ead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his
green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to the sun.
A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
known to man. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: beware of imitations. Just
you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, Lucifer,
dico, qui nescit occasum. No. My cockle hat and staff and his my sandal
shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.
He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying
still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their
end. By the way next when is it? Tuesday will be the longest day. Of all the
glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn Tennyson, gentleman
poet. GiÀ. For the old hag with the yellow teeth. And Monsieur Drumont,
gentleman journalist. GiÀ. My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder? Feel. That
one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that
money? That one. Toothless Kinch, the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or
does it mean something perhaps?
My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?
His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one.
He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
carefully. For the rest let look who will.
Behind. Perhaps there is someone.
He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the
air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees,
homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.
Ulysses 4:Calypso
MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH THE INNER ORGANS OF BEASTS and fowls.
He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver
slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked
grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly
scented urine.
Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting
her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the
kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a
bit peckish.
The coals were reddening.
Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like
her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the
hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout
stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a
leg of the table with tail on high.
-- Mkgnao!
-- O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.
The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the
table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writing-table. Prr. Scratch my
head. Prr.
Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly, the lithe black form. Clean to see:
the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail,
the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.
-- Milk for the pussens, he said.
-- Mrkgnao! the cat cried.
They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we
understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Wonder
what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.
-- Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the
chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.
Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.
-- Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.
She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively
and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the
dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured
warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.
-- Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.
He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped
three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they
can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind
of feelers in the dark, perhaps.
He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with
this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a
mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a
pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower,
then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? To lap
better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No.
On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by
the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she
likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.
He said softly in the bare hall:
-- I am going round the corner. Be back in a minute.
And when he had heard his voice say it he added:
-- You don't want anything for breakfast?
A sleepy soft grunt answered:
-- Mn.
No. She did not want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,
as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must
get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any
little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for it. Old style. Ah
yes, of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. Got a short knock. Hard
as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At Plevna that was. I rose from
the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. Still he had brains enough to make that
corner in stamps. Now that was farseeing.
His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat,
and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback
pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. The
sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's high grade
ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip of paper.
Quite safe.
On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.
In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No
use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the
halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently
over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back
anyhow.
He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number
seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a warm
day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts,
reflects (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in that light suit.
Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy
warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefers
yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young.
Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front
of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day
older technically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate,
sentry there, old ranker too, old Tweedy's big moustaches leaning on a long
kind of a spear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark
caves of carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged
smoking a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented
with fennel, sherbet. Wander along all day. Might meet a robber or two.
Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques along the
pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, the
evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches from her doorway.
She calls her children home in their dark language. High wall: beyond
strings twanged. Night sky moon, violet, colour of Molly's new garters.
Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of these instruments what do you call
them: dulcimers. I pass.
Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track
of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What
Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule
sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland.
He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in
the northwest.
He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the
flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out whiffs
of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the end of the
city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as position. Of
course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from the cattle
market to the quays value would go up like a shot.
Bald head over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an
ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he Is, sure enough, my bold
Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching the aproned
curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee
with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going to tell you? What's
that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, they'd only be an eight
o'clock breakfast for the Japanese.
Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor
Dignam, Mr O'Rourke.
Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the
doorway:
-- Good day, Mr O'Rourke.
-- Good day to you.
-- Lovely weather, sir.
-- 'Tis all that.
Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the
county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and
behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of
the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without
passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three
and carry five. What is that? A bob here and there, dribs and drabs. On the
wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the town travellers.
Square it with the boss and we'll split the job, see?
How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels
of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Ten. Fifteen. He passed Saint
Joseph's, National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps
memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee double you.
Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At their joggerfry.
Mine. Slieve Bloom.
He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages,
polonies, black and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his
mind unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with
forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of
cooked spicy pig's blood.
A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He
stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the
items from a slip in her hand. Chapped: washing soda. And a pound and a half
of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his name
is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldfish. New blood. No followers allowed.
Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the clothesline. She does whack
it, by George. The way her crooked skirt swings at each whack.
The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with
blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there like a stallfed heifer.
He took up a page from the pile of cut sheets. The model farm at
Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium.
Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattle
cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: read it nearer, the
blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young white heifer. Those
mornings in the cattlemarket the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep,
flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the
litter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one,
unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending
his senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt
swinging whack by whack by whack.
The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime
sausages and made a red grimace.
-- Now, my miss, he said.
She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.
-- Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,
please?
Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went
slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the morning.
Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood outside the shop
in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his nose: they
never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars
in tatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glowed to weak
pleasure within his breast. For another a constable off duty cuddled her in
Eccles Lane. They like them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman,
I'm lost in the wood.
-- Threepence, please.
His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.
Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them on
the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by
disc, into the till.
-- Thank you, sir. Another time.
A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze
after an instant. No: better not: another time.
-- Good morning, he said, moving away.
-- Good morning, sir.
No sign. Gone. What matter?
He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:
planter's company. To purchase vast sandy tracts from Turkish government and
plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction.
Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eight marks and
they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons.
Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. Every year you get a
sending of the crop. Your name entered for life as owner in the book of the
union. Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments.
Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15.
Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.
He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silvered powdered
olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning ripening. Olives are packed in jars,
eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste
of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder
is poor Citron still alive in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky with the
old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair.
Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils
and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the
same, year after year. They fetched high prices too Moisel told me. Arbutus
place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times. Must be without a flaw, he
said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant.
Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book,
navvies handling them in soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of.
How do you? Doesn't see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His
back is like that Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today.
Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven.
A cloud began to cover the sun wholly slowly wholly. Grey. Far.
No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead
sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those
waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining
down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead
sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first
race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by the
neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to
captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now
it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the
world.
Desolation.
Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he
turned into Eccles Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his
veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am
here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin
again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick
houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only
twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered
with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume
of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.
Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim
sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl
with gold hair on the wind.
Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stopped and gathered
them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quick heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs
Marion.
-- Poldy!
Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm
yellow twilight towards her tousled head.
-- Who are the letters for?
He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.
-- A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you.
And a letter for you.
He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of
her knees.
-- Do you want the blind up?
Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her
glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.
-- That do? he asked, turning.
She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.
-- She got the things, she said.
He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back
slowly with a snug sigh.
-- Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched.
-- The kettle is boiling, he said.
But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled
linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.
As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:
-- Poldy!
-- What?
-- Scald the teapot.
On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded
and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the
kettle then to let water flow in. Having set it to draw, he took off the
kettle and crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump of
butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed hungrily
against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they won't eat
pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped
the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through
his fingers, ringwise, from the chipped eggcup.
Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:
new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's
seaside girls.
The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby,
smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No wait: four.
I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown
paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.
O Milly Bloom, you are my darling.
You are my looking glass from night to morning.
I'd rather have you without a farthing
Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.
Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous
old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the
little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour.
O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we laughed. Sex
breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.
He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the
teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?
Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it
upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.
Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it
on the chair by the bedhead.
-- What a time you were, she said.
She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on
the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft
bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth of
her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she
poured.
A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the
act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.
-- Who was the letter from? he asked.
Bold hand. Marion.
-- O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.
-- What are you singing?
-- La ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love's Old Sweet Song.
Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves
next day. Like foul flowerwater.
-- Would you like the window open a little?
She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:
-- What time is the funeral?
-- Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper.
Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled
drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a
stocking: rumpled, shiny sole.
-- No: that book.
Other stocking. Her petticoat.
-- It must have fell down, she said.
He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorvez. Wonder if she pronounces
that right: voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and
lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the
orange-keyed chamberpot.
-- Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to
ask you.
She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and,
having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text
with the hairpin till she reached the word.
-- Met him what? he asked.
-- Here, she said. What does that mean?
