And the coming back was the worst thing you
ever did because it went without saying you would feel out of place as things
always moved with the times. Why, as he
reflected, Irishtown Strand, a locality he had not been in for quite a number
of years, looked different somehow since, as it happened,he
went to reside on the north side. North
or south however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and
simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the very
thing he was saying, as she also was Spanish or half so, types that wouldn't do
things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting every shred of
decency to the winds.
- Just bears out what I was saying, he
with glowing bosom said to Stephen. And,
if I don't greatly mistake, she was Spanish too.
- The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen
answered, adding something or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to
you Spanish onions and the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to
Scilly was so and so many ...
- Was she? Bloom ejaculated surprised,
though not astonished by any means. I
never heard that rumour before.
Possible, especially there it was, as she lived there. So,
Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket Sweets
of, which reminded him by the by of that Capel street library book out of
date, he took out his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents
rapidly, finally he ...
- Do you consider, by the by, he said,
thoughtfully selecting a faded photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish
type?
Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down
on the photo showing a large sized lady, with her fleshy charms on evidence in
an open fashion, as she was in the full bloom of womanhood, in evening dress
cut ostentatiously low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with
more than vision of breasts, her full lips parted, and some perfect teeth,
standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano, on the rest of which was In
old Madrid, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady's) eyes, dark, large, looked at
Stephen, about to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of
Westmoreland street, Dublin's premier photographic artist, being responsible
for the esthetic execution.
- Mrs Bloom, my wife the prima donna,
Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom indicated. Taken a few years since.
In or about '96. Very like her
then.
Beside the young man he looked also at
the photo of the lady now his legal wife who, he intimated, was the
accomplished daughter of Major Brain Tweedy and displayed at an early age
remarkable proficiency as a singer having even made her bow to the public when
her years numbered barely sweet sixteen.
As for the face, it was a speaking likeness in expression but it did not
do justice to her figure, which came in for a lot of notice usually and which
did not come out to the best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have
posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the ... He
dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in
general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that
afternoon, he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as works of
art, in the National Museum. Marble
could give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry. All the rest, yes,
Puritanism. It does though,
The spirit moving him, he would much have
liked to follow Jack Tar's good example and leave the likeness there for a very
few minutes to speak for itself on the plea he ... so that the other could
drink in the beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in
itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional etiquette
so, though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm
... And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a kind of
inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless, he sat tight, just viewing the
slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear,
however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing
the other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint. In fact, the slight soiling was only an added
charm, like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better, in
fact, with the starch out. Suppose she
was gone when he?... I looked for the lamp which she
told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because he then
recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met
him pike hoses (sic) in it which must have fell down sufficiently
appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray.
The vicinity of the young man he
certainly relished, educated, distingué, and impulsive into the bargain,
far and away the pick of the bunch, though you wouldn't think he had it in him
... yet you would. Besides he said the
picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was, though at the moment she
was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful
lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur
with the usual splash page of letterpress about the same old matrimonial tangle
alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite
instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment
sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye
was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising
expressions, leaving no loophole, to show that they openly cohabited two or
three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the
thing ran its normal course, became in due course intimate. Then the decree nisi and the King's
Proctor to show cause why and, he failing to quash it,
nisi was made absolute. But as
for that, the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one
another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till the
matter was put in the hands of a solicitor, who filed a petition for the party
wronged in due course. He, Bloom,
enjoyed the distinction of being close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh
when the thing occurred on the historic fracas when the fallen leader's
- who notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the
mantle of adultery - (leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen
or possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the Insuppressible
or no it was United Ireland (a by no means, by the by, appropriate
appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or something like that all
on account of some scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O'Brienite
scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation, reflecting on the erstwhile
tribune's private morals. Though
palpably a radically altered man, he was still a commanding figure, though
carelessly garbed as usual, with that look of settled purpose which went a long
way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture
that their idol had feet of clay, after placing him upon a pedestal, which she,
however, was the first to perceive. As
those were particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a
minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that of course
congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of
a grave character. His hat (Parnell's)
was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the
man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to
return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who,
panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the
time, being a gentleman born with a stake in the country, he, as a matter of
fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else,
what's bred in the bone, instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in
the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned
round to the donor and thanked him with perfect aplomb, saying: Thank
you, sir, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the
legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the course
of the day, history repeating itself with a difference; after the burial of a
mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory after the grim task of
having committed his remains to the
grave.
On the other hand what incensed him more
inwardly was the blatant jokes of the cabmen and so on, who passed it all off
as a jest, laughing immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why
and the wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case
for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate husband
happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from the usual boy
Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial moment in a loving
position locked in one another's arms drawing attention to their illicit
proceedings and leading up to a domestic rumpus and the erring fair one begging
forgiveness of her lord and master upon her knees and promising to sever the
connection and not receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband
would overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones, with tears in her eyes,
though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time, as quite
possibly there were several others. He
personally, being of a sceptical bias, believed, and didn't make the smallest
bones about saying so either, that man, or men in the plural, were always hanging
around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife
in the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument,
when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life, and was on
for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on her with
improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred on another, the
cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on
for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as several famous cases of
feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt.
It
was a thousand pities a young fellow blessed with an allowance of brains, as
his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with profligate
women, who might present him with a nice dose to last him his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would
one day take unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the
interim ladies' society was a conditio sine qua non though he had the
gravest possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen
about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particularly lodestar who
brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he would
find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea and the
company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi- or tri-weekly
with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentpaying and walking out
leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To think of him house and homeless, rooked by
some landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer things he popped out suddenly with
attracted the elder man who was several years the other's senior or like his
father. But something substantial he
certainly ought to eat, were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal
nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.
- At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired though unwrinkled
face.
- Some time yesterday, Stephen said.
- Yesterday, exclaimed Bloom till he
remembered it was already tomorrow, Friday.
Ah, you mean it's after twelve!
- The day before yesterday, Stephen said,
improving on himself.
Literally astounded at this piece of
intelligence, Bloom reflected. Though
they didn't see eye to eye in everything, a certain analogy there somehow was,
as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of
thought. At his age when dabbling in
politics roughly some score of years previously when he had been a quasi aspirant
to parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in
retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a
sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas.
For instance, when the evicted tenants' question, then at its first
inception, bulked largely in people's minds though, it goes without saying, not
contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of
which wouldn't exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle, at all
events, was in thorough sympathy with peasant possessions, as voicing the trend
of modern opinion, a partiality, however, which, realising his mistaken, he was
subsequently partially cured of, and even was twitted with going a step further
than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time inculcated as a
backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly resented the innuendo put
upon him in so barefaced a fashion at the gathering of the clans in Barney
Kiernan's so that he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least
pugnacious of mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to
give him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though so far as politics
themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties
invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and the
misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on fine young
fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word.
Anyhow, upon weighing the pros and cons,
getting on for one as it was, it was high time to be retiring for the
night. The crux was it was a bit risky
to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody having a
temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on the night he
misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame paw, not that the
cases were either identical or the reverse, though he had hurt his hand too, to
Ontario Terrace, as he very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to
speak. On the other hand it was
altogether far and away too late for Sandymount or Sandycove suggestion so that
he was in some perplexity as to which of the two alternatives ... Everything
pointed to the fact that it behoved him to avail himself to the full of the
opportunity, all things considered. His
initial impression was that he was a bit standoffish or not over effusive but
it grew on him someway. For one thing he
mightn't what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried
him was he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he
did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal pleasure
if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if found
suitable. At all events he wound up by
concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa
and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled
into a pillow. At least he would be in
safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet.
He failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always with
the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. A move had to be made because that merry old
soul, the grasswidower in question, who appeared to be glued to the spot,
didn't appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly
beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of
retired beauties off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue to that
equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to come, alternately racking
their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on
the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling
their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the
accompaniment of large potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself
for as to who he in reality was let XX equal my right name and address, as Mr
Algebra remarks passim. At the
same time he inwardly chuckled over his repartee to the blood and ouns champion
about his God being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a
wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender
Achilles, your God was a jew, because mostly they
appeared to imagine he came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhere about in the
- I propose, our hero eventually
suggested, after mature reflection while prudently pocketing her photo, as it's
rather stuffy here, you just come with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Wait, I'll just pay this lot.
The best plan clearly being to clear out,
the remainder being plain sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the
photo, to the keeper of the shanty, who didn't seem to ...
- Yes, that's the best, he assured
Stephen, to whom for the matter of that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was
all more or less ...
All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing
through his (Bloom's) busy brain.
Education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, up
to date billing, hydros and concert tours in English watering resorts packed
with theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the accent perfectly
true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity of course to tell
the world and his wife from the housetops about it and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected he had his
father's voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so
it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the
direction of that particular red herring just to ...
The cabby read out of the paper he had
got hold of that the former viceroy, earl Cadagan, had presided at the
cabdriver's association dinner in
- Give us a squint at that literature,
grandfather, the ancient mariner put in, manifesting some natural impatience.
- And welcome, answered the elderly party
thus addressed.
The sailor lugged out from a case he had
a pair of greenish goggles which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both
ears.
- Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the town clerk queried.
- Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan
beard, who seemingly was a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring
out of seagreen portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles
reading. Sand in the
Thereupon he pawed the journal open and
pored upon Lord only knows what, found drowned or the exploits of King Willow,
Iremonger having made a hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts,
during which time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely
occupied loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly
pinched him, as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were
sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, that is
to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial remark.
To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping
the situation, was the first to rise to his feet so as not to outstay their
welcome having first and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot
the bill for the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to
mine host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were not
looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a grand total
of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally
the last of the Mohicans) he having previously spotted on the printed pricelist
for all who ran to read opposite to him in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d.,
confectionery do., and honestly well worth twice the money once in a way, as
Wetherup used to remark.
- Come, he counselled, to close the séance.
Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast
was clear, they left the shelter or shanty together and the élite
society of oilskin and company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move
out of their dolce far niente.
Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out, paused at
the, for a moment ... the door to ...
- One thing I never understood, he said,
to be original on the spur of the moment, why they put tables upside down at
night, I mean chairs upside down on the tables in cafés.
To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom
replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off:
- To sweep the floor in the morning.
So saying he skipped around nimbly,
considering frankly, at the same time apologetic, to get on his companion's
right, a habit of his, by the by, the right side of being, in classical idiom,
his tender Achilles. The night air was
certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit weak on his pins.
- It will (the
air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a
different man. It's not far. Lean on me.
Accordingly he passed his left arm in
Stephen's right and led him on accordingly.
- Yes, Stephen said uncertainly, because
he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him,
sinewless and wobbly and all that.
Anyhow, they passed the sentrybox with
stones, brazier, etc. where the municipal supernumerary, ex-Gumley, was still
to all intents and purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it,
dreaming of fresh fields and pastures new.
And apropos of coffin of stones, the analogy was not at all bad, as it was in fact a
stoning to death on the part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies
that ratted at the time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class,
probably the selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings.
So they passed on to chatting about
music, a form of art for which Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest
love, as they made tracks arm-in-arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though confessedly grand in
its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the first go-off
but the music of Mercadante's Huguenots, Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words
on the Cross, and Mozart's Twelfth Mass, he simply revelled in, the Gloria
in that being to his mind the acme of first class music as such, literally
knocking everything else into a cocked hat.
He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic
church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as those
Moody and Sankey hymns or Bid me to live and I will live thy protestant to
be. He also yielded to none of his
admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, a work simply abounding in
immortal numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a
veritable sensation, he might safely say greatly adding to her other laurels
and putting the others totally in the shade in the jesuit fathers' church in
Upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to hear
her with virtuosos, or virtuosi rather.
There was the unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her
and, suffice it to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character,
there was a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole, though favouring preferably
light opera of the Don Giovanni description, and Martha, a gem in
its line, he had a penchant, though with only a surface knowledge, for
the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking it for granted he
knew all about the old favourites, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's
air in Martha, M'appari, which, curiously enough, he heard, or
overheard, to be more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly
appreciated, from the lips of Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a
study of the number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a politely put query,
said he didn't but launched out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least
of in or about that period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter Lane near
Gerard the herbalist, whose anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus, an instrument
he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom Bloom did not
quite recall, though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas
and Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd
(William), who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's Chapel or anywhere
else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull.
On the roadway which they were approaching
whilst still speaking beyond the swing chain, a horse, dragging a sweeper,
paced on the paven ground, brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the
noise Bloom was not perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion
to sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He
inquired if it was John Bull the political celebrity of that ilk, as it struck
him, the two identical names, as a striking coincidence.
By the chains, the horse slowly swerved
to turn, which perceiving, Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual
plucked the other's sleeve gently, jocosely remarking:
- Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.
They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth
anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite near,
so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh, because
palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a taildangler, a
headhanger, putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord of his creation
sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts.
But such a good poor brute, he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but,
as he wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that
might crop up. He was just a big foolish
nervous noodly kind of a horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, take that
mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy horror to
face. But it was no animal's fault in
particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert,
distilling grapes into potheen in his hump.
Nine tenths of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the
art of man barring the bees; whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator, tickle
the small of his back and he sees the joke; chalk a circle for a rooster;
tiger, my eagle eye. These timely
reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind, somewhat
distracted from Stephen's words, while the ship of the street was manoeuvring
and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old ...
- What's this I was saying? Ah, yes!
My wife, he intimated, plunging in medias res, would have the
greatest pleasure in making your acquaintance as she is passionately attached
to music of any kind.
He looked sideways in a friendly fashion
at the sideface of Stephen, image of his mother, which was not quite the same
as the usual blackguard type they unquestionably had an indubitable hankering
after as he was perhaps not that way built.
Still, supposing he had his father's
gift, as he more than suspected, it opened up new vistas of his mind, such as
Lady Fingall's Irish industries concert on the preceding Monday, and
aristocracy in general.
Exquisite variations he was now
describing on an air Youth here has End by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a
Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come from. Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes
Jeep about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men,
which boggled Bloom a bit:
Von der Sirenen Listigkeit
Tun die Poeten
dichten.
These opening bars he sang and translated
extempore. Bloom, nodding, said
he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means, which he did.
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like
that, the rarest of boons, if properly handled by some recognised authority on
voice production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the
bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for
its fortunate possessor in the near future an entrée into fashionable
houses in the best residential quarters, of financial magnates in a large way
of business and titled people where, with his university degree of B.A. (a huge
ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good
impression he would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with
brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if
his clothes were properly attended to, so as to the better worm his way into
their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society's sartorial niceties,
hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he
could easily foresee him participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones
during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight
flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out
for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record, in fact,
without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to,
could easily have ... Added to which of course, would be the pecuniary
emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition
fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for
the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a
walk in life for any lengthy space of time but a step in the required direction
it was, beyond yea or nay, and both monetarily and mentally it contained no
reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly
handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little
helped. Besides, though taste latterly
had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that, different from the
conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue, as it would be a decided
novelty for Dublin's musical world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy
tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just
and their genus omne. Yes, beyond
a shadow of a doubt, he could, with all the cards in his hand and he had a
capital opening to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city's
esteem where he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand
concert for the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were
forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak - a big if, however - with
some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination
which often tripped up a too much feted prince of good fellows and it need not
detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have
heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so
doing without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything
derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that
was the very reason why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for
smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all.
The horse was just then ... and later on,
at a propitious opportunity he purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into
his private affairs on the fools step in where angels principle advising
him to sever his connections with a certain budding practitioner, who, he
noticed, was prone to disparage, and even, to a slight extent, with some
hilarious pretext,when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call
it, in Bloom's humble opinion, threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a
person's character - no pun intended.
The horse, having reached the end of his
tether, so to speak, halted, and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added
his quota by letting fall on the floor, which the brush would soon brush up and
polish, three smoking globes of turds.
Slowly, three times, one after another, from a full crupper, he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or
she) had ended, patient in his scythed car.
Side by side Bloom, profiting by the contretemps,
with Stephen passed through the gap of chains, divided by the upright, and,
stepping over a strand of mire, went across towards
Und alle Schiffe brücken.
The driver never said a word, good, bad
or indifferent. He merely watched the
two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black - one full, one lean -
walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father Maher. As they walked, they at times stopped and
walked again, continuing their tête-à-tête (which of course he was
utterly out of), about sirens, enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number
of other topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind
while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper
car who in any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too far simply sat
in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street and looked after their
lowbacked car.
__________________
WHAT parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?
Starting united both at normal walking pace
from Beresford place they followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner
streets and Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left,
Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of Temple
street, north: then at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing right,
Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking
pace they crossed both the circus before George's church diametrically, the
chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends.
Of what did the
duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?
Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin,
Paris, friendship, woman, prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the
light of arc and glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees,
exposed corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church,
ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the study
of medicine, the past day, the maleficient influence of the presabbath,
Stephen's collapse.
Did Bloom discover common factors of
similarity between their respective like and unlike reactions to experience?
Both were sensitive to artistic
impressions musical in preference to plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular
manner of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both indurated by early domestic training and
an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many
orthodox religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the alternately stimulating and
obtunding influence of heterosexual magnetism.
Were their views on
some points divergent?
Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's
views on the importance of dietary and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented
tacitly from Stephen's views on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in
literature. Bloom assented covertly to
Stephen's rectification of the anachronism involved in assigning the date of
the conversion of the Irish nation to christianity from druidism by Patrick son
of Calpornus, son of Potitus, son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celstine I in the
year 432 in the reign of Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of
Cormac MacArt (
266 A.D.) suffocated by imperfect deglution of aliment at
Sletty and interred at Rossnaree. The
collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric inanition and certain chemical
compounds of varying degrees of adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated
by mental exertion and the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing
atmosphere, Stephen attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud
(perceived by both from two different points of observation, Sandycove and
Dublin) at first no bigger than a woman's hand.
Was there one point on which their views
were equal and negative?
The influence of
gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees.
Had Bloom discussed similar subjects
during nocturnal perambulations in the past?
In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil
Turnbull at night on public thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's
corner and Leonard's corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield
avenue. In 1885 with
Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall between
What reflection concerning the irregular
sequence of dates 1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make
before their arrival at their destination?
He reflected that the progressive
extension of the field of individual development and experience was
regressively accompanied by a restriction of the converse domain of
interindividual relations.
As
in what ways?
From inexistence to existence he came to
many and was as one received: existence with existence he was with any as any
with any: from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none
perceived.
What action did
Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th of the
equidifferent uneven numbers, number
Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the
trousers which he had worn on the day but one preceding.
Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he
remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget.
