Ulysses

— I —

[ 1 ]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of

lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow

dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild

morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—_Introibo ad altare Dei_.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about

and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the

awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent

towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat

and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned

his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking

gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light

untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the

bowl smartly.

—Back to barracks! he said sternly.

He added in a preacher’s tone:

—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul

and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One

moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused

awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and

there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles

answered through the calm.

—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off

the current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering

about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and

sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages.

A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,

laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily

halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as

he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and

lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan’s gay voice went on.

—My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a

Hellenic ring, hasn’t it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We

must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out

twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:

—Will he come? The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

—Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

—Yes, my love?

—How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.

—God, isn’t he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks

you’re not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money

and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you

have the real Oxford manner. He can’t make you out. O, my name for you

is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

—He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is

his guncase?

—A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?

—I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark

with a man I don’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a

black panther. You saved men from drowning. I’m not a hero, however. If

he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down

from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

—Scutter! he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen’s upper

pocket, said:

—Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a

dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.

Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:

—The bard’s noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.

You can almost taste it, can’t you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair

oakpale hair stirring slightly.

—God! he said quietly. Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet

mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. _Epi oinopa

ponton_. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them

in the original. _Thalatta! Thalatta!_ She is our great sweet mother.

Come and look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked

down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of

Kingstown.

—Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said.

He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen’s

face.

—The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That’s why she won’t

let me have anything to do with you.

—Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.

—You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother

asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I’m hyperborean as much as you. But to

think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and

pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you....

He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant

smile curled his lips.

—But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest

mummer of them all!

He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against

his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve.

Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently,

in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within

its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood,

her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of

wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a

great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and

skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had

stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had

torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

—Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt

and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?

—They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

—The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God

knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair

stripe, grey. You’ll look spiffing in them. I’m not joking, Kinch. You

look damn well when you’re dressed.

—Thanks, Stephen said. I can’t wear them if they are grey.

—He can’t wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror.

Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can’t wear grey

trousers.

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the

smooth skin.

Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its

smokeblue mobile eyes.

—That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan,

says you have g. p. i. He’s up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman.

General paralysis of the insane!

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings

abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips

laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized

all his strong wellknit trunk.

—Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by

a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this

face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

—I pinched it out of the skivvy’s room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her

all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi.

Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen’s peering eyes.

—The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If

Wilde were only alive to see you!

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

—It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.

Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen’s and walked with him

round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he

had thrust them.

—It’s not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly.

God knows you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The

cold steel pen.

—Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap

downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He’s stinking with money and

thinks you’re not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling

jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and

I could only work together we might do something for the island.

Hellenise it.

Cranly’s arm. His arm.

—And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I’m the only one

that knows what you are. Why don’t you trust me more? What have you up

your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I’ll

bring down Seymour and we’ll give him a ragging worse than they gave

Clive Kempthorpe.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe’s rooms. Palefaces:

they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall

expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit

ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the

table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the

tailor’s shears. A scared calf’s face gilded with marmalade. I don’t

want to be debagged! Don’t you play the giddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf

gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold’s face, pushes his mower

on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.

To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.

—Let him stay, Stephen said. There’s nothing wrong with him except at

night.

—Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I’m

quite frank with you. What have you against me now?

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on

the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm

quietly.

—Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.

—Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don’t remember anything.

He looked in Stephen’s face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,

fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of

anxiety in his eyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

—Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother’s

death?

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

—What? Where? I can’t remember anything. I remember only ideas and

sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?

—You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to get

more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the

drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room.

—Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.

—You said, Stephen answered, _O, it’s only Dedalus whose mother is

beastly dead._

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck

Mulligan’s cheek.

—Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?

He shook his constraint from him nervously.

—And what is death, he asked, your mother’s or yours or my own? You saw

only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and

Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It’s a beastly

thing and nothing else. It simply doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t kneel

down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why?

Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it’s injected

the wrong way. To me it’s all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes

are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks

buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it’s over. You crossed her

last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don’t whinge like

some hired mute from Lalouette’s. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I

didn’t mean to offend the memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping

wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:

—I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.

—Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.

—Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

—O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.

He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post,

gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now

grew dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he

felt the fever of his cheeks.

A voice within the tower called loudly:

—Are you up there, Mulligan?

—I’m coming, Buck Mulligan answered.

He turned towards Stephen and said:

—Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola,

Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.

His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level

with the roof:

—Don’t mope over it all day, he said. I’m inconsequent. Give up the

moody brooding.

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of

the stairhead:

And no more turn aside and brood

Upon love’s bitter mystery

For Fergus rules the brazen cars.

Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the

stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of

water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the

dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the

harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words

shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in

deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’

song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords.

Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and

pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For

those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk,

a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the

sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing

in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he

sang:

I am the boy

That can enjoy

Invisibility.

Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

And no more turn aside and brood.

Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his

brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had

approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar,

roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely

fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children’s

shirts.

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its

loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,

bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On

me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the

tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all

prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. _Liliata

rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum

chorus excipiat._

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No, mother! Let me be and let me live.

—Kinch ahoy!

Buck Mulligan’s voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the

staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul’s cry,

heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

—Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is

apologising for waking us last night. It’s all right.

—I’m coming, Stephen said, turning.

—Do, for Jesus’ sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our

sakes.

His head disappeared and reappeared.

—I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it’s very clever. Touch

him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.

—I get paid this morning, Stephen said.

—The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.

—If you want it, Stephen said.

—Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We’ll have

a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent

sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of

tune with a Cockney accent:

O, won’t we have a merry time,

Drinking whisky, beer and wine!

On coronation,

Coronation day!

O, won’t we have a merry time

On coronation day!

Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone,

forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it

there all day, forgotten friendship?

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,

smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck.

So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now

and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan’s gowned form

moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its

yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor

from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of

coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.

—We’ll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the

hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open

the inner doors.

—Have you the key? a voice asked.

—Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I’m choked!

He howled, without looking up from the fire:

—Kinch!

—It’s in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been

set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the

doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and

sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside

him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set

them down heavily and sighed with relief.

—I’m melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a

word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey.

Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy

gifts. Where’s the sugar? O, jay, there’s no milk.

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from

the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

—What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

—We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There’s a lemon in the

locker.

—O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove

milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

—That woman is coming up with the milk.

—The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his

chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here,

I can’t go fumbling at the damned eggs.

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three

plates, saying:

—_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti._

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

—I’m giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do

make strong tea, don’t you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old

woman’s wheedling voice:

—When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I

makes water I makes water.

—By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:

—_So I do, Mrs Cahill,_ says she. _Begob, ma’am,_ says Mrs Cahill, _God

send you don’t make them in the one pot._

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled

on his knife.

—That’s folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines

of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of

Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his

brows:

—Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan’s tea and water pot spoken

of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?

—I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.

—Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?

—I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the

Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

Buck Mulligan’s face smiled with delight.

—Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth

and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened

rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:

_—For old Mary Ann

She doesn’t care a damn.

But, hising up her petticoats..._

He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

—The milk, sir!

—Come in, ma’am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen’s elbow.

—That’s a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.

—To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure!

Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

—The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of

the collector of prepuces.

—How much, sir? asked the old woman.

—A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white

milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a

tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a

messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out.

Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on

her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They

lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and

poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly

form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their

common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to

upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.

—It is indeed, ma’am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

—Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.

—If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat

loudly, we wouldn’t have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten

guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved

with dust, horsedung and consumptives’ spits.

—Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

—I am, ma’am, Buck Mulligan answered.

—Look at that now, she said.

Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice

that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she

slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there

is of her but her woman’s unclean loins, of man’s flesh made not in

God’s likeness, the serpent’s prey. And to the loud voice that now bids

her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.

—Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.

—Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.

Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.

—Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?

—I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the

west, sir?

—I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

—He’s English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak

Irish in Ireland.

—Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I’m ashamed I don’t speak

the language myself. I’m told it’s a grand language by them that knows.

—Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill

us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma’am?

—No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the

milkcan on her forearm and about to go.

Haines said to her:

—Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn’t we?

Stephen filled again the three cups.

—Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it’s seven mornings a pint at

twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three

mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That’s a

shilling and one and two is two and two, sir.

Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly

buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search

his trouser pockets.

—Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling.

Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the

thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in

his fingers and cried:

—A miracle!

He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:

—Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give.

Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand.

—We’ll owe twopence, he said.

—Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good

morning, sir.

She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan’s tender chant:

_—Heart of my heart, were it more,

More would be laid at your feet._

He turned to Stephen and said:

—Seriously, Dedalus. I’m stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring

us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland

expects that every man this day will do his duty.

—That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your

national library today.

—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.

He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:

—Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?

Then he said to Haines:

—The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.

—All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey

trickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the

loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:

—I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.

Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit.

Conscience. Yet here’s a spot.

—That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol

of Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen’s foot under the table and said with

warmth of tone:

—Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

—Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just

thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.

—Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked.

Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of

the hammock, said:

—I don’t know, I’m sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen

and said with coarse vigour:

—You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?

—Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the

milkwoman or from him. It’s a toss up, I think.

—I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along

with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.

—I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen’s arm.

—From me, Kinch, he said.

In a suddenly changed tone he added:

—To tell you the God’s truth I think you’re right. Damn all else they

are good for. Why don’t you play them as I do? To hell with them all.

Let us get out of the kip.

He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying

resignedly:

—Mulligan is stripped of his garments.

He emptied his pockets on to the table.

—There’s your snotrag, he said.

And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them,

chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and

rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God,

we’ll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green

boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I

contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of

his talking hands.

—And there’s your Latin quarter hat, he said.

Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the

doorway:

—Are you coming, you fellows?

—I’m ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out,

Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out

with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:

—And going forth he met Butterly.

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out

and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and

locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket.

At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:

—Did you bring the key?

—I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.

He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy

bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.

—Down, sir! How dare you, sir!

Haines asked:

—Do you pay rent for this tower?

—Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.

—To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder.

They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:

—Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?

—Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on

the sea. But ours is the _omphalos_.

—What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.

—No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I’m not equal to Thomas Aquinas

and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I

have a few pints in me first.

He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his

primrose waistcoat:

—You couldn’t manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?

—It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.

—You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?

—Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.

It’s quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is

Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own

father.

—What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?

Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in

loose laughter, said to Stephen’s ear:

—O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!

—We’re always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is

rather long to tell.

Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.

—The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.

—I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this

tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. _That

beetles o’er his base into the sea,_ isn’t it?

Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did

not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in

cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires.

—It’s a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.

Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.

The seas’ ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the

smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail

tacking by the Muglins.

—I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused.

The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the

Father.

Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked

at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had

suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved

a doll’s head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and

began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:

_—I’m the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.

My mother’s a jew, my father’s a bird.

With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree.

So here’s to disciples and Calvary._

He held up a forefinger of warning.

_—If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine

He’ll get no free drinks when I’m making the wine

But have to drink water and wish it were plain

That I make when the wine becomes water again._

He tugged swiftly at Stephen’s ashplant in farewell and, running

forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like

fins or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:

_—Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said

And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.

What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly

And Olivet’s breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye!_

He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his

winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury’s hat quivering in the fresh

wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and

said:

—We oughtn’t to laugh, I suppose. He’s rather blasphemous. I’m not a

believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of

it somehow, doesn’t it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?

—The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered.

—O, Haines said, you have heard it before?

—Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.

—You’re not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in

the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a

personal God.

—There’s only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.

Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a

green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.

—Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.

Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his

sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang

it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk

towards Stephen in the shell of his hands.

—Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or

you don’t, isn’t it? Personally I couldn’t stomach that idea of a

personal God. You don’t stand for that, I suppose?

—You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible

example of free thought.

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his

side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels.

My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line

along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark.

He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt

bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his

eyes.

—After all, Haines began...

Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was

not all unkind.

—After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your

own master, it seems to me.

—I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an

Italian.

—Italian? Haines said.

A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.

—And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.

—Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?

—The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and

the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he

spoke.

—I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think

like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you

rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen’s memory the triumph of

their brazen bells: _et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam

ecclesiam:_ the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own

rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass

for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in

affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church

militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies

fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of whom

Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the

consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning

Christ’s terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who

held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken

a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void

awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a

worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael’s host, who

defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their

shields.

Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. _Zut! Nom de Dieu!_

—Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’s voice said, and I feel as one. I

don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.

That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman,

boatman.

—She’s making for Bullock harbour.

The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.

—There’s five fathoms out there, he said. It’ll be swept up that way

when the tide comes in about one. It’s nine days today.

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting

for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face,

saltwhite. Here I am.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood

on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his

shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly

frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly of the water.

—Is the brother with you, Malachi?

—Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons.

—Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young

thing down there. Photo girl he calls her.

—Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near

the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones,

water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water

rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black

sagging loincloth.

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines

and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and

lips and breastbone.

—Seymour’s back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of

rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.

—Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said.

—Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?

—Yes.

—Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with

money.

—Is she up the pole?

—Better ask Seymour that.

—Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said.

He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying

tritely:

—Redheaded women buck like goats.

He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.

—My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I’m the _Übermensch._ Toothless

Kinch and I, the supermen.

He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his

clothes lay.

—Are you going in here, Malachi?

—Yes. Make room in the bed.

The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the

middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a

stone, smoking.

—Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.

—Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast.

Stephen turned away.

—I’m going, Mulligan, he said.

—Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped

clothes.

—And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.

Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck

Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:

—He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake

Zarathustra.

His plump body plunged.

—We’ll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the

path and smiling at wild Irish.

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.

—The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.

—Good, Stephen said.

He walked along the upwardcurving path.