He leaned downwards and read near her polished thumbnail.
-- Metempsychosis?
-- Yes. Who's he when he's at home?
-- Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That
means the transmigration of souls.
-- O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.
He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eye. The same young eyes.
The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over the
smudged pages. Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce
Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor naked.
Sheet kindly lent. The monster Maffei desisted and flung his victim from him
with an oath. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. Trapeze at Hengler's.
Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we'll break our
sides. Families of them. Bone them young so they metempsychosis. That we
live after death. Our souls. That a man's soul after he dies. Dignam's
soul...
-- Did you finish it? he asked.
-- Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the
first fellow all the time?
-- Never read it. Do you want another?
-- Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has.
She poured more tea into her cup, watching its flow sideways.
Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to
Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that's the word.
-- Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body
after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all
lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They
say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives.
The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better
remind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An
example.
The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number
of Photo Bits: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milk
in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six I gave for the
frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs: Greece: and
for instance all the people that lived then.
He turned the pages back.
-- Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They
used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance.
What they called nymphs, for example.
Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her,
inhaling through her arched nostrils.
-- There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the
fire?
-- The kidney! he cried suddenly.
He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes
against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily
down the stairs with a flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an
angry Jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the fork under the
kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its back. Only a little
burned. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the scanty brown
gravy trickle over it.
Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He
shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a forkful
into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant meat. Done to
a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, sopped one in the
gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about some young student and a
picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, reading it slowly as he
chewed, sopping another die of bread in the gravy and raising it to his
mouth.
Dearest Papli,
Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me
splendid. Everyone says I'm quite the belle in my new tam. I got mummy's
lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am getting on
swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me and Mrs will
send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day and all the beef
to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on Monday with a few
friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to mummy and to yourself a big
kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano downstairs. There is to be a
concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. There is a young student comes
here some evenings named Bannon his cousins or something are big swells he
sings Boylan's (I was on the pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about
those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends my best respects. Must now
close with fondest love.
Your fond daughter, MILLY.
P.S. Excuse bad writing, am in a hurry. Byby.
M.
Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first
birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was
born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old woman.
Lots of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from the first
poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She knew at once. He
would be eleven now if he had lived.
His vacant face stared pitying at the postscript. Excuse bad writing.
Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the XL
CafÉ about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox.
He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after piece of
kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do worse. Music
hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his
meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.
O well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has
happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild piece of
goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain:
very.
He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window.
Day I caught her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red.
An&Aelig;mic a little. Was given milk too long. On the Erin's King that day
round the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale
blue scarf loose in the wind with her hair.
All dimpled cheek's and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.
Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers pockets,
jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. Pier
with lamps, summer evening, band,
Those girls, those girls,
Those lovely seaside girls'
Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.
Reading lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, braiding.
A soft qualm regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen,
yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen too.
He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. Lips kissed,
kissing kissed. Full gluey woman's lips.
Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass
the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and
six return. Six weeks off however. Might work a press pass. Or through
M'Coy.
The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper,
nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. Wants
to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. Has the
fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear with her back
to the fire too.
He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood
up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.
-- Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I'm ready.
Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the
landing.
A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as
I'm.
In the table drawer he found an old number of Titbits. He folded it
under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in soft
bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.
Listening, he heard her voice:
-- Come, come, pussy. Come.
He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen
towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The
maid was in the garden. Fine morning.
He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.
Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure
the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. All soil like
that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this that is? The hens in
the next garden: their droppings are very good top dressing. Best of all
though are the cattle, especially when they are fed on those oilcakes. Mulch
of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too.
Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in that corner there. Lettuce. Always
have fresh greens then. Still gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or
bluebottle here Whitmonday.
He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the
peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny, I don't remember that. Hallstand too
full. Four umbrellas, her rain cloak. Picking up the letters. Drago's
shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown brilliantined
hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder have I time for a
bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox there got away James
Stephens they say. O'Brien.
Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agenda what is it? Now, my miss.