What were then the alternatives before
the, premeditatedly (respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple?
To enter or not to
enter. To knock
or not to knock.
Bloom's
decision?
A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he
climbed over the area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two
points at the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its
length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the
area pavement, and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating
himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of the
fall.
Did he fall?
By his body's known weight of eleven
stone and four pounds in avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated
machine for periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman,
pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast of the
Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bisextile year one thousand
nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five thousand six
hundred and sixtyfour, mohammedan era one thousand three hundred and
twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9, dominical letters CB,
Roman indication 2, Julian period 6617, MXMIV.
Did he rise
uninjured by concussion?
Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose
uninjured though concussed by the impact, raised the latch of the area door by
the exertion of force at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first
kind applied at its fulcrum gained retarded access to the kitchen through the
subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable
coal gas by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he
reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle.
What discrete succession of images did
Stephen meanwhile perceive?
Reclined against the area railings he
perceived through the transparent kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of
14 CP, a man lighting a candle, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a
man leaving the kitchen holding a candle of 1 CP.
Did the man
reappear elsewhere?
After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer
of his candle was discernible through the semitransparent semicircular glass
fanlight over the halldoor. The halldoor
turned gradually on its hinges. In the
open space of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle.
Did Stephen obey
his sign?
Yes, entering softly, he helped to close
and chain the door and followed softly along the hallway the man's back and
listed feet and lighted candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left
and carefully down a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen
of Bloom's house.
What did Bloom do?
He extinguished the candle by a sharp
expiration of breath upon its flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the
hearthstone, one for Stephen with its back
to the area window, the other for himself when necessary, knelt on one
knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped sticks and various
coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram coal at twentyone
shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and M'Donald of 14 D'Olier
street, kindled it at three projecting points of paper with one ignited lucifer
match, thereby releasing the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing
its carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of
the air.
Of what similar
apparitions did Stephen think?
Of others elsewhere in other times who,
kneeling on one knee or on two, had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael
in the infirmary of the college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood,
Sallins, in the county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an
unfurnished room of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon
street: of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss
Julia Morkan of 15 Usher's Island: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus,
in the kitchen of number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the
feast of Saint Francis-Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the
physics' theatre of university College, 16 Stephen's green, north: of his
sister Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra.
What did Stephen see on raising his gaze
to the height of a yard from the fire towards the opposite wall?
Under a row of five coiled spring
housebells a curvilinear rope, stretched between two holdfasts athwart across
the recess beside the chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square
handkerchiefs folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one
pair of ladies' grey hose with lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual
position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer extremities and
the third at their point of junction.
What did Bloom see
on the range?
On the right (smaller)
hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left (larger) hob a black iron kettle.
What did Bloom do
at the range?
He removed the saucepan to the left hob,
rose and carried the iron kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by
turning the faucet to let it flow.
Did it flow?
Yes.
From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of 2,400
million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of filter mains of
single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant cost of £5 per linear
yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26
acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a distance of 22 statute miles, and thence,
through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city
boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer
drouth and daily supply of 12½ million gallons of water had fallen below the
sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks
engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C.E., on the instructions of the waterworks
committee, had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other than
those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse being had to the
impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals as in 1893) particularly as the
South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding their ration of 15 gallons per day per
pauper supplied through a 6 inch meter, had been convicted of a wastage of
20,000 gallons per night by a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the
law agent of the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to
the detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers,
solvent, sound.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover,
drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality
and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean
of Mercator's projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the
Pacific exceeding 8,000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface
particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its
units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm:
its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after
devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic:
its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the
dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues
over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multicellular
stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve
and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the
most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and downwardtending
promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its
imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the
torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in
continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their
tributaries and transoceanic currents: gulfstream, north and south equatorial
courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, artesian wells, eruptions,
torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings,
geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts:
its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs, and
latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and
exemplified by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air,
distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts
of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its
buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in
runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for
cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility
as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet,
snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and
bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and
sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity
in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels,
turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries,
scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving
docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling
from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe)
numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as
constituting 90% of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in
lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the
waning moon.
Having set the halffilled kettle on the
now burning coals, why did he return to the stillflowing tap?
To wash his soiled hands with a partially
consumed tablet of Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still
adhered (bought thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for),
in fresh cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in
a long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller.
What reason did
Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer?
That he was hydrophobe,
hating partial contact by immersion or total by submersion in cold water (his
last bath having taken place in the month of October of the preceding year),
disliking the aqueous substances of glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities
of thought and language.
What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen
counsels of hygiene and prophylactic to which should be added suggestions
concerning a preliminary wetting of the hand and contraction of the muscles
with rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region in
case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most sensitive to
cold being the nape, stomach, and thenar or sole of foot?
The incompatibility of
aquacity with the erratic originality of genius.
What additional
didactic counsels did he similarly repress?
Dietary: concerning the respective
percentage of protein and caloric energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the
absence of the former in the lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the
firstnamed.
Which seemed to the host to be the
predominant qualities of his guest?
Confidence in himself,
an equal and opposite power of abandonment and recuperation.
What concomitant phenomenon took place in
the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire?
The phenomenon of
ebullition. Fanned by a constant
updraught of ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was communicated
from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral masses of bituminous
coal, containing in compressed mineral form the foliated fossilised decidual of
primeval forests which had in turn derived their vegetative existence from the
sun, primal source of heat (radiant), transmitted through omnipresent
luminiferous diathermanous ether. Heat
(convected), a mode of motion developed by such combustion, was constantly and
increasingly conveyed from the source of calorification to the liquid contained
in the vessel, being radiated through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the
metal iron, in part reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually
raising the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in
temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal units
needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50° to 212° Fahrenheit.
What announced the
accomplishment of this rise in temperature?
A double falciform ejection of water
vapour from under the kettlelid at both sides simultaneously.
For what personal purpose could Bloom
have applied the water so boiled?
To shave himself.
What advantages
attended shaving by night?
A softer beard: a softer brush if
intentionally allowed to remain from shave to shave in its agglutinated lather:
a softer skin if unexpectedly encountering female acquaintances in remote
places at incustomary hours: quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a
cleaner sensation when awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises,
premonitions and perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock,
a paper read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a
shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might cause a
faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut
and humected and applied adhered which was to be done.
Why did absence of
light disturb him less than presence of noise?
Because of the surety
of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine feminine passive active hand.
What quality did it (his hand) possess
but with what counteracting influence?
The operative surgical quality but that
he was reluctant to shed human blood even when the end justified the means,
preferring, in their natural order, heliotherapy, psycho-physiocotherapeutics,
osteopathic surgery.
What lay under exposure on the lower
middle and upper shelves of the kitchen dresser opened by Bloom?
On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast
plates, six horizontal breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast
cups, a moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white
goldrimmed eggcups, and open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly copper, and
a phial of aromatic violet comfits. On
the middle shelf a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four
conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of Plumtree's
potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and containing one Jersey
pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and Co's white invalid port, half
disrobed in its swathe of coralpink tissue paper, a packet of Epps's soluble
cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's choice tea at 2/- per lb. in a crinkled
leadpaper bag, a cylindrical canister containing the best crystallised lump
sugar, two onions, one the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish,
bisected with augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's
cream, a jug of brown crockery containing a noggin and quarter of soured
adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and
semi-solidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom's
and Mrs Fleming's breakfasts made one imperial pint, the total quantity
originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish containing a
slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of jamjars of various sizes and
provenances.
What attracted his
attention lying on the apron of the dresser?
Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated
scarlet betting tickets, numbered 8 87, 8 86.
What reminiscences
temporarily corrugated his brow?
Reminiscences of coincidences, truth
stranger than fiction, preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat
handicap, the official and definitive result of which he had read in the Evening
Telegraph, late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge.
Where had previous intimations of the
result, effected or projected, been received by him?
In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises 8,
9 and 10 Little Britain street: in David Byrne's licensed premises, 14 Duke
street: in O'Connell street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had
placed in his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah,
restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of F.W.
Sweny and Co (Limited) dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick M. (Bantam)
Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy
of the current issue of the Freeman's Journal and National Press which
he had been about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded
towards the oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street,
with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his
arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.
What qualifying
considerations allayed his perturbations?
The difficulties of interpretation since
the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the
acoustic report followed the electrical discharge and of counterestimating
against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding
originally from a successful interpretation.
His
mood?
He had not risked, he did not expect, he
had not been disappointed, he was satisfied.
What satisfied him?
To have sustained no
positive loss. To
have brought a positive gain to others.
Light to the gentiles.
How did Bloom
prepare a collation for a gentile?
He poured into two teacups two level
spoonfuls, four in all, of Epp's soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the
directions for use printed on the label, to each adding after sufficient time
for infusion the prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the
quantity prescribed.
What superrerogatory marks of special
hospitality did the host show his guest?
Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to
the moustache cup of imitation Crown Derby presented to him by his only
daughter, Millicent (Milly), he substituted a cup identical with that of his
guest and served extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to
himself the viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife
Marion (Molly).
Was the guest conscious of and did he
acknowledge these marks of hospitality?
His attention was directed to them by his
host jocosely and he accepted them seriously as they drank in jocoserious
silence Epps's massproduct, the creature cocoa.
Were there marks of hospitality which he
contemplated but supressed, reserving them for another and for himself on
future occasions to complete the act begun?
The reparation of a
fissure of the length of 1½ inches in the right side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one
of the four lady's handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a
presentable condition.
Who drank more
quickly?
Bloom, having the advantage of ten
seconds at the initiation and taking, from the concave surface of a spoon along
the handle of which a steady flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his
opponent's one, six to two, nine to three.
What cerebration
accompanied his frequentative act?
Concluding by inspection but erroneously that
his silent companion was engaged in mental composition he reflected on the
pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he
himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the
solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life.
Had he found their
solution?
In spite of careful and repeated reading
of certain classical passages, aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect
conviction from the text, the answers not bearing on all points.
What lines concluded his first piece of
original verse written by him, potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the
occasion of the offering of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively by
the Shamrock, a weekly newspaper?
An ambition to squint
At my verses in print
Makes me hope that for these
you'll find room.
If you so condescend
Then please place at the end
The name of yours truly, L.
Bloom.
Did he find four separating forces
between his temporary guest and him?
Name, age, race, creed.
What anagrams had
he made on his name in youth?
Leopold Bloom
Ellpodbomool
Molldopeloob.
Bollopedoom
Old Ollebo, M.P.
What acrostic upon the abbreviation of
his first name had he (kinetic poet) sent to Miss Marion Tweedy on the
Poets oft have sung in rhyme
Of music sweet their praise divine.
Let them hymn it nine times nine.
Dearer far than song or wine,
You are mine.
The world is mine.
What had prevented him from completing a topical
song (music by R.G. Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the
actual years, entitled If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin
now, commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46-49
South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the valley of
diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand annual Christmas
pantomine Sinbad the Sailor (written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by
George A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan, produced by
R. Shelton 26 December 1892 under the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn,
ballets by Jessie Noir, harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly
Bouverist principal girl?
Firstly, oscillation between events of
imperial and of local interest, the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen
Victoria (born 1820, acceded 1837) and the posticipated opening of the new
municipal fish market: secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme
circles on the questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses,
the duke and duchess of York (real), and of His Majesty King Brian Boru
(imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and
professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand Lyric Hall
on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street: fourthly, distraction
resultant form compassion for Nelly Bouverist's non-intellectual,
non-political, non-topical underclothing while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the
articles: fifthly, the difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and
humorous allusions from Everybody's Book of Jokes (1000 pages and a
laugh in every one): sixthly, the rhymes homophonous and cacophonous,
associated with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high
sheriff, Thomas Pile, and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket Barton.
What relation
existed between their ages?
16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of
Stephen's present age Stephen was 6. 16
years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present age Bloom would be
54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and
Stephen 54 their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17½ to 13½,
the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according as arbitrary
future years were added, for if the proportion existing in 1883 had continued
immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then 1904 when Stephen was 22
Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would
be 646 while in 1952 when Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian
age of 70 Bloom, being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would
have surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah,
969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would attain that
age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to have been alive
83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in the year 81,396 B.C.
What events might
nullify these calculations?
The cessation of
existence of both or either, the inauguration of a new era or calendar, the
annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species,
inevitable but impredictable.
How many previous encounters proved their
preexisting acquaintance?
Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew
Dillon's house, Medina Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company
of Stephen's mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give
his hand in salutation. The second in
the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in
the company of Stephen's father and Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then 5
years older.
Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner
given then by the son and afterwards seconded by the father?
Very gratefully, with grateful
appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful
sincerity of regret, he declined.
Did their conversation on the subject of
these reminiscences reveal a third connecting link between them?
Mrs Riordan, a widow of independent
means, had resided in the house of Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to
29 December 1891 and had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in
the City Arms Hotel owned by Elizabeth O'Dowd of 54 Prussia street where during
parts of the years 1893 and 1894 she had been a constant informant of Bloom who
resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the employment of
Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence of sales in the adjacent Dublin
Castle market on the North Circular road.
Had he performed
any special corporal work of mercy for her?
He had sometimes propelled her on warm
summer evenings, an infirm widow of independent, if limited means, in her
convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner
of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she
had remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular
fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles, equipped
with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired
landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix
Park and vice versa.
Why could he then
support this vigil with the greater equanimity?
Because in middle youth he had often sat
observing through a rondel of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the
spectacle offered with continual changes of the thoroughfare without,
pedestrians, quadrupeds, velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly,
evenly, round and round the rim of a round precipitous globe.
What distinct different memories had each
of her now eight years deceased?
The older, her bezique cards and
counters, her Skye terrier, her suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness
and incipient catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the
statue of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles
Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers.
Were there no means still remaining to
him to achieve the rejuvenation which these reminiscences divulged to a younger
companion rendered the more desirable?
The indoor exercises, formerly
intermittently practised, subsequently abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's Physical
Strength and How to Obtain It which, designed particularly for commercial
men engaged in sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration
in front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of muscles
and produce successively a pleasant relaxation and the most pleasant
repristination of juvenile agility.
Had any special
agility been his in early youth?
Though ringweight lifting had been beyond
his strength and the full circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High
School scholar he had excelled in his table and protracted execution of the
half lever movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally
developed abdominal muscles.
Did either openly
allude to their racial difference?
Neither.
What, reduced to their simplest
reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and
Bloom's thoughts about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom's thoughts about Stephen?
He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was
not.
What, the enclosures of reticence
removed, were their respective parentages?
Bloom, only born male transubstantial
heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently Rudolf Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna,
Budapest, Milan, London and Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of
Julius Higgins (born Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty); Stephen, eldest
surviving male consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of
Mary, daughter of Richard and Christian Goulding (born Grier).
Had Bloom and Stephen
been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or layman?
Bloom (three times) by the reverend Mr
Gilmer Johnston M.A. alone in the protestant church of Saint Nicolas Without,
Coombe; by James O'Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together
under a pump in the village of Swords; and by the reverend Charles Malone C.C.,
in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar.
Stephen (once) by the reverend Charles Malone, C.C.,
alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar.
Did they find their
educational careers similar?
Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom
would have passed successively through a dame's school and the high
school. Substituting Bloom for Stephen
Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, junior, middle
and senior grades of the intermediate and through the matriculation, first
arts, second arts and arts degree course of the royal university.
Why did Bloom refrain from stating that
he had frequented the university of life?
Because of his fluctuating incertitude as
to whether this observation had or had not been already made by him to Stephen
or by Stephen to him.
What two
temperaments did they individually represent?
The scientific. The artistic.
What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove
that his tendency was towards applied, rather than towards pure, science?
Certain possible inventions of which he
had cogitated when reclining in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion,
stimulated by his appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but
once revolutionary for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting
telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water siphon, the
canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump.
Were these inventions principally
intended for an improved scheme of kindergarten?
Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic
airbladders, games of hazard, catapults.
They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve
constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical
orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with
zoological biscuits, globemap playingballs, historically
costumed dolls.
What also
stimulated him in his cogitations?
The financial success achieved by Ephraim
Marks and Charles A. James, the former by his 1d. bazaar
at 42 George's street, South, the latter at his 6½d. shop and world's fancy
fair and waxwork exhibition at 30 Henry street, admission 2d., children 1d.;
and the infinite possibilities hitherto unexploited of the modern art of
advertisement if condensed in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of
maximum visibility (divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered)
and of magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to
convince, to decide.
Such
as?
K. 11.
Kino's 11/- Trousers.
House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes.
Such
as not?
Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive
gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle power. Address: Barclay and Cook,
Bacilikil (Insect
Powder).
Veribest (Boot
Blacking).
Uwantit (Combined
pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner).
Such
as never?
What is home without Plumtree's Potted
Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of
bliss.
Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23
Merchants quay,
Which example did he adduce to induce
Stephen to deduce that originality, though producing its own reward, does not
invariably conduce to success?
His own ideated and
rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn by a beast of burden, in
which two smartly dressed girls were to be seated engaged in writing.
What suggested
scene was then constructed by Stephen?
Solitary hotel in
mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit.
In dark corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She sits.
She goes to window. She stands. She sits.
Twilight.
She thinks. On solitary hotel
paper she writes. She thinks. She writes.
She sighs. Wheels
and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes form his dark corner. He seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads.
Solitary.
What?
In sloping, upright and backhands:
Queen's hotel, Queen's hotel, Queen's Ho ...
What suggested
scene was then reconstructed by Bloom?
The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, County Clare, where
Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some
hour unstated, in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite)
selfadministered in the form of a neuralgic liniment (purchased by him at 10.20
a.m. on the morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17
Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having,
purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater straw hat,
extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at
the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin aforesaid), at the general
drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, Ennis.
Did he attribute this homonymity to
information or coincidence or intuition?
Coincidence.
Did he depict the
scene verbally for his guest to see?
He preferred himself to see another's
face and listen to another's words by which potential narration was realised
and kinetic temperament relieved.
Did he see only a second coincidence in
the second scene narrated to him, described by the narrator as A Pisgah
Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the
Plums?
It, with the preceding scene and with
others unnarrated but existent by implication, to which add essays on various subjects
or moral apothegms (e.g. My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the
Thief of Time) composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in
itself and in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of
financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially collected and
selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent merit) for the use of
preparatory and junior grade students or contributed in printed form, following
the precedent of Philip Beaufoy or Doctor Dick or Heblon's Studies in Blue,
to a publication of certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as
intellectual stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of
successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during
the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice on the
day but three following, videlicit, Tuesday, 21 June (S. Aloysius Gonzaga),
sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m.
