THE superior, the very reverend
John Conmee S.J., reset his smooth watch in his
interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What
was that boy's name again? Dignam, yes. Vere dignum et justum
est. Brother Swan was the person to
see. Mr Cunningham's
letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic: useful at mission
time.
A
onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy
jerks of his crutches, growled some notes.
He jerked short before the convent of the sisters of charity and held
out a peaked cap for alms towards the very reverend John Conmee
S.J. Father Conmee
blessed him in the sun for his purse held, he knew, one silver crown.
Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, of soldiers and
sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending their days in some
pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: If I
had served my God as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my
old days. He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves
and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheey M.P.
- Very well, indeed,
father. And you father?
Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton probably for the waters. And her boys, were
they getting on well at Belvedere? Was
that so? Father Conmee
was very glad indeed to hear that. And Mr Sheey himself? Still in
Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheey M.P. looking so well and he begged to be remembered
to Mr David Sheey M.P. Yes, he would certainly call.
- Good afternoon, Mrs Sheey.
Father Conmee doffed his silk hat, as he took leave, at the jet
beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again in
going. He had cleaned his teeth, he
knew, with arecanut paste.
Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father
Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice.
- Pilate! Wy don't you old
back that owlin mob?
A zealous man,
however. Really he was. And really did great good in his way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the
Irish. Of good family too would one
think it? Welsh, were they not?
O, lest he forget. That letter to father
provincial.
Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy square.
Yes: they were from Belvedere.
The little house: Aha. And were
they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? His name was Brunny
Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have.
Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to master Brunny Lynam and pointed to the
red pillarbox at the corner of
- But mind you don't
post yourself into the box, little man, he said.
The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and
laughed.
- O, sir.
- Well, let me see if
you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.
Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road
and put Father Conmee's letter to father provincial
into the mouth of the bright red letterbox, Father Conmee
smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy
square east.
Mr Dennis J. Maginni, professor of dancing, &c., in silk hat, slate
frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers,
canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave deportment most
respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady
Maxwell at the corner of Dignam's court.
Was that not Mrs M'Guinness?
Mrs M'Guinness,
stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the farther footpath along which she
smiled. And Father Conmee
smiled and saluted. How did she do?
A fine carriage she
had. Like Mary, Queen
of Scots, something. And to think that she was a pawnbroker. Well, now!
Such a ... what should he say? ... such a queenly
mien.
Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup free church on his left. The reverend T.R. Green B.A. will (D.V.)
speak. The incumbent they called
him. He felt it incumbent on him to say
a few words. But one should be
charitable. Invincible
ignorance. They acted according
to their lights.
Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North
Circular road [Richmond Place]. It was a
wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.
A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from
Father Conmee smelled incense on his right hand as he walked.
Near Alderborough house Father Conmee
thought of that spendthrift nobleman. And now it was an office or something.
Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was
saluted by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father Conmee
saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the tobacconist against
which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful
catastrophe in New York. In America
those things were continually happening.
Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an act of perfect
contrition.
Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse
against the window of which two unlabouring men
lounged. They saluted him and were
saluted.
Father Conmee passed H.J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny
Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted
the constable. In Youkstetter's,
the porkbutcher's, Father Conmee
observed pigs puddings, white and black and red, lying neatly curled in tubes.
Moored
under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty
straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator who had
made turf to be in bogs where men might dig it out and bring it to town and
hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor people.
On Newcomen
bridge the very reverend John Conmee
S.J. of saint Francis Xavier's church, upper
Off an inward bound
tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C.C. of saint
Agatha's church,
At Newcomen
bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound
tram for he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.
Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked
with care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence
and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse.
Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually
made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The solemnity of the occupants of the car
seemed to Father Conmee excessive for a journey so
short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum.
It was a peaceful
day. The gentleman with the glasses
opposite Father Conmee had finished explaining and
looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. A
tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever
so gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her
opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly.
Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that the awkward man at the
other side of her was sitting on the edge of the seat.
Father Conmee at the altarrails placed
the host with difficulty in the mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky
head.
At Annesley
bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old woman rose suddenly
from her place to alight. The conductor
pulled the bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a market
net: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and
net and basket down: and Father Conmee thought that,
as she had nearly passed the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good
souls who had always to be told twice bless you, my child, that they
have been absolved, pray for me.
But they had so many worries in life, so many cares, poor creatures.
From the hoardings Mr
Eugene Stratton grinned with thick niggerlips at
Father Conmee.
Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow
men and of his sermon of saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African mission and of
the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and yellow
souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came like
a thief in the night. That book by the
Belgian jesuit, Le Nombre
des Élus, seemed to Father Conmee
a reasonable plea. Those were millions
of human souls created by God in His Own likeness to whom the faith had not
(D.V.) been brought. But they were God's
souls created by God. It seemed to
Father Conmee a pity that they should all be lost, a
waste, if one might say.
At the Howth road stop Father Conmee
alighted, was saluted by the conductor and saluted in his turn.
The Malahide
road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.
The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, immediate
hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas
adjoining. Then came the call to
arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. Those were oldworldish
days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times in the barony.
Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book Old Times in
the Barony and of the book that might be written about jesuit
houses and of Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere.
A listless lady, no more
young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel, Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly
walking in the evening, not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the jealous lord Belvedere and not her
confessor if she had not committed adultery fully, eiaculatio
seminis inter vas naturale mulieris, with her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all
sinned as women did. Only God knew and
she and he, her husband's brother.
Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed
however for men's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our
ways.
Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he
smiled at smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom,
noble to noble, were impalmed by Don John Conmee.
It was a charming day.
The lychgate
of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages,
curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of small white
clouds going slowly down the wind. Moutonner, the French said. A homely and just word.
Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked
ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowes
field. He walked there, reading in the
evening, and heard the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in
the quiet evening. He was their rector:
his reign was mild.
Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged
breviary out. An ivory bookmark told him
the page.
Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had
come.
Father Conmee read in secret Pater
and Ave and crossed his breast. Deus in adiutorium.
He walked calmly and
read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he
came to Res in Beati
immaculati: Principium verborum
tuorum veritas: in eternum omnia iudicia
iustitioe tuoe.
A flushed young man
came down from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman with wild
nodding daisies in her hand. The young
man raised his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care
detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.
Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his
breviary. Sin:
+ + +
Corny Kelleher closed
his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at the pine coffinlid sentried in a
corner. He pulled himself erect, went to
it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim
to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase,
looking idly out.
Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount
tram on Newcomen bridge.
Corny Kelleher locked
his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.
Constable 57C, on his
beat, stood to pass the time of day.
- That's a fine day, Mr
Kelleher.
- Ay, Corny Kelleher
said.
- It's very close, the
constable said.
Corny Kelleher sped a
silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while a
generous white arm from a window in
- What's the best news?
he asked.
- I seen that
particular party last evening, the constable said with bated breath.
+ + +
A
onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner skirting Rabaiotti's
icecream car, and jerked himself up
- For
He swung himself
violently forward past Katey and Boody
Dedalus, halted and growled:
- home
and beauty.
J.J. O'Molloy's white carewarn face
was told that Mr Lambert was in the warehouse with a visitor.
A stout lady stopped,
took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into the cap held out to
her. The sailor grumbled thanks and
glanced sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides.
He halted and growled
angrily:
- For
Two barefoot urchins,
sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.
He swung himself
forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards a window and bayed
deeply:
- home
and beauty.
The gay sweet chirping
whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.
The blind of the window was drawn aside.
A card Unfurnished Apartments slipped from the sash and
fell. A plump bare generous arm shone,
was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and
taut shiftstraps.
A woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the path.
One of the urchins ran
to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel's cap, saying:
- There, sir.
+ + +
Katey
and Boody Dedalus shoved in
the door of the close steaming kitchen.
- Did you put it in the
books? Boody asked.
Maggy
at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.
- They wouldn't give
anything on them? she said.
Father Conmee walked through Clongowes
fields, his thinsocked ankles tickled by stubble.
- Where did you try? Boody asked.
- M'Guinness's.
Boody
stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.
- Bad cess to her big
face! she cried.
Katey
went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.
- What's in the pot? she asked.
- Shirts, Maggy said.
Boody
cried angrily:
- Crickey,
is there nothing for us to eat?
Katey,
lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt,
asked:
- And what's in this?
A heavy fume gushed in
answer.
- Peasoup,
Maggy said.
- Where did you get it?
Katey asked.
- Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.
The lacquey
rang his bell.
- Barang!
Boody
sat down at the table and said hungrily:
- Give us it here!
Maggy
poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sitting
opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted
to her mouth random crumbs:
- A good job we have
that much. Where's Dilly?
- Gone to meet father, Maggy said.
Boody,
breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:
- Our father who art
not in heaven.
Maggy,
pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed:
- Boody! For shame!
A skiff, a crumpled
throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey,
under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where
water chafed around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward
past hulls and anchorchains, between the Customhouse
old dock and George's quay.
+ + +
The blond girl in
Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre. Blazes Boylan
handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a small jar.
- Put these in first,
will you? he said.
- Yes, sir, the blond
girl said, and the fruit on top.
- That'll do, game
ball, Blazes Boylan said.
She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefaced
peaches.
Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled
and plump red tomatoes, sniffing smells.
H.E.L.Y.S.'s
filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane,
plodding towards their goal.
He turned suddenly from
a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his fob and held it at its
chain's length.
- Can you send them by
tram? Now?
A darkbacked figure under Merchant's arch scanned books on
the hawker's car.
- Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?
- O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten
minutes.
The blond girl handed
him a docket and pencil.
- Will you write the address, sir?
Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.
- Send it at once, will
you? he said.
It's for an invalid.
- Yes, sir. I will, sir.
Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket.
- What's the damage? he asked.
The blond girl's slim
fingers reckoned the fruits.
Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.
- This for me? he asked gallantly.
The blond girl glanced
sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie a bit crooked, blushing.
- Yes, sir, she said.
Bending archly she
reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.
Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of
the red flower between his smiling teeth.
- May I say a word to
your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.