Liliata rutilantium.

Turma circumdet.

Iubilantium te virginum.

The priest’s grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will

not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.

A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning

the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a

seal’s, far out on the water, round.

Usurper.

[ 2 ]

—You, Cochrane, what city sent for him?

—Tarentum, sir.

—Very good. Well?

—There was a battle, sir.

—Very good. Where?

The boy’s blank face asked the blank window.

Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as

memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings

of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling

masonry, and time one livid final flame. What’s left us then?

—I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C.

—Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the

gorescarred book.

—Yes, sir. And he said: _Another victory like that and we are done

for._

That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a

hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers,

leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear.

—You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?

—End of Pyrrhus, sir?

—I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.

—Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?

A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong’s satchel. He curled them

between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered

to the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy’s breath. Welloff people,

proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey.

—Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round

at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh

more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay.

—Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy’s shoulder with the book,

what is a pier.

—A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a

bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.

Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench

whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent.

All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their

likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets

tittering in the struggle.

—Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.

The words troubled their gaze.

—How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river.

For Haines’s chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild

drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A

jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a

clement master’s praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly

for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other

too often heard, their land a pawnshop.

Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam’s hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not

been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has branded

them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite

possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing

that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass?

Weave, weaver of the wind.

—Tell us a story, sir.

—O, do, sir. A ghoststory.

—Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.

—_Weep no more,_ Comyn said.

—Go on then, Talbot.

—And the story, sir?

—After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.

A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork

of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:

_—Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor..._

It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible.

Aristotle’s phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated

out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where

he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his

elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding

brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating

feelers: and in my mind’s darkness a sloth of the underworld,

reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought

is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner

all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast,

candescent: form of forms.

Talbot repeated:

_—Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,

Through the dear might..._

—Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don’t see anything.

—What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.

His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again, having

just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these

craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer’s heart and lips and

on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the

tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s. A long look

from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the

church’s looms. Ay.

Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro.

My father gave me seeds to sow.

Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel.

—Have I heard all? Stephen asked.

—Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir.

—Half day, sir. Thursday.

—Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked.

They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling.

Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all

gabbling gaily:

—A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.

—O, ask me, sir.

—A hard one, sir.

—This is the riddle, Stephen said:

The cock crew,

The sky was blue:

The bells in heaven

Were striking eleven.

’Tis time for this poor soul

To go to heaven.

What is that?

—What, sir?

—Again, sir. We didn’t hear.

Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence

Cochrane said:

—What is it, sir? We give it up.

Stephen, his throat itching, answered:

—The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.

He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries

echoed dismay.

A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:

—Hockey!

They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly

they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and

clamour of their boots and tongues.

Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open

copybook. His tangled hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness

and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his

cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent

and damp as a snail’s bed.

He held out his copybook. The word _Sums_ was written on the headline.

Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with

blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

—Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them

to you, sir.

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.

—Do you understand how to do them now? he asked.

—Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to

copy them off the board, sir.

—Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked.

—No, sir.

Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a

snail’s bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in

her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him

underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery

blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in

life? His mother’s prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal

bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in

the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from

being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor

soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red

reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the

earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped.

Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by

algebra that Shakespeare’s ghost is Hamlet’s grandfather. Sargent

peered askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the

lumberroom: the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field.

Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of

their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands,

traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from

the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and

movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the

world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not

comprehend.

—Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself?

—Yes, sir.

In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a

word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint

hue of shame flickering behind his dull skin. _Amor matris:_ subjective

and objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had

fed him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands.

Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My

childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or

lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony

sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their

tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned.

The sum was done.

—It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up.

—Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered.

He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his

copybook back to his bench.

—You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said

as he followed towards the door the boy’s graceless form.

—Yes, sir.

In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield.

—Sargent!

—Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you.

He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy

field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and

Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet.

When he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to

him. He turned his angry white moustache.

—What is it now? he cried continually without listening.

—Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said.

—Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore

order here.

And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man’s voice

cried sternly:

—What is the matter? What is it now?

Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms

closed round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his

illdyed head.

Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded

leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here.

As it was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart

coins, base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their

spooncase of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached

to all the gentiles: world without end.

A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his

rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.

—First, our little financial settlement, he said.

He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It

slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and

laid them carefully on the table.

—Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.

And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen’s embarrassed hand moved

over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money

cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir’s turban, and

this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim’s hoard, dead

treasure, hollow shells.

A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.

—Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand.

These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is

for shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See.

He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.

—Three twelve, he said. I think you’ll find that’s right.

—Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy

haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.

—No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.

Stephen’s hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too

of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket: symbols soiled by greed

and misery.

—Don’t carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You’ll pull it out somewhere

and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You’ll find them very

handy.

Answer something.

—Mine would be often empty, Stephen said.

The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times

now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this instant

if I will.

—Because you don’t save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don’t

know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as

I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare

say? _Put but money in thy purse._

—Iago, Stephen murmured.

He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man’s stare.

—He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but

an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you

know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman’s

mouth?

The seas’ ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it seems

history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating.

—That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets.

—Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That’s not English. A French Celt said that. He

tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.

—I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. _I paid

my way._

Good man, good man.

_—I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life._ Can you feel

that? _I owe nothing._ Can you?

Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties.

Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings.

Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob

Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five

weeks’ board. The lump I have is useless.

—For the moment, no, Stephen answered.

Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox.

—I knew you couldn’t, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it.

We are a generous people but we must also be just.

—I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the

shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs: Albert Edward, prince of

Wales.

—You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said.

I saw three generations since O’Connell’s time. I remember the famine

in ’46. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the

union twenty years before O’Connell did or before the prelates of your

communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.

Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the

splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the

planters’ covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie

down.

Stephen sketched a brief gesture.

—I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But

I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are

all Irish, all kings’ sons.

—Alas, Stephen said.

—_Per vias rectas_, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for

it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to

do so.

Lal the ral the ra

The rocky road to Dublin.

A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John!

Soft day, your honour!... Day!... Day!... Two topboots jog dangling on

to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy.

—That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus,

with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press.

Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end.

He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read

off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.

—Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, _the dictates of

common sense._ Just a moment.

He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow

and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly,

sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.

Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed

around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek

heads poised in air: lord Hastings’ _Repulse_, the duke of

Westminster’s _Shotover_, the duke of Beaufort’s _Ceylon_, _prix de

Paris_, 1866. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their

speeds, backing king’s colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished

crowds.

—Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. _But prompt ventilation of this

allimportant question..._

Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the

mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek

of the canteen, over the motley slush. Even money _Fair Rebel._ Ten to

one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs,

the vying caps and jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher’s

dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.

Shouts rang shrill from the boys’ playfield and a whirring whistle.

Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a

medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother’s darling

who seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock

by shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of

the slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men’s bloodied guts.

—Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.

He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up.