What domestic problem as much as, if not
more than, any other frequently engaged his mind?
What to do with our wives.
What had been his
hypothetical singular solutions?
Parlour games (dominos, halma,
tiddlywinks, spillikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive,
beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or
knitting for the policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and
guitar, piano and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope
addressing: biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial activity as
pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in a cool
dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine satisfaction of erotic
irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled:
social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals and with regular
frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female acquaintances of
recognised respectability in the vicinity: courses of evening instruction
specially designed to render liberal instruction agreeable.
What instances of deficient mental
development in his wife inclined him in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth)
solution?
In disoccupied moments she had more than
once covered a sheet of paper with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were
Greek and Irish and Hebrew characters.
She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals as to the correct
method of writing the capital initial of the name of a city in
What compensated in the false balance of
her intelligence for these and such deficiencies of judgement regarding
persons, places and things?
The false apparent parallelism of all
perpendicular arms of all balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her proficiency of
judgement regarding one person, proved true by experiment.
How had he attempted to remedy this state
of comparative ignorance?
Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain
book open at a certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily,
latent knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other's
ignorant lapse.
With what success
had he attempted direct instruction?
She followed not at all, a part of the
whole, gave attention with interest, comprehended with surprise, with care
repeated, with greater difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving
reremembered, rerepeated with error.
What system had
proved more effective?
Indirect suggestion
implicating self-interest.
Example?
She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked
woman with umbrella, she disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new
hat, he bought new hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat.
Accepting the analogy implied in his
guest's parable which examples of postexilic eminence did he adduce?
Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of
Egypt, Moses Maimonides, author of More Neubkim (Guide of the Perplexed)
and Moses Mendelssohn of such eminence that from Moses (of
What statement was made, under
correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth seeker of pure truth, by name
Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by Stephen?
That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil
of a rabbinical philosopher, name uncertain.
Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons
of the law and children of a selected or rejected race mentioned?
Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer),
Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer,
duellist).
What fragments of verse from the ancient
Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited with modulations of voice and
translation of texts by guest to host and by host to guest?
By Stephen: suil, suil, suil arun, suil
go siocair agus, suil go cuin (walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety,
walk with care).
By Bloom: Kifeloch, harimon raketejch
m'baad l'zamatejch (thy temple amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate).
How was a glyphic comparison of the
phonic symbols of both languages made in substantiation of the oral comparison?
On the penultimate blank page of a book
of inferior literary style, entitled Sweets of Sin (produced by Bloom
and so manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of the
table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish characters
for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn wrote the Hebrew
characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of mem) a substituted
goph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal and cardinal numbers,
videlicet 3, 1, 4 and 100.
Was the knowledge possessed by both of
each of these languages, the extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical?
Theoretical, being
confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence and syntax and practically
excluding vocabulary.
What points of contact existed between
these languages and between the peoples who spoke them?
The presence of guttural sounds,
diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and servile letters in both languages: their
antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the
deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah,
progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland:
their archeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homilectic,
toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works of
rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara) Massor, Pentateuch,
Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, Book of Kells: their
dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the isolation of their
synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary's Abbey) and masshouse
(Adam and Eve's tavern): the proscription of their national costumes in penal
laws and jewish dress acts: the restoration in Chanan David of Zion and the
possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution.
What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation
of that multiple, ethnically irreducible consummation?
Kolod balejwaw pnimah
Nefesch, jehudi, homijah.
Why was the chant
arrested at the conclusion of this first distich?
In consequence of
defective mnemotechnic.
How the did the chanter
compensate for this deficiency?
By a periphrastic
version of the general text.
In what common
study did their mutual reflections merge?
The increasing simplification traceable
from the Egyptian epigraphic hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and
the anticipation of modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform
inscriptions (Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic).
Did the guest
comply with his host's request?
Doubly, by appending his
signature in Irish and Roman characters.
What was Stephen's
auditive sensation?
He heard in a profound ancient male
unfamiliar melody the accumulation of the past.
What was Bloom's
visual sensation?
He saw in a quick young male familiar
form the predestination of a future.
What were Stephen's and Bloom's
quasisimultaneous volitional quasisensations of concealed identities?
Visually, Stephen's: The traditional
figure of hypostasis, depicted by Johannes Demascenus, Lentulus Romanus and
Epiphanius Monachus as leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair.
What future careers had been possible for
Bloom in the past and with what exemplars?
In the church, Roman, Anglican, or
Nonconformist: exemplars, the very reverend John Conmee S.J., the reverend T.
Salmon, D.D., provost of Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: exemplars,
Seymour Bushe, K.C., Rufus Isaacs, K.C. On the stage, modern or
Shakespearean exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian, Osmond Tearle (1901), exponent of Shakespeare.
Did the host encourage his guest to chant
in a modulated voice a strange legend on an allied theme?
Reassuringly, their place where none
could hear them talk being secluded, reassured, the dococted beverages,
allowing for subsolid residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus
sugar plus cream plus cocoa, having been consumed.
Recite the first
(major) part of this chanted legend?
Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows
all
Went out for to play ball.
And the very first ball little Harry Hughes
played
He drove it o'er the jew's
garden wall.
And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played
He broke the jew's
windows all.
How did the son of
Rudolph receive this first part?
With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he
heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window.
Recite the second
part (minor) of the legend.
Then out there came the jew's
daughter
And she all dressed in green.
"Come back, come back, you pretty little
boy,
And play your ball again."
"I can't come back and I won't come back
Without my schoolfellows all,
For if my master he did hear
He'd make it a sorry ball."
She took him by the lilywhite hand
And led him along the hall
Until she led him to a room
Where none could hear him
call.
She took a penknife out of her pocket
And cut off his little head,
And now he'll play his ball no more
For he lies among the dead.
How did the father of
Millicent receive this second part?
With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's daughter, all dressed in green.
Condense Stephen's commentary.
One of all, the least of all, is the
victim predestined. Once by
inadvertence, twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges
him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth holds him
unresisting. It leads him to a strange
habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates
him, consenting.
Why was the host
(victim predestined) sad?
He wished that a tale of a deed should be
told of a deed not by him should by him not be told.
Why was the host
(reluctant, unresisting) still?
In accordance with the
law of the conservation of energy.
Why was the host
(secret infidel) silent?
He weighed the possible evidences for and
against ritual murder: the incitation of the hierarchy, the superstition of the
populace, the propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the
envy of opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of
atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic
suggestion and somnambulism.
From which (if any) of these mental or
physical disorders was he not totally immune?
From hypnotic suggestion: once, walking,
he had not recognised his sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had
been for an indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body
had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having
attained its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain,
sleeping.
Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon
declared itself in
any member of his family?
Twice, in
What other
infantile memories had he of her?
What endemic characteristics
were present?
Conversely the nasal and frontal
formation was derived in a direct line of lineage which, though interrupted,
would continue at distant intervals to its most distant intervals.
What memories had
he of her adolescence?
She relegated her hoop and skippingrope
to a recess. On the duke's lawn
entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and take
away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South Circular road in the company of
Elsa Potter, followed by an individual of sinister aspect, she went half way
down
Did that first
division, portending a second division, afflict him?
Less than he had imagined, more than he
had hoped.
What second departure was
contemporaneously perceived by him similarly if differently?
A temporary departure
of his cat.
Why similarly, why
differently?
Similarly, because actuated by a secret
purpose the quest of a new male (Mullingar student) or of a healing herb
(valerian). Differently,
because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the habitation.
In other respects
were their differences similar?
In passivity, in
economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness.
As?
Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond
hair for him to ribbon it for her (cf. neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake in
Stephen's green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented spit,
describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the constancy of its
permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf. mousewatching
cat). Again, in order to remember the
date, combatants, issue and consequences of a famous military engagement she
pulled a plait of her hair (cf. earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of
having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had
been Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it
(he) had appeared to have accepted (cf. hearthdreaming cat). Hence in passivity, in economy, in the
instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences were similar.
In what way had he utilised gifts 1) an
owl, 2) a clock, given as matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct
her?
As object lessons to explain: 1) the
nature and habits of oviparous animals, the possibility of aerial flight,
certain abnormalities of vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the
principle of the pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the
translation in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions
clockwise of movable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the
recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour, when the longer and the shorter
indicator were at the same angle of inclination, videlicet, 5 5/11
minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression.
In what manners did
she reciprocate?
She remembered: on the 27th anniversary
of his birth she presented to him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation crown
What proposal did Bloom, diambulist,
father of Milly, somnambulist, make to Stephen, noctambulist?
To pass in repose the hours intervening
between Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the
apartment immediately above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the
sleeping apartment of his host and hostess.
What various advantages would or might
have resulted from a prolongation of such extemporisation?
For the guest: security of domicile and
seclusion of study. For the host:
rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess: disintegration of obsession,
acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation.
Why might these several provisional
contingencies between a guest and a hostess not necessarily preclude or be
precluded by a permanent eventuality of reconciliatory union between a
schoolfellow and a jew's daughter?
Because the way to
daughter led through mother, the way to mother through daughter.
To what inconsequence polysyllabic
question of his host did the guest return a monosyllabic negative answer?
If he had known the
late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney Parade railway station,
What inchoate corollary statement was
consequently suppressed by the host?
A statement explanatory of his absence on
the occasion of the interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus, born Goulding, 26 June 1903,
vigil of the anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag).
Was the proposal of
asylum accepted?
Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability,
gratefully it was declined.
What exchange of
money took place between host and guest?
The former returned to the latter,
without interest, a sum of money (£1. 7s. 0.), one pound
seven shillings, advanced by the latter to the former.
What counterproposals were alternately
advanced, accepted, modified, declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted,
ratified, reconfirmed?
To inaugurate a prearranged course of
Italian instruction, place the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal instruction,
place the residence of the instructress.
To inaugurate a series of static, semistatic and peripatetic
intellectual dialogues, places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers
were resident in the same place), the Ship hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey
street (W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10
Kildare street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29-31 Holles street, a public
garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two or more public
thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line drawn between their
residences (if both speakers were resident in different places).
What rendered problematic for Bloom the
realisation of these mutually selfexcluding propositions?
The irreparability of the past: once at a
performance of Albert Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin,
an intuitive particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the
ring to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had
publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his (the
clown's) papa. The imprevidibility of
the future: once in the summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2s.)
with three notches on the milled edge and tendered it in payment of an account
due to and received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand
Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, circuitous
or direct, return.
Was the clown
Bloom's son?
No.
Had Bloom's coin
returned?
Never.
Why would a
recurrent frustration the more depress him?
Because at the critical
turningpoint of human existence he desired to amend many social conditions, the
product of inequality and avarice and international animosity.
He believed then that human life was
infinitely perfectible, eliminating these conditions?
There remained the generic conditions
imposed by natural, as distinct from human law, as integral parts of the human
whole: the necessity of destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the
painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies
of birth and death: the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly)
human females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable
accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies and
their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital criminality,
decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make terror the basis of
human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres of which are located in
densely populated regions: the fact of vital growth, through convulsions of
metamorphosis form infancy through maturity to decay.
Why did he desist
from speculation?
Because it was a task
for a superior intelligence to substitute other more acceptable phenomena in place
of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed.
Did Stephen
participate in his dejection?
He affirmed the significance as a
conscious rational animal proceeding syllogistically from the known to the
unknown and a conscious rational reagent between a micro- and a macrocosm
ineluctably constructed upon the incertitude of the void.
Was this
affirmation apprehended by Bloom?
Not verbally. Substantially.
What comforted his
misapprehension?
That as a competent keyless citizen he
had proceeded energetically from the unknown to the known through the
incertitude of the void.
In what order of precedence, with what
attendant ceremony was the exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness
of inhabitation effected?
Lighted Candle in Stick borne by
BLOOM.
Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by
STEPHEN.
With
what intonation secreto of what commemorative psalm?
The 113th, modus peregrinus: In exitu
Israël de Egypto: domus Jacob de populo barbaro.
What did each do at
the door of egress?
Bloom set the candlestick on the
floor. Stephen put the hat on his head.
For what creature
was the door of egress a door of ingress?
For a cat.
What spectacle confronted them when they,
first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity
by a passage from the rear of the house into the penumbra of the garden?
The heaventree of stars hung with humid
nightblue fruit.
With what meditations did Bloom accompany
his demonstration to his companion of various constellations?
Meditations of evolution increasingly
vaster: of the moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of
the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by
daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft
5000 ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius
(alpha in Canis Major) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant and in
volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the precession of
equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100 of
our solar systems could be contained: of moribund and of nascent new stars such
as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules:
of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality
evermoving from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in
comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of alloted human life
formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity.
Were there obverse meditations of
involution increasingly less vast?
Of the eons of geological periods
recorded in the stratifications of the earth: of the myriad minute
entomological organic existences concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath
removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli,
spermatozoa: of the incalculable trillions of billions of millions of
imperceptible molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single
pinhead: of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white bodies,
themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in
continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again
divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors
ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far
enough, nought nowhere was never reached.
Why did he not elaborate these
calculations to a more precise result?
Because some years previously in 1886 when
occupied with the problem of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the
existence of a number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such
magnitude and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9,
that, the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 pages
each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to be
requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed integers of
units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands,
millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, the nucleus of the
nebula of every digit of every series containing succinctly the potentiality of
being raised to the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its
powers.
Did he find the problem of the
inhabitabiity of the planets and their satellites by a race, given in species,
and of the possible social and moral redemption of said race by a redeemer,
easier of solution?
Of a different order of
difficulty. Conscious that the
human organism, normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19
tons, when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere
suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the line of
demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was approximated, from nasal
hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, when proposing this problem for
solution he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could not be proved
impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race
of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian,
Saturnian, Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though an
apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite differences
resulting similar to the whole and to one another would probably there as here
remain inalterably and inalienably attached to vanities, to vanities of
vanities and all that is vanity.
And
the problem of possible redemption?
The minor was proved by the major.
Which various features of the
constellations were in turn considered?
The various colours significant of
various degrees of vitality (white, yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar):
their degrees of brilliancy: their magnitudes revealed up to and including the
7th: their positions: the waggoner's star: Walshingham way: the chariot of
David: the annular cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into
suns: the interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous
discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, Galle: the
systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes of distances and squares
of times of revolution: the almost infinite compressibility of hirsute comets
and their vast elliptical egressive and reentrant orbits from perihelion to
aphelion: the sidereal origin of meteoric stones: the Libyan floods on Mars
about the period of the birth of the younger astroscopist: the annual
recurrence of meteoric showers about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence
(martyr, 10 August): the monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old
moon in her arms: the posited influence of celestial on human bodies: the
appearance of a star (1st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating the
night and day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and amalgamation
in incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the period of the birth of
William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent neversetting constellation of Cassiopeia
and of a star (2nd magnitude) of similar origin but lesser brilliancy which had
appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of the Corona
Septentrionalis about the period of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other
stars of (presumably) similar origin which had (effectively or presumably)
appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of Andromeda about the
period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the constellation of
Auriga some years after the birth and death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in
and from other constellations some years before and after the birth or death of
other persons: the attendant phenomenon of eclipses, solar and lunar, from
immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged
creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of
infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of human beings.
His (Bloom's) logical
conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing for possible error?
That it was not a heaventree, not a
heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known
method from the known to the unknown: an infinity, renderable equally finite by
the suppositious probable apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same
and of different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space,
remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a present
before its future spectators had entered actual present existence.
Was he more
convinced of the aesthetic value of the spectacle?
Indubitably in
consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the delirium of the frenzy
of attachment or in the abasement of rejection invoking ardent sympathetic
constellations or the frigidity of the satellite of their planet.
Did he then accept as an article of
belief the theory of astrological influences upon sublunary disasters?
It seemed to him as possible of proof as
of confutation and the nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as
attributable to verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of
dreams, the sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean
of fecundity.
What special affinities appeared to him
to exist between the moon and woman?
Her antiquity in preceding and surviving
successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic
dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising
and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability
of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her
potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to
invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the
tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant
implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the
stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her
craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her
attraction, when invisible.
What visible luminous sign attracted
Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's gaze?
In the second storey (rear) of his
(Bloom's) house the light of a paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected
on a screen of roller blind supplied by Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain
pole and revolving shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street.
How did he elucidate the mystery of an
invisible person, his wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid
sign, a lamp?
With indirect and direct verbal allusions
or affirmations: with subdued affection and admiration: with description: with
impediment: with suggestion.
Both then were
silent?
Silent, each
contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal flesh of
theirhisnothis fellowfaces.
Were they
indefinitely inactive?
At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's
instigation both, first Stephen, then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides
contiguous, their organs of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by
manual circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's elevated to
the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow.
Similarly?
The trajectories of their, first sequent,
then simultaneous, urinations were dissimilar: Bloom's longer, less irruent, in
the incomplete form of the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter who in
his ultimate year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point
of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the institution,
210 scholars: Stephen's higher, more sibilant, who in the ultimate hours of the
previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption an insistent vesical
pressure.
What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the invisible audible
collateral organ of the other?
To Bloom: the problems of irritability,
tumescence, rigidity, reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pelosity. To Stephen: the problem of the sacredotal
integrity of Jesus circumcised (1st January, holiday of obligation to hear mass
and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the
divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic
church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the
fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences
as hair and toenails.
What celestial sign
was by both simultaneously observed?
A star precipitated with great apparent
velocity across the firmament from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the
stargroup of the Tress of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo.
How did the centripetal remainer afford
egress to the centrifugal departer?
By inserting the barrel of an arruginated
male key in the hole of an unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the
bow of the key and turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt
from its staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and
revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress.
How did they take
leave, one of the other, in separation?
Standing perpendicular
at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their
valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum
of two right angles.
What sound accompanied the union of their
tangent, the disunion of their (respectively) contrifugal and centripetal
hands?
The sound of the peal
of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells in the
What echoes of that
sound were by both and each heard?
By Stephen:
Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet.
Iubilantium te
virginum. Chorus
excipiat.
By Bloom:
Heigho, heigho,
Heigho, heigho.
Where were the several members of the
company which with Bloom that day at the bidding of that peal had travelled
from Sandymount in the south to Glasnevin in the north?
Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power
(in bed), Simon Dedalus (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Ned Lambert (in bed),
Joe Hynes (in bed), John Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed),
Patsy Dignam (in bed), Paddy Dignam (in the grave).