+ + +
- Ma! Almidano Artifoni said.
He gazed over Stephen's
shoulder at Goldsmith's knobbly poll.
Two carfuls
of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, gripping frankly the handrests. Pale faces. Men's
arms frankly round their stunted forms.
They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of
Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.
- Anch'io
ho avuto de queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said, Quand' ero giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che
il mondo
è una bestia. É peccato. Perché la sua voce ... sarebbe un cespite di
rendita, via. Invece, Lei si sacrifica.
- Sacrifizio
incruento, Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in slow swingswong from
its midpoint, lightly.
- Speriamo,
the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. Ma, dia
retta a me. Ci refletta.
By the stern stone hand
of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore
tram unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.
- Ci
rifletteró, Stephen said, glancing down the solid
trouserleg.
- Ma, sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said in a
friendly haste. Venga a trovarmi e ci pensi. Addio, caro.
- Arrivederla,
maestro, Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand was freed. E grazie.
- Di
che? Almidano Artifoni said. Scusi,
eh? Tante
belle cose!
Almidano
Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a
signal, trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey
tram. In vain he trotted, signalling in
vain among the rout of barekneed gillies
smuggling implements of music through Trinity gates.
+ + +
Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of The Woman in White far
back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her typewriter.
Too
much mystery business in it. Is
he in love with that one, Marion? Change
it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.
The disk shot down the
groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them: six.
Miss Dunne clicked on
the keyboard:
16 June 1904.
Five
tall whitehatted sandwichmen
between Moneypeny's corner and the slab where Wolfe
Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning
H.E.L.Y.'S. and plodded back as they had come.
Then she stared at the
large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and, listlessly lolling,
scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking,
is she? The way she is holding up her
bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow
be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's.
They kick out grand. Shannon and
all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off
her. Hope to goodness he won't keep me
here till seven.
The telephone rang
rudely by her ear.
- Hello. Yes, sir.
No, sir.
Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after
five. Only those two, sir,
for
She scribbled three
figures on an envelope.
- Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from Sport was in
looking for you. Mr Lenehan, yes.
He said he'll be in the Ormond at four.
No, sir.
Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after
five.
+ + +
Two pink faces turned
in the flare of the tiny torch.
- Who's that? Ned
Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?
- Ringabella
and Crosshaven, a voice replied, groping for
foothold.
- Hello, Jack, is that
yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his pliant lath among the
flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there.
The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed
itself in a long soft flame and was let fall.
At their feet its red speck died: and mouldy air closed round them.
- How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.
- Yes, sir, Ned Lambert
said heartily. We are standing in the
historic council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where
silken Thomas proclaimed himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all
Dublin. O'Madden
Burke is going to write something about it one of these days. The old bank of
- No, Ned.
- He rode down through
Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory
serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.
- That's right, Ned
Lambert said. That's quite right, sir.
- If you will be so
kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to allow me perhaps
...
- Certainly, Ned
Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever
you like. I'll get those bags cleared
away from the windows. You can take it
from here or from here.
In the still faint
light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piled seedbags
and points of vantage on the floor.
From a long face a
beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.
- I'm deeply obliged,
Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't
trespass on your valuable time.
- You're welcome, sir,
Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you
like. Next week, say. Can you see?
- Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.
- Pleasure is mine,
sir, Ned Lambert answered.
He followed his guest
to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among the pillars. With J.J. O'Molloy
he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey where draymen were loading floats with
sacks of carob and palmnut meal, O'Connor, Wexford.
He stood to read the
card in his hand.
- The reverend Hugh C.
Love, Rathcoffey.
Present address: Saint Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He's writing a book about the Fitzgeralds he told me.
He's well up in history, faith.
The young woman with
slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.
- I thought you were at
a new gunpowder plot, J.J. O'Molloy said.
Ned Lambert cracked his
fingers in the air.
- God, he cried, I
forgot to tell him that one about the early of Kildare after he set fire to Cashel cathedral.
You know that one? I'm bloody
sorry I did it, says he, but I declare to God I thought the archbishop
was inside. He mightn't like it,
though. What? God, I'll tell him anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgeralds Mor. Hot members they were all of them, the Geraldines.
The horses he passed
started nervously under their slack harness.
He slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried:
- Woa,
sonny!
He turned to J.J. O'Molloy and asked:
- Well, Jack. What is it?
What's the trouble? Wait a
while. Hold hard.
With gaping mouth and
head far back he stood still and, after an instant, sneezed loudly.
- Chow! he said. Blast you!
- The dust from those
sacks, J.J. O'Molloy said politely.
- No, Ned Lambert
gasped, I caught a ... cold night before ... blast your soul ... night before
last ... and there was a hell of a lot of draught ...
He held his
handkerchief ready for the coming ...
- I was ... this
morning ... poor little ... what do you call him ... Chow! ... Mother of Moses!
+ + +
Tom Rochford
took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his claret waistcoat.
- See? he said. Say it's turn six. In
here, see. Turn Now On.
He said it into the
left slot for them. It shot down the
groove, wobbled a while, ceased, ogling them: six.
