s an old tramp sat,
grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown yawning
boot. After life's journey.
Gloomy gardens then went by, one by one: gloomy houses.
Mr Power pointed.
-- That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house.
-- So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him
off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said.
-- The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.
-- Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. That's the maxim of the
law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to
be wrongfully condemned.
They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered,
tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned.
Murder. The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading
about it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she
met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large.
Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out.
Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without
letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with their
pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen.
The high railings of Prospects rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars,
rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees,
white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on
the air.
The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put
out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his
knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.
Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly
and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. He
stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still
held.
Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It's all the same.
Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death.
Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit.
Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who
ate them? Mourners coming out.
He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes
walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out
the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy.
Where is that child's funeral disappeared to?
A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread,
dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a
granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted.
Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at
it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, pressing on
a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here every day?
Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount Jerome for the
protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Shovelling
them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in
the world.
Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy,
hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl's face stained with dirt and
tears, holding the woman's arm looking up at her for a sign to cry. Fish's
face, bloodless and livid.
The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So
much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First the
stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy followed
with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the brother-in-law.
All walked after.
Martin Cunningham whispered:
-- I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom.
-- What? Mr Power whispered. How so?
-- His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the
Queen's hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare.
Anniversary.
-- O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself!
He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed
towards the cardinal's mausoleum. Speaking.
-- Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked.
-- I believe so, Mr Kernan answered, but the policy was heavily
mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane.
-- How many children did he leave?
-- Five. Ned Lambert says he'll try to get one of the girls into
Todd's.
-- A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children.
-- A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added.
-- Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed.
Has the laugh at him now.
He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had
outlived him, lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must
outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world.
Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow him. For
Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after?
Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage.
Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in the end she put a
few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of hearts. All for a shadow.
Consort not even a king. Her son was the substance. Something new to hope
for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go
first: alone under the ground: and lie no more in her warm bed.
-- How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't
seen you for a month of Sundays.
-- Never better. How are all in Cork's own town?
-- I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned
Lambert said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.
-- And how is Dick, the solid man?
-- Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.
-- By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?
-- Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert
said, pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the
insurance is cleared up.
-- Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in
front?
-- Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is
behind. He put down his name for a quid.
-- I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he
ought to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.
-- How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?
-- Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.
They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood
behind the boy with the wreath, looking down at his sleek combed hair and
the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there
when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and
recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings
to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin into the chapel.
Which end is his head.
After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened
light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow
candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a
wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt
here and there in praying desks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and,
when all had knelt dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket
and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left
knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.
A server, bearing a brass bucket with something in it, came out through
a door. The whitesmocked priest came after him tidying his stole with one
hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.
Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.
They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.
Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Dominenamine. Bully
about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betide
anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways
like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on him like a
poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: burst sideways.
-- Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine.
Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem
mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.
Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in
the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too.
What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the
place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot of baa gas
round the place. Butchers for instance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who
was telling me? Mervyn Brown. Down in the vaults of saint Werburgh's lovely
old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a hole in the coffins
sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff
of that and you're a goner.
My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.
The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and
shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were
before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.
-- Et ne nos inducas in tentationem.
The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that of course.
Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. What
harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day a fresh
batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in childbirth, men
with beards, baldheaded business men, consumptive girls with little
sparrow's breasts. All the year round he prayed the same thing over them all
ad shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam now.
-- In paradisum.
Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over
everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.
The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny
Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the
coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher
gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed them
out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last, folding his
paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the
coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the gravel with
a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the barrow along a
lane of sepulchres.
The ree the ra the Fee the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here.
-- The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.
Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.
-- He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But
his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, Simon!
-- Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'Il soon be
stretched beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.
Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.
-- She's better where she is, he said kindly.
-- I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.
Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.
-- Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.
Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.
-- The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we
can do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.
They covered their heads.
-- The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you
think? Mr Kernan said with reproof.
Mr Bloom nodded gravely, looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secret searching eyes. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We
are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else.
Mr Kernan added:
-- The service of the Irish church, used in Mount Jerome, is simpler,
more impressive, I must say.
Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.
Mr Kernan said with solemnity:
-- I am the resurrection and the life. That touches a man's inmost
heart.
-- It does, Mr Bloom said.
Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every
day. One fine day it gets bunged up and there you are. Lots of them lying
around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else.
The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day
idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he
came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! Then every fellow mousing
around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his traps. Find damn all
of himself that morning. Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes
one pennyweight. Troy measure.
Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.
-- Everything went off A 1, he said. What?
He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.
-- As it should be, Mr Kernan said.
-- What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.
Mr Kernan assured him.
-- Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.
Ned Lambert glanced back.
-- Bloom, he said, Madam Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.
-- O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some
time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen
seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's, in Roundtown. And a good armful
she was.
He looked behind through the others.
-- What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery
line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.
Ned Lambert smiled.
-- Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for
blottingpaper.
-- In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon
like that for? She had plenty of game in her then.
-- Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.
John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.
The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the
grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.
-- John O'Connell, Mr Power said, pleased. He never forgets a friend.
Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:
-- I am come to pay you another visit.
-- My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want
your custom at all.
Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham's side, puzzling two keys at his back.
-- Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?
-- I did not, Martin Cunningham said.
They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watch chain and spoke in
a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.
-- They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one
foggy evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing
about in the fog they found the grave, sure enough. One of the drunks spelt
out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking up at a statue
of our Saviour the widow had got put up.
The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:
-- And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, Not a bloody bit like
the man, says he. That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it.
Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher,
accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he
walked.
-- That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to
Hynes.
-- I know, Hynes said, I know that.
-- To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure
goodheartedness: damn the thing else.
Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on
good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys:
like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out, no passout checks. Habeat
corpus. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge
on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?
Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be the better of a shave.
Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when the hairs come out grey and
temper getting cross. Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife.
Wonder how he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in
the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting
death... Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about.
The shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be
a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man
great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o'the wisp.
Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women
especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep.
Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The
clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly
keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You
might pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones.
Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both ends
meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of frilled beefsteaks to the
starving gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it
at the window. Eight children he has anyway.
He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field
after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or
kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some day above
ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must
be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too, trim grass and edgings. His
garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well so it is. Ought to be flowers
of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best
opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It's the
blood sinking in the earth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said
killed the christian boy. Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse
gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of
William Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds
thirteen and six. With thanks.
I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpse manure, bones, flesh,
nails, charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink, decomposing. Rot
quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy
kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, treacle oozing out of them. Then
dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they are go on living.
Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to feed on feed on
themselves.
But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply
swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside
gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing
all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. Cracking his
jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin.
Spurgeon went to heaven 4 A.M. this morning. 11 P.M. (closing time). Not
arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men anyhow would like to hear an
odd joke or the women to know what's in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies'
punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so
better do it that way. Gravediggers in Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge
of the human heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. De
mortuis nil nisi prius. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his
funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you
live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.
-- How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.
-- Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.
The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to
trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping
with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its
nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.
Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He
doesn't know who is here nor care.
Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the macintosh? Now
who is he I'd like to know? Now, I'd give a trifle to know who he is. Always
someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome
all his life. Yes, he could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after
he died though he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No
ants too. First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe
was true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a
Thursday if you come to look at it.
O, poor Robinson Crusoe,
How could you possibly do so?
Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of
them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could invent
a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding let it down that way. Ay but
they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. They're so
particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only
a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one coffin. I see what it
means. I see. To protect him as long as possible even in the earth. The
Irishman's house is his coffin. Enbalming in catacombs, mummies, the same
idea.
Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.
Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's
number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that
I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.
Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had
one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was
once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine
turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not married or
his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.
The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the
gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.
Pause.
If we were all suddenly somebody else.
Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they
say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.
Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The
boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the
black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. Well
cut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. Well it
is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be damned
unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone else. Try
the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then darkened
deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you like to see
a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life.
The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid.
Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet
yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he's
doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing him a woman. Dying
to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold
thee? Bam! expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you.
Don't forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even Parnell.
Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole one after the
other.
We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire
of purgatory.
Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near
you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma poor mamma,
and little Rudy.
The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time?
Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of course. Of
course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the
heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and
some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to
keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are
sure there's no.
The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.
The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way
deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he traversed
the dismal fields.
Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.
-- I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is
your christian name? I'm not sure.
-- L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too.
He asked me to.
Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman once.
So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died
of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley,
you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw
to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him under an
obligation: costs nothing.
-- And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the.
He looked around.
-- Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?
-- M'Intosh, Hynes said, scribbling, I don't know who he is. Is that
his name?
He moved away, looking about him.
-- No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!
Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord,
what became of him?
A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.
-- O, excuse me!
He stepped aside nimbly.
Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath
against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on
their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked
the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a
long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered
weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the
coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed
something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble.
Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just.
The mourners moved away slowly, without aim, by devious paths, staying
awhile to read a name on a tomb.
-- Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.
-- Let us, Mr Power said.
They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:
-- Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.
Hynes shook his head.
-- Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.
Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old
Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity
for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?
Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them
together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave.
Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself.
Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed
away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the
shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you
what they were. So and so, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid
five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good
Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose
is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put
it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's
acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal
spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they
never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil.
Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The
other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.
A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu! Not a budge out of him. Knows
there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder.
Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a
daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.
The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve.
Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart.
Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased.
Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the
basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the
boy. Apollo that was.
How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.
Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the
voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the
house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeragain
hellohello amarawf kopthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died
when I was in Wisdom Hely's.
Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop.
He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he
goes.
An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive
crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good
hidingplace for treasure.
Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was
buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds.
Tail gone now.
One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones
clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone
bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China
that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better.
Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and
Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime fever pits to eat them.
Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower
of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the
pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life
no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the
news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.
We learned that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for
them. Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't
care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste
like raw white turnips.
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.
Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was
here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even
scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to
get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give
you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see
my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another
world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No
more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near
you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this
innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.
Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.
Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton. John Henry, solicitor,
commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be In his office. Mat
Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the
Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that
evening on the bowling green because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of
mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first
sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow
always like that, mortified if women are by.
Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.
-- Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.
They stopped.
-- Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said, pointing.
John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.
-- There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.
John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed
the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again.
-- It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said.
John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.
-- Thank you, he said shortly.
They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a
few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could
wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger without his seeing it.
Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.
Get the pull over him that way.
Thank you. How grand we are this morning.
Ulysses 7: Ae
In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis
BEFORE NELSON'S PILLAR TRAILS SLOWED, SHUNTED, CHANGED TROLLEY, started
for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,
Palmerston park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend
and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway
Company's timekeeper bawled them off:
-- Rathgar and Terenure!
-- Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a
singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.
-- Start, Palmerston park!
The Wearer of the Crown
Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and
polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars,
bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung
sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for
local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.
Gentlemen of the Press
Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores
and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped
dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.
-- There it is Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.
-- Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to
the Telegraph office.
The-door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in
a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a
roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier.
Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the
newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.
-- I'll go through the printing works, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut
square.
-- Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen
behind his ear, we can do him one.
-- Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. We.
William Brayden, Esquire, of Oaklands, Sandymount
Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered:
-- Brayden.
Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a
stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and
National Press and the Freeman's Journal and National Press. Dullthudding
Guinness's barrels. It passed stately up the staircase steered by an
umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step:
back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts
of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
-- Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.
The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build
one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk Mary, Martha.
Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.
-- Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.
-- Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our
Saviour.
Jesus Mario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his
heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one.
The Crozier and the Pen
-- His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.
They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and
stepped off posthaste with a word.
-- Freeman!
Mr Bloom said slowly:
-- Well, he is one of our saviours also.
A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed
in through the sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along
the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping,
thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards
Nannetti's reading closet.
With Unfeigned Regret it is we announce the of a most respected Dublin
Burgess
Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping thump. This
morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to
atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are
pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away,
tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.
How a Great Daily Organ is turned out
Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy
crown.
Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for
College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth.
It's the ads ad side features sell a weekly not the stale news in the
official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one
thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of
Tinnachinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing
return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes.
Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle' Toby's page for
tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure
for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The
personal note M.A. P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand.
World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two
bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More
Irish than the Irish.
The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thurap. Now if he
got paralysed there and no one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on
the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole
thing. Want a cool head.
-- Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him they say.
The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the
dirty glass screen.
-- Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.
Mr Bloom stood in his way.
-- If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,
pointing backward with his thumb.
-- Did you? Hynes asked.
-- Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him.
-- Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too.
He hurried on eagerly towards the Freeman's Journal.
Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint.
We see the Canvasser at work
Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.
-- Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you
remember.
Mr Nannetti considered the cutting a while and nodded.
-- He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.
He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.
The foreman moved his pencil towards it.
-- But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He
wants two keys at the top.
Hell of a racket they make. Maybe he understands what I.
The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began
to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.
-- Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.
Let him take that in first.
Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of
it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various
uses, thousand and one things.
Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew
swiftly on the scarred-woodwork.
House of Key(e)s
-- Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name
Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.
Better not teach him his own business.
-- You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the
top in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea?
