II
MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ate with
relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.
He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver
slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most
of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of
faintly scented urine.
Kidneys were in his mind
as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the
humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in
the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit
peckish.
The coals were
reddening.
Another slice of bread
and butter: three: four: right. She
didn't like her plate full. Right. He turned from
the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck
out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat
walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.
- Mkgnao!
- O, there you are, Mr
Bloom said, turning from the fire.
The cat mewed in answer
and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my
writingtable.
Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.
Mr Bloom watched
curiously, kindly, the lithe black form.
Clean to see: the gloss of her
sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing
eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on
his knees.
- Milk for the pussens, he said.
- Mrkgnao!
the cat cried.
They call them
stupid. They understand what we say
better than we understand them. She
understands all she wants to. Vindictive too.
Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower?
No, she can jump me.
- Afraid of the
chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens
as the pussens.
- Mrkrgnao!
the cat said loudly.
She blinked up out of
her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and
long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug
Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured warmbubbled
milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.
- Gurrhr!
she cried, running to lap.
He watched the bristles
shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped three times and liked
lightly. Wonder if it is true if you
clip them they can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the
tips. Or kind of
feelers in the dark, perhaps.
He listened to her
licking lap. Ham and
eggs, no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure
fresh water. Thursday: not a good day
either for a mutton kidney at Buckley's.
Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is
boiling. She lapped slower, then
licking the saucer clean. Why are their
tongues so rough? To
lap better, all porous holes.
Nothing she can eat? He glanced
round him. No.
On quietly creaky boots
he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Then bread and butter she likes in the
morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.
He said softly in the
bare hall:
- I am going round the
corner. Be back in a minute.
And when he had heard
his voice say it he added:
- You don't want
anything for breakfast?
A sleepy soft grunt
answered:
- Mn.
No. She did not want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as
she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from
His hand took his hat
from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat, and his lost property office secondhand waterproof.
Stamps; stickyback pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim
too. Course they do. The sweated legend in the crown of his hat
told him mutely: Plasto's high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather
headband. White slip
of paper. Quite
safe.
On the doorstep he felt
in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not
there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the halldoor
to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf
dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid.
Looked shut.
All right till I come back anyhow.
He crossed to the
bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive. The sun
was nearing the steeple of George's church.
Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects (refracts is it?),
the heat. But I couldn't go in that
light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked
in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers
yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.
Makes you feel young. Somewhere
in the east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him.
Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old
Tweedy's big moustaches leaning on a long kind of a
spear. Wander through awned streets.
Turbaned faces going by. Dark
caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible,
seated crosslegged smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the
streets. Drink water scented with
fennel, sherbet. Wander along all
day. Might meet a
robber or two. Well, meet
him. Getting on to
sundown. The shadows of the
mosques along the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees,
signal, the evening wind. I pass
on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark
language. High wall: beyond strings
twanged. Night sky
moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters. Strings. Listen.
A girl playing one of these instruments what do you
call them: dulcimers. I pass.
Probably not a bit like it really.
Kind of stuff you read: in the track of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He
smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur
Griffith said about the headpiece over the 'Freeman' leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway
behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged
his pleased smile. Ikey
touch that: homerule sun rising up in the northwest.
He approached Larry
O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating
floated up the flabby gush of porter.
Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the end of the city
traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the
North Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays
value would go up like a shot.
Bald
head over the blind. Cute old codger. No
use canvassing him an ad. Still he knows
his own business best. There he is, sure
enough, my bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin
in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned curate swab
up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyes screwed
up. Do you know what I'm going to tell
you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an eight o'clock
breakfast for the Japanese.
Stop and say a word:
about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, Mr O'Rourke.
Turning into
- Good day, Mr
O'Rourke.
- Good day to you.
- Lovely weather, sir.
- 'Tis all that.
Where do they get the
money? Coming up
redheaded curates from the
How much would that tot
to off the porter in the month? Say ten
barrels of stuff. Say he got ten per
cent off. Or more. Ten. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph's, National
school. Brats'
clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee double
you. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their joggerfry.
Mine. Slieve
Bloom.
He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white.