Lawyers of the past,
haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the
admiralty division of king's bench to the court of
appeal an elderly female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black
silk skirt of great amplitude.
- See? he said. See how the
last one I put in is over here. Turns Over. The impact. Leverage,
see?
He showed them the
rising column of disks on the right.
- Smart idea, Nosey
Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow
coming in late can see what turn is on and what turns are over.
- See? Tom Rochford said.
He slid in a disk for
himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle, stop:
four. Turn Now On.
- I'll see him now in
the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good turn deserves another.
- Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell
him I'm Boylan with impatience.
- Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly, when you two begin
...
Nosey Flynn stepped
towards the lever, snuffling at it.
- But how does it work
here, Tommy? he asked.
- Tooraloo,
Lenehan said, see you later.
He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton
court.
- He's a hero, he said
simply.
- I know, M'Coy said. The
drain, you mean.
- Drain? Lenehan said. It was
down a manhole.
They passed Dan Lowry's
musichall where Marie Kendall, charming soubrette,
smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.
Going down the path of
- The act of a hero, he
said.
At the Dolphin they
halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past them for Jervis street.
- This way, he said,
walking to the right. I want to pop into
Lynam's to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and chain?
M'Coy
peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then
at O'Neill's clock.
- After three, he
said. Who's riding her?
- O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a
game filly she is.
While he waited in
Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle
pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter.
Fellow might damn easy get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the
dark.
The gates of the drive
opened wide to give egress to the viceregal
cavalcade.
- Even money, Lenehan said returning.
I knocked against Bantam Lyons in there going to back a bloody horse
someone gave him that hasn't an earthly.
Through here.
They went up the steps
and under Merchants' arch. A darkbacked figure scanned books on the hawker's cart.
- There he is, Lenehan said.
- Wonder what he is
buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind.
- Leopoldo
or the Bloom is on the Rye, Lenehan said.
- He's dead nuts on
sales, M'Coy said.
I was with him one day and he bought a book from an old one in
Lenehan
laughed.
- I'll tell you a damn
good one about comets' tails, he said.
Come over in the sun.
They crossed to the
metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the river wall.
Master Patrick Aloysius
Dignam came out of Mangan's,
late Fehrenbach's, carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.
- There was a big
spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said eagerly.
The annual dinner you know. Boiled shirt affair.
The lord mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir
Charles Cameron and Dan Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell D'Arcy sang
and Benjamin Dollard ...
- I
know, M'Coy broke in. My missus sang there once.
- Did she? Lenehan said.
A card Unfurnished
Apartments reappeared on the windowsash of number
He checked his tale a
moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh.
- But wait till I tell
you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street
had the catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and
sherry and curacao to which we did ample
justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies ...
- I know, M'Coy said. The year
the missus was there ...
Lenehan
linked his arm warmly.
- But wait till I tell
you, he said. We had a midnight lunch
too after all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock
the morning after the night before.
Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's night on the Featherbed
Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the car and I was with the
wife on the other. We started singing
glees and duets: Lo, the early beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load of
Delahunt's port under bellyband. Every
jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.
He held his caved hand
a cubit from him, frowning:
- I was tucking the rug
under her and settling her boa all the time.
Know what I mean?
His hands moulded ample
curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in
delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.
- The lad stood to
attention anyhow, he said with a sigh.
She's a gamey mare and no mistake.
Bloom was pointing out all the stars and comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the
great bear and Hercules and the dragon and the whole jingbang
lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak,
in the milky way.
He knows them all, faith. At last
she spotted a weeny weeshy
one miles away.
And what star is that, Paddy? says
she. By God, she had Bloom
cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure
that's only what you might call a pinprick.
By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark.
Lenehan
stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with
soft laughter.
- I'm weak, he gasped.
M'Coy's
white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan walked on
again. He lifted his yachtingcap
and scratched his hindhead rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy.
- He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one of your common or garden ... you
know ... There's a touch of the artist about old Bloom.
+ + +
Mr Bloom turned over
idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, then of Aristotle's Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates: infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all
over the world. All
butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute
somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.
He laid both books
aside and glanced at the third: Tales of the Ghetto by Leopold von Sacher Masoch.
- That I had, he said,
pushing it by.
The shopman
let two volumes fall on the counter.
- Them are two good
ones, he said.
Onions of his breath
came across the counter out of his ruined mouth. He bent to make a bundle of the other books,
hugged them against his unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy
curtain.
On O'Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay
apparel of Mr Dennis J. Maginni, professor of dancing
&c.
Mr Bloom, alone, looked
at the titles. Fair
Tyrants by James Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it?
Yes.
He opened it. Thought so.
A
woman's voice behind the dingy curtain.
Listen: The man.
No: she wouldn't like
that much. Got her it
once.
He read the other
title: Sweets of Sin. More in her line. Let
us see.
He read where his
finger opened.
- All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores
on wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him!
For Raoul!
Yes. This. Here.
Try.
- Her mouth glued on
his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands felt for the opulent curves
inside her déshabillé.
Yes. Take this.
The end.
- You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eyeing her with a suspicious
glare. The beautiful woman threw off her
sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenly shoulders
and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible
smile played round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly.