Enthusiast.
He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to
get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under
the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash
and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through
a chink up at the nextdoor window. The king was in his counting house.
Nobody.
Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper turning its pages over
on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit.
Our prize titbit. Matcham's Masterstrike. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy,
Playgoers' club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been
made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds
thirteen and six.
Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding
but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he
allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still
patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not
too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive one tabloid of
cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was
something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on,
seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks
of the master-stroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and
ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read
and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who
had written it and received payment of three pounds thirteen and six.
Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for
some proverb which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she said
dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her
nether Hip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts
pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What possessed me to buy
this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A speck of dust on the
patent leather of her boot.
Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stocking calf. Morning
after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the
hours. Explain that morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then night
hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her
fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he
had a good smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it.
Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed
her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub.
Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with daggers
and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still
true to life also. Day, then the night.
He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back
the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the
air.
In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully
his black trousers, the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time
is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.
A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third.
Poor Dignam!
Ulysses 5: Lotus Eaters
BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON'S QUAY MR BLOOM WALKED soberly, past
Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher's, the postal telegraph office.
Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned
from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By
Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked,
smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her
forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he
smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses! Waiting
outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be
many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel.
El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker's. At
eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged that job for
O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. Corney. Met her once in the park. In
the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with
my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a
whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.
In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental
Tea Company and read the legends of lead-papered packets: choice blend,
finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan.
Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he
took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with
slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped
lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high
grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His
fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his
waistcoat pocket.
So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over again: choice
blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must
be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses,
flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those
Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a
hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel.
Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most.
Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals
too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine
trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture
somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a
parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the
weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the
weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It's a law
something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints,
teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really
when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of
falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The
earth. It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.
He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her
sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from
his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it
at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in
to see. Per second, per second. Per second for every second it means. From
the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice.
Too late box. Post here. No-one. In.
He handed the card through the brass grill.
-- Are there any letters for me? he asked.
While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting
poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton
against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably.
Went too far last time.
The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a
letter. He thanked and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.
Henry Flower, Esq.
c/o P. O. Westland Row,
City.
Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,
reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment?
Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a grenadier.
Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy.
That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and
drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night:
disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an
army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half
baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed:
ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A
mason, yes.
He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if
that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt
its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will
pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter and
crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on: photo perhaps.
Hair? No.
M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when
you.
-- Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?
-- Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular.
-- How's the body?
-- Fine. How are you?
-- Just keeping alive, M'Coy said.
His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:
-- Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're...
-- O no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.
-- To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?
A photo it isn't. A badge maybe.
-- E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered.
-- I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard
it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?
-- I know.
Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door
of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood
still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his
pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a
day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands
in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women
all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does.
Reserved about to yield. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man.
Possess her once take the starch out of her.
-- I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what
do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were.
Doran, Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came
Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath his
veiled eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided
drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps.
Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will she get up?
-- And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I
said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said.
Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces
dangling. Well turned foot. What is he fostering over that change for? Sees
me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to
her bow.
-- Why? I said. What's wrong with him? I said.
Proud: rich: silk stockings.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a
minute.
-- What's wrong with him? he said. He's dead, he said. And, faith, he
filled up. Is it Paddy Dignam? I said. I couldn't believe it when I heard
it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch.
Yes, he said. He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow.
Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!
A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.
Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and
the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace
street hallway. Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the
display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at?
-- Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.
-- One of the best, M'Coy said.
The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich
gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her hat in
the sun: flicker, flick.
-- Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said.
-- O yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.
He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
-- My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet.
Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks.
Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.
-- My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the
Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
-- That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it
up?
Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread
and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark
lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old...
-- It's a kind of a tour, don't you see? Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.
Sweet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits.
M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.
-- O well, he said. That's good news.
He moved to go.
-- Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking
around.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
-- Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the
funeral, will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a
drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would
have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I'm not
there, will you?
-- I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all
right.
-- Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly
could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do.
-- That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.
Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd
like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners,
riveted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the
Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that
good day to this.
Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has
just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its
way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know? In the
same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't he hear the
difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow.
Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn't
get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife
and my wife.
Wonder is he pimping after me?
Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured
hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's summer
sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight: Mrs Bandman Palmer.
Like to see her in that again. Hamlet she played last night. Male
impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide? Poor
papa! How he used to talk about Kate Bateman in that! Outside the Adelphi in
London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was:
sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By
Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about
where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his
face.
-- Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left
his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his
father and left the God of his father.
Every word is so deep, Leopold.
Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his
face. That day! O dear! O dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was the best for him.
Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the
hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met that
M'Coy fellow.
He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently
champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the
sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they
know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too
full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded
too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might
be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their
neigh can be very irritating.
He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.
He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies,
all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e
non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying
syllables as they pass. He hummed:
La ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.
He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in
the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins
and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its
forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at
marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking
sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a
piece out of his mantel not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles
when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's.
And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.
A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?
Dear Henry,
I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am
awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you
naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is
the real meaning of that word. Are you not happy in your home you poor
little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. Please tell me
what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have.
Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I
have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about.
Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I
will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if
you do not write. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my
request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye
now, naughty darling. I have such a bad headache today and write by return
to your longing
MARTHA.
P.S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to
know.
He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell
and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because
no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then, walking
slowly forward, he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word.
Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't
please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon
anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. Having read it
all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket.
Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did
she write it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me,
respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you:
not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a
row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time.
Naughty boy: punish: afraid of-words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it
anyhow. A bit at a time.
Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.
Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:
pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without
thorns.
Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in
the Coombe, linked together in the rain.
O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers.
She didn't know what to do
To keep it up
To keep it up.
It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all
day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife
use? Now could you make out a thing like that?
To keep it up.
Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or
faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the
two sluts in the Coombe would listen.
To keep it up.
Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:
quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been,
strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper:
fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of the well stonecold like the hole in
the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the
trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and
more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.
Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly
in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away,
sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank.
Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the
same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque
for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of
porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four
times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a
moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter,
no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen
about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter.
What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the
same.
An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.
Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The
bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together,
winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of
liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.
He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the
porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again
behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy for a
pass to Mullingar.
Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.
on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save China's millions. Wonder
how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium.
Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone
they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same.
Convert Dr. William J. Walsh D. D. to the true religion. Buddha their god
lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.
Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever
idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows
him: distinguished looking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into
the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't.
They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat
rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their
fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips,
entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.
The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,
pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.
Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place
to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music.
That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with
crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altar
rails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his
hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are
they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head
sank. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it
into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes
and open your mouth. What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin.
Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it;
only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals
cotton to it.
He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by
one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its
corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought
to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with
heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their
stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened
shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It
does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind
of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a
lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the
same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity.
Then come out a big spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe
in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues
bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confession box. Hence those snores.
Blind faith. Safe in the arms of Kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this
time next year.
He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an
instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair
he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to.
Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I. N. R. I.? No: I. H. S. Molly told
me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And
the other one? Iron nails ran in.
Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with
a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with
a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly.
Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles
he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning.
This very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis
Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plotting
that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that's a good name for
them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. They're not
straight men of business either. O no she's not here: the flower: no, no. By
the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.
The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs
smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what
they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley's
Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn't
give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud
but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old booser worse than another
coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite
right. Perfectly right that is.
Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.
Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that
instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in
Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of
Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ,
but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped.
Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I
could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:
Quis est homo!
Some of that old sacred music is splendid. Mercadante: seven last
words. Mozart's twelfth mass: the Gloria in that. Those old popes were keen
on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for
example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too chanting,
regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still,
having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of
voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses.
Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a placid.
No worry. Fall into flesh don't they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows?
Eunuch. One way out of it.