Fifty multiplied by. The figures
whitened in his mind unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with forcemeat fed his
gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pig's
blood.
A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned
dish: the last. He stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the items from
a slip in her hand.
Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half of
Denny's sausages. His eyes rested
on her vigorous hips. Woods his name
is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the
clothesline. She does whack it,
by George. The way her crooked skirt
swings at each whack.
The ferreteyed
porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off
with blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there like a stallfed
heifer.
He took up a page from
the pile of cut sheets. The model farm at Kinnereth on the
lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter
sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I
thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round
it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the
page from him: interesting: read it nearer, the blurred cropping cattle, the
page rustling. A young
white heifer. Those mornings in
the cattlemarket the beasts lowing in their pens,
branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging
through the litter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated
hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending
his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging
whack by whack by whack.
The porkbutcher
snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausages and made a red
grimace.
- Now, my miss, he
said.
She tendered a coin,
smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.
- Thank you, my
miss. And one shilling threepence change.
For you, please?
Mr Bloom pointed
quickly. To catch up and walk behind her
if she went slowly, behind her moving hams.
Pleasant to see first thing in the morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the shop in sunlight and
sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed
down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped
hands. Crusted
toenails too. Brown
scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glowed to weak
pleasure within his breast. For another:
a constable off duty cuddled her in Eccles Lane. They liked them sizable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the wood.
- Threepence,
please.
His hand accepted the
moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket. Then it fetched up three coins from his
trousers' pocket and laid them on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid,
disc by disc, into the till.
- Thank you, sir. Another time.
A speck of eager fire
from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze after an instant. No: better not: another
time.
- Good morning, he
said, moving away.
- Good morning, sir.
No sign. Gone. What matter?
He walked back along Dorset
Street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: planter's
company. To purchase
vast sandy tracts from Turkish government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel
and construction. Orangegroves and
immense melonfields north of
Nothing
doing. Still an
idea behind it.
He looked at the
cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silvered powdered olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste of them
now. Oranges in tissue paper
packed in crates. Citrons
too. Wonder is poor Citron still
alive in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair.
Nice to hold, cool waxenfruit, hold in the
hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year after
year. They fetched high prices
too, Moisel told me.
Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant old
times. Must be without a flaw, he
said. Coming all that way:
A cloud began to cover
the sun wholly slowly wholly. Grey. Far.
No,
not like that. A
barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no
fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those waves, grey metal,
poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they
called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land,
grey and old. Old
now. It bore the oldest, the
first race. A bent hag crossed from
Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth,
captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born
everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world.
Desolation.
Grey horror seared his
flesh. Folding the page into his pocket
he turned into Eccles Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his
blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak.
Well, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images.
God up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises.
On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. What is that?
Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby,
North, MacArthur: parlour
windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye.
To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed
flesh. Yes, yes.
Quick warm sunlight
came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the
brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to
meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind.
Two letters and a card
lay on the hallfloor.
He stopped and gathered them. Mrs
Marion Bloom. His quick heart slowed at
once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion.
- Poldy!
Entering the bedroom he
halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellow
twilight towards her tousled head.
- Who are the letters
for?
He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.
- A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And a letter for you.
He laid her card and
letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her knees.
- Do you want the blind
up?
Letting the blind up by
gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her glance at the letter and tuck it
under her pillow.
- That do? he asked, turning.
She was reading the
card, propped on her elbow.
- She got the things,
she said.
He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back slowly with a
snug sigh.
- Hurry up with that
tea, she said. I'm parched.
- The kettle is
boiling, he said.
But he delayed to clear
the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled linen: and lifted all in an
armful on to the foot of the bed.
As he went down the
kitchen stairs she called:
- Poldy!
- What?
- Scald the teapot.
On the boil sure
enough: a plume of steam from the spout.
He scalded and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea,
tilting the kettle then to let water flow in.
Having set it to draw, he took off the kettle and crushed the pan flat
on the live coals and watched the lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped
the kidney the cat mewed hungrily against him.
Give her too much meat she won't mouse.
Say they won't eat pork. Kosher. Here.
He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and
dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers, ringwise, from the chipped eggcup.