—I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It’s about the

foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two

opinions on the matter.

May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of _laissez faire_

which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old

industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme.

European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the

channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of

agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who

was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue.

—I don’t mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on.

Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch’s preparation. Serum and virus.

Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor’s horses at Mürzsteg,

lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous

offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In

every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for

the hospitality of your columns.

—I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the

next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be

cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is

regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They

offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with the

department. Now I’m going to try publicity. I am surrounded by

difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairs influence by...

He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.

—Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the

jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are

the signs of a nation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the

nation’s vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as

we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of

destruction. Old England is dying.

He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a

broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again.

—Dying, he said again, if not dead by now.

The harlot’s cry from street to street

Shall weave old England’s windingsheet.

His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which

he halted.

—A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or

gentile, is he not?

—They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see

the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the

earth to this day.

On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting

prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud,

uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit

silk hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures.

Their full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and

unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them and knew their

zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would

scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on.

Their eyes knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the

dishonours of their flesh.

—Who has not? Stephen said.

—What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.

He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell

sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from

me.

—History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.

What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?

—The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human

history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

—That is God.

Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

—What? Mr Deasy asked.

—A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose tweaked

between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free.

—I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and

many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no

better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten

years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the

strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough’s wife and her leman,

O’Rourke, prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many

errors, many failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the

end of my days. But I will fight for the right till the end.

For Ulster will fight

And Ulster will be right.

Stephen raised the sheets in his hand.

—Well, sir, he began.

—I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at

this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am

wrong.

—A learner rather, Stephen said.

And here what will you learn more?

Mr Deasy shook his head.

—Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great

teacher.

Stephen rustled the sheets again.

—As regards these, he began.

—Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them

published at once.

_ Telegraph. Irish Homestead._

—I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two

editors slightly.

—That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field,

M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders’ association today at the

City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You

see if you can get it into your two papers. What are they?

_—The Evening Telegraph..._

—That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to

answer that letter from my cousin.

—Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket.

Thank you.

—Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I

like to break a lance with you, old as I am.

—Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back.

He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees,

hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The

lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate:

toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will

dub me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard.

—Mr Dedalus!

Running after me. No more letters, I hope.

—Just one moment.

—Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.

Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.

—I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of

being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know

that? No. And do you know why?

He frowned sternly on the bright air.

—Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

—Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a

rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing,

his lifted arms waving to the air.

—She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he

stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That’s why.

On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung

spangles, dancing coins.

[ 3 ]

Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought

through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn

and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver,

rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies.

Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By

knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a

millionaire, _maestro di color che sanno_. Limit of the diaphane in.

Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through

it it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.

Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and

shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a

time. A very short space of time through very short times of space.

Five, six: the _nacheinander_. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable

modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a

cliff that beetles o’er his base, fell through the _nebeneinander_

ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at

my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends

of his legs, _nebeneinander_. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of _Los

Demiurgos_. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush,

crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a’.

Won’t you come to Sandymount,

Madeline the mare?

Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs

marching. No, agallop: _deline the mare_.

Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I

open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. _Basta!_ I will see if I

can see.

See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world

without end.

They came down the steps from Leahy’s terrace prudently,

_Frauenzimmer_: and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed

feet sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our

mighty mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife’s bag, the other’s

gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs

Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of

Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life.

Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a

trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back,

strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you

be as gods? Gaze in your _omphalos_. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to

Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.

Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel.

Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no,

whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to

everlasting. Womb of sin.

Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man

with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath.

They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will. From before the ages

He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A _lex eterna_ stays

about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are

consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring

his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred

heresiarch! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: _euthanasia_.

With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of

a widowed see, with upstiffed _omophorion_, with clotted hinderparts.

Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves.

The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of

Mananaan.

I mustn’t forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half

twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile.

Yes, I must.

His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara’s or not? My

consubstantial father’s voice. Did you see anything of your artist

brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he’s not down in Strasburg terrace

with his aunt Sally? Couldn’t he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And

and and and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the

things I married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little

costdrawer and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable

gondoliers! And skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes,

sir. No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ!

I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take

me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.

—It’s Stephen, sir.

—Let him in. Let Stephen in.

A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me.

—We thought you were someone else.

In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over

the hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed

the upper moiety.

—Morrow, nephew.

He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the

eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and

common searches and a writ of _Duces Tecum_. A bogoak frame over his

bald head: Wilde’s _Requiescat_. The drone of his misleading whistle

brings Walter back.

—Yes, sir?

—Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she?

—Bathing Crissie, sir.

Papa’s little bedpal. Lump of love.

—No, uncle Richie...

—Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky!

—Uncle Richie, really...

—Sit down or by the law Harry I’ll knock you down.

Walter squints vainly for a chair.

—He has nothing to sit down on, sir.

—He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair.

Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs

here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the

better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills.

_All’erta!_

He drones bars of Ferrando’s _aria di sortita_. The grandest number,

Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen.

His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the

air, his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees.

This wind is sweeter.

Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you

had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of

them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh’s

library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For

whom? The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his

kind ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the

moon, his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine

faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas father,

furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! _Descende,

calve, ut ne nimium decalveris_. A garland of grey hair on his

comminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace

(_descende!_), clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down,

baldpoll! A choir gives back menace and echo, assisting about the

altar’s horns, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their

albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of

wheat.

And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating

it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx.

Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own

cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that,

invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled

his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his

second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and,

rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang

in diphthong.

Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were

awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you

might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue

that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from

the wet street. _O si, certo!_ Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags

pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth

tram alone crying to the rain: _Naked women! Naked women!_ What about

that, eh?

What about what? What else were they invented for?

Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young.

You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause

earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one

saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for

titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is

wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval

leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great

libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them

there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della

Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange

pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who

once...

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a

damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the

unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada.

Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing

upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a

midden of man’s ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle

stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel:

isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze

of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the

higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams

of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.

He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara’s. Am I not going there?

Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer

sand towards the Pigeonhouse.

_—Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?_

_—C’est le pigeon, Joseph._

Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar

MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father’s a

bird, he lapped the sweet _lait chaud_ with pink young tongue, plump

bunny’s face. Lap, _lapin._ He hopes to win in the _gros lots_. About

the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me _La Vie de

Jésus_ by M. Léo Taxil. Lent it to his friend.

_—C’est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas

en l’existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père._

_—Il croit?_

_—Mon père, oui._

_Schluss_. He laps.

My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want

puce gloves. You were a student, weren’t you? Of what in the other

devil’s name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: _physiques, chimiques et

naturelles_. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of _mou en civet_, fleshpots

of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural

tone: when I was in Paris; _boul’ Mich’_, I used to. Yes, used to carry

punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder

somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904

the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me.

Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. _Lui, c’est moi_. You seem to have enjoyed

yourself.

Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a

dispossessed. With mother’s money order, eight shillings, the banging

door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger

toothache. _Encore deux minutes_. Look clock. Must get. _Fermé_. Hired

dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered

walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not

hurt? O, that’s all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O,

that’s all right. Shake a shake. O, that’s all only all right.

You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery

Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt

from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: _Euge! Euge!_ Pretending to

speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence,

across the slimy pier at Newhaven. _Comment?_ Rich booty you brought

back; _Le Tutu_, five tattered numbers of _Pantalon Blanc et Culotte

Rouge_; a blue French telegram, curiosity to show:

—Mother dying come home father.

The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That’s why she won’t.

Then here’s a health to Mulligan’s aunt

And I’ll tell you the reason why.

She always kept things decent in

The Hannigan famileye.

His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by

the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone

mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is

there, the slender trees, the lemon houses.

Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of

farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the

air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife, the

kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In

Rodot’s Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering

with gold teeth _chaussons_ of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the

_pus_ of _flan bréton_. Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased

pleasers, curled conquistadores.

Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers

smeared with printer’s ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his

white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. _Un demi

sétier!_ A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves

me at his beck. _Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux

irlandais, nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui!_ She thought you wanted a

cheese _hollandais_. Your postprandial, do you know that word?

Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer

fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well: _slainte!_ Around the

slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His

breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy’s fang

thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes,

conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of

men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You’re

your father’s son. I know the voice. His fustian shirt,

sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his secrets. M.

Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen

Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. _Vieille ogresse_ with the

_dents jaunes_. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, _La Patrie_, M. Millevoye,

Félix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, _bonne à

tout faire_, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. _Moi

faire_, she said, _Tous les messieurs_. Not this _Monsieur_, I said.

Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn’t let my

brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, I

see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.

The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose

tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw

facebones under his peep of day boy’s hat. How the head centre got

away, authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil,

orangeblossoms, drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost

leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not

here.

Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell

you. I’ll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her

love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under

the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl

them upward in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay

Paree he hides, Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his

day’s stations, the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the

Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutte-d’Or,

damascened with flyblown faces of the gone. Loveless, landless,

wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy without her outcast man, madame in

rue Gît-le-Cœur, canary and two buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra

skirt, frisky as a young thing’s. Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat

you saw me, won’t you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. _Mon

fils_, soldier of France. I taught him to sing _The boys of Kilkenny

are stout roaring blades_. Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that.

Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow’s castle on the Nore. Goes like

this. _O, O_. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand.

O, O the boys of

Kilkenny...

Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them.

Remembering thee, O Sion.

He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots.

The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of

seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship,

am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the

quaking soil. Turn back.

Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in

new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the

barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet

are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk,

nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait,

their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned

platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when

this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their blind

bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted

his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take

all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon’s

midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing

Elsinore’s tempting flood.

The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back

then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge

and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a

grike.

A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the

gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. _Un coche ensablé_ Louis Veuillot

called Gautier’s prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind

have silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren

of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and

stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout’s toys. Mind you don’t get one bang

on the ear. I’m the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well

boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz

odz an Iridzman.

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.

Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be

master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From

farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures,

two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes.

Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?

Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their

bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings,

torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the

collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon,

spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework

city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers’ knives,

running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague

and slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved

among them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the

spluttering resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me.

The dog’s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I

just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. _Terribilia meditans_. A

primrose doublet, fortune’s knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you

pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The

Bruce’s brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck,

York’s false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a

day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion

crowned. All kings’ sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved

men from drowning and you shake at a cur’s yelping. But the courtiers

who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of...

We don’t want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what

he did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. _Natürlich_, put there for

you. Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago

off Maiden’s rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it

out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water

cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can’t

see! Who’s behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing

quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly,

shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still

to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me

out of horror of his death. I... With him together down... I could not

save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.

A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet.

Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on

all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made

off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a

lowskimming gull. The man’s shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He

turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a

field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of

the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout

lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented

towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth,

breaking, plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves.

Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping,

soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped

running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again

reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them

as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting

from his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped

off at a calf’s gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped,

sniffed, stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it,

sniffling rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog’s bedraggled fell.

Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah,

poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody’s body.

—Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!

The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless

kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He

slunk back in a curve. Doesn’t see me. Along by the edge of the mole he

lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed

against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed

quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His

hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved.

Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand,

dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand

again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in

spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway.

Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That

man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against

my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come.

Red carpet spread. You will see who.

Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet

out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler

strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the

ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand

and shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair

trailed. Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When

night hides her body’s flaws calling under her brown shawl from an

archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal

Dublins in O’Loughlin’s of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues’ rum

lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend’s whiteness under her

rancid rags. Fumbally’s lane that night: the tanyard smells.

White thy fambles, red thy gan

And thy quarrons dainty is.

Couch a hogshead with me then.

In the darkmans clip and kiss.

Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, _frate porcospino_.

Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: _thy quarrons

dainty is_. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads

jabber on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their

pockets.

Passing now.

A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I

am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun’s

flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges,

schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering,

moondrawn, in her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not

mine, _oinopa ponton_, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon.

In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed,

childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. He

comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying

the sea, mouth to her mouth’s kiss.

Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.

No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth’s kiss.

His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb.

Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched:

ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring

wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy’s

letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off.

Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and

scribbled words. That’s twice I forgot to take slips from the library

counter.

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till

the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness

shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there

with his augur’s rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid

sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth

stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it

back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here?

Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white

field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of

Cloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space

with coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a

flat: yes, that’s right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far,

flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in

stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is

in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our

sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the

more.

She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue

hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality

of the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at

Hodges Figgis’ window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet

books you were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through

the braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a

grief and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else,

Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders

and yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple

dumplings, _piuttosto_. Where are your wits?

Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me

soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone.

Sad too. Touch, touch me.

He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the

scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his

eyes. That is Kevin Egan’s movement I made, nodding for his nap,

sabbath sleep. _Et vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona_. Alo! _Bonjour_.

Welcome as the flowers in May. Under its leaf he watched through

peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. I am caught in this burning

scene. Pan’s hour, the faunal noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants,

milkoozing fruits, where on the tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is

far.

And no more turn aside and brood.

His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck’s castoffs,

_nebeneinander_. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein

another’s foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in

tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt’s

shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. _Tiens, quel petit pied!_

Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde’s love that dare not speak its

name. His arm: Cranly’s arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I

am. As I am. All or not at all.

In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering

greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float

away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the

low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a

fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of

waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it

slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech

ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower

unfurling.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and

sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water

swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night:

lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to,

they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting,

awaiting the fullness of their times, _diebus ac noctibus iniurias

patiens ingemiscit_. To no end gathered; vainly then released,

forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of

lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws

a toil of waters.

Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he

said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a

loose drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse

rising saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise

landward. There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath

the watery floor. We have him. Easy now.

Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a

spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God

becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed

mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a

urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes

upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to

the sun.

A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths

known to man. Old Father Ocean. _Prix de Paris_: beware of imitations.

Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?

Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect,

_Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum_. No. My cockle hat and staff and

hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.

He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying

still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make

their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest day.

Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn

Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Già_. For the old hag with the yellow teeth.

And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Già_. My teeth are very

bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to

a dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch,

the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps?

My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?

His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn’t. Better buy one.

He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,

carefully. For the rest let look who will.

Behind. Perhaps there is someone.

He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the

air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the

crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.

— II —

[ 4 ]

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.

He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart,

liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he

liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of

faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting

her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the

kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him

feel a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn’t like

her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off

the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat,

its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked

stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

—Mkgnao!

—O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the

table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch

my head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see:

the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her

tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his

knees.

—Milk for the pussens, he said.

—Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we

understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too.

Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder

what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

—Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the

chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

—Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively

and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits

narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to

the dresser, took the jug Hanlon’s milkman had just filled for him,

poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.

—Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped

three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they

can’t mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or

kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with

this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for

a mutton kidney at Buckley’s. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper.

Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz’s. While the kettle is boiling. She

lapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so

rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced

round him. No.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by

the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter

she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.

He said softly in the bare hall:

—I’m going round the corner. Be back in a minute.

And when he had heard his voice say it he added:

—You don’t want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered:

—Mn.

No. She didn’t want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,

as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled.

Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar.

Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for

it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor’s auction.

Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At

Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I’m proud of it. Still

he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was

farseeing.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat

and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback

pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do.

The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto’s

high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White

slip of paper. Quite safe.

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.

In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky

wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He

pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf

dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right

till I come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number

seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be a

warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black

conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go in

that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as

he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays our

daily but she prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.

Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at

dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him.

Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a

strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker

too, old Tweedy’s big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear.

Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of

carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking

a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented

with fennel, sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two.

Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among

the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees,

signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches

me from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark

language. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet,

colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of

those instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass.

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track

of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself.

What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_

leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway

behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch

that: homerule sun rising up in the northwest.

He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up the

flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out

whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the

end of the city traffic. For instance M’Auley’s down there: n. g. as

position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular

from the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot.

Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an

ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my

bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching

the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him

off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I’m going to

tell you? What’s that, Mr O’Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians,

they’d only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese.

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor

Dignam, Mr O’Rourke.

Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the

doorway:

—Good day, Mr O’Rourke.

—Good day to you.

—Lovely weather, sir.

—’Tis all that.

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the

county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and

behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think

of the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin

without passing a pub. Save it they can’t. Off the drunks perhaps. Put

down three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs

and drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with

the town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we’ll split the

job, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels

of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint

Joseph’s National school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps

memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee

doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At

their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom.

He halted before Dlugacz’s window, staring at the hanks of sausages,

polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened

in his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links,

packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the

lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs’ blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He

stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too,

calling the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a

pound and a half of Denny’s sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous

hips. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New

blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on

the clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked

skirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with

blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at

Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter

sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round

it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting:

read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page

rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the

beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the

breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a

palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one, unpeeled

switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his

senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt

swinging, whack by whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime

sausages and made a red grimace.

—Now, my miss, he said.

She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.

—Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,

please?

Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went

slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the

morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood

outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He

sighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted

toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. The

sting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For

another: a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles’ Lane. They like

them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I’m lost in the

wood.

—Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.

Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers’ pocket and laid them

on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid,

disc by disc, into the till.

—Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze

after an instant. No: better not: another time.

—Good morning, he said, moving away.

—Good morning, sir.

No sign. Gone. What matter?

He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:

planters’ company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish

government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel

and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa.

You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with

olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need

artificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your

name entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten

down and the balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34,

Berlin, W. 15.

Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.

He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered

olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in

jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out.

Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates.

Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin’s parade. And

Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in

Citron’s basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand,

lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet,

wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high

prices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant

old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain,

Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside

at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them

barefoot in soiled dungarees. There’s whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do

you? Doesn’t see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back

is like that Norwegian captain’s. Wonder if I’ll meet him today.

Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far.

No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead

sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift

those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called

it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All

dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore

the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy’s,

clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far

away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying,

being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more.

Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken cunt of the world.

Desolation.

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he

turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his

veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I

am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong

side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow’s exercises. On the

hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why

is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North,

MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore

eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling

butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim

sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a

girl with gold hair on the wind.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered

them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand.

Mrs Marion.

—Poldy!

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm

yellow twilight towards her tousled head.

—Who are the letters for?

He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.

—A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And

a letter for you.

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of

her knees.

—Do you want the blind up?

Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her

glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.

—That do? he asked, turning.

She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.

—She got the things, she said.

He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back

slowly with a snug sigh.

—Hurry up with that tea, she said. I’m parched.

—The kettle is boiling, he said.

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled

linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:

—Poldy!

—What?

—Scald the teapot.

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded

and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting

the kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took

off the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the

lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat

mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won’t mouse. Say

they won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall

to her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper.

He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup.

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:

new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan’s

seaside girls.

The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby,

smiling. Silly Milly’s birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, wait:

four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of

folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.

O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling.

You are my lookingglass from night to morning.

I’d rather have you without a farthing

Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.

Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous

old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And

the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the

parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All we

laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the

teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?

Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it

upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it

on the chair by the bedhead.

—What a time you were! she said.

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on

the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large

soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. The

warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance

of the tea she poured.

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the

act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

—Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

—O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme.

—What are you singing?

—_Là ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love’s Old Sweet Song_.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves

next day. Like foul flowerwater.

—Would you like the window open a little?

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

—What time is the funeral?

—Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper.

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled

drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a

stocking: rumpled, shiny sole.

—No: that book.

Other stocking. Her petticoat.

—It must have fell down, she said.

He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she pronounces

that right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped

and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of

the orangekeyed chamberpot.

—Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I wanted to

ask you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and,

having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the

text with the hairpin till she reached the word.

—Met him what? he asked.

—Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail.

—Metempsychosis?

—Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home?

—Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It’s Greek: from the Greek. That

means the transmigration of souls.

—O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes.

The first night after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn. He turned over the

smudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. Hello. Illustration.

Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the

floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flung

his victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Doped

animals. Trapeze at Hengler’s. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping.

Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them

young so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That

a man’s soul after he dies. Dignam’s soul...

—Did you finish it? he asked.

—Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the

first fellow all the time?

—Never read it. Do you want another?

—Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has.

She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways.

Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they’ll write to

Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that’s the word.

—Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body

after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we

all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other

planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their

past lives.

The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better

remind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An

example?

The _Bath of the Nymph_ over the bed. Given away with the Easter number

of _Photo Bits_: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you

put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six

I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked

nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then.