The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched
there quietly.
-- The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,
the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the
isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?
I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then if
he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not.
-- We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?
-- I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a
house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and
just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. High class licensed
premises. Longfelt want. So on.
The foreman thought for an instant.
-- We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal.
A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the
silent typesetters at their cases.
Orthographical
Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot
to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the
unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed
pedlar while gauging au the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.
Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on account of the symmetry.
I could have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to
have said something about an old hat or something. No, I could have said.
Looks as good as new now. See his phizthen.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forwards its
flyboard with slit the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human
the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. That door
too slit creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its own way.
Sllt.
Noted Churchman an Occasional Contributor
The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:
-- Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the
Telegraph. Where's what's his name?
He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.
-- Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.
-- Ay. Where's Monks?
-- Monks!
Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.
-- Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a
good place I know.
-- Monks!
-- Yes, sir.
Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it
anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists
over for the show.
A Dayfather
He walked on through the caseroom, passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must
have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads,
speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now.
Sober serious man with a bit in the savings-bank I'd say. Wife a good cook
and washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn
nonsense.
And it was the Feast of the Passover
He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice
that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards
with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All
that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the
other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then the lamb and the cat
and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher and then the angel
of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat.
Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but
it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. How
quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his
fingers.
Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to
the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him
out perhaps? Better phone him up first. Number? Same as Citron's house.
Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.
Only once more that soap
He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over these
walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell
there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door when I was
there.
He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap
I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he
took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned into the hip pocket of his
trousers.
What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something
I forgot. Just to see before dressing. No. Here. No.
A sudden screech of laughter came from the Evening Telegraph office.
Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it is.
He entered softly.
Erin, Green Gem of the Silver Sea
-- The ghost walks, professor Macllugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to
the dusty windowpane.
Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing
face, asked of it sourly:
-- Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse?
Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:
-- Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, fanned by gentlest zephyrs tho' quarrelling with the stony
obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune's blue domain, mid mossy banks,
played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast o'er its
pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest. What
about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his newspaper. How's that for
high?
-- Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.
Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:
-- The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage. O boys! O boys!
-- And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on
the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.
-- That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want
to hear any more of the stuff.
He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.
High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.
Rather upsets a man's day a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old
Chatterton, the vice-chancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle.
Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death written this long time
perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for
your uncle. The right honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes
him an odd shaky cheque or two on gale days. Windfall when he kicks out.
Alleluia.
-- Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.
-- What is it? Mr Bloom asked.
-- A recently discovered fragment of Cicero's, professor MacHugh
answered with pomp of tone. Our lovely land.
Short but to the Point
-- Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.
-- Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With
an accent on the whose.
-- Dan Dawson's land, Mr Dedalus said.
-- Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.
Ned Lambert nodded.
-- But listen to this, he said.
The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was
pushed in.
-- Excuse me, J.J. O'Molloy said, entering.
Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.
-- I beg yours, he said.
-- Good day, Jack.
-- Come in. Come in.
-- Good day.
-- How are you, Dedalus?
-- Well. And yourself?
J.J. O'Molloy shook his head.
Sad
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's in
the wind, I wonder. Money worry.
-- Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks.
-- You're looking extra.
-- Is the editor to be seen? J.J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the
inner door.
-- Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in
his sanctum with Lenehan.
J.J. O'Molloy strolled Jo the sloping desk and began to turn back the
pink pages of the file.
Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of
honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T.
Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show their grey matter. Brains on their sleeve
like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the
Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on the
Independent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind
of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn't
know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one
another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hailfellow well
met the next moment.
-- Ah, listen to this for God's sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if
we but climb the serried mountain peaks...
-- Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!
-- Peaks, Ned Lambert went on, towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were...
-- Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he
taking anything for it?
-- As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio,
unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize
regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and luscious
pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of
our mild mysterious Irish twilight...
His Native Doric
-- The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.
-- That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shines forth to irradiate her silver effulgence.
-- O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan, shite and
onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short.
He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy
moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.
Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An
instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's
unshaven black-spectacled face.
-- Doughy Daw! he cried.
What Wetherup said
All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too wasn't he? Why they call him
Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in
the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments
open house. Big blow out. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by
the stomach.
The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested
by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:
-- What is it?
-- And here comes the sham squire himself, professor MacHugh said
grandly.
-- Getououthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in
recognition.
-- Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.
-- Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.
-- Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.
Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile.
-- Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.
Memorable Battles Recalled
-- North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece.