Alone, what did
Bloom hear?
The double reverberations of retreating
feet on the heavenborn earth, the double vibration of a jew's harp in the
resonant lane.
Alone, what did
Bloom feel?
The cold of interstellar space, thousands
of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade
or Reaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn.
Of what did bellchime and handtouch and
footstep and lonechill remind him?
Of companions now in various manners in
different places defunct: Percy Apjohn (killed in action,
What prospect of
what phenomena inclined him to remain?
The disparition of
three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the apparition of a new solar
disk.
Had he ever been a
spectator of these phenomena?
Once, in 1887 after a protracted
performance of charades in the house of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited
with patience the apparition of the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his
gazed turned in the direction of Mizrach, the east.
He remembered the
initial paraphenomena?
More active air, a matutinal distant
cock, ecclesiastical clocks at various points, avine music, the isolated tread of
an early wayfarer, the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous
body, the first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the
horizon.
Did he remain?
With deep inspiration he returned,
retraversing the garden, reentering the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the
candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room,
hallfloor, and reentered.
What suddenly
arrested his ingress?
The right temporal lobe of the hollow
sphere of his cranium came into contact with a solid timber angle where, an
infinitesimal but sensible fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was
located in consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered.
Describe the alterations effected in the
disposition of the articles of furnitures?
A sofa upholstered in prune plush had
been translocated from opposite the door to the ingleside near the compactly
furled Union Jack (an alteration which he had frequently intended to execute):
the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite
the door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard (a
projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had been moved
from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but more perilous
position in front of the door: two chairs had been moved from right and left of
the ingleside to the position originally occupied by the blue and white checker
inlaid majolicatopped table.
Describe them?
One: a squat stuffed easychair with stout
arms extended and back slanted to the rear, which, repelled in recoil, had then
upturned an irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its
amply upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing
discolouration. The other: a slender
splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed directly opposite the former, its
frame from top to seat and from seat to base being varnished dark brown, its
seat being a bright circle of white plaited rush.
What significances
attached to these two chairs?
Significances of
similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial evidence, of
testimonial supermanence.
What occupied the
position originally occupied by the sideboard?
A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed
keyboard, its closed coffin supporting a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves and
an emerald ashtray containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed
cigarette and two discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the
music in the key of G natural for voice and piano of Love's Old Sweet Song (words
by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J.L.
Molloy, sung by Madam Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with
the final indications ad libitum, forte, pedal, animato,
sustained, pedal, ritirando, close.
With what sensations did Bloom
contemplate in rotation these objects?
With strain, elevating a candlestick:
with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence: with attention,
focusing his gaze on a large dull passive and slender bright active: with
solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement,
remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the gradation of
green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving
through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant
tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration.
His
next proceeding?
From an open box on the majolicatopped
table he extracted a black diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on
its circular base on a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right
corner of the mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of
prospectus (illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined
it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the
candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the latter
reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the
candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate
total combustion.
What followed this
operation?
That truncated conical crater summit of
the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of
aromatic oriental incense.
What homothetic objects, other than the
candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece?
A timepiece of striated
What interchanges of looks took place
between these three objects and Bloom?
In the mirror of the giltbordered
pierglass the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of
the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the
matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright
motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil
profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke
and Caroline Doyle.
What composite asymmetrical image in the
mirror then attracted his attention?
The image of a solitary
(ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.
Why solitary
(ipsorelative)?
Brothers
and sisters had he none,
Yet the man's father was his grandfather's
son.
Why mutable
(aliorelative)?
From infancy to maturity he had resembled
his maternal procreatrix. From maturity
to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal creator.
What final visual impression was
communicated to him by the mirror?
The optical reflection
of several inverted volumes improperly arranged and not in the order of their
common letters with scintillating titles on the two bookshelves opposite.
Catalogue these books.
Thom's
Denis Florence M'Carthy's Poetical
Works (copper beechleaf bookmark at p.5).
Shakespeare's Works (dark
crimson morocco, gold-tooled).
The Useful Ready Reckoner
(brown cloth).
The Secret History
of the Court of Charles II (red cloth, tooled binding).
The Child's Guide (blue
cloth).
When We Were Boys by William
O'Brien M.P. (green cloth, slightly faded, envelope bookmark at p.217).
Thoughts from Spinoza (maroon
leather).
The Story of the Heavens by Sir
Robert Ball (blue cloth).
Ellis's Three Trips to Madagascar (brown
cloth, title obliterated).
The Stark-Munro Letters by A.
Conan Doyle, property of the City of
Voyages in China by 'Viator'
(recovered with brown paper, red ink title).
Philosophy of the
Talmud (sewn pamphlet).
Lockhart's Life of
Napoleon (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories,
aggrandising defeats of the protagonist).
Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag
(black boards, Gothic characters, cigarette coupon bookmark at p.24).
Hozier's History of the Russo-Turkish
War (brown cloth, 2 volumes, with gummed label, Garrison Library,
Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover).
Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland by
William Allingham (second edition, green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's
name on recto of flyleaf erased).
A Handbook of Astronomy (cover,
brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author's
footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica).
The Hidden Life of
Christ (black boards).
In the Track of the Sun (yellow
cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent title intestation).
Physical Strength and How to Obtain It
by Eugene Sandow (red cloth).
Short but yet Plain Elements of
Geometry written in French by F. Ignat. Pardies and rendered into Englifh
by John Harris D.D. London, printed for R. Knaplock at the Bifhop's Head
MDCCXI, with dedicatory epiftle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, efquire,
Member of Parliament for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed
statement on the flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael
Gallagher, dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requefting the perfon who should
find it, if the book should be loft or go aftray, to reftore to Michael
Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Ennifcorthy, county Wicklow, the fineft
place in the world.
What reflections occupied his mind during
the process of reversion of the inverted volumes?
The necessity of order, a place for
everything and everything in its place: the deficient appreciation of literature
possessed by females: the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and
of an umbrella inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret
document behind, beneath or between the pages of a book.
Which volume was the
largest in bulk?
Hozier's History of the Russo-Turkish
War.
What among other data did the second
volume of the work in question contain?
The name of a decisive battle
(forgotten), frequently remembered, by a decisive officer, major
Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered).
Why, firstly and secondly, did he not
consult the work in question?
Firstly, in order to exercise
mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an interval of amnesia, when seated at
the central table, about to consult the work in question, he remembered by
mnemotechnic the name of the military engagement, Plevna.
What caused him
consolation in his sitting posture?
The candour, nudity, pose, tranquillity,
youth, grace, sex, counsel of a statue erect in the centre of the table, an
image of Narcissus purchased by auction from P.A. Wren, 9 Bachelor's Walk.
What caused him
irritation in his sitting posture?
Inhibitory pressure of
collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two articles of clothing
superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alteration of mass
by expansion.
How was the
irritation allayed?
He removed his collar, with contained
black necktie and collapsible stud, from his neck to a position on the left of
the table. He unbuttoned successively in
reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt and vest along the medial line of
irregular incrispated black hair extending in triangular convergence from the
pelvic basin over the circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle
along the medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral
vertebrae, thence produced both ways at the right angles and terminating in
circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits
of the mammary prominences. He unbraced
successively each of six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs,
of which one imcomplete.
What involuntary
actions followed?
He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh
circumjacent to a cicatrice in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting
from a sting inflicted 3 weeks and 3 days previously (
Compile the budget
for
Debit
Credit
£ s. d. £ s. d.
1 Pork kidney 0 0 3 Cash in hand 0 4 9
1 Copy Freeman's Commission received
Journal 0 0 1 Freeman's
Journal 1 7 6
1
Tramfare 0 0 1
1 In Memoriam
Patrick Dignam 0 5 0
2 Banbury cakes 0 0 1
1 Lunch 0 0 7
1 Renewal fee for book 0
1 0
1 Packet notepaper
and envelopes 0 0 2
1 Dinner and
gratification 0 2 0
1 Postal order
and stamp 0 2 8
Tramfare 0 0 1
1 Pig's Foot 0 0 4
1 Sheep's Trotter 0 0 3
1 Cake Fry's plain
chocolate 0 0 1
1 Square soda bread 0 0 4
1 Coffee and bun 0 0 4
Loan (Stephen
Dedalus) refunded 1 7 0
BALANCE 0 17 5
£2 19 3 £2 19 3
Did this process of
divestiture continue?
Sensible of a benignant persistent ache
in his footsoles he extended his foot to one side and observed the creases,
protuberances and salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of
walking repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded
the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots
for the second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the
fore part of which the nail of his great tow had again effracted, raised his
right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, took off his
right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin of the seat of his
chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail,
raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick,
then with satisfaction threw away the lacerated unguical fragment.
Why with
satisfaction?
Because the odour inhaled corresponded to
other odours inhaled of other unguical fragments, picked and lacerated by
Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs Ellis's juvenile school, patiently each night in the
act of brief genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation.
In what ultimate ambition had all
concurrent and consecutive ambitions now coalesced?
Not to inherit by right of primogeniture,
gravelkind or borough English, or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of
a sufficient number of acres, roods and perches, statute land measure
(valuation £42), of grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge
and carriage drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached
villa, described as Rus in Urbe or Qui si Sana, but to purchase
by private treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey
dwellinghouse of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor,
connected with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia
creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat
doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, if
possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable prospect from balcony with
stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent pastures and
standing in 5 or 6 acres of its own ground, at such a distance from the nearest
public thoroughfare at to render its houselights visible at night above and
through a quickset hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point
not less than 1 statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a
time limit of not more than 5 minutes from tram or train line (e.g. Dundrum,
south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to resemble the
terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical subjects), the
premises to be held under feefarmgrant, lease 999 years, the messuage to
consist of 1 drawingroom with baywindow (2 lancets), thermometer affixed, 1
sittingroom, 4 bedrooms, 2 servant's rooms, tiled kitchen with close range and
scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed oak sectional
bookcase containing the Encyclopedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary,
transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp,
bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory,
handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table
with pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel
chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with
hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered
in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen
and cuspidors (club style, rich wine-coloured leather, gloss renewable with a
minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and pyramidically
prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with a fingertame parrot
(expurgated language), embossed mural paper at 10/- per dozen with transverse
swags of carmine floral design and top crown frieze, staircase, three
continuous flights at successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained oak,
treads and risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with steppedup panel dado, dressed
with camphorated wax, bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining and shower:
water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup
seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod brace, armrests, footstool and artistic
oleograph on inner face of door: ditto, plain: servant's apartments with
separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general and betweenmaid
(salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of £2, with comprehensive
fidelity insurance annual bonus (£1) and retiring allowance (based on the 65
system) after 30 years' service), pantry, buttery, larder, refrigerator,
outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still and sparkling vintages)
for distinguished guests, if entertained to dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide
gas supply throughout.
What additional
attractions might the grounds contain?
As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a
shrubbery, a glass summerhouse with tropical palms, equipped in the best
botanical manner, a rockery with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane
principles, oval flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric
ellipses of scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus,
sweet William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James
W. Mackay Limited [wholesale and retail] seed and bulb merchant and nurseryman,
agent for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper), an orchard, kitchen
garden and vinery, protected against illegal trespassers by glasstopped mural
enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various inventoried implements.
As?
Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods,
hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, clodcrusher, swathturner, carriagesack,
telescope ladder, 10 tooth rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake,
bilhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and so on.
What improvements
might be subsequently introduced?
A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a
botanical conservatory, 2 hammocks (lady's and gentleman's) a sundial shaded
and sheltered by laburnum or lilac trees, an exoticallay harmonically accorded
Japanese tinkle gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious
waterbutt, a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with
hydraulic hose.
What facilities of
transit were desirable?
When citybound frequent
connection by train or tram from their respective intermediate station or
terminal. When
countrybound velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side
basketcar attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with a wicker trap or smart
phaeton with good working solidungular cob (ram gelding, 14h).
What might be the
name of this erigible or erected residence?
Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville.
Could Bloom of 7
Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville?
In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed
cap, price 8/6, and useful garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan,
planting aligned young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed,
trundling a weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the
scent of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving
longevity.
What syllabus of intellectual pursuits
was simultaneously possible?
Snapshot photography, comparative study
of religions, folklore relative to various amatory and superstitious practices,
contemplation of the celestial constellations.
What lighter
recreations?
Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on
level macadamised causeways, ascents of moderately high hills, natation in
secluded fresh water and unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light
curricle with kedge anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of
estivation), vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with
inspection of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers' fires of
smoking peat turves (period of hibernation).
Indoor: discussion in tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal
problems: lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house carpentry
with toolbox containing hammer, awl, nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers,
bullnose plane and turnscrew.
Might he become a gentleman farmer of
field produce and livestock?
Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper
cows, 1 pike of upland hay and requisite farming implements, e.g., an
end-to-end churn, a turnip pulper, etc.
What would be his civic functions and
social status among the country families and landed gentry?
Arranged successively in ascending powers
of hierarchical order, that of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and
at the zenith of his career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a
family crest and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto (Semper
paratus), duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M.P.,
P.C., K.P., L.L.D. honoris causa, Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in
court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left
Kingstown for England).
What course of
action did he outline for himself in such capacity?
A course that lay between undue clemency
and excessive rigour: the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary
classes, incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social
inequality of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with
mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost
farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted power in the
land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict
maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all
simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary
solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of
the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers
in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all
resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights,
obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution,
all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic
conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality.
Prove that he had loved rectitude form
his earliest youth.
To master Percy Aphohn at High School in 1880
he had divulged his disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church
(to which his father Rudolf Virag, later Rudolph Bloom, had been converted from
the Israelite faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting
Christianity among the Jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of Roman
catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in 1888. To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882
during a juvenile friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the
former) he had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory
of colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of Charles
Darwin, expounded in The Descent of Man and The Origin of Species. In 1885 he had publicly expressed his adherence
to the collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan
Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J.F.X. O'Brien and others, the
agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of Charles
Stewart Parnell (M.P. for Cork City), the programme of peace, retrenchment and
reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M.P. for Midlothian, N.B.) and, in support
of his political convictions, had climbed up into a secure position amid the
ramifications of a tree on Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February
1888) into the capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000,
divided into 120 trade corporations, bearing 2,000 in escort of the marquess of
Ripon and John Morley.
How much and how did he propose to pay
for this country residence?
As per prospectus of the Industrious
Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society
(incorporated 1874), a maximum of £60 per annum, being 1/6th of an assured
income, derived from giltedged securities, representing at 5% simple interest
on capital of £1,200 (estimate of price at 20 years purchase) of which 1/3rd to
be paid on acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. £800
plus 2½% interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual instalments
until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for purchase within a period
of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of £64, headrent included, the
titledeeds to remain in the possession of the lender or lenders with a saving
clause envisaging forced sale, foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event
of protracted failure to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to
become the absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period
of years stipulated.
What rapid but insecure means to opulence
might facilitate immediate purchase?
A private wireless telegraph which would
transmit by dot and dash system the result of a national equine handicap (flat
or steeplechase) of 1 or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider and odds of
50 to 1 at 3 hr. 8 m. p.m at Ascot (Greenwich time) the message being received
and available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink time). The unexpected discovery of an object of
great monetary value: precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage
stamps (7-shilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue
paper perforate, Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official, rouletted,
diagonal surcharge, Luxembourg, 1878): antique dynastical ring, unique relic in
unusual repositories or by unusual means: from the air (dropped by an eagle in
flight), by fire (amid flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict), on earth (in the
gizzard of a comestible fowl). A Spanish
prisoner's donation of a distant treasure of valuables or specie or bullion
lodged with a solvent banking corporation 100 years previously at 5% compound
interest of the collective worth of £5,000,000 stg (five million pounds
sterling). A contract with an
inconsiderate contractee for the delivery of 32 consignments of some given
commodity in consideration of cash payment on delivery at the initial rate of
1/4d to be increased constantly in the geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d,
1/2d, 1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s.4d., 2s.8d. to 32 terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the
laws of probability to break the bank of Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular
problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium £1,000,000
sterling.
Was vast wealth
acquirable through industrial channels?
The reclamation of dunams of waste
arenary soil, proposed in the prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse,
Berlin, W.15, by the cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and
reafforestation. The utilisation of
waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement possessing chemical
properties, in view of the vast production of the first, vast number of the
second and immense quantity of the third, every normal human being of average
vitality and appetite producing annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum
total of 80 lbs. (mixed animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by
4,386,035, the total population of Ireland according to the census returns of
1901.
Were there schemes
of wider scope?
A scheme to be formulated and submitted
for approval to the harbour commissioners for the exploitation of white coal
(hydraulic power), obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin
bar or at head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of
main streams for the economic production of 500,000 W.H.P. of electricity. A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of
the North Bull at Dollymount and erect on the space of the foreland, used for
golf links and rifle ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths,
shooting galleries, hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for
mixed bathing. A
scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the delivery of early morning
milk. A scheme for the
development of Irish tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of
petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge
and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure steamers
for coastwise navigation [10/- per person per day, guide (trilingual)
included]. A scheme for the
repristination of passenger and goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed
from weedbeds. A scheme to connect by
tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road and Prussia street) with the
quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East Wall), parallel with the Link line
railway laid (in conjunction with the Great Southern and Western railway line)
between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western
railway 43 to 45 North Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin
branches of Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin
Steam Packet Company, Lancashire Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and Glasgow
Steam Packet Company, Glasgow Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet Company
(Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company, Dublin and Morecambe
Steamers, London and North Western Railway Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board
Landing Sheds and transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship
owners, agents for steamers from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France,
Belgium and Holland and for animal transport and of additional mileage operated
by the Dublin United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers'
fees.
Positing what protasis would the
contraction for such several schemes become a natural and necessary apodosis?
Given a guarantee equal to the sum
sought, the support, by deed of gift and transfer vouchers during doner's
lifetime or by bequest after doner's painless extinction, of eminent financiers
(Blum Pasha, Rothschild, Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockerfeller) possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed
during a successful life, and joining capital with opportunity the thing
required was done.
What eventually
would render him independent of such wealth?
The independent discovery
of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore.
For what reason did he meditate on
schemes so difficult of realisation?
It was one of his axioms that similar
meditations or the automatic relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil recollection of the past when practised
habitually before retiring for the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a
result sound repose and renovated vitality.
His
justifications?