Mr Bloom read again: The
beautiful woman.
Warmth showered gently
over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh
yielded amid rumpled clothes. Whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched themselves
for prey. Melting
breast ointments (for him!
For Raoul!). Armpits' oniony sweat.
Fishgluey slime (her heaving
embonpoint!). Feel! Press!
Crushed! Sulpher
dung of lions!
Young! Young!
An elderly female, no
more young, left the building of the courts of chancery, king's bench,
exchequer and common pleas, having heard in the lord chancellor's court the
case in lunacy of Potterton, in the admiralty
division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners
of the Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal
reservation of judgement in the case of Harvey verses the Ocean Accident and
Guarantee Corporation.
Phlegmy
coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy curtains. The shopman's
uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, spat phlegm on
the floor. He put his boot on what he
had spat, wiping his sole along it and bent, showing a rawskinned
crown, scantily haired.
Mr Bloom beheld it.
Mastering his troubled
breath, he said:
- I'll take this one.
The shopman
lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.
- Sweets of sin he
said, tapping on it. That's a good one.
+ + +
The lacquey
by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell twice again and viewed himself
in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.
Dilly Dedalus, listening by the curbstone,
heard the beats of the bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. And advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings.
The lacquey
lifted his handbell and shook it:
- Barang!
Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile
wheelmen in their sprint. J.A. Jackson,
W.E. Wylie, A. Munro and H.T. Gahan, their stretched
necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College Library.
Mr Dedalus,
tugging a long moustache, came round from William's row. He halted near his daughter.
- It's time for you,
she said.
- Stand up straight for
the love of the Lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. Are you trying to imitate your uncle John the cornetplayer, head
upon shoulders? Melancholy God!
Dilly shrugged her
shoulders. Mr Dedalus
placed his hands on them and held them back.
- Stand up straight,
girl, he said. You'll get curvature of
the spine. Do you know what you look
like?
He let his hand sink
suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders and dropping his underjaw.
- Give it up, father,
Dilly said. All the people are looking
at you.
Mr Dedalus
drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.
- Did you get any
money? Dilly asked.
- Where would I get
money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no- one in Dublin would lend me fourpence.
- You got some, Dilly
said, looking in his eyes.
- How do you know that?
Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue
in his cheek.
Mr Kernan,
pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along James's street.
- I know you did, Dilly
answered. Were you in the Scotch house
now?
- I was not then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling.
Was it the little nuns taught you to be so saucy? Here.
He handed her a
shilling.
- See if you can do
anything with that, he said.
- I suppose you got
five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.
- Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly.
You're like the rest of them, are you?
An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day
from me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I was
stretched out stiff. He's
dead. The man upstairs is dead.
He left her and walked
on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled
his coat.
- Well, what is it? he said, stopping.
The lacquey
rang his bell behind their backs.
- Barang!
- Curse your bloody
blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.
The lacquey,
aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but feebly:
- Bang!
Mr Dedalus
stared at him.
- Watch him, he
said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to talk.
- You got more than
that, father, Dilly said.
- I'm going to show you
a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, that's all I have. I got two shillings from Jack Power and I spent
twopence for a shave for the funeral.
He drew forth a handful
of copper coins nervously.
- Can't you look for
some money somewhere? Dilly said.
Me Dedalus
thought and nodded.
- I will, he said
gravely. I looked all along the gutter
in
- You're very funny,
Dilly said, grinning.
- Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk for yourself and a bun or
a something. I'll be home shortly.
He put the other coins
in his pocket and started to walk on.
The viceregal
cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of Parkgate.
- I'm sure you have
another shilling, Dilly said.
The lacquey
banged loudly.
Mr Dedalus
amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing mincing mouth:
- The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica!
+ + +
From the sundial
towards James's Gate walked Mr Kernan pleased with
order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson boldly
along James's street, past Shackelton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other
establishment in Pimlico. How are things
going? Just keeping
alive. Lovely weather we are
having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best gin,
Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir.
Yes, sir. Terrible
affair that General Slocum explosion.
Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties.
And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women
and children. Most
brutal thing. What do they say
was the cause? Spontaneous combustion:
most scandalous revelation. Not a single
lifeboat would float and the firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors
ever allowed a boat like that ... Now you are talking straight, Mr Crimmins. You know
why? Palmoil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look at that. And American they say is the land of the
free. I thought we were bad here.
I smiled at him. America, I said quietly, just like
that. What is it? The sweepings of every
country including our own. Isn't
that true? That's a fact.
Graft,
my dear sir. Well, of course,
where there's money going there's always someone to pick it up.
Saw him looking at my
frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy
appearance. Bowls
them over.
- Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are
things?
- Hello, Bob, old man,
Mr Dedalus answered stopping.
Mr Kernan
halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter Kennedy,
hairdresser. Stylish
coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of
Dawson street. Well worth the half
sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built under
three guineas. Fits me
down to the ground. Some Kildare
street club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian
bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on
Aham! Must dress the character
for those fellows. Knight of the road. Gentleman. And now,
Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom
again, sir. The cup that cheers but not
inebriates, as the old saying has it.