We won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!
-- Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.
-- In Ohio! the editor shouted.
-- So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.
Passing out, he whispered to J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Incipient jigs. Sad case.
-- Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet
face. My Ohio!
-- A Perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.
O, Harp Eolian
He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant unwashed
teeth.
-- Bingbang, bangbang.
Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.
-- Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an
ad.
He went in.
-- What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.
-- That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you
fret. Hello, Jack. That's all right.
-- Good day, Myles. J.J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?
The telephone whirred inside.
-- Twenty eight... No, twenty... Double four . Yes.
Spot the Winner
Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sports tissues.
-- Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.
He tossed the tissues on to the table.
Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.
-- Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.
Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps.
The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue
scrawls and under the table came to earth.
-- It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.
-- Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a
hurricane blowing.
Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.
-- Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrel shoved me, sir.
He pointed to two faces peering in round the door-frame.
-- Him, sir.
-- Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.
He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.
J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:
-- Continued on page six, column four.
-- Yes... Evening Telegraph here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner
office. Is the boss... ? Yes, Telegraph... To where?... Aha! Which auction
rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him.
A Collision ensues
The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.
-- Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.
-- My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a
hurry.
-- Knee, Lenehan said.
He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee.
-- The accumulation of the anno Domini.
-- Sorry, Mr Bloom said.
He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J.J. O'Molloy slapped
the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed
in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps:
We are the boys of Wexford
Who fought with heart and hand.
Exit Bloom
-- I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in Dillon's.
He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand suddenly
stretched forth an arm amply.
-- Begone! he said. The world is before you.
-- Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.
J.J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.
-- He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through
his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.
-- Show! Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.
A Street Cortege
Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail
of white bowknots.
-- Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk.
Small nines. Steal upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J.J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.
-- What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other
two gone?
-- Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for
a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.
-- Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air
and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.
-- He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voIce.
-- Seems to be, J.J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarette case in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most
matches?
The Calumet of Peace
He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J.
O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it.
-- Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself.
The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:
'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
'Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his long lips.
-- Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:
-- Silence for my brandnew riddle!
-- Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.
-- That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the
fire. We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell.
The Grandeur that was Rome
-- Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:
-- What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloac&Aelig;:
sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet
to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman
who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his
foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed
about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a
watercloset.
-- Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial to
the running stream.
-- They were nature's gentlemen, J.J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.
-- And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.
-- Do you know that story about chief Baron Palles? J.J. O'Molloy
asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going
swimmingly.
-- First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?
Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.
-- Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried.
-- I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led
by Experience visits Notoriety.
-- How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone.
? ? ?
Lenehan said to all:
-- Silence! What opera resembles a railway line? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.
-- Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
-- Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said:
-- That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken.
On swift sail flaming
>From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
-- Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned... ?
Bullockbefriending bard.
Shindy in wellknown Restaurant
-- Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter is not mine.
Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to...
-- O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's face in
the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.
-- Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
-- Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the
ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, graf von
Tirconnel in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian
fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes,
every time. Don't you forget that!
-- The moot point is did he forget it? J.J. O'Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
-- And if not? he said.
-- I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. Hungarian it was one
day...
Lost Causes Noble Marquess mentioned
We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us
is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to
the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak
the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim: time is
money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord
Jesus! Lord Salisbury. A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek!
Kyrie Eleison!
A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.
-- The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought
to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker
and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects
of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the
empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian
fleets at &Aelig;gospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an
oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a
lost cause.
He strode away from them towards the window.
-- They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.
-- Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received
in the latter half of the matinÉe. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen's ear:
Lenehan's Limerick
There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?
In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.
Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.
-- That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be
all right.
Lenehan extended his hands in protest.
-- But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railway line?
-- Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled.
Lenehan announced gladly:
-- The Rose of Castille. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
-- Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.
The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties.
-- Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.
-- Like fellows who had blown up the bastille, J.J. O'Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between
you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.
Omnium Gatherum
-- We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.
-- All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics.
-- The turf, Lenehan put in.
-- Literature, the press.
-- If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of
advertisement.
-- And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's
prime favourite.
Lenehan gave a loud cough.
-- Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a
cold in the park. The gate was open.
You can do it!
The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder.
-- I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite
in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. In the lexicon of youth...
See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.
-- Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective.
Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the
public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn its
soul. Father Son and Holy Ghost and fakes M'Carthy.
-- We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.
-- He wants you for the pressgang, J.J. O'Molloy said.