He turned the pages back.

—Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They

used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for

instance. What they called nymphs, for example.

Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her,

inhaling through her arched nostrils.

—There’s a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire?

—The kidney! he cried suddenly.

He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes

against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping

hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork’s legs. Pungent smoke

shot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of

the fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its

back. Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and

let the scanty brown gravy trickle over it.

Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He

shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a

forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant

meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of

bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that

about some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his

side, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in

the gravy and raising it to his mouth.

Dearest Papli

Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me

splendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I got

mummy’s lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am

getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of

me and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair

day and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel

on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to

mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano

downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday.

There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his

cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan’s (I was on the

pop of writing Blazes Boylan’s) song about those seaside girls. Tell

him silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest

love

Your fond daughter

Milly

P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.

M.

Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first

birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she

was born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly

old woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew

from the first poor little Rudy wouldn’t live. Well, God is good, sir.

She knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived.

His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing.

Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the

XL Café about the bracelet. Wouldn’t eat her cakes or speak or look.

Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece

after piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she

might do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of

cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.

O, well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has

happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild

piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny.

Ripening now. Vain: very.

He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught

her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a

little. Was given milk too long. On the _Erin’s King_ that day round

the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue

scarf loose in the wind with her hair.

All dimpled cheeks and curls,

Your head it simply swirls.

Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets,

jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says.

Pier with lamps, summer evening, band.

Those girls, those girls,

Those lovely seaside girls.

Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.

Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling,

braiding.

A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will

happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can’t move. Girl’s sweet light lips.

Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to

move now. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman’s lips.

Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass

the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two

and six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Or

through M’Coy.

The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper,

nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing.

Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her

wait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her

ear with her back to the fire too.

He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood

up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.

—Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I’m ready.

Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the

landing.

A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as

I’m.

In the tabledrawer he found an old number of _Titbits_. He folded it

under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in

soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.

Listening, he heard her voice:

—Come, come, pussy. Come.

He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen

towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry.

The maid was in the garden. Fine morning.

He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.

Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to

manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur.

All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this

that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top

dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are

fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies’ kid

gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in

that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still

gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday.

He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the

peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don’t remember that. Hallstand

too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters.

Drago’s shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown

brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder

have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox

there got away James Stephens, they say. O’Brien.

Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss.

Enthusiast.

He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to

get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head

under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy

limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he

peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his

countinghouse. Nobody.

Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over

on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a

bit. Our prize titbit: _Matcham’s Masterstroke_. Written by Mr Philip

Beaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a

column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds

three. Three pounds, thirteen and six.

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding

but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding,

he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading

still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope

it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive.

One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or

touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now.

Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat

certainly. _Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won

the laughing witch who now_. Begins and ends morally. _Hand in hand_.

Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his

water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and

received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.

Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for

some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what

she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving.

Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her.

9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23.

What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I’m swelled after that

cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot.

Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning

after the bazaar dance when May’s band played Ponchielli’s dance of the

hours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then

night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head

dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money.

Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use

humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The

mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen

vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes.

It wouldn’t pan out somehow.

Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with

daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then

black. Still, true to life also. Day: then the night.

He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.

Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled

back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom

into the air.

In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully

his black trousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What

time is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.

A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s

church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.

Heigho! Heigho!

Heigho! Heigho!

Heigho! Heigho!

Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air. A

third.

Poor Dignam!

[ 5 ]

By lorries along sir John Rogerson’s quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, past

Windmill lane, Leask’s the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph

office. Could have given that address too. And past the sailors’ home.

He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through

Lime street. By Brady’s cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket

of offal linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of

eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered

caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow. O let him! His life

isn’t such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come

home to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be many there. He crossed Townsend

street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph,

Beth. And past Nichols’ the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough.

Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O’Neill’s. Singing with his

eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark.

Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom

tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a

whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.

In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental

Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend,

finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom

Kernan. Couldn’t ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still

read blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent

his right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm

morning. Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the

leather headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right hand

came down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a card

behind the headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket.

So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and

hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice

blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it

must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on,

cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like

that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in _dolce far niente_,

not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too

hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of

idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens.

Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness

in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and

cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in

the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open.

Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of

the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the

weight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s a

law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his

fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum.

What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per

second per second. Law of falling bodies: per second per second. They

all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the

earth is the weight.

He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her

sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded

_Freeman_ from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a

baton and tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg.

Careless air: just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per second

for every second it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance

through the door of the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one.

In.

He handed the card through the brass grill.

—Are there any letters for me? he asked.

While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting

poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his

baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer

probably. Went too far last time.

The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a

letter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.

Henry Flower Esq,

c/o P. O. Westland Row,

City.

Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,

reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where’s old Tweedy’s regiment?

Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he’s a

grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers.

Redcoats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform.

Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne’s letter about taking them off

O’Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith’s

paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease:

overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like.

Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King’s own. Never see

him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes.

He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if

that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger

felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks.

Women will pay a lot of heed, I don’t think. His fingers drew forth the

letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something

pinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No.

M’Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when

you.

—Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?

—Hello, M’Coy. Nowhere in particular.

—How’s the body?

—Fine. How are you?

—Just keeping alive, M’Coy said.

His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:

—Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you’re...

—O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.

—To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?

A photo it isn’t. A badge maybe.

—E...eleven, Mr Bloom answered.

—I must try to get out there, M’Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard

it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?

—I know.

Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door

of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She

stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her,

searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll

collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless

stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty

creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the

spot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The

honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take

the starch out of her.

—I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what do

you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway’s we were.

Doran Lyons in Conway’s. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came

Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath

his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the

braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight

perhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side will

she get up?

—And he said: _Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy?_ I

said. _Poor little Paddy Dignam_, he said.

Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces

dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for?

Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two

strings to her bow.

—_Why?_ I said. _What’s wrong with him?_ I said.

Proud: rich: silk stockings.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He moved a little to the side of M’Coy’s talking head. Getting up in a

minute.

—_What’s wrong with him_? He said. _He’s dead_, he said. And, faith, he

filled up. _Is it Paddy Dignam_? I said. I couldn’t believe it when I

heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it

in the Arch. _Yes,_ he said. _He’s gone. He died on Monday, poor

fellow_.

Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!

A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.

Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and

the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace

street hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering

the display of. _Esprit de corps_. Well, what are you gaping at?

—Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.

—One of the best, M’Coy said.

The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich

gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her

hat in the sun: flicker, flick.

—Wife well, I suppose? M’Coy’s changed voice said.

—O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.

He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:

What is home without

Plumtree’s Potted Meat?

Incomplete.

With it an abode of bliss.

—My missus has just got an engagement. At least it’s not settled yet.

Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I’m off that, thanks.

Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.

—My wife too, he said. She’s going to sing at a swagger affair in the

Ulster Hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.