Then he slit open his
letter, glancing down the page and over.
Thanks: new tam: Mr Coghlan: laugh Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's
seaside girls.
The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup,
sham crown Derby, smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she
broke. Putting pieces
of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring:
O, Milly Bloom,
you are my darling.
You are my looking glass from night to
morning.
I'd rather have you without a farthing
Than Katey
Keogh with her ass and garden.
Poor
old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case.
Still he was a courteous old chap.
Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the
platform. And the little mirror in his
silk hat. The night Molly brought it
into the parlour. O, look what I found
in professor Goodwin's hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.
He prodded a fork into
the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread and butter, four,
sugar, spoon, her cream.
Yes. He carried it upstairs, his
thumb hooked in the teapot handle.
Nudging the door open
with his knee, he carried the tray in and set it on the chair by the bedhead.
- What a time you were,
she said.
She set the brasses
jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between
her large soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's
udder. The warmth of her couched body
rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured.
A strip of torn
envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow.
In the act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.
- Who was the letter
from, he asked?
Bold
hand. Marion.
- O, Boylan, she said.
He's bringing the programme.
- What are you singing?
- La ci darem with J. C. Doyle,
she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song.
Her full lips,
drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell
that incense leaves next day. Like foul flowerwater.
- Would you like the
window open a little?
She doubled a slice of
bread into her mouth, asking:
- What time is the
funeral?
- Eleven, I think, he
answered. I didn't see the paper.
Following the pointing
of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers from the bed. No?
Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking: rumpled, shiny
sole.
- No, that book.
Other
stocking. Her
petticoat.
- It must have fell down, she said.
He felt here and
there. Voglio e non vorrei.
Wonder if she pronounces that right: voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge
of the orangeyed chamberpot.
- Show here, she
said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask you.
She swallowed a draught
of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having
wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with the
hairpin till she reached the word.
- Met him what? he asked.
- Here, she said. What does that mean?
He leaned downwards and
read near her polished thumbnail.
- Metempsychosis?
- Yes. Who's he when he's at home?
- Metempsychosis, he
said, frowning. It's Greek: from the
Greek. That means the transmigration of
souls.
- O, rocks! she said. Tell us in
plain words.
He smiled, glancing
askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes. The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the smudged pages. Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello.
Illustration.
Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor
naked. Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei
desisted and flung his victim from him with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to look the other way.
Mob gaping.
Break your neck and we'll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man's soul after he dies. Dignam's soul ...
- Did you finish it? he asked.
- Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the first fellow all the
time?
- Never read it. Do you want another?
- Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has.
She poured more tea
into her cup, watching its flow sideways.
Must get that
- Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body after death,
that we lived before. They call it
reincarnation. That we
all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives.
The sluggish cream
wound curdling spirals through her tea.
Better remind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example.
The Bath of the
Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number of Photo Bits: Splendid
masterpiece in art colours. Tea
before you put milk in. Not unlike her
with her hair down: slimmer. Three and
six I gave for the frame. She said it
would look nice over the bed. Naked
nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then.
He turned the pages
back.
- Metempsychosis, he
said, is what the ancient Greeks called it.
They used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for
instance. What they called nymphs, for
example.
Her spoon ceased to
stir up the sugar. She gazed straight
before her, inhaling through her arched nostrils.
- There's a smell of
burn, she said. Did you leave anything
on the fire?
- The kidney! he cried suddenly.
He fitted the book
roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes against the broken
commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily down the stairs with a
flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke
shot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan.
By prodding a prong of the fork under the kidney he detached it and
turned it turtle on its back. Only a little burned.
He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty brown gravy
trickle over it.
Cup
of tea now. He sat down, cut and
buttered a slice of the loaf. He shore
away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat.
Then he put a forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the
toothsome pliant meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea.
Then he cut away dies of bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in
his mouth. What was that about some
young student and a picnic? He creased
out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die
of bread in the gravy and raising it to his mouth.
Dearest Papli,
Thanks ever so much for
the lovely birthday present. It suits me
splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the
belle in my new tam. I got mummy's
lovely box of creams and am writing.