The Great Gallaher
-- You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in
emphasis. Wait a minute. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher used to
say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the Clarence.
Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You know how he made
his mark? I'll tell you. That was the smartest piece of journalism ever
known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of the invincibles, murder
in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I suppose. I'll show you.
He pushed past them to the files.
-- Look at here, he said, turning. The New York World cabled for a
special. Remember that time?
Professor MacHugh nodded.
-- New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw
hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean, Joe Brady and the
rest of them. Where Skin-the-goat drove the car. Whole route, see?
-- Skin-the-goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that
cabman's shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You
know Holohan?
-- Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.
-- And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for
the corporation. A night watchman.
Stephen turned in surprise.
-- Gumley? he said. You don't say so? A friend of my father's, is he?
-- Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind the
stones, see they don't run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius Gallaher
do? I'll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away. Have you Weekly
Freeman of 17 March? Right. Have you got that?
He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point.
-- Take page four, advertisement for Bransome's coffee let us say. Have
you got that? Right.
The telephone whirred.
A distant voice
-- I'll answer it, the professor said going.
-- B is parkgate. Good.
His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating.
-- T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon
gate.
The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles. An illstarched
dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his
waistcoat.
-- Hello? Evening Telegraph here... Hello?... Who's there?... Yes...
Yes...
-- F to P is the route Skin-the-goat drove the car for an alibi.
Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F. A. B. P.
Got that? X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street.
The professor came to the inner door.
-- Bloom is at the telephone, he said.
-- Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Burke's
publichouse, see?
Clever, Very
Clever, Lenehan said. Very.
-- Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole
bloody history.
Nightmare from which you will never awake.
-- I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present, Dick Adams, the
besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and
myself.
Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing:
-- Madam, I'm Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba.
-- History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince's street was
there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of an
advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the leg up.
Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the Star. Now he's got
in with Blumenfeld. That's press. That's talent. Pyatt! He was all their
daddies.
-- The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the
brother-in-law of Chris Callinan.
-- Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he's here still. Come across
yourself.
-- Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried. He
flung the pages down.
-- Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O'Madden Burke.
-- Very smart, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Professor MacHugh came from the inner office.
-- Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some
hawkers were up before the recorder...
-- O yes, J.J. O'Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home
through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that cyclone
last year and thought she'd buy a view of Dublin. And it turned out to be a
commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or Skin-the-goat. Right
outside the viceregal lodge, imagine!
-- They're only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said.
Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those
fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan? Eh?
Ah, bloody nonsense! Only in the halfpenny place!
His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain.
Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you
write it then?
Rhymes and Reasons
Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be
some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the same,
looking the same, two by two.
... la tua pace
... che parlar ti piace
... mentrechÈ il vento, come fa, si tace.
He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in
russet, entwining, per l'aer perso in mauve, in purple, quella pacifica
oriafiamma, in gold of oriflamme, di rimirar fe piu ardenti. But I old men,
penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth south: tomb womb.
-- Speak up for yourself, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
Sufficient for the Day...
J.J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.
-- My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a
false construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for
the third profession qua profession but your Cork legs are running away with
you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and Edmund
Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod boss, Harmsworth of
the farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery gutter sheet not
to mention Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences and our watchful friend
The Skibereen Eagle. Why bring in a master of forensic eloquence like
Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the newspaper thereof.
Links with Bygone Days of Yore
Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his
face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. Who
have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha!
-- Well, J.J. O'Molloy said, Bushe K. C., for example.
-- Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes. Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it
in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe.
-- He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only
for... But no matter.
J.J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly:
-- One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my
life fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide,
the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him.
And in the porches of mine ear did pour.
By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other
story, beast with two backs?
-- What was that? the professor asked.
Italia, Magistra Artium
-- He spoke on the law of evidence, J.J. O'Molloy said, of Roman
justice as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And he
cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the Vatican.
-- Ha.
-- A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence!
Pause. J.J. O'Molloy took out his cigarette case. False lull. Something
quite ordinary.
Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar.
I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that
it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that
determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.
A Polished Period
J.J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words:
-- He said of it: that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and
terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and
prophecy which if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor has
wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to
live, deserves to live.
His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall.
-- Fine! Myles Crawford said at once.
-- The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said.
-- You like it? J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen.
Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He
took a cigarette from the case. J.J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles
Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy,
saying:
-- Muchibus thankibus.