North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with
hulls and anchorchains, sailing westward, sailed by a
skiff, a cramped throwaway, rocked on the ferry-wash, Elijah is coming.
Mr Kernan
glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course.
Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Lambert's brother over the way,
Sam? What? Yes.
He's as like it as damn it.
No. The
windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash like that. Damn like him.
Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals
and his breath. Good drop of gin, that
was. His frocktails
winked in bright sunshine to his fat strut.
Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope. Dogs licking the blood off
the street when the lord lieutenant's wife drove by in her noddy.
Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight burial in Glasnevin. Corpse
brought in through a secret door in the wall.
Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well.
Better turn down here. Make a
detour.
Mr Kernan
turned and walked down the slope of
Denis Breen with his
tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John Henry Menton's
office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for
the office of Messrs Collis and Ward.
Mr Kernan
approached
Times
of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those reminiscences of sir Jonah
Barrington. When
you look back on it all now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to
the table by a dagger. Somewhere here
Lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr. Stables behind Moira house.
Damn good gin that was.
Fine
dashing young nobleman. Good
stock, of course. That ruffian, that
sham squire, with his violet gloves, gave him away. Course they were on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is: Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does
sing that ballad touchingly. Masterly rendition.
At the siege of Ross
did my father fall.
A cavalcade in easy
trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, leaping in their, in their
saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.
Mr Kernan
hurried forward, blowing pursily.
His Excellency! Too bad!
Just missed that by a hair. Damn it!
What a pity!
+ + +
Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's
fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the windows and the showtrays. Dust
darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and
silver, lozenges of cinabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones.
Born
all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil lights shining in the
darkness. Where
fallen archangels flung the stars of their brows. Muddy swinesnouts,
hands, root and root, gripe and wrest them.
She dances in a foul
gloom where gum burns with garlic. A sailorman, rustbearded, sips from
a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her hips, on her gross belly flapping a
ruby egg.
Old Russell with a
smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it
and held it at the point of his Moses' beard.
Grandfather ape gloating on a stolen hoard.
And you who wrest old
images from the burial earth! The
brainsick words of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of
drugs. Orient and
immortal wheat standing from everlasting to everlasting.
Two old women fresh
from their whiff of the briny trudged through Irishtown
along Londonbridge road, one with a sanded umbrella,
one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled.
The whirr of flapping
leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the powerhouse urged Stephen to be
on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I between them. Where?
Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me you who can. Bawd and butcher,
were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A look around.
Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keep famous
time. You are right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so,
indeed.
Stephen went down
Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against his shoulderblade.
In Clohissey's
window a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayers
held his eye. Staring backers with
square hats stood round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in light loincloths proposed
gently each to other his bulbous fists.
And they are throbbing: heroes' hearts
He turned and halted by
the slanted bookcart.
- Twopence
each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.
Tattered
pages. The
Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Curé of Arts. Pocket Guide to Killarney.
I might find here one
of my pawned schoolprizes. Stephano Dedalo, alumno optimo, palmam ferenti.
Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the
hamlet of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers.
Binding too good
probably, what is this? Eight and ninth book of Moses. Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read. Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped
hands. Recipe
for white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love.
For me this.
Say the following talisman three times with arms folded:
- Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen.
Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed
abbot Peter Salanka to all true believers
divulged. As good as
any other abbot's charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle,
or we'll wool your wool.
- What are you doing
here, Stephen.
Dilly's
high shoulders and shabby dress.
Shut the book
quick. Don't let see.
- What are you doing?
Stephen said.
A Stuart face of
nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It glowed as she crouched feeding the fire
with broken boots. I told her of
Paris. Late lieabed
under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's
token. Nebrakada femininum.
- What have you there?
Stephen asked.
- I bought it from the
other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing nervously. Is it any good?
My eyes they say she
has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring. Shadow of my mind.
He took the coverless
book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer.
- What did you buy that
for? he asked. To learn French?
She nodded, reddening
and closing tight her lips.
Show no surprise. Quite natural.
- Here, Stephen
said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't
pawn it on you. I suppose all my books
are gone.
Some, Dilly said. We had to.
She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All
against us. She will drown me
with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of
seaweed hair around me, my heart, my soul. Salt green death.
We.
Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite.
Misery! Misery!
+ + +
- Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are
things?
- Hello, Bob, old man,
Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
They clasped hands
loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's.
Father Cowley brushed his moustache often downward
with a scooping hand.
- What's the best news?
Mr Dedalus said.
- Why then not much,
Father Cowley said.
I'm barricaded up, Simon, with two men prowling around the house trying
to effect an entrance.
- Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is
it?
- O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our
acquaintance.
- With a broken back,
is it? Mr Dedalus asked.
- The same, Simon,
Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I'm just waiting for Ben Dollard. He's going to say a word in Long John to get
him to take those two men off. All I
want is a little time.
He looked with vague
hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in his neck.
- I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding.
Poor old bockedy Ben! He's always doing a good turn for
someone. Hold hard!
He put on his glasses
and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant.