As a physicist he had learned that of the
70 years of complete human life at least 2/7ths, viz. 20 years, passed in
sleep. As a philosopher he knew that at
the termination of any allotted life only an infinitesimal part of any person's
desires has been realised. As a
physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant agencies
chiefly operative during somnolence.
What did he fear?
The committal of
homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of the light of reason, the
incommensurable categorical intelligence situated in the cerebral convolutions.
What were
habitually his final meditations?
Of some one sole unique advertisement to
cause passers to stop in wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous
accretions excluded, reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not
exceeding the span of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern
life.
What did the first
drawer unlocked contain?
A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook,
property of Milly (Millicent) Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram
drawings marked Papli, which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs
erect, 2 eyes in profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1
triangular foot: 2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud
Branscombe, actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing on it a
pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend Mizpah the
date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders, from Mr and Mrs M. Comerford, the
versicle: May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome glee:
a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the stores department
of Messrs Hely's, Ltd., 89, 90 and 91 Dame street: a box containing the
remainder of a gross of gilt 'J' pennibs, obtained from same department of same
firm: an old sandglass which rolled containing sand which rolled: a sealed
prophecy (never unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the
consequences of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule
bill of 1886 (never passed into law): a bazaar ticket No. 2004, of S. Kevin's
Charity Fair, price 6d. 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small em
monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of
interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature with
flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo brooch, property of Ellem Bloom
(born Higgins), deceased: 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o
P.O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o P.O. Dolphin's Barn: the
transliterated name and address of the addresser of the 3 letters in reserved
alphabetic boustrophedontic punctuated quadrilinear cryptogram (vowels
suppressed) N.IGS./WI.UU.OX/W.OKS.MH/ Y.IM: a press cutting from an English
weekly periodical Modern Society, subject corporal chastisement in
girls' schools: a pink ribbon which had festooned an Easter egg in the year
1899: two partly uncoiled rubber preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased
by post form Box 32, P.O. Charring Cross, London, W.C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen
creamlaid envelopes and faintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3:
some assorted Austro-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged
Hungarian Lottery: a low-power magnifying glass: 2 erotic postcards showing: a)
buccal coition between nude senorita (rear presentation, superior position): b)
anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes abject) of female
religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by post from Box 32, P.O.
Charring Cross, London, W.C.: a press cutting of recipe for renovation of old
tan boots: a 1d. adhesive stamp, lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a
chart of measurements of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2
months of consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley's pulley exerciser (men's 15/-,
athlete's 20/-) viz., chest 28in. and 29½ in., biceps 9 in. and 10 in., forearm
8½ and 9 in., thigh 10 in. and 12 in., calf 11 in. and 12 in.: 1 prospectus of
the Wonderworker, the world's greatest remedy for rectal complaints direct from
Wonderworker, Coventry House, South Place, London E.C., addressed to Mrs L.
Bloom with brief accompanying note commencing: Dear Madam.
Quote the textual terms in which the
prospectus claimed advantages for this thaumaturgic remedy.
It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case
of trouble in breaking wind, assists nature in the most formidable way,
insuring instant relief in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free
natural action, an initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth
living. Ladies find Wonderworker
especially useful, a pleasant surprise when they note delightful result like a
cool drink of fresh spring water on a sultry summer's day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen
friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long
round end. Wonderworker.
Were there
testimonials?
Numerous. From clergyman, British
naval officer, well- known author, city man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of
five, absentminded beggar.
How did absentminded beggar's concluding
testimonial conclude?
What a pity the government did not supply
our men with wonderworkers during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been!
What object did
Bloom add to this collection of objects?
A 4th typewritten letter received by
Henry Flower (let H.F. be L.B.) from Martha Clifford (find M.C.).
What pleasant
reflection accompanied this action?
The reflection that, apart from the
letter in question, his magnetic face, form and address had been favourably
received during the course of the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen,
born Josie Powell); a nurse, Miss Callan (Christina name unknown), a maid,
Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown).
What possibility
suggested itself?
The possibility of exercising virile
power of fascination in the most immediate future after an expensive repast in
a private apartment in the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty,
moderately mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin.
What did the 2nd
drawer contain?
Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold
Paula Bloom: an endowment assurance policy of £500 in the Scottish Widows'
Assurance Society intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25
years as with profit policy of £430, £462-10-0 and £500 at 60 years or death,
65 years or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy (paidup) of
£299-10-0 together with cash payment of £133-10-0, an option: a bank passbook
issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch showing statement of a/c for
half year ending 31 December 1903, balance in depositor's favour: £18-14-6
(eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence, sterling), net personality:
certificate of possession of £900 Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock
(free of stamp duty): dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries' (Glasnevin)
Committee, relative to a graveplot purchased: a local press cutting concerning
change of name by deedpoll.
Quote the textual terms of this notice.
I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at n°
What other objects relative to Rudolph
Bloom (born Virag) were in the 2nd drawer?
An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolph
Virag and his father Leopold Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait
atelier of their (respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of
Szesfehervar, Hungary. An ancient
hagadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex spectacles inserted marked
the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual prayers for Pessach (Passover): a
photocard of the Queen's Hotel, Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope
addressed To my Dear Son Leopold.
What fractions of phrases did the lecture
of those five whole words evoke?
Tomorrow will be a week that I received
... it is no use Leopold to be ... with your dear mother ... that is not more
to stand ... to her ... all for me is out ... be kind to Athos, Leopold ... my
dear son ... always ... of me ... das Herz ... Gott ... dein ...
What reminiscences of a human subject
suffering from progressive melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom?
An old man widower, unkempt hair, in bed,
with head covered, sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite,
resorted to by increasing doses of grains and scruples as a palliative of
recrudescent neuralgia: the face in death of a septuagenarian suicide by
poison.
Why did Bloom
experience a sentiment of remorse?
Because in immature
impatience he had treated with disrespect certain beliefs and practices.
As?
The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat
and milk at one meal, the hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract,
perfervidly concrete mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision
of male infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the
ineffability of the tetragrammaron: the sanctity of the sabbath.
How did these
beliefs and practices now appear to him?
Not more rational than they had then
appeared, not less rational than other beliefs and practices now appeared.
What first
reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?
Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his
son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a retrospective arrangement of migrations and
settlements in and between Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest,
Szombathely, with statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria
Theresa, empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having
taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these
narrations by constant consultation of geographical map of
Had time equally but differently
obliterated the memory of these migrations in narrator and listener?
In narrator by the access of years and in
consequence of the use of narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years
and in consequence of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.
What idiosyncrasies of the narrator were
concomitant products of amnesia?
Occasionally he ate without having
previously removed his hat. Occasionally
he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool form an inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the
traces of food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of
paper.
What two phenomena
of senescence were more frequent?
The myopic digital
calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon repletion.
What object offered
partial consolation for these reminiscences?
The endowment policy,
the bank passbook, the certificate of the possession of scrip.
Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses
of fortune, from which these supports protected him, and by elimination of all
positive values to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity.
Successively, in descending helotic
order: Poverty: that of the outdoor hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for
the recovery of bad and doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess
collector. Mendicancy: that of the
fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s 4d in the £, sandwichman,
distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, insinuating sycophant, maimed
sailor, blind stripling, superannuated bailiff's man, marfeast, lickplate,
spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock seated on bench of public
park under discarded perforated umbrella.
Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal Hospital), Kilmainham,
the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but respectable men permanently
disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir
of misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic
pauper.
With
which attendant indignities?
The unsympathetic indifference of
previously amiable females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of
fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the
latration of illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of
decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing or less than nothing.
By which could such
a situation be precluded?
By decease (change of
state), by departure (change of place).
Which preferably?
The latter, by the line
of least resistance.
What considerations
rendered it not entirely undesirable?
Constant cohabitation
impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. The habit of independent purchase
increasingly cultivated. The necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence
of arrest.
What consideration
rendered it not irrational?
The parties concerned, uniting, had
increased and multiplied, which being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity,
the parties if now disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and
multiplication, which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of
uniting parties, which was impossible.
What consideration
rendered it desirable?
The attractive character
of certain localities in
In
The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of
Connemara, lough Neagh with submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway,
Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of
Aran, the pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.
Abroad?
Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea
to Thomas Kernan, agent for Pulpwood, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing lane, London
E.C., 5 Dame street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and
gate of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique
birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues, nude Grecian
divinities), the Wall Street money market (which controlled international
finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where O'Hara of the Camerons
had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no human being had passed with
impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters of soap), the forbidden country of
Tibet (from which no traveller returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to
die), the Dead Sea.
Under
what guidance, following what signs?
At sea, septentrional, by night the
polestar, located at the point of intersection of the right line from beta to
alpha in Ursa Major produced and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse
of the rightangled triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the
line alpha delta of Ursa Major. On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed in imperfect
varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice of the imperfectly
occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the
cloud by day.
What public advertisement would divulge
the occultation of the departed?
£5 reward lost, stolen or strayed from
his residence 7 Eccles street, missing gent about 40, answering to the name of
Bloom, Leopold (Poldy), height 5 ft 9½ inches, full build, olive complexion,
may have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will be paid for information
leading to his discovery.
What universal binomial denominations
would be his as entity and nonentity?
Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman.
What tributes his?
Honour and gifts of
strangers, the friends of Everyman.
A nymph immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman.
Would the departed
never nowhere nowhow reappear?
Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to
the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable
suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme
boundary of space, passing from land to land, among people, amid events. Somewhere imperceptibly he would hear and
somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation
of the Northern Crown, he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the
constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination return
an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark crusader, a
sleeper awakened, with financial resources (by supposition) surpassing those of
Rothschild or of the silver king.
What would render
such return irrational?
An unsatisfactory
equation between an exodus and return in time through reversible space and an
exodus and return in space through irreversible time.
What play of forces, inducing inertia,
rendered departure undesirable?
The lateness of the hour, rendering
procrastinatory: the obscurity of the night, rendering invisible: the
uncertainty of thoroughfares, rendering perilous: the necessity for repose,
obviating movement: the proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the
anticipation of warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire
and rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, desired
desire.
What advantages were possessed by an
occupied, as distinct from an unoccupied bed?
The removal of nocturnal solitude, the
superior quality of human (mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction,
the stimulation of matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the
premises in the case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise
between the spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit
section).
What past consecutive causes, before rising
preapprehended, of accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently
recapitulate?
The preparation of breakfast (burnt
offering): intestinal congestion and premeditative defecation (holy of holies):
the bath (rite of John): the funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of
Alexander Keyes (Urim and Thummin): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of
Melchizedek): the visit to museum and national library (holy place): the
bookhunt along Bedford row, Merchants' Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah):
the music in the Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a truculent
troglodyte in Bernard Kiernan's premises (holocaust): a blank period of time
including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a leavetaking
(wilderness): the eroticism produced by feminine exhibitionism (rite of Onan):
the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina Purefoy (heave offering): the visit to the
disorderly house of Mrs Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone street, lower, and subsequent
brawl and chance medley in Beaver street (Armageddon): nocturnal perambulation
to and from the cabman's shelter, Butt Bridge (atonement).
What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about
to rise in order to go so as to conclude lest he should not conclude
involuntarily apprehend?
The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen
heard loud lone crack emitted by the insentient material of a strainveined
timber table.
What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen,
going, gathering multicoloured multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily
apprehending, not comprehend?
Who was M'Intosh?
What selfevident enigma pondered with
desultory constancy during 30 years did Bloom now, having effected natural
obscurity by the extinction of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend?
Where was Moses when the candle went out?
What imperfections in a perfect day did
Bloom, walking, silently successively, enumerate?
A provisional failure to obtain renewal
of an advertisement, to obtain a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan
(agent for Pulbrook, Robertson and C°, 5 Dame street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing
lane, London E.C.), to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal
orifice in the case of Hellenic female divinities, to obtain admission
(gratuitous or paid) to the performance of Leah by Mrs Bandman Palmer at
the Gaiety Theatre, 46-49 South King street.
What impression of an absent face did
Bloom, arrested, silently recall?
The face of her father,
the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, of
What recurrent impressions of the same
were possible by the hypothesis?
Retreating, at the terminus of the Great
Northern Railway, Amiens street, with constant uniform acceleration, along
parallel lines meeting at infinity, if produced: along parallel lines,
reproduced from infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of
the Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning.
What miscellaneous effects of female
personal wearing apparel were perceived by him?
A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies'
hose, a pair of new violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies' drawers of India
mull, cut on generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti's
Turkish cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded
curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion
underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed irregularly
on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened, having capped corners,
with multicoloured labels, initialled on its fore side in white lettering
B.C.T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy).
What impersonal
objects were perceived?
A commode, one leg fractured, totally
covered by square cretonne cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady's
black straw hat. Orangekeyed ware,
bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware and ironmongery
manufacturer, 21-23 Moore street, disposed irregularly on the washstand and
floor, and consisting of basin, soapdish and brushtray (on the washstand,
together), pitcher and night article (on the floor, separate).
Bloom's
acts?
He deposited the articles of clothing on
a chair, removed his remaining articles of clothing, took from beneath the
bolster at the head of the bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his
head and arms into the proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow
form the head to the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and
entered the bed.
How?
With circumspection, as invariably when
entering an abode (his own or not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral
springs of the mattress being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii
loose and tremulous under stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or
ambush of lust or adder: lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of
conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of marriage,
of sleep and of death.
What did his limbs,
when gradually extended, encounter?
New clean bedlinen, additional odours,
the presence of a human form, female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male,
not his, some crumbs, some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.
If he had smiled
why would he have smiled?
To reflect that each one who enters
imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of
a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining
himself to be first, last, only and alone, whereas he is neither first nor last
nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
What preceding
series?
Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of
his series, Penrose, Bartell d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John
Henry Menton, Father Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's
Horse Show, Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Black Dillon (Lord Mayor
of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an unknown
gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon Dedalus, Andrew
(Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John Hooper, Dr Francis
Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack at the General Post Office,
Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so on to no last term.
What were his reflections concerning the
last member of this series and late occupant of the bed?
Reflections on his
vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a billsticker), commercial ability (a
bester), impressionability (a boaster).
Why for the observer impressionability in
addition to vigour, corporal proportion and commercial ability?
Because he had observed with augmenting
frequency in the preceding members of the same series the same concupiscence,
inflammably transmitted first with alarm, then with understanding, then with
desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene
comprehension and apprehension.
With what antagonistic sentiments were
his subsequent reflections affected?
Envy, jealousy,
abnegation, equanimity.
Envy?
Of a bodily and mental male organism
specially adapted for the superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation
and energetic piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete
satisfaction of a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and
mental female organism, passive but not obtuse.
Jealousy?
Because a nature full
and volatile in its
Abnegation?
In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in
September 1903 in the establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter,
5 Eden Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and
reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of ambition
and magnanimity, collegual altruism and amorous egoism, d) extraracial
attraction, interracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, e) an imminent
provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net proceeds divided.
Equanimity?
As natural as any and
every natural act of a nature expressed or understood executed in natured
nature by natural creatures in accordance with his, her and their natured
natures, of dissimilar similarity.
As not as calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of
the planet in consequence of collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than theft, highway
robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money under false
pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public money, betrayal of
public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel,
blackmail, contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny on the high seas,
trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice, desertion from
armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence with the
king's enemies, impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter, wilful and
premeditated murder. As not more
abnormal than all other altered processes of adaptation to altered conditions
of existence, resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism
and its attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged
inclinations, significant disease. As more than inevitable, irreparable.
Why more abnegation
than jealousy, less envy than equanimity?
From outrage (matrimony) to outrage
(adultery) there arose nought but outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial
violator of the matrimonially violated had not been outraged by the adulterous
violator of the adulterously violated.
What retribution,
if any?
Assassination, never,
as two wrongs did not make one right.
Duel by combat, no. Divorce, not
now. Exposure by
mechanical artifice (automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular
witness), not yet. Suit for
damages by legal influence or stimulation of assault with evidence of injuries
sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly.
If any, positively, connivance, introduction of emulation (material, a
prosperous rival agency of publicity: moral, a successful rival agent of
intimacy), depreciation, alienation, humiliation, separation protecting the one
separated from the other, protecting separator from both.
By what reflections did he, a conscious
reactor against the void incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments?
The preordained frangibility of the
hymen, the presupposed intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity
and disproportion between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to
be done and the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done: the fallaciously
inferred debility of the female, the muscularity of the male: the variations of
ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving no
alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as masculine
subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct feminine object)
from the active voice into its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed
as feminine subject, auxillary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past
participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice: the
continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of
semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the
inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the
stars.
In what final satisfaction did these
antagonistic sentiments and reflections, reduced to their simplest forms,
converge?
Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern
and western terrestrial hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands
explored or unexplored (the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the
blessed, the isles of Greece, the land of promise) of adipose posterior female
hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and seminal
warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude, insusceptible
of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression, expressive of mute
immutable mature animality.
The
visible signs of antesatisfaction?
An approximate erection: a solicitous
adversion: a gradual elevation: a tentative revelation: a silent contemplation.
Then?
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow
melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow
furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The
visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative
velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.
What followed this
silent action?
Somnolent invocation,
less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, catechetical interrogation.
With what
modifications did the narrator reply to his interrogation?
Negative: he omitted to mention the
clandestine correspondence between Martin Clifford and Henry Flower, the public
altercation at, in and in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard
Kiernan and Co, Limited, 8-10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and
response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), surname
unknown. Positive: he included mention
of a performance by Mrs Bandman Palmer of Leah at the Gaiety Theatre,
46-49 South King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel,
35-37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency
entitled Sweets of Sin, anonymous, author a gentleman of fashion, a
temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the course of
postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely recovered) being
Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus,
of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the
presence of a witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of
decision and gymnastic flexibility.
Was the narration
otherwise unaltered by modification?
Absolutely.
Which event or person emerged as the salient
point of his narration?
Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.
What limitations of activity and
inhibitions of conjugal rights were perceived by listener and narrator
concerning themselves during the course of this
intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration?
By the listener a limitation of fertility
inasmuch as marriage had been celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th
anniversary of her birth (8 September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on
the same date with female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily
consummated on the 10 September of the same year and complete carnal
intercourse, with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having
last taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29
December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894, aged 11
days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days, during which
carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation of semen within the
natural female organ. By the narrator a
limitation of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental
intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since the
consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the female issue
of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there remained a period of 9
months and 1 day during which in consequence of a preestablished natural
comprehension in incomprehension between the consummated females (listener and
issue), complete corporal liberty of action had been circumscribed.