He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and
bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced
about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the
gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back
quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing
out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Then the
priest knelt down and began to read off a card:
-- O God, our refuge and our strength.
Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them
the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloria and
immaculate virgin. Joseph her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if
you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes
like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all.
Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon In their hands. More than doctor or
solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you
chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse.
Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's
little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at
an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide
her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will
address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be
in Rome: they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too?
Bequests also: to the P. P. for the time being in his absolute discretion.
Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in the Fermanagh will case in the
witness box. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the
church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.
The priest prayed:
-- Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be
our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God
restrain him, we humbly pray): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other
wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women
remained behind: thanksgiving.
Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.
He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the
time. Women enjoy it. Annoyed if you don't. Why-didn't you tell me before.
Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff.
Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Still like
you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He passed, discreetly
buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He
stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and
behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water.
Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because
I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past.
Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the
last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and
gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of
the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.
He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other
trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O
well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up last?
Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been
or the second. O he can look it up in the prescriptions book.
The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone.
The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why?
Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living
all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster
lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost
cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor whack. He ought to physic
himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb
to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough
stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform.
Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup
bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy
where you least expect it. Clever of nature.
-- About a fortnight ago, sir?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He waited by the counter, inhaling the keen reek of drugs, the dusty
dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches
and pains.
-- Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then
orangeflower water...
It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.
-- And white wax also, he said.
Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her
eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs.
Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles
and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the
old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold yes.
Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a
perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d'Espagne. That orangeflower. Pure
curd soap. Water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Time to get a
bath round the corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your
navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the
bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure.
Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all day. Funeral be rather glum.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought
a bottle?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day
and I'll take one of those soaps. How much are they?
-- Fourpence, sir.
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
-- I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.
-- Good, Mr Bloom said.
He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
-- Hello, Bloom, what's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a
minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons' yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap?
Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
-- I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper
and get shut of him.
-- You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
-- Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.
-- I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
-- What's that? his sharp voice said.
-- I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it
away that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
-- I'Il risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender
turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to
gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come
back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed
the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like
a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel.
Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something
to catch the eye.
There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do
you do, sir?
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here.
Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare
street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line.
And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave.
Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life
we trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and
limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his
navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating,
floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid
floating flower.
Ulysses 6: Hades
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM, FIRST, POKED HIS SILKHATTED HEAD INTO the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after
him, curving his height with care.
-- Come on, Simon.
-- After you, Mr Bloom said.
Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:
-- Yes, yes.
-- Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.
Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it tight till it shut tight. He passed an arm through
the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the
lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose
whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over.
Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give
them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners.
Slop about in slipper-slappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready.
Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your
side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and
shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an
envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job.
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it
out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front turning: then nearer:
then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the
avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking
pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled
rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in
the doorframes.
-- What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
-- Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
-- That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother
road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in
mourning, a wide hat.
-- There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
-- Who is that?
-- Your son and heir.
-- Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to
the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell
back, saying:
-- Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
-- Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little cost-drawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of
dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the
bottleworks. Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in
Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two
hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on
him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll
cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent
profit.
-- He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all
over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'Il make it my
business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or
whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I `Il tickle his
catastrophe, believe you me.
He cried above the clatter of the wheels.
-- I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counter-jumper's
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely.
He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild
face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking
beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it
would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond
terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of
the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown
on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying
for it. How life begins.
Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn
German too.
-- Are we late? Mr Power asked.
-- Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch
Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life.
Life.
The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.
-- Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.
-- He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him.
Do you follow me?
He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.
-- What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?
-- Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr
Power said.
All raised their thighs, eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and
said:
-- Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?
-- It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.
Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.
-- After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world.
-- Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak
of his beard gently.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.
-- And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.
-- At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.
-- I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come.
The carriage halted short.
-- What's wrong?
-- We're stopped.
-- Where are we?
Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.
-- The grand canal, he said.
Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illness compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea.
Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss this
chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is
my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. A dying scrawl.
He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men's dogs usually are.
A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower
spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. I
thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.