- There he is, by God,
he said, arse and pockets.
Ben Dollard's
loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops crossed the quay in full
gait from the metal bridge. He came towards
them at an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails.
As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted:
- Hold that fellow with
the bad trousers.
- Hold him now, Ben Dollard said.
Mr Dedalus
eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben Dollard's
figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered sneeringly:
- That's a pretty
garment, isn't it, for a summer's day?
- Why, God eternally
curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I
threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw.
He stood beside them
beaming on them first and on his roomy clothes from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying:
They were made for a
man in his health, Ben, anyhow.
- Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard
said. Thanks be
to God he's not paid yet.
- And how is that basso
profondo, Benjamin? Father Cowley
asked.
Cashel
Boyle O'Conner Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell,
murmuring, glasseyed, strode past the Kildare street
club.
Ben Dollard
frowned and, making suddenly a chanter's mouth, gave forth a deep note.
- Aw! he said.
- That's the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone.
- What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not
too dusty? What?
He turned to both.
- That'll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also.
The reverend Hugh C.
Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint Mary's
abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the Ford of Hurdles.
Ben Dollard
with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them
forward, his joyful fingers in the air.
- Come along with me to
the subsheriff's office, he said. I want to show you the new beauty Rock has
for a bailiff. He's a cross between Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He's well worth seeing, mind you. Come along.
I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega
just now and it will cost me a fall if I don't ... wait awhile ... We're on the
right lay, Bob, believe you me.
- For a few days tell
him, Father Cowley said anxiously.
Ben Dollard
halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button of his coat wagging
brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the
heavy sharaums that clogged his eyes to hear aright.
- What few days? he boomed. Hasn't
your landlord distrained for rent?
- He has, Father Cowley said.
- Then our friend's
writ is not worth the paper it's printed on, Ben Dollard
said. The landlord has the prior
claim. I gave him all the
particulars.
- That's right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love.
He's a minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that?
- You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard
said, that he can put that writ where Jacko put the
nuts.
He led Father Cowley boldly forward linked to his bulk.
- Filberts I believe
they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his glasses
on his coatfront, following them.
+ + +
- The youngster will be
all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they passed out of the Castleyard gate.
The policeman touched
his forehead.
- God bless you, Martin
Cunningham said, cheerily.
He signed to the
waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on
towards
Bronze by gold, Miss
Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head,
appeared above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel.
- Yes, Martin
Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I
wrote to Father Conmee and laid the whole case before
him.
- You could try our
friend, Mr Power suggested backward.
- Boyd? Martin
Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not.
John Wyse Nolan,
lagging behind, reading the list, came after them quickly down Cork hill.
On the steps of the
City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed
Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon
ascending.
The castle car wheeled
empty into upper
- Look here Martin,
John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the Mail office. I see Bloom put his name down for five
shillings.
- Quite right, Martin
Cunningham said, taking the list. And
put down the five shillings too.
- Without a second word
either, Mr Power said.
- Strange but true,
Martin Cunningham added.
John Wyse Nolan opened
wide eyes.
- I'll say there is
much kindness in the jew, he
quoted elegantly.
They went down
- There's Jimmy Henry,
Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's.
- Righto,
Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.
Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan
waylaid Jack Mooney's brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making
for the liberties.
John Wyse Nolan fell
back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took the elbow of a dapper little
man in a shower of hail suit who walked uncertainly with hasty steps past Micky Anderson's watches.
- The assistant town
clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John Wyse Nolan told Mr Power.
They followed round the
corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The empty castle car fronted them at rest in
Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, speaking
always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance.
- And Long John Fanning
is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as life.
The tall form of Long
John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.
- Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and
greeted.
Long John Fanning made
no way for them. He removed his large
Henry Clay decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all
their faces.
- Are the conscript
fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he
said, with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.
Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy
Henry said pettishly, about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know, to
keep order in the council chamber. And
old Barlow the macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in
order, no quorum even and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little Lorcan Sherlock doing 'locum tenens'
for him. Damned Irish
language, of our forefathers.
Long John Fanning blew
a plume of smoke from his lips.
Martin Cunningham spoke
by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his peace.
- What Dignam was that? Long John Fanning asked.
Jimmy Henry made a grimmace and lifted his left foot.
- O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come
upstairs for goodness' sake till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!
Testily he made room
for himself beside Long John Fanning's flank and passed in and up the stairs.
- Come on up, Martin
Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think you knew him or perhaps you
did, though.
With John Wyse Nolan Mr
Power followed them in.
- Decent little soul he
was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of Long John Fanning ascending towards
Long John Fanning in the mirror.
- Rather lowsized, Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin Cunningham said.
Long John Fanning could
not remember him.
Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.
- What's that? Martin
Cunningham said.
All turned where they
stood; John Wyse Nolan came down again.
From the cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass
- What was it? Martin
Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase.
- The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John
Wyse Nolan answered from the stairfoot.
+ + +
As they trod across the
thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his panama to Haines:
- Parnell's
brother. There in the corner.
They chose a small
table near the window opposite a longfaced man whose
beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard.
- Is that he? Haines
asked, twisting round in his seat.
- Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city
marshal.
John Howard Parnell
translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw went up again to his
forehead whereat it rested.
An instant after, under
its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at
his foe and fell once more upon a working corner.
- I'll take a mélange
Haines said to the waitress.
- Two mélanges
Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some
scones and butter and some cakes as well.
When she had gone he
said, laughing:
- We call it D.B.C.
because they have damn bad cakes. O, but
you missed Dedalus on Hamlet.
Haines opened his newbought book.
- I'm sorry, he
said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all minds that have lost their balance.
The onelegged
sailor growled at the area of
-
Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.
- You should see him,
he said, when his body loses its balance.
Wandering AEngus I call him.
- I am sure he has an idée
fixe Haines said, pinching his chin thoughtfully
with thumb and forefinger. Now I am
speculating what it would be likely to be.
Such persons always have.
Buck Mulligan bent
across the table gravely.
- They drove his wits
astray, he said, by visions of hell. He
will never capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the
white death and the ruddy birth.
That is his tragedy. He can never
be a poet. The joy of creation
...
- Eternal punishment,
Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It's rather interesting because Professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting point out of that.
Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to unload her tray.
- He can find no trace
of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of
destiny, of retribution. Rather strange
he should have just that fixed idea.
Does he write anything for your movement?
He sank two lumps of
sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two
and plastered butter over its smoking pith.
He bit off a soft piece hungrily.
- Ten years, he said,
chewing and laughing. He is going to
write something in ten years.
- Seems a long way off,
Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon.
Still, I shouldn't wonder if he did after all.
He tasted a spoonful
from the creamy cone of his cup.
- This is real Irish
cream I take it, he said with forebearance. I don't want to be imposed on.
Elijah, skiff, light
crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships and trawlers, amid an
archipelago of corks, beyond
+ + +
Almidano
Artifoni walked past Holles
street, past Sewell's yard. Behind him Cashel Boyle O'Connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell with stickumbrelladustcoat
dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith's house and, crossing, walked
along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a blind stripling tapped
his way by the wall of College Park.
Cashel
Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as
far as Mr Lewis Werner's cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat
dangling.
At the corner of
Wilde's he halted, frowned at Elijah's name announced on the Metropolitan Hall,
frowned at the distant pleasance of duke's lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the
sun. With ratsteeth
bared he muttered:
- Coactus
volui.
He strode on for
As he strode past Mr
Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat brushed rudely from its angle a
slender tapping cane and swept onwards, having buffeted a thewless
body. The blind stipling
turned his sickly face after the striding form.
- God's curse on you,
he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder nor I am, you bitch's bastard!
+ + +
Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick
Aloysius Dignam, pawing the pound and half of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been sent for, went along warm Wicklow
street dawdling. It was too blooming
dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs
Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and the blind down and they
all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruit
cake jawing the whole blooming time and sighing.
After Wicklow lane the
window of Madam Doyle, court dress milliner, stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers
stripped to their pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors
two mourning Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh,
Dublin's pet lamb, will meet sergeantmajor Bennett,
the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty sovereigns, God, that'd be a good pucking match to see.
Myler Keogh, that's the chap sparring out to
him with the green sash. Two bar
entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master Dignam on
his left turned as he turned. That's me
in mourning. When is it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He turned to the right and on his right
Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, his collar
sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin
lifted, he saw the image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two
puckers. One of them mots
that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that
his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out.
Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going for strength was
Fitzsimmons. One puck in the wind from
that fellow would knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimmons
knocked the stuffings out of him, dodging and all.
In
No Sandymount
tram.
Master Dignam walked along
His face got all grey
instead of being red like it was and there was a fly walking over it up to his
eye. The scrunch that was when they were
screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were bringing it
downstairs.
Pa was inside it and ma
crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling the men
how to get it round the bend. A big
coffin it was, and high and heavylooking. How was that?
The last night pa was boozed he was standing on the landing there
bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunny's for to
booze more and he looked butty and short in his
shirt. Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead.
My father is dead. He told me to
be a good son to ma. I couldn't hear the
other things he said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to say it
better. Poor pa. That was Mr Dignam,
my father. I hope he is in purgatory now
because he went to confession to father Conroy on Sunday night.
+ + +
William Humble, earl of
Dudley, and Lady Dudley, accompanied by lieutenantcolonel
Hesseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal lodge. In
the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget,
Miss de Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward, A.D.C.
in attendance.
The cavalcade passed
out by the lower gate of
Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue
frontlets and high action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit of
indigo serge. His hands in his jacket
pockets forgot to salute but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration
of his eyes and the red flower between his lips. As they drove along
But though she's a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
Baraabum.
Yet I've a sort of a
Yorkshire relish for
My little Yorkshire rose.
Baraabum.
Thither of the wall the
quartermile flat handicappers, M.C. Green, H. Thrift,
T.M. Patey, C. Scaife, J.B.
Jeffs, G.N. Morphy, F.
Stevenson, C. Adderly, and W.C. Huggard
started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's
hotel, Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a fierce eyeglass across the
carriages at the head of Mr E.M. Solomons in the
window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in