A Man of High Morale
-- Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J.J. O'Molloy said
to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal hush
poets: A. E. the master mystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. She was a
nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that
you came to him in the small hours of the morning to ask him about planes of
consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is
a man of the very highest morale, Magennis.
Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say
about me? Don't ask.
-- No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarette case aside.
Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I ever
heard was a speech made by John F. Taylor at the college historical society.
Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had spoken and
the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), advocating the
revival of the Irish tongue.
He turned towards Myles Crawford and said:
-- You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his
discourse.
-- He is sitting with Tim Healy, J.J. O'Molloy said, rumour has it, on
the Trinity college estates commission.
-- He is sitting with a sweet thing in a child's frock, Myles Crawford
said. Go on. Well?
-- It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished
orator, full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction, I
will not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely
upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, therefore
worthless.
He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an
outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and ringfinger
touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new focus.
Impromptu
In ferial tone he addressed J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sick bed. That he had
prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one
shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard
round it. He wore a loose neckcloth and altogether he looked (though he was
not) a dying man.
His gaze turned at once but slowly from J.J. O'Molloy's towards
Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His unglazed
linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair.
Still seeking, he said:
-- When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F. Taylor rose to reply.
Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these.
He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more.
Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet.
He began:
-- Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in
listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by
my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a
country far away from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I
stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some
highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses.
His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smoke
ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. And let our crooked
smokes. Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it
yourself?
-- And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian
highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard his
words and their meaning was revealed to me.
From the Fathers
It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are
corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were
good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine.
-- Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our
language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen; we are a mighty people. You
have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our
galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow
the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from primitive
conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a
polity.
Nile.
Child, man, effigy.
By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple
in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.
-- You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and
mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yours
serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and
few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants
and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at our name.
A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it
boldly:
-- But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and
accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and
bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought
the chosen people out of their house of bondage nor followed the pillar of
the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid
lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of
inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the tables of
the law, graven in the language of the outlaw.
He ceased and looked at them, enjoying silence.
Ominous - for Him!
J.J. O'Molloy said not without regret:
-- And yet he died without having entered the land of promise.
-- A sudden - at - the - moment - though - from - lingering - illness -
often - previously - expectorated - demise, Lenehan said. And with a great
future behind him.
The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and
pattering up the staircase.
-- That is oratory, the professor said, uncontradicted.
Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles
of ears of porches. The tribune's words howled and scattered to the four
winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of
all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more
I have money.
-- Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may
I suggest that the house do now adjourn?
-- You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? Mr
O'Madden Burke asked. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug,
metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.
-- That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All who are in favour
say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To which
particular boosing shed?... My casting vote is: Mooney's!
He led the way, admonishing:
-- We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not?
Yes, we will not. By no manner of means.
Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally's lunge of his
umbrella:
-- Lay on, Macduff!
-- Chip of the old block! the editor cried, slapping Stephen on the
shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys?
He fumbled in his pocket, pulling out the crushed typesheets.
-- Foot and mouth. I know. That'll be all right. That'll go
in. Where are they? That's all right.
He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office.
Let Us Hope
J.J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen:
-- I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment.
He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him.
-- Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn't it? It
has the prophetic vision. Fuit Ilium! The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms of
this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today.
The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and
rushed out into the street, yelling:
-- Racing special!
Dublin. I have much, much to learn.
They turned to the left along Abbey street.
-- I have a vision too, Stephen said.
-- Yes, the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will
follow.
Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran:
-- Racing special!
Dear Dirty Dublin
Dubliners.
-- Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived
fifty and fiftythree years in Fumbally's lane.
-- Where is that? the professor asked.
-- Off Blackpitts.
Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistening
tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker,
darlint!
On now. Dare it. Let there be life.
-- They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson's
pillar. They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox.
They shake out the threepenny bits and a sixpence and coax out the pennies
with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in
coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas
for fear it may come on to rain.
-- Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.
Life on the Raw
-- They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf
at the north city dining rooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins,
proprietress... They purchase-our and twenty ripe plums from a girl at the
foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They give two
threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin to waddle slowly
up the winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each other, afraid of the
dark, panting, one asking the other have you the brawn, praising God and the
Blessed Virgin, threatening to come down, peeping at the airslits. Glory be
to God. They had no idea it was that high.
Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the
lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water given her by a lady who got a
bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen and a
bottle of double X for supper every Saturday.
-- Antithesis, the professor said, nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can
see them. What's keeping our friend?
He turned.