-- The weather is changing, he said quietly.
-- A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.
-- Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There's the sun again coming
out.
Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled
a mute curse at the sky.
-- It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said.
-- We're off again.
The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed
gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.
-- Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking
him off to his face.
-- O draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear
him, Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of The Croppy Boy.
-- Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. His singing of that
simple ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the
whole course of my experience.
-- Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He's dead nuts on that. And the
retrospective arrangement.
-- Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Martin Cunningham asked.
-- I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it?
-- In the paper this morning.
Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change
for her.
-- No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on, please.
Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the
deaths. Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what Peake
is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, Urbright.
Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the
Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged 88
after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind. Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet
Jesus have mercy.
It is now a month since dear Henry fled
To his home up above in the sky
While his family weeps and mourns his loss
Hoping some day to meet him on high.
I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it
in the bath? He patted his waistcoat pocket. There all right. Dear Henry
fled. Before my patience are exhausted.
National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.
Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with
a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats.
A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a
tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something
automatic so that the wheel itself much handler? Well but that fellow would
lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the
new invention?
Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a
crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law,
perhaps.
They went past the bleak pulpit of Saint Mark's, under the railway
bridge, past the Queen's theatre: in silence. Hoardings. Eugene Stratton.
Mrs Bandman Palmer. Could I go to see Leah tonight, I wonder. I said I. Or
the Lily of Killarney? Elster Grimes Opera company. Big powerful change. Wet
bright bills for next week. Fun on the Bristol. Martin Cunningham could work
a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a drink or two. As broad as it's long.
He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs.
Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he?
-- How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow
in salute.
-- He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?
-- Who? Mr Dedalus asked.
-- Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.
Just that moment I was thinking.
Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the
white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed.
Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right
hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?
Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes feel
what a person Is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just
looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body getting a bit
softy. I would notice that from remembering. What causes that I suppose the
skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape
is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the
dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind.
He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant
glance over their faces.
Mr Power asked:
-- How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?
-- O very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good
idea, you see .
-- Are you going yourself?
-- Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the
county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the chief
towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.
-- Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now.
-- Have you good artists?
-- Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all
topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in fact.
-- And Madame, Mr Power said, smiling. Last but not least.
Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and
clasped them. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.
Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling
by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees.
Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his
mouth opening: oot.
-- Four bootlaces for a penny.
Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.
Same house as Molly's namesake. Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. Has
that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. Terrible
comedown, poor wretch! kicked about like snuff at a wake. O'Callaghan on his
last legs.
And Madame. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing
her hair, humming: voglio e non vorrei. No: vorrei e non. Looking at the
tips of her hairs to see if they are split. Mi trema un poco il. Beautiful
on that tre her voice is: weeping tone. A thrust. A throstle. There is a
word throstle that expressed that.
His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over
the ears. Madame: smiling. I smiled back. A smile does a long way. Only
politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman he
keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is
no carnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it
was Crofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is
this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the Moira, was it?
They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form.
Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.
-- Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.
A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner
of Elvery's elephant house showed them a curved hand open on his spine.
-- In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.
Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:
-- The devil break the hasp of your back!
Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as
the carriage passed Gray's statue.
-- We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly.
His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. He caressed his beard, adding:
-- Well, nearly all of us.
Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces.
-- That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J. and
the son.
-- About the boatman? Mr Power asked.
-- Yes. Isn't it awfully good?
-- What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it.
-- There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to
send him to the isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both...
-- What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he
tried to drown...
-- Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did!
Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.
-- No, Mr Bloom said the son himself...
Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely.
-- Reuben J. and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on
their way to the isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got loose
and over the wall with him into the Liffey.
-- For God's sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead?
-- Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and
fished him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the
father on the quay. More dead than alive. Half the town was there.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is...
-- And Reuben J., Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for
saving his son's life.
A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power's hand.
-- O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin.
-- Isn't it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly.
-- One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily. Mr Power's
choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. Nelson's pillar.
-- Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!