They are lovely. I am getting on
swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me and Mrs will send when
developed. We did great biz
yesterday. Fair day and all the beef to
the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few
friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my
love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday.
There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells he sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly
sends my best respects. Must now close with fondest love.
Your
fond daughter, MILLY.
P.S. Excuse bad writing, am in a hurry. Byby. M.
Fifteen
yesterday. Curious,
fifteenth of the month too. Her first birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was born,
running to knock up Mrs Thornton in
His vacant face stared
pitying at the postscript. Excuse bad
writing. Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL Café
about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat
her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy
and ate piece after piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much.
Still, she might do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He
drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.
O well: she knows how
to mind herself. But
if not? No, nothing has
happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild piece of goods. Her slim legs running up
the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain: very.
He smiled with troubled
affection at the kitchen window. Day I
caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anaemic a little. Was given milk too long.
On the Erin's King that day round the
All dimpled cheeks and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.
Those girls, those girls,
Those lovely seaside girls.
Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.
Reading lying back now, counting the strands of her
hair, smiling, braiding.
A soft qualm regret
flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, yes.
Prevent. Useless: can't
move. Girl's sweet
light lips. Will
happen too. He felt the flowing
qualm spread over him. Useless to move now.
Lips kissed, kissing kissed. Full gluey woman's lips.
Better where she is
down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass the
time. Might
take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and six return. Six weeks off however. Might work a press pass. Or through M'Coy.
The cat, having cleaned
all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper, nosed
at it and stalked to the door. She
looked back at him, mewing. Wants to go out. Wait
before a door some time it will open.
Let her wait. Has
the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with
her back to the fire too.
He felt heavy, full:
then a gentle loosening of his bowels.
He stood up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.
- Miaow!
he said in answer.
Wait till I'm ready.
Heaviness: hot day
coming. Too much
trouble to fag up the stairs to the landing.
A
paper. He liked to read at
stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just
as I'm.
In the table drawer he
found an old number of Titbits.
He folded it under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, call up in a ball
on the bed.
Listening, he heard her
voice:
- Come, come,
pussy. Come.
He went out through the
backdoor into the garden: stood to listen towards the next garden. No sound.
Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The maid was in the garden. Fine morning.
He bent down to regard
a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.
Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners.
He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on
the peg. Or
hanging up on the floor. Funny, I
don't remember that. Hallstand
too full. Four
umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brilliantined
hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a bath this
morning.
Deep
voice that fellow Dlugcaz has. Agenda what is it? Now, my miss. Enthusiast.
He kicked open the
crazy door of the jakes. Better be
careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low
lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the
stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid
his braces. Before sitting down he
peered through a chink up at the nextdoor
window. The king was in his countinghouse. Nobody.
Asquat
on the cuckstool he folded out his paper turning its
pages over on his bared knees. Something new and easy.
No great hurry. Keep it a
bit. Our prize titbit. Matcham's Masterstroke.
Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy,
Playgoer's club,
Quietly he read,
restraining himself, the first column and, yielding
but resisting, began the second. Midway,
his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly
as he read, reading still patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday
quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring
on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive one tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was
something quick and neat. Print anything
now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm about his own rising
smell. Neat certainly. Matcham
often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart.
He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water
flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had
written it and received payment of three pounds thirteen and six.
Might
manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom.
Invent a story for some proverb which?
Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip,
hooking the placket of her skirt.
Timing her.
9.15. Did
Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on?
9.23. What
possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after
that cabbage. A speck
of dust on the patent leather of her boot.
Rubbing
smartly in turn each welt against her stocking calf. Morning after the bazaar
dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of
the hours. Explain that morning
hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks
clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He
has money. Why? I noticed he had a good smell off his breath
dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it.
Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass
briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
Evening
hours, girls in grey gauze. Night
hours then black with daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then
golden, then grey, then black. Still true to life also.
Day, then the night.
He tore away half the
prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back the jerky shaky door of the
jakes and came forth from the gloom into the air.
In the bright light,
lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully his black trousers, the ends,
the knees, the houghs of the
knees. What times is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.
A
creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark
iron.
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Quarter
to. There again: the overtone
following through the air, third.
Poor Dignam!