A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scampering in all
directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them Myles
Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet face, talking
with J.J. O'Molloy.
-- Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm.
He set off again to walk by Stephen's side.
Return of Bloom
-- Yes, he said. I see them.
-- Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the
offices of the Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal, called:
-- Mr Crawford! A moment!
-- Telegraph! Racing special!
-- What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace. A newsboy
cried in Mr Bloom's face:
-- Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows!
Interview with the Editor
Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps,
puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes just
now. He'll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he'll see. But he
wants a par to call attention in the Telegraph too, the Saturday pink. And
he wants it if it's not too late I told councillor Nannetti from the
Kilkenny People. I can have access to it in the national library. House of
keys, don't you see? His name is Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he
practically promised he'd give the renewal. But he wants just a little puff.
What will I tell him, Mr Crawford?
K. M. A.
Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said, throwing
out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable.
A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm.
Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is that
young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last
time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere.
Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown?
-- Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I
suppose it's worth a short par. He'd give the ad I think. I'll tell him...
-- He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over
his shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him.
While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on
jerkily.
Raising the Wind
-- Nulla bona, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I'm up to
here. I've been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to back
a bill for me no later than last week. You must take the will for the deed.
Sorry, Jack. With a heart and a half if I could raise the wind anyhow.
J. J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught
up on the others and walked abreast.
-- When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty
fingers in the paper the beard was wrapped in, they go nearer to the
railings.
-- Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two
old Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar.
Some Column! - That's What Waddler One Said
-- That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies'
Dargle. Two old trickies, what?
-- But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see
the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines' blue
dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them giddy to
look so they pull up their skirts...
Those Slightly Rambunctious Females
-- Easy all, Myles Crawford said, no poetic licence. We're in the
archdiocese here.
-- And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the
statue of the onehandled adulterer.
-- Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the
idea. I see what you mean.
Dames Donate Dublin's Cits Speedpills Velocitous Aeroliths, Belief
-- It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too
tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between them
and eat the plums out of it one after another, wiping off with their
handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and spitting
the plumstones slowly out between the railings.
He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden
Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's.
-- Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse.
Sophist Wallops Haughty Helen Square on Proboscis. Spartans Gnash
Molars. Ithacans Vow Pen is Champ
-- You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of
Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were
bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a
bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from
Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.
Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.
They made ready to cross O'Connell street.
Hello There, Central!
At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless
trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham,
Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend and Sandymount
Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines, all still, becalmed
in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery waggons, mail-vans, private
broughams, aerated mineral water floats with rattling crates of bottles,
rattled, lolled, horsedrawn, rapidly.
What? - and Likewise - Where?
-- But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get
the plums?
Virgilian, Says Pedagogue. Sophomore Plumps for Old Man Moses
-- Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to
reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: deus nobis hc otia fecit.
-- No, Stephen said, I call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the
Parable of the Plums.
-- I see, the professor said.
He laughed richly.
-- I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land.
We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy.
Horatio is Cynosure this Fair June Day
J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance cowards the statue and held
his peace.
-- I see, the professor said.
He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson
through the meshes of his wry smile.
Diminished Digits Prove Too Titillating for Frisky Frumps. Anne
Wimbles, Flo Wangles - Yet Can You Blame Them?
-- Onehandled adulterer, he said grimly. That tickles me I must say. --
Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's truth
was known.
Ulysses 8: Lestrygonians
PINEAPPLE ROCK, LEMON PLATT, BUTTER SCOTCH. A SUGARSTICKY GIRL
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat.
Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty the
King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne, sucking red jujubes white.
A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.
Heart to heart talks.
Bloo... Me? No.
Blood of the Lamb.
His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druid's altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie, restorer of the
church in Zion, is coming.
Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome.
Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put
the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous
crucifix? Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall,
hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in.
Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the
pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush out.
What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before Rudy
was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the brain.
>From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk.
Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be selling
off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. Lobbing about
waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother goes. Fifteen
children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their theology or the
priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the absolution. Increase
and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat you out of house and home.
No families themselves to feed. Living on the fat of the land. Their
butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do the black fast Yom Kippur.
Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear he'd collapse on the altar. A
housekeeper of one of those fellows If you could pick it out of her. Never
pick it out of her. Like getting L. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No
guests. All for number one. Watching his water. Bring your own bread and
butter. His reverence. Mum's the word.
Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it. Proof
of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.
As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, I
heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the
brewery. Regular w