How?
By various reiterated feminine
interrogation concerning the masculine destination whither, the place where,
the time at which, the duration for which, the object with which in the case of
temporary absences, projected or effected.
What moved visibly above the listener's
and the narrator's invisible thoughts?
The upcast reflection
of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of concentric circles of varying
gradations of light and shadow.
In what directions
did listener and narrator lie?
Listener, S.E. by E.; Narrator, N.W. by
W.: on the 53rd parallel of latitude, N. and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at
an angle of 45 degrees to the terrestrial equator.
In
what state of rest or motion?
At rest relatively to
themselves and to each other. In
motion being each and both carried westward, forward and rearward respectively,
by the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of
neverchanging space.
In
what posture?
Listener: reclined semilaterally, left,
left hand under head, right leg extended in a straight line and resting on the
left leg, flexed, in the attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with
seed. Narrator: reclined laterally,
left, with right and left legs flexed, the indexfinger and thumb of the right
hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in the attitude depicted on a snapshot
photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the childman weary, the manchild in the womb.
Womb? Weary?
He rests.
He has travelled.
With?
Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor
and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad
the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer
and Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad
the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.
When?
Going to a dark bed there was a square
round Sinbad the Sailor roc'c auk's egg in the night of the bed of all the auks
of the rocs of Darkinbad the Brightdayler.
Where?
____________________
YES
because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in
bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending
to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting
to that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she
never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser
ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all
her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes
and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if
all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody
wanted her to wear I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her
twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our
faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr
Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and
her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats
especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and
waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he
got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them go
into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it
into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the
carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the
smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and
pulling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd
think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he
sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore
that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at
the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with her
old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to never see
thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard a bit grown in
the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his
toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed get blood poisoning but if it
was a thing I was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman
hides it not to give all the trouble they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by
his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so
either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was really and
the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me
who did I meet ah yes I met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see
that big babbyface I saw him and he not long married flirting with a young girl
at Pooles Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite
conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well
done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever
met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle in bed
or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in with somewhere
or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the
day before yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the
front room for the matches to show him Dignams death in the paper as if
something told me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be
thinking about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks she
has a softy in him because all men get a bit like that at his age especially
getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle any money she can out of him no
fool like an old fool and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it not
that I care two straws who he does it with or knew before that way though Id
like to find out so long as I dont have the two of them under my nose all the
time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false
bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him
once or twice I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the
long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending
he was drinking water 1 woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of
course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table on
Christmas if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing my potatoes and
the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see her aunt if you please common robbery
so it was but I was sure he had something on with that one it takes me to find
out a thing like that he said you have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt
was very fond of oysters but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to
go out to be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I
found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a little bit
too much I saw too that her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her
her weeks notice better do without them altogether do out the rooms myself
quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt I gave it to him
anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even touch him if I thought
he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my
face and singing about the place in the W C too because she knew she was too
well off yes because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do
it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night
Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there
steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to
squeeze back singing the young May Moon shes beaming love because he has an
idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to
the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God
knows hes change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat
unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young
boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him
see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I
know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing
out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this that and the
other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about
some Dean or Bishop was sitting beside me in the jews Temples gardens when I
was knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and so
on about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging him making
him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of
who is it tell me his name who tell me who the German Emperor is it yes imagine
Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me what he never
will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply ruination for
any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it till he comes and
then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your lips pale anyhow its done
now once and for all with all the talk of the world about it people make its
only the first time after that its just the ordinary do it and think no more
about it why cant you kiss a man without going and marrying him first you
sometimes love to wildly when you feel that way so nice all over you you cant
help yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there
and kiss me in his arms there nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your
soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to
Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said
on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my child on the
leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where you sit down yes O Lord
couldnt he say bottom right out and have done with it what has that got to do
with it and did you whatever way he put it I forget no father and I always
think of the real father what did he want to know for when I already confessed
it to God he had a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldn't mind feeling
it neither would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he
know me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never
turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost for a
woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them Id like to be
embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense off him like the pope
for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didn't like his
slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall though I laughed Im not
a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of his father I wonder is he
awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it who gave him that flower he said he
bought he smelt of some kind of drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety
kind of paste they stick their bills up with some liquor Id like to sip those
richlooking green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink
with the opera hats I tasted one with my finger dipped out of that American
that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to keep
himself from falling asleep after the last time we took the port and potted
meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely and tired myself and
fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped straight into bed till that
thunder woke me up as if the world was coming to an end God be merciful to us I
thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish when I blessed myself
and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in Gibraltar and they come
and tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing
about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that evening in
Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it brought its luck though
hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to church mass or meeting he says
your soul you have no soul inside only grey matter because he doesnt know what
it is to have one yes when I lit the lamp yes because he must have come 3 or 4
times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein
or whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is not
so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my hours
dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar
standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he was in
great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had one the size of
that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole sheep after whats the
idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us like a Stallion
driving it up into you because thats all they want out of you with that
determined vicious look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt
such a tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull it out and do it
on me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt
washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice invention they
made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch
of it themselves theyd know what I went through with Milly nobody would believe
cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys husband give us a swing out of your
whiskers filling her up with a child or twins once a year as regular as the
clock always with a smell of children off her the one they called budgers or
something like a nigger with a shock of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a
black the last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and
bawling you couldnt hear your car supposed to be healthy not satisfied till
they have us swollen out like elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked
having another not off him though still if he was married Im sure hed have a
fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be
awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and
thinking about me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if
thatll do him any good I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene
he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons
housewarming and then he wanted to ram it down my neck on account of not liking
to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup row over politics he
began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a carpenter at last he made
me cry of course a woman is so sensitive about everything I was fuming with
myself after for giving in only for I knew he was gone on me and the first
socialist he said He was he annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a temper
still he knows a lot of mixedup things especially about the body and the
insides I often wanted to study up that myself what we had inside us in that
family physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room was
crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had on a coolness with her over
him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked who are
you going to and I said over to Floey and he made me the present of lord Byrons
poems and the three pairs of gloves so that finished that I could quite easily
get him to make it up any time I know how Id even supposing he got in with her
again and was going out to see her somewhere Id know if he refused to eat the
onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or
touch him with my veil and gloves on going out 1 kiss then would send them all
spinning however alright well see then let him go to her she of course would
only be too delighted to pretend shes mad in love with him that I wouldnt so
much Id just go to her and ask her do you love him and look her square in the
eyes she couldnt fool me but he might imagine he was and make a declaration
with his plabbery kind of a manner to her like he did to me though I had the
devils own job to get it out of him though I liked him for that it showed he
could hold in and wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me
too the night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I
want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper with my
hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let out too much the night
before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let him know more than was good for
him she used to be always embracing me Josie whenever he was there meaning him
of course glauming me over and when I said I washed up and down as far as
possible asking me did you wash possible the women are always egging on to that
putting it on thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit
putting on the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is
what spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at that
time trying to look like lord Byron I said I liked though he was too beautiful
for a man and he was a little before we got engaged afterwards though she didnt
like it so much the day I was in fits of laughing with the giggles I couldnt
stop about all my hairpins falling one after another with the mass of hair I
had youre always in great humour she said yes because it grigged her because
she knew what it meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on
between us not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my
fault she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes
got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her face
beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she must have been
just after a row with him because I saw on the moment she was edging to draw
down a conversation about husbands and talk about him to run him down what was
it she told me O yes that sometimes he used to go to bed with his muddy boots
on when the maggot takes him just imagine having to get into bed with a thing
like that that might murder you any moment what a man well its not the one way
everyone goes mad Poldy anyway whatever he does always wipes his feet on the
mat when he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he
always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like that and now hes
going about in his slippers to look for £10000 for a postcard up up O
Sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff to extinction
actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what could you make of a man
like that Id rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex of course
hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me
come sleep with me yes and he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take
that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some
other man yes it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and
do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you
mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them
for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on without us
white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call
it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were
before she must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance
of being hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do
besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they
theyre all so different Boylan talking
about the shape of my foot he noticed at once even before he was introduced
when I was in the D B C with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling
my foot we both ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking
with his two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it
was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he
made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always
with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede
gloves on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he
wanted me to put it in the Irish Times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame
street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going
out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back and I went there
for tea 2 days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him
because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the
shoes that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that if I only had a
ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick him for one and a
gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him spend once with my
foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so cold and windy it was
well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire wasnt black out when he
asked to take off my stockings lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street well
and another time it was my muddy boots hed like me to walk in all the horses
dung I could find but of course hes not natural like the rest of the world that
I what did he say I could give 9 points in 10 to Katty Lanner and beat her what
does that mean I asked him I forget what he said because the stoppress edition
just passed and the man with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so polite
I think I saw his face before somewhere I noticed him when I was tasting the
butter so I took my time Bartell dArcy too that he used to make fun of when he
commenced kissing me on the choir stairs after I sang Gounods Ave Maria what
are we waiting for O my heart kiss me straight on the brow and part which is my
brown part he was pretty hot for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was
always raving about if you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth
singing then he said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that I
dont see anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day not now
and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very place too we
did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing can happen
without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till we were engaged
otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was 10 times worse
himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off my drawers that was
the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed me in the eye of my glove
and I had to take it off asking me questions is it permitted to inquire the
shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it as if I forgot it to think of me when
I saw him slip it into his pocket of course hes mad on the subject of drawers
thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the
bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I
were out with him at the open air fete that one in the cream muslin standing
right against the sun so he could see every atom she had on when he saw me from
behind following in the rain I saw him before he saw me however standing at the
corner of the Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on him with the muffler in
the Zingari colours to show off his complexion and the brown hat looking
slyboots as usual what was he doing there where hed no business they can go and
get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to
ask any questions but they want to know where were you where are you going I
could feel him coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been
keeping away from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I half
turned and stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove
slowly watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for the rain
anything for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers the whole
blessed time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll to carry about in
his waistcoat pocket O Maria Santissima he did look a big fool dreeping
in the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me hungry to look at them and
beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with sunray pleats that
there was nobody he said hed kneel down in the wet if I didnt so persevering he
would too and ruin his new raincoat you never know what freak theyd take alone
with you theyre so savage for it if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit
and touched his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring
hand to keep him from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find
out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want to do
everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it and father waiting all the
time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in the butchers and had
to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me that letter with all those
words in it how could he have the face to any woman after his company manners
making it so awkward after when we met asking me have I offended you with my
eyelids down of course he saw I wasnt he had a few brains not like that other
fool Henry Doyle he was always breaking or tearing something in the charades I
hate an unlucky man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for
forms sake dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course
it used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in Gibraltar
with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children seeing it too young
then writing a letter every morning sometimes twice a day I liked the way he
made love then he knew the way to take a woman when he sent me the 8 big
poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote the night he kissed my heart at
Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it simply it makes you feel like nothing on
earth but he never knew how to embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on
Monday as he said at the same time four I hate people who come at all hours
answer the door you think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all
undressed or the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old
frostyface Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after
dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me professor I
had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his way it was
impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you have to peep out
through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought it was a putoff first
him sending the port and the peaches first and I was just beginning to yawn
with nerves thinking he was trying to make a fool of me when I knew his
tattarrattat at the door he must have been a bit late because it was 1/4 after
3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls coming from school I never know the time even
that watch he gave me never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after
when I threw the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty when I
was whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even put on my clean
shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were to go to Belfast
just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary the 27th it wouldnt
be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel were beside each other and
any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt tell him to stop and not bother me
with him in the next room or perhaps some protestant clergyman with a cough
knocking on the wall then he wouldnt believe next day we didnt do something its
all very well a husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we never
did anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes going where he is
besides something always happens with him the time going to the Mallow Concert
at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for the two of us then the bell rang out
he walks down the platform with the soup splashing about taking spoonfuls of it
hadnt he the nerve and the waiter after him making a holy show of us screeching
and confusion for the engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it
the two gentlemen in the 3rd class carriage said he was quite right so he was
too hes so pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job
he was able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us on
to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting in a
train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take a 1st class for
me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the guard well O I suppose
therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at us with their eyes as stupid as
ever they can possibly be that was an exceptional man that common workman that
left us alone in the carriage that day going to Howth Id like to find out
something about him 1 or 2 tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the
window all the nicer then coming back suppose I never came back what would they
say eloped with him that gets you on on the stage the last concert I sang at
where its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall Clarendon St little chits
of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney and her like on account of
father being in the army and my singing the absentminded beggar and wearing a
brooch for lord Roberts when I had the map of it all and Poldy not Irish enough
was it him managed it this time I wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to
sing in the Stabat Mater by going around saying he was putting Lead
Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out he was a
freemason thumping the piano lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and
he was going about with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call
themselves talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he
showed me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffith is he
well he doesnt look it thats all I can say still it must have been him he knew
there was a boycott I hate the mention of politics after the way that Pretoria
and Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner Lieut Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd East
Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely fellow in khaki and just the right
height over me Im sure he was brave too he said I was lovely the evening we
kissed goodbye at the canal lock my Irish beauty he was pale with excitement
about going away or wed be seen from the road he couldnt stand properly and I
so hot as I never felt they could have made their peace in the beginning or old
oom Paul and the rest of the old Krugers go and fight it out between them
instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were with
their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so bad I love to
see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the Spanish cavalry at La
Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay from Algeciras all the lights
of the rocklike fireflies or those sham battles on the 15 acres the Black Watch
with their kilts in time at the march past the 10th hussars the prince of Wales
own or the lancers O the lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela
his father made his money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could
buy me a nice present up in Belfast after what I gave theyve lovely linen up
there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like I had
before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going around with
him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave this ring behind
want to keep turning and turning to get it over the knuckle there or they might
bell it round the town in their papers or tell the police on me but theyd think
were married O let them all go and smother themselves for the fat lot I care he
has plenty of money and hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of
him if I could find out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when
I looked close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the
expression besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big
hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having to lie
down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way Mrs Mastiansky
told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and stick out her tongue as
far as every she could and he so quiet and mild with his tingating either can
you ever be up to men the way it takes them lovely stuff in that blue suit he
had on and stylish tie and socks with the skyblue silk things on them hes
certainly welloff I know by the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he
was like a perfect devil for a few minutes after he came back with the stop
press tearing up the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost 20 quid he
said he lost over that outsider that won and half he put on for me on account
of Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that sponger he was making free
with me after the Glencree dinner coming back that long joult over the
featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor looking at me with his dirty eyes Val
Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the
nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked every morsel of that chicken
out of my fingers it was so tasty and browned and as tender as anything only
for I didnt want to eat everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were
hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple
into my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for money
in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to be thankful for
our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be noticed the way the
world is divided in any case if its going to go on I want at least two other
good chemises for one thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he likes
none at all I think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar never wore
them either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt
make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette
stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought them back to
Lewers this morning and kick up a row and made that one change them only not to
upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole thing
and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman
with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have but thats no good what
did they say they give a delightful figure line 11/6 obviating that unsightly
broad appearance across the lower back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too
big Ill have to knock off the stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it
the last they sent form ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money
easy Larry they call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake
and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get
anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or I must do
a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it
then ones are not so much the fashion now garters that much I have the violet
pair I wore today thats all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the first
O no there was the face lotion I finished the last of yesterday that made my
skin like new I told him over and over again get that made up in the same place
and dont forget it God only knows whether he did after all I said to him Ill
know by the bottle anyway if not I suppose Ill only have to wash in my piss
like beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet I thought it
was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath is much finer
where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a pity it isnt all
like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about 6/- in all sure you cant get
on in this world without style all going in food and rent when I get it Ill
lash it around I tell you in fine style I always want to throw a handful of tea
into the pot measuring and mincing if I buy a pair of old brogues itself do you
like those new shoes yes how much were they Ive no clothes at all the brown
costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at the cleaners 3 whats that for
any woman cutting up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look
at you and women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with
all the things getting dearer every day for the 4 years more I have of life up
to 35 no Im what am I at all Ill be 33 in September will I what O well look at
that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when I was out last week
her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her
down to her waist tossing it back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street
1st thing I did every morning to look across see her combing it as if she loved
it and was full of pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that
Mrs Langtry the Jersey Lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes
like the first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all made
the one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what was she 45
there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what was it all and an
oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind of a tin thing around her and
the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster knife cant be true a thing like that
like some of those books he brings me the works of Master Francois somebody
supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because her bumgut
fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her a - e as if any fool
wouldnt know what that meant I hate that pretending of all things with the old
blackguards face on him anybody can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair
Tyrants he brought me that twice I remember when I came to page 50 the part
about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate sure theres
nothing for a woman in that all invention made up about he drinking the
champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over like the infant Jesus in
the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms sure no woman could have a
child that big taken out of her and I thought first it came out of her side
because how could she go to the chamber when she wanted to and she a rich lady
of course she felt honoured H.R.H. he was in Gibraltar the year I was born I
bet he found lilies there too where he planted the tree he planted more than
that in his time he might have planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I
wouldnt be here as I am he ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few
shillings he knocks out of it and go into an office or something where hed get
regular pay or a bank where they could put him up on a throne to count the
money all the day of course he prefers plottering about the house so you cant
stir with him any side whats your programme today I wish hed even smoke a pipe
like father to get the smell of a man or pretending to be mooching about for
advertisements when he could have been in Mr Cuffes still only for what he did
then sending me to try and patch it up I could have got him promoted there to
be the manager he gave me a great mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as
the mischief really and truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old
rubbishy dress that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but
theyre coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was
no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Burns as I
said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot of trash I
hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me altogether only he
thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and cooking mathering
everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I went by his advices every
blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes take that thats alright the one like
a wedding cake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover
one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shop girl in that
place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as
insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you
too much trouble whats she there for but I stared it out of her yes he was
awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded
as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very hard at my chest when
he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of him to show me out in any
case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me without making it too marked the
first time after him being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just
half smiled I know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im
extremely sorry and Im sure you were
yes I think he made them a bit firmer
sucking them like that so long he made me thirsty titties he calls them I had
to laugh yes this one anyhow stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get
him to keep that up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them
out for him what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the
same in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there like
those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with her hand and
they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks like with his two bags
full and his other things hanging down out of him or sticking up at you like a
hatrack no wonder they hide it with a cabbageleaf the woman is beauty of course
thats admitted when he said I could pose for a picture naked to some rich
fellow in Holles street when he lost the job in Helys and I was selling the
clothes and strumming in the coffee palace would I be like that bath of the
nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty
bitch in the Spanish photo he has the nymphs used they go about like that I
asked him that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or that
other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue of the fish
used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing standing out for me to
see it with his babyclothes up to one side the Queens own they were a nice lot
its well the Surreys relieved them theyre always trying to show it to you every
time nearly I passed outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street
station just to try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye or if it was 1
of the 7 wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night
coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade to make
you feel nice the watery I went into 1 of them it was so biting cold I couldnt
keep it when was that 93 the canal was frozen yes it was a few months after a
pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see me squatting in the mens
place meadero I tried to draw a picture of it before I tore it up like a
sausage or something I wonder theyre not afraid going about of getting a kick
or a bang or something there and that word met something with hoses in it and
he came out with some jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a
thing simply the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom
out of the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his
teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent they
fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly enough for
two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a pound a week as a
wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate looking student that
stopped in No 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly caught me washing through the
window only for I snapped up the towel to my face that was his studenting hurt
me they used to weaning her till he got doctor Brady to give me the Belladonna
prescription I had to get him to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter
and thicker than cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond
everything I declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only could
remember the one half of the things and write a book out of it the works of
Master Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an hour he was at them
Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant I had at me they want
everything in their mouth all the pleasure those men get out of a woman I can
feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch myself I wished he was here or somebody to
let myself go with a come gain like that I feel all fire inside me or if I
could dream it when he made me spend the 2nd time tickling me behind with his
finger I was coming for about 5 minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him
after O Lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything
at all only not to look ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way
hed take it you want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank
God some of them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does
it and doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the
tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage brute Thursday
Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait till Monday
frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere
whistling the strength those engines have in them like big giants and the water
rolling all over and out of them all sides like the end of Loves old sweet
sonnnng the poor men that have to be out all the night from their wives and
families in those roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the
half of those old Freemans and Photo bits leaving things like that lying around
hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C Ill get him
to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for the next year to
get a few pence for them have him asking wheres last Januarys paper and all
those old overcoats I bundled out of the hall making the place hotter than it
is the rain was lovely just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get
like Gibraltar my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black as
night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared
with their 3 Rock mountains they think is so great with the red sentries here
and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the mosquito nets and the smell
of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on
you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs Stanhope sent me from the B
Marche Paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina she wrote on what she was very
nice whats this her other name was just a P C to tell you I sent the little
present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed
it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you
sing in old Madrid or Waiting Concone is the name of those exercises he bought
me one of those new some word I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear
for the least thing still theyre lovely I think dont you will always think of
the lovely teas we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers
I adore well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out
regards to your father also Captain Grove with love yrs affly x x x x x she didnt look a bit married just
like a girl he was years older than her wogger he was awfully fond of me when
he held down the wire with his foot for me to step over at the bullfight at La
Linea when that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear clothes we have to war
whoever invented them expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for example
at the picnic all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in them in a crowd run
or jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when that other ferocious old
Bull began to charge the banderillos with the sashes and the 2 things in their
hats and the brutes of men shouting bravo toro sure the women were as bad in
their nice white mantillas ripping all the whole insides out of those poor
horses I never heard of such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his
heart at me taking off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what
became of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all through
a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had everything all
to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair mine was thicker than
hers she showed me how to settle it at the back when I put it up and whats this
else how to make a knot on a thread with the one hand we were like cousins what
age was I then the night of the storm I slept in her bed she had her arms round
me then we were fighting in the morning with the pillow what fun he was
watching me whenever he got an opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade
when I was with father and Captain Grove I looked up at the church first and
then at the windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me
like all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked at myself
in the glass hardly recognised myself the change I had a splendid skin from the
sun and the excitement like a rose I didnt get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have
been nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me the
Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East Lynne I read
and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by that other woman I
lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he see I wasnt without and
Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me by Mrs Hungerford on account of
the name I dont like books with a Molly in them like that one he brought me
about the one from Flanders a whore always shoplifting anything she could cloth
and stuff and yards of it this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent
even one decent nightdress this thing gets all rolled up under me besides him
and his fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my shift
drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the chair when I
stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the sofa cushions to
see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night and the mosquito nets
I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems centuries of course they never
come back and she didnt put her address right on it either she may have noticed
her wogger people were always going away and we never I remember that day with
the waves and the boats with their high heads rocking and the swell of the ship
those officers uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he
was very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing she
kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near it my lips
were taittering when I said goodbye she had a gorgeous wrap of some special
kind of blue colour on her for the voyage made very peculiarly to one side like
and it was extremely pretty it got as dull as the devil after they went I was
almost planning to run away mad out of it somewhere were never easy where we
are father or aunt or marriage waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me
waiting nor speeeed his flying feet their damn guns bursting and booming all
over the shop especially the Queens birthday and throwing everything down in all
directions if you didnt open the windows when general Ulysses Grant whoever he
was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague
the consul that was there from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in
mourning for the son then the same old reveille in the morning and drums
rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins
smelling the place more than the old longbearded jews in their jellibees and
levites assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men to cross the lines and
the warden marching with his keys to lock the gates and the bagpipes and only
Captain Groves and father talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and sir Garnet
Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum lighting their pipes for them everytime they
went out drunken old devil with his grog on the windowsill catch him leaving
any of it picking his nose trying to think of some other dirty story to tell up
in a corner but he never forgot himself when I was there sending me out of the
room on some blind excuse paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking
of course but hed do the same to the next woman that came along I supposed he
died of galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a living
soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them so bored
sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab with the one
eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah aheah all my
compriments on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now with the hands
hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a nice fellow even in the
opposite house that medical in Holles street the nurse was after when I put on
my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out not a notion what I
meant arent they thick never understand what you say even youd want to print it
up on a big poster for them not even if you shake hands twice with the left he
didnt recognise me either when I half frowned at him outside Westland row
chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know grey matter
they have it all in their tail if you ask me those country gougers up in the
City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less than the bulls and cows they
were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that noisy bugger trying to swindle
me with the wrong bill he took out of his hat what a pair of paws and pots and
pans and kettles to mend any broken bottles for a poor man today and no
visitors or post ever except his cheques or some advertisement like that
wonderworker they sent him addressed dear Madam only his letter and the card
from Milly this morning see she wrote a letter to him who did I get the last
letter form O Mrs Dwenn now whatever possessed her to write after so many years
to know the recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since she wrote to
say she was married to a very rich architect if Im to believe all I hear with a
villa and eight rooms her father was an awfully nice man he was near seventy
always good humour well now Miss Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the pyannyer
that was a solid silver coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard
then dying so far away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell
everybody has their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of
acute pneumonia well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend
more than mine its a bother having to answer he always tells me the wrong
things and no stops to say like making a speech your sad bereavement symphathy
I always make that mistake and newphew with 2 double yous in I hope hell write
me a longer letter the next time if its a thing he really likes me O thanks be
to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some
heart up into my youve no chances at all in this place like you used long ago I
wish somebody would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he
could write what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in Old Madrid silly women
believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be
some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always
something to think about every moment and see it all around you like a new
world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just a few
words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used to write to the fellow
that was something in the four courts that jilted her after out of the ladies
letterwriter when I told her to say a few simple words he could twist how he
liked not acting with precipit precipitancy with equal candour the greatest
earthly happiness answer to a gentlemans proposal affirmatively my goodness
theres nothing else its all very fine for them but as for being a woman as soon
as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit
Mulveys was the first when I was in bed
that morning and Mrs Rubio brought it in with the coffee she stood there
standing when I asked her to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of
the word a hairpin to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it
staring her in the face with her switch
of false hair on her and vain about her appearance ugly as she was near 80 or a
100 her face a mass of wrinkles with all her religion domineering because she
never could get over the Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world
and the Union Jack flying with all her carabineros because 4 drunken English
sailors took all the rock form them and because I didnt run into mass often
enough in Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there
was a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black blessed
virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter Sunday
morning and when the priest was going by with the bell bringing the vatican to
the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an admirer he signed it I near
jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him up when I saw him following me along
the Calle Real in the shop window then he tipped me just in passing I never
thought hed write making an appointment i had it inside my petticoat bodice all
day reading it up in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill
instructing to find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I
remember shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock
to near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my
sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till he put
his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my knee up to him a
few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was engaged for fun to the son
of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de la Flora and he believed that i was
to be married to him in 3 years time theres many a true word spoken in jest
there is a flower that bloometh a few things I told him true about myself just
for him to be imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I suppose one of them
wouldnt have him I got him excited he crushed all the flowers on my bosom he
brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the perragordas till I taught him
Cappoquin he came from he said on the Blackwater but it was too short then the
day before he left May yes it was May when the infant king of Spain was born Im
always like that in the spring Id like a new fellow every year up on the tiptop
under the rockgun near OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning and
all about the old Barbary apes they sent to Clapham without a tail careering
all over the show on each others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock
scorpion robbing the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you
went anear he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open at the front to
encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just beginning to
be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove a wild place I suppose
it must be the highest rock in existence the galleries and casemates and those
frightful rocks and Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or whatever they call
them hanging down and ladders all the mud plotching my boots Im sure thats the
way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die the ships out far
like chips that was the Malta boat passing yes the sea and the sky you could do
what you liked lie there for ever he caressed them outside they love doing that
its the roundness there I was leaning over him with my white ricestraw hat to
take the newness out of it the left side of my face the best my blouse open for
his last day transparent kind of shirt he had I could see his chest pink he
wanted to touch mine with his for a moment but I wouldnt let him he was awfully
put out first for fear you never know consumption or leave me with a child
embarazada that old servant Ines told me that one drop even if it got into you
at all after I tried with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and get
lost up in me somewhere yes because they once took something down out of a
woman that was up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to get
in there where they come out of youd think they could never get far enough up
and then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes because theres a
wonderful feeling there all the time so tender how did we finish it off yes O
yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to be excited but I
opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my petticoat I had a skirt
opening up the side I tortured the life out of him first tickling him I loved
rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssst awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird
flying below us he was shy all the same I liked him like that morning I made
him blush a little when I got over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took
his out and drew back the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons
men down the middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me what
was his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant he was
rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went around to the
whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said hed come
back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married hed do it to me
and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me now flying perhaps hes
dead or killed or a Captain or admiral its nearly 20 years if I said firtree
cove he would if he came up behind me and put his hands over my eyes to guess
who I might recognise him hes young still about 40 perhaps hes married some
girl on the black water and is quite changed they all do they havent half the
character a woman has she little knows what I did with her beloved husband
before he ever dreamt of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole
world you might say they could have put an article about it in the Chronical I
was a bit wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from
Benady Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons
screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round by the
old guardhouse and the jews burial place pretending to read out the Hebrew on
them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he didnt know what to
make of me with his peaked cap on that he always wore crooked as often as I
settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat that old Bishop that spoke
off the altar his long preach about womans higher functions about girls now
riding the bicycle and wearing peak caps and the new woman bloomers God send
him sense and me more money I suppose theyre called after him I never thought
that would be my name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it
looked on a visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M Bloom
youre looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better
than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with bottom in them Mrs
Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad about either
or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my mother whoever she was might have given
me a nicer name the Lord knows after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the
fun we had running along Willis road to Europa points twisting in and out all
round the other side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse
like Millys little ones now when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at
them I was jumping up at the pepper tress and the white poplars pulling the
leaves off and throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the
voyages those men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least
they might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be
drowned or blown up somewhere I went up windmill hill to the flats that Sunday
morning with Captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the sentry had he said
hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock from the B Marche Paris and
the coral necklace the straits shining I could see over to Morocco almost the
bay of Tangier white and the Atlas mountain with snow on it and the straits
like a river so clear Harry Molly Darling I was thinking of him on the sea all
the time after at mass when my petticoat began to slip down at the elevation
weeks and weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for the smell of him
there was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar only that cheap peau
despagne that faded and left a stink on you more than anything else I wanted to
give him a momento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh ring for luck that I gave
Gardner going to South Africa where those Boers killed him with their war and
fever but they were well beaten all the same as if it brought its bad luck with
it like an opal or pearl must have been pure 16 carot gold because it was very
heavy I can see his face clean shaven Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train
again weeping tone once in the dear deaead days beyond recall close my eyes
breath my lips forward kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the
mists began I hate that istsbeg comes loves sweet ssooooooog Ill let that out
full when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney and her lot
of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of sparrowfarts skitting
around talking about politics they know as much about as my backside anything
in the world to make themselves someway interesting Irish homemade beauties
soldiers daughter am I ay and whose are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your
pardon coach I thought you were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their
feet if ever they got a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm
like me on the bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God
help their poor head I knew more about men and life when I was 15 than theyll
all know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no man
could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that and not think of it I was
afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father left me in
spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow he always said theyre
so snotty about themselves some of those cads he wasnt a bit like that he was
dead gone on my lips let them get a husband first thats fit to be looked at and
a daughter like mine or see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick
and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each
others arms or the voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married
him comes looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys
Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and vaulted
rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave after the
choirstairs performance Ill change that lace on my black dress to show off my
bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get that big fan mended make them burst with envy
my hole it itching me always when I think of him I feel I want to I feel some
wind in me better go easy not wake him have him at it again slobbering after
washing every bit of myself back belly and sides if we had even a bath itself
or my own room anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself with his cold
feet on me give us room even to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes
hold them like that a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train
far away pianissimo eeeeeeee one more song
that was a relief wherever you be let
your wind go free who knows if that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after
was quite good with the heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that
queerlooking man in the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not
smoking fill my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on
all night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see why
I am so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winder its more
company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was only about ten was
I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes dressing her up and
undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those mountains the something
Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with the little bit of a short shift
I had up to heat myself I loved dancing about in it then make a race back into
bed Im sure that fellow opposite used to be there the whole time watching with
the lights out in the summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love
myself then stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to
the chamber performance I put out the light too so then there was 2 of us
Goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get in with
those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming in at 4 in
the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners not to wake me what
do they find to gabber about all night squandering money and getting drunker
and drunker couldnt they drink water then he stars giving us his orders for
eggs and tea Findon haddy and hot buttered toast I suppose well have him
sitting up like the king of the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up
and down in his egg wherever he learned that form and I love to hear him
falling up the stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then
play with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she
fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their claws
I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like that when she sits at
the top of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always what a robber too
that lovely fresh plaice I bought I think Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or
today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange with black currant jam like
long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and
Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as far only for the bones I hate those
eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for 3
forgetting anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat form Buckleys loin
chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very
name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let him pay and
invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drive out to the furry glen
or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails first
like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes with some cold veal
and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down at the bottom of the
banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he says not a bank holiday
anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes out for the day Whit Monday is a
cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him better the seaside but Id never again
in this life get into a boat with him after him at Bray telling the boatman he
knew how to row if anyone asked could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup
hed say yes then it came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the
weight all down my side telling me to pull the right reins now pull the left
and the tide all swamping in floods in through through the bottom and his oar
slipping out of the stirrup its a mercy we werent all drowned he can swim of
course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in his flannel
trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before all the people and
give him what that one calls flagellate till he was black and blue do him all
the good in the world only for that longnosed chap I dont know who he is with
that other beauty Burke out of the City Arms hotel was there spying around as
usual on the slip always where he wasnt wanted if there was a row on you vomit
a better face there was no love lost between us that 1 consolation I wonder
what kind is that book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion
some other Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about
with his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white
shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all
blowy and tossed on my how annoying and provoking because the smell of the sea excited
me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay round the back of the
rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens baskets old Luigi near a
hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall old chap with the earrings I
dont like a man you have to climb up to go get at I suppose theyre all dead and
rotten long ago besides I dont like being alone in this big barracks of a place
at night I suppose Ill have to put up with it I never brought a bit of salt in
even when we moved in the confusion musical academy he was going to make on the
first floor drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested
go and ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like all
the things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw through him
telling me all the lovely places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by
moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out of
some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I liked he
was going to do immediately if not sooner will you be my man will you carry my
can he ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he
invents then leaving us here all day you never know what old beggar at the door
for a crust with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to
prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he was
called in Lloyds Weekly News 20 years in jail then he comes out and murders an
old woman for her money imagine his poor wife or mother or whoever she is such
a face youd run miles away form I couldnt rest easy till I bolted all the doors
and windows to make sure but its worse again being locked up like in a prison
or a madhouse they ought to be all shot or the cat of nine tails a big brute
like that that would attack a poor old woman to murder her in her bed Id cut
them off so I would not that hed be much use still better than nothing the
night I was sure I heard burglars in the kitchen and he went down in his shirt
with a candle and a poker as if he was looking for a mouse as white as a sheet
frightened out of his wits making as much noise as he possible could for the
burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows still its the
feeling especially now with Milly away such an idea for him to send the girl
down there to learn to take photographs on account of his grandfather instead
of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed have to learn not like me getting
all at school only hed do a thing like that all the same on account of me and
Boylan thats why he did it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out
I couldnt turn round with her in the place lately unless I bolted the door
first gave me the fidgets coming in without knocking first when I put the chair
against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove get on
your nerves then doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase with two at a
time to look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off that little gimcrack
statue with her roughness and carelessness before she left that I got that
little Italian boy to mend so that you cant see the join for 2 shillings
wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of course shes right not to ruin her
hands I noticed he was always talking to her lately at the table explaining
things in the paper and she pretending to understand sly of course that comes
from his side of the house and helping her into her coat but if there was
anything wrong with her its me shed tell not him he cant say I pretend things
can he Im too honest as a matter of fact I suppose he thinks Im finished out
and laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see now
shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating me whistling
with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly come out please shes
in great demand to pick what they can out of her round in Nelson street riding
Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well he sent her where she is she was just
getting out of bounds wanting to go on the skatingrink and smoking their
cigarettes through their nose I smelt it off her dress when I was biting off
the thread of the button I sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt
hide much from me I tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her
it brings a parting and the last plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes
out no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your
blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle blackbotton
and I had to tell her not to cock her legs up like that on show on the
windowsill before all the people passing they all look at her like me when I
was her age of course any old rag looks well on you then a great touchmenot too
in her own way at the Only Way in the Theatre royal take your foot away out of
that I hate people touching me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the
pleats a lot of that touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark
theyre always trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the pit at
the Gaiety for Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be
squashed like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me
there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to get
near two stylish dressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same little game
I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but he didnt remember me
and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the Broadstone going away well I hope
shell get someone to dance attendance on her the way I did when she was down
with the mumps her glands swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she
cant feel anything deep yet I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it
went into the wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling
that Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with
sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he looked so
handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and supper I thought to
myself afterwards it must be real love if a man gives up his life for her that
way for nothing I suppose there are few men like that left its hard to believe
in it though unless it really happened to me the majority of them with not a
particle of love in their natures to find two people like that nowadays full up