-- We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Dedalus sighed.
-- And then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a
laugh. Many a good one he told himself.
-- The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his
fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and he
was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this. He's gone
from us.
-- As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went
very suddenly.
-- Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.
He tapped his chest sadly.
Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.
Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent
colouring it.
Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.
-- He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said.
-- The best death, Mr Bloom said.
Their wide open eyes looked at him.
-- No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in
sleep.
No-one spoke.
Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,
temperance hotel, Falconer's railway guide, civil service college, Gill's,
catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or wind. At
night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the late Father
Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.
White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,
galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning coach.
Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for a nun.
-- Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.
A dwarf's face mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body,
weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny
a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant nothing. Mistake
of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not the man. Better luck
next time.
-- Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It's well out of it.
The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his
bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.
-- In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.
-- But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own
life.
Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back.
-- The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added.
-- Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We
must take a charitable view of it.
-- They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said.
-- It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's
large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. Like
Shakespeare's face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy on that
here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive a stake of
wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken already. Yet
sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed clutching rushes. He
looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife of his. Setting up house for
her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him every Saturday
almost. Leading him the life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone,
that. Monday morning start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must
have looked a sight that night, Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about
the place and capering with Martin's umbrella:
And they call me the jewel of Asia,
Of Asia,
The geisha.
He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones.
That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The
room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through the
slats of the Venetian blinds. The coroner's ears, big and hairy. Boots
giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like yellow streaks
on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. Verdict: overdose.
Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son Leopold.
No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.
The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones.
-- We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said.
-- God grant he doesn't upset us on the road, Mr Power said.
-- I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race
tomorrow in Germany. The Gordon Bennett.
-- Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith.
As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent
over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody
here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead march from Saul. He's as bad as
old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The Mater Misericordiae.
Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for incurables there.
Very encouraging. Our Lady's Hospice for the dying. Deadhouse handy
underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look terrible the women. Her
feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the spoon. Then the screen round her
bed for her to die. Nice young student that was dressed that bite the bee
gave me. He's gone over to the lying-in hospital they told me. From one
extreme to the other.
The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.
-- What's wrong now?
A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching
by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony
croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their fear.
-- Emigrants, Mr Power said.
-- Huuuh! the drover's voice cried, his switch sounding on their
flanks. Huuuh! Out of that!
Thursday of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them
about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roast beef for old
England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter is lost:
all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a year. Dead
meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap,
margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train
at Clonsilla.
The carriage moved on through the drove.
-- I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the
parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken in
trucks down to the boats.
-- Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said.
Quite right. They ought to.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought is to have
municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line out
to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all.
Don't you see what I mean?
-- O that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and
saloon diningroom.
-- A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.
-- Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn't it be more
decent than galloping two abreast?
-- Well, there's something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.
-- And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn't have scenes like that when
the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin on to the road.
-- That was terrible, Mr Power's shocked face said, and the corpse fell
about the road. Terrible!
-- First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus aid, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup.
-- Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.
Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy
Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too
large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now.
Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose
quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. The
sphincter loose. Seal up all.
-- Dunphy's, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right.
Dunphy's corner. Mourning coaches drawn up drowning their grief. A
pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we'll pull up here
on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. Elixir of
life.
But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in
the knocking about? He would and he wouldn't, I suppose. Depends on where.
The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It would be
better to bury them in red: a dark red.
In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted
by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.
Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.
Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping
barge between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a slacktethered
horse. Aboard of the Bugabu.
Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on
his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds,
over slime, mud-choked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley,
I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire
some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a
lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry.
Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To
heaven by water. Perhaps I will without writing. Come as a surprise,
Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down, lock by lock to Dublin. With turf from
the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his brown strawhat, saluting Paddy
Dignam.
They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now.
-- I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said.
-- Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.
-- How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping I suppose.
-- Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear.
The carriage steered left for Finglas road.
The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of
land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt
in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: appealing.
The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor.
Passed.
On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary the sexton'