of each other that would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit
foolish in the head his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison
himself after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost always making love
to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to put her hair up at 15 my
powder too only ruin her skin or her shes time enough for that all her life
after of course shes restless knowing shes pretty with her lips so red a pity they
wont stay that way I was too but theres no use going to the fair with the thing
answering me like a fishwoman when I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes
the day we met Mrs Joe Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to
see us in her trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I have
her 2 damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering
me like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of course
contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was a weed in the
tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it and I told her over
and over again not to leave knives crossed like that because she has nobody to
command her as she said herself well if he doesnt correct her faith I will that
was the last time she turned on the teartap I was just like that myself they
darent order me about the place its his fault of course having the two of us
slaving here instead of getting in a woman long ago am I ever going to have a
proper servant again of course then shed see him coming Id have to let her know
or shed revenge it arent they a nuisance that old Mrs Fleming you have to be
walking round after her putting the things into her hands sneezing and farting
into the pots well of course shes old she cant help it a good job I found that
rotten old smelly dishcloth that got lost behind the dresser I knew there was
something and opened the window to let out the smell bringing in his friends to
entertain them like the night he walked home with a dog if you please that
might have been made especially Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser
with his glasses up with his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great
big hole in his sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all
those prizes for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing over
the railings if anybody saw him that knew us wonder he didnt tear a big hole in
his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt enough for anybody
hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he right in his head I ask
pity it wasnt washing day my old pair of drawers might have been hanging up too
on the line on exhibition for all hed ever care with the ironmould mark the
stupid old bundle burned on them he might think was something else and she
never even rendered down the fat I told her and now shes going such as she was
on account of her paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong
with them disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its
drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I
get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out
dead in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace I want to get up a minute if Im
let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that
afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me
now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that pester the soul out of
a body unless he likes it some men do God knows theres always something wrong
with us 5 days every 3 or 4 weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply
sickening that night it came on me like that the one and only time we were in a
box that Michael Gunn gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety
something he did about insurance for him Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I
wouldnt give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his
glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul thats
dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could all in a swamp
leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it out then to the last
tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry supposed to be a fast play about
adultery that idiot in the gallery hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I
suppose he went and had a woman in the next lane running around all the back
ways after to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the
cat itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O
patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make me
pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets the clean linen I
wore brought it on too damn it damn it and they always want to see a stain on
the bed to know youre a virgin for them all thats troubling them theyre such
fools too you could be a widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink
would do or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this
pooh sweets of sin whoever suggested that business for women what between
clothes and cooking and children this damned old bed too jingling like the
dickens I suppose they could hear us away over the other side of the park till
I suggested to
put the quilt on the floor with
the pillow under my bottom I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I
think Ill cut all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a young
girl wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my clothes on
me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a holy
horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder was I too heavy
sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair purposely when I took off
only my blouse and skirt first in the other room he was so busy where he
oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my breath was sweet after those kissing
comfits easy God I remember one time I could scout it out straight whistling
like a man almost easy O Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for a wad
of money from some fellow Ill have to perfume it in the morning dont forget I
bed he never saw a better pair of thighs than that look how while they are the
smoothness place is right there between this bit here how soft like a peach
easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman O Lord what a
row youre making like the jersey lily easy O how the waters come down at Lahore
who knows is there anything the matter
with my insides or have I something growing in me getting that thing like that
every week when was it last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to
go to the doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that
white thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr
Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I suppose
thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round those rich ones
off Stephens green running up to him for every little fiddlefaddle her vagina
and her cochinchina theyve money of course so theyre all right I wouldnt marry
him not if he was the last man in the world besides theres something queer
about their children always smelling around those filthy bitches all sides
asking me if what I did had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but
the one thing gold maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly
old face for him with all my compriment I suppose hed know then and could you
pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the rock of Gibraltar
the way he puts it thats a very nice invention too by the way only I like
letting myself down after in the hole as far as I can squeeze and pull the
chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles still theres something in it
I suppose I always used to know by Millys when she was a child whether she had
worms or not still all the same paying him for that how much is that doctor one
guinea please and asking me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows
get all the words they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on the cocked
sideways I wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what
else still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so
severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O anything
no matter who except an idiot he was clever enough to spot that of course that
was all thinking of him and his made crazy letters my Precious one everything
connected with your glorious Body everything underlined that comes from it is a
thing of beauty and of joy for ever for something he got out of some
nonsensical book that he had me always at myself 4 or 5 times a day sometimes
and I said I hadnt are you sure O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut
him up I knew what was coming next only natural weakness it was he excited me I
dont know how the first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace
we stood staring at each other for about 10 minutes as if we met somewhere I
suppose on account of my being jewess looking after my mother he used to amuse
me the things he said with the half sloothering smile on him and all the Doyles
said he was going to stand for a member of Parliament O wasnt I the born fool
to believe all his blather about home rule and the land league sending me that
long strool of a song out of the Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy
O beau pays de la Touraine that I never even sang once explaining and
rigmaroling about religion and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything
naturally then might he as a great favour the very 1st opportunity he got a
chance in Brighton square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his
hands to wash it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and
the gelatine still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day Id better
not make an all night sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a
natural size so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to do it I
suppose there isnt in all creation another man with the habits he has look at
the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he without a hard bolster
its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out all my teeth breathing with his
hand on his nose like that Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday in the
museum in Kildare street all yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand
with his ten toes sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews
and Our Lords both put together all over Asia imitating him as hes always
imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed too with
his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking thing anyway
wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old press doesnt creak
ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time somewhere still she must
have given him great value for his money of course he has to pay for it from
her O this nuisance of a thing I hope theyll have something better for us in
the other world tying ourselves up God help us thats all right for tonight now
the lumpy old jingly bed always reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched
himself in it often enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that
I used to admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O like
my bed God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses were we in
at all Raymond Terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard street and Holles street
and he goes about whistling every time were on the run again his huguenots or
the frogs march pretending to help the men with our 4 sticks of furniture and
then the City Arms hotel worse and worse says Warden Daly that charming place
on the landing always somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks
after them always know who was in there last every time were just getting on
right something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr
Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old lottery
tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives impudence well
have him coming home with the sack soon out of the Freeman too like the rest on
account of those Sinner Fein or the Freemasons then well see if the little man
he showed me dribbling along in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane
will give him much consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish
he is indeed judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres
Georges church bells with 3 quarters the hour wait 2 oclock well thats a nice
hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody climbing down into
the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that little habit tomorrow first
Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if he has that French letter still in
his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I dont know deceitful men all their 20
pockets arent enough for their lies then why should we tell them even if its
the truth they dont believe you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the
Aristocrats Masterpiece he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of
that in real life without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is
disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no
legs thats the kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another
thing in their empty heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then
tea and toast for him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose Im
nothing any more when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one night many
tyrant as ever for the one thing he slept on the floor half the night naked the
way the jews used when somebody dies belonged to them and wouldnt eat any
breakfast or speak a word wanting to be petted so I thought I stood out enough
for one time and let him he does it all wrong too thinking only of his own
pleasure his tongue is too flat or I dont know what he forgets that we then I
dont Ill make him do it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock him down to
sleep in the coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it her Josie off her
head with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage
with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan though as for her Denis
as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you couldnt call him a husband
yes its some little bitch hes got in with even when I was with him with Milly
at the College races that Hornblower with the childs bonnet on the top on his
nob let us into by the back way he was throwing his sheeps eyes at those two
doing skirt duty up and down I tried to wink at him first no use of course and
thats the way his money goes this is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they
were all in great style at the grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if
they saw a real officers funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums
the poor horse walking behind in black L Bloom and Tom Kernan the drunken
little barrelly man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk in
some place or other and Martin Cunningham and the Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys
husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in her eye trying to
sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and her old green dress with
the lowneck as she cant attract them any other way like dabbling or a rainy day
I see it all now plainly and they call that friendship killing and then burying
one another and they all with their wives and families at home more especially
Jack Power keeping that barmaid he does of course his wife is always sick or
going to be sick or just getting better of it and hes a goodlooking man still
though hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of them well
theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if I can help it
making fun of him behind his back I know well when he goes on with his idiotics
because he has sense enough not to squander every penny piece he earns down
their gullets and looks after his wife and family goodfornothings poor Paddy
Dignam all the same Im sorry in a way for him what are his wife and 5 children
going to do unless he was insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in
some pub corner and her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you pleas come home
her widows weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if
youre goodlooking what men wasnt he yes he was at the Glencree dinner and Ben
Dollard base barreltone the night he borrowed the swallowtail to sing out of in
Holles street squeezed and squashed into them and grinning all over his big
Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure
enough that must have been a spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the
preserved seats for that to see him and Simon Dedalus too he was always turning
up half screwed singing the second verse first the old love is the new was one
of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough he was always on for
flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he
had a delicious glorious voice Phoebe dearest goodbye sweet heart he
always sang it not like Bartell dArcy sweet tart goodbye of course he
had the gift of the voice so there was no art in it all over you like a warm
showerbath O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though ti was a bit
too high for my register even transposed and he was married at the time to May
Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good out of it hes a
widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author and going to be
a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons what is he driving at
now showing him my photo its not good of me I ought to have got it taken in
drapery that never looks out of fashion still I look young in it I wonder he
didnt make him a present of it altogether and me too after all why not I saw
him driving down to the Kingsbridge station with his father and mother I was in
mourning that 11 years ago now yes hed be 11 though what was the good in going
into mourning for what was neither one thing nor the other of course he
insisted hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by this time
he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his lord Fauntleroy
suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I saw him at Mat Dillons he
liked me too I remember they all do wait by God yes wait yes hold on he was on
the cards this morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger
neither dark nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken
nor a stranger either besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th
card after that the 10 of spades for a Journey by land then there was a letter
on its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise in
society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look at that and
didnt I dream something too yes there was something about poetry in it I hope
he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or standing up like a red
Indian what do they go about like that for only getting themselves and their
poetry laughed at I always liked poetry when I was a girl first I thought he
was a poet like Byron and not an ounce of it in his composition I thought he
was quite different I wonder is he too young hes about wait 88 I was married 88
Milly is 15 yesterday 89 what age was he then at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I
suppose hes 20 or more Im not too old for him if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not
that stuck up university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting down
in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and talking of course he
pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was out of Trinity
college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not a professor like
Goodwin was he was a patent professor of John Jameson they all write about some
woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont find many like me where softly
sighs of love the light guitar where poetry is in the air the blue sea and the
moon shining so beautifully coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the
lighthouse at Europa point the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will
I never go back there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill
sing that for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly
bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star itll
be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk to about
yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad and Keyess ad and
Tom the Devils ad then if anything goes wrong in their business we have to
suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to meet a man like that God not
those other ruck besides hes young those fine young men I could see down in
Margate strand bathing place from the side of the rock standing up in the sun
naked like a God or something and then plunging into the sea with them why
arent all men like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely
little statue he bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his
shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you
I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock there so
simply I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was looking as if it was
asking you to suck it so clean and white he looked with his boyish face I would
too in ½ a minute even if some of it went down what its only like gruel or the
dew theres no danger besides hed be so clean compared with those pigs of men I
suppose never dream of washing it from 1 years end to the other the most of
them only thats what gives the women the moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I
can only get in with a handsome young poet at my age Ill throw them the 1st
thing in the morning till I see if the wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing
the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can find or
learn a bit off by heart if I knew who he likes so he wont think me stupid if
he thinks all women are the same and I can teach him the other part Ill make
him feel all over him till he half faints under me then hell write about me
lover and mistress publicly too with our 2 photographs in all the papers when he
becomes famous O but then what am I going to do about him though
no thats no way for him has he no manners
nor no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on
my bottom because I didnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry
from a cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place
pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so barefaced
without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar way in the half of
a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a butcher or those old
hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course hes right enough in his way
to pass the time as a joke sure you might as well be in bed with what with a
lion God Im sure hed have something better to say for himself an old Lion would
O well I suppose its because they were so plump and tempting in my short
petticoat he couldnt resist they excite myself sometimes its well for men all
the amount of pleasure they get off a womans body were so round and white for
them always I wished I was one myself for a change just to try with that thing
they have swelling upon you so hard and at the same time so soft when you touch
it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those cornerboys saying passing the
corner of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a thing hairy because it was dark
and they knew a girl was passing it didnt make me blush why should it either
its only nature and he puts his thing long into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera
and turns out to be you put the handle in a sweepingbrush men again all over
they can pick and choose what they please a married woman or a fast widow or a
girl for their different tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no
but were to be always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn
fear once I start I tell you for stupid husbands jealousy why cant we all
remain friends over it instead of quarrelling her husband found it out what
they did together well naturally and if he did can he undo it hes coronado anyway
whatever he does and then he going to the other mad extreme about the wife in
Fair Tyrants of course the man never even casts a 2nd thought on the husband or
wife either its the woman he wants and he gets her what else were we given all
those desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a
wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold
never embracing me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not
knowing I suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat
at him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent 1 atom of any
kind of expression in us all of us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever I do
that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought it enough I kiss the feet
of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss our halldoor yes he did
what a madman nobody understands his cracked ideas but me still of course a
woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost to make her look young no
matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by somebody if the fellow you
want isnt there sometimes by the Lord God I was thinking would I go around by
the quays there some dark evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor
off the sea thatd be hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only to do it
off up in a gate somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham
had their camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things
if they could I only sent mine there a few times for the name model laundry
sending me back over and over some old ones old stockings that blackguard-
looking fellow with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me in the dark and
ride me up against the wall without a word or a murderer anybody what they do
themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats that K C lives up somewhere
this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the night he gave us the fish supper on
account of winning over the boxing match of course it was for me he gave it I
knew him by his gaiters and the walk and when I turned round a minute after
just to see there was a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute
then he goes home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those
sailors are rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that
for the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so well
he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo do la Flora if he knew how
he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to sigh for a dark man
in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for Lord knows what he does that
I dont know and Im to be slooching around down in the kitchen to get his
lordship his breakfast while hes rolled up like a mummy will I indeed did you
ever see me running Id just like to see myself at it show them attention and
they treat you like dirt I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for
the world to be governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and
killing one another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around
drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses
yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they wouldnt
be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to be a woman and
a mother how could they where would they all of them be if they hadnt all a
mother to look after them what I never had thats why I suppose hes running wild
now out at night away from his books and studies and not living at home on
account of the usual rowy house I suppose well its a poor case that those that
have a fine son like that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to
make one it wasnt my fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up
in her behind in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether
I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted
crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have
another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to
think myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay
the night I felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of
roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his
poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps
still its a lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the
air of the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants
what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I hate that
in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a dreadful lot of
bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so snappy Im not like
that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa in the other room I suppose
he was as shy as a boy he being so young hardly 20 of me in the next room hed
have heard me on the chamber arrah what harm Dedalus I wonder its like those
names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia they had the devils queer names there
father Vial plana of Santa Maria that gave me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in
the Calle las Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O
what a name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like her O
my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp
and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am a
harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I dont feel a day older than
then I wonder could I get my tongue round any of the Spanish como esta usted
muy bien gracias y usted see I havent forgotten it all I thought I had only for
the grammar a noun is the name of any person place or thing pity I never tried
to read that novel cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions
in it all upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can
tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so
ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and
wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with
a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the
woman was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty
there are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look
of them in Abrines I could do the criada the room looks all right since I
changed it the other way you see something was telling me all the time Id have
to introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his wife
or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods notion where he
is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things came into my head
sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us why not theres the room
upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back
room he could do his writing and studies at the table in there for all
the scribbling he does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning like
me as hes making the breakfast for 1 he can make it for 2 Im sure Im not going
to take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes a gesabo of a house like
this Id love to have a long talk with an intelligent welleducated person Id
have to get a nice pair of red slippers like those Turks with the fez used to
sell or yellow and a nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a
peachblossom dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or 18/6
Ill just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im sick of
Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all the
vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of splendid
fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st man Id meet
theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used to say they are and
the night too that was her massgoing Id love a big juicy pear now to melt in
your mouth like when I used to be in the longing way then Ill throw him up his
eggs and tea in the moustachecup she gave him to make his mouth bigger I
suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what Ill do Ill go about rather gay
not too much singing a bit now and then mi far pieta Masetto then Ill start
dressing myself to go out presto non son piu forte Ill put on my best shift and
drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him
Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is fucked yes and damn
well fucked too up up my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times handrunning theres
the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it out
that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe me feel my belly unless I made
him stand there and put him into me Ive a mind to tell him every scrap and make
him do it in front of me serve him right its all his own fault if I am an
adulteress as the thing in the gallery said O much about it if thats all the
harm ever we did in this vale of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody
only they hide it I suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or He
wouldnt have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to
kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as
large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes there my brown
part then Ill tell him I want £1 or perhaps 30/- Ill tell him I want to buy
underclothes then if he gives me that well he wont be too bad I dont want to
soak it all out of him like other women do I could often have written out a
fine cheque for myself and write his name on it for a couple of pounds a few
times he forgot to lock it up besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on
me behind provided he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be
helped Ill do the indifferent 1 or 2 questions Ill know the answers when hes
like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my
bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or the
first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait now sonny
my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O but I was forgetting
this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldnt know which to laugh or cry were
such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have to wear the old things so much the
better itll be more pointed hell never know whether he did it nor not there
thats good enough for you any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me just
like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill have him eyeing up at the
ceiling where is she gone now make him want me thats the only way a quarter
after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now
combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the
angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or
two for his night office the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the
brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of
flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street
was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it
twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early Ill go to
Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some flowers to put
about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays
an unlucky day first I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I
think while Im asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him
first I must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a
white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop
at 7½d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky sugar 11d
a couple of lbs of course a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that
cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love to
have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature
the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful
country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine
cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and
flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the
ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I
wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they do
and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call
themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling
for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on
account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first
person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that
they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the
sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying
among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat
the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out
of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that
long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes
so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his
life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I
saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round
him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to
say yes I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was
thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester
and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I
say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in
front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil
half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall
combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and
the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the
fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping
half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the
steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands
of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings
asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old
windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the
iron and the wineships half open at night and the castanets and the night we
missed the boat at Algiciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and
O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire
and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all
the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the
rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a
girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair
like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me
under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I
asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would i yes to say
yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down
to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like
mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
Trieste-Zurich-Paris,
1914-21