—That so? M’Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who’s getting it up?

Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread

and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens.

Dark lady and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of

envelope.

Love’s

Old

Sweet

Song

Comes lo-ove’s old...

—It’s a kind of a tour, don’t you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.

_Sweeeet song_. There’s a committee formed. Part shares and part

profits.

M’Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.

—O, well, he said. That’s good news.

He moved to go.

—Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

—Tell you what, M’Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral,

will you? I’d like to go but I mightn’t be able, you see. There’s a

drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself

would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name

if I’m not there, will you?

—I’ll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That’ll be all right.

—Right, M’Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I’d go if I possibly

could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M’Coy will do.

—That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.

Didn’t catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I’d

like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped

corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him

his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings

of it from that good day to this.

Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has

just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in

its way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don’t you

know: in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would.

Can’t he hear the difference? Think he’s that way inclined a bit.

Against my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope

that smallpox up there doesn’t get worse. Suppose she wouldn’t let

herself be vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife.

Wonder is he pimping after me?

Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured

hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane’s Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery’s

Summer Sale. No, he’s going on straight. Hello. _Leah_ tonight. Mrs

Bandmann Palmer. Like to see her again in that. _Hamlet_ she played

last night. Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia

committed suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman in

that. Outside the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in.

Year before I was born that was: sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What

is this the right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The

scene he was always talking about where the old blind Abraham

recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his face.

Nathan’s voice! His son’s voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left

his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of

his father and left the God of his father.

Every word is so deep, Leopold.

Poor papa! Poor man! I’m glad I didn’t go into the room to look at his

face. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best for

him.

Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the

hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn’t met

that M’Coy fellow.

He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently

champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid

the sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn

all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in

nosebags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and

their doss. Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp

between their haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor

brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he

carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

He passed the cabman’s shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies.

All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own.

_Voglio e non_. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a

few flying syllables as they pass. He hummed:

Là ci darem la mano

La la lala la la.

He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in

the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks.

Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch

court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard

a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb.

A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to

disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her.

Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame’s

school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis’s. And Mr? He opened the letter

within the newspaper.

A flower. I think it’s a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not

annoyed then? What does she say?

Dear Henry

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry

you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am

awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called

you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me

what is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your home

you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you.

Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the

beautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you

so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a

man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell

me more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what

I will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to

meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are

exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I

have such a bad headache. today. and write _by return_ to your longing

Martha

P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to

know.

He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell

and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it

because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then

walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and

there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your

cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear

roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s

perfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it

back in his sidepocket.

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did

she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like

me, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary.

Thank you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round

corners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic.

Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course.

Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time.

Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.

Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:

pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses

without thorns.

Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in

the Coombe, linked together in the rain.

O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers.

She didn’t know what to do

To keep it up,

To keep it up.

It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all

day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your

wife use. Now could you make out a thing like that?

To keep it up.

Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or

faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious.

Also the two sluts in the Coombe would listen.

To keep it up.

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:

quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have

been, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the

supper: fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like

the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I

go to the trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell

her: more and more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.

Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly

in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered

away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank.

Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the

same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure

cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be

made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change

his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A

million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart,

eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of

porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen

millions of barrels of porter.

What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the

same.

An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.

Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The

bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing

together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy

pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.

He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the

porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it

again behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work

M’Coy for a pass to Mullingar.

Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.

on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the

conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious.

The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the

true religion. Save China’s millions. Wonder how they explain it to the

heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for

them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy

with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo.

Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock.

Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking.

Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of

that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’re taught that.

He’s not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to

baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing.

Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced,

listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.

The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,

pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place

to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow

music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the

benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch

knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring,

holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a

communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it

neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her

hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent

down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next

one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse.

Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They

don’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a

corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by

one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in

its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear.

We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here

and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for

it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it’s that

sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes

them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it’s called.

There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you

feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one

family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’m

sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit

spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes

cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.

Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind

faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time

next year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an

instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace

affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know what

to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S.

Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have

suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with

a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here

with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the

sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the

invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion

every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I

am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six

children at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those

crawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always something

shiftylooking about them. They’re not straight men of business either.

O, no, she’s not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear up

that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.

The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs

smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank

what they are used to Guinness’s porter or some temperance beverage

Wheatley’s Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale

(aromatic). Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other.

Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they’d have one

old booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer

the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is.

Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.

Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make

that instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say he

had in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _Stabat

Mater_ of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or

Pilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music they wanted.

Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice

against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the

people looking up:

_Quis est homo._

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words.

Mozart’s twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music,

on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example

too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting,

regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse.

Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick.

What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own

strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feel anything after.

Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don’t they? Gluttons,

tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it.

He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and

bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom

glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand

up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again

and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the

altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered

each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a

card:

—O God, our refuge and our strength...

Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them

the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious

and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More

interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful

organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants

to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon

in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I

schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look

down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears.

Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes.

Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy

Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation

army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting.

How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they

work the whole show. And don’t they rake in the money too? Bequests

also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Masses

for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.

Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the

witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.

Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of

the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

—Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be our

safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God

restrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly

host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those

other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of

souls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women

remained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate

perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.

He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the

time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there’s a

(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked.

Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don’t. Why didn’t you tell me

before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south.

He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the

main door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black

marble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive

hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott’s

dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourning myself.

He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet.

Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time.

Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold

beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of

the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other

trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair.

O well, poor fellow, it’s not his fault. When was it I got it made up

last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it

must have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions

book.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he

seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’s

stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy

then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your

character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants.

All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te

Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor Whack.

He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first

fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples.

Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns

blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping

draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the

pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least

expect it. Clever of nature.

—About a fortnight ago, sir?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the

dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling

your aches and pains.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then

orangeflower water...

It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.

—And white wax also, he said.

Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her

eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my

cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the

teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.

Skinfood. One of the old queen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had only

one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to

make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your?

_Peau d’Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these

soaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner.

Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a

nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious

longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time

for massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a

bottle?

—No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day and

I’ll take one of these soaps. How much are they?

—Fourpence, sir.

Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.

—I’ll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you

come back.

—Good, Mr Bloom said.

He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the

coolwrappered soap in his left hand.

At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said:

—Hello, Bloom. What’s the best news? Is that today’s? Show us a minute.

Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look

younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.

Bantam Lyons’s yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a

wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’

soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.

—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam

Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?

He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.

Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the

paper and get shut of him.

—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.

—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the

second.

—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.

Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.

—What’s that? his sharp voice said.

—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away

that moment.

Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread

sheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms.

—I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.

He sped off towards Conway’s corner. God speed scut.

Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap

in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it

lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large

tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming

embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now.

They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.

He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a

mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He

eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist

doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it

round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the

hub big: college. Something to catch the eye.

There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands:

might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower?

How do you do, sir?

Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.

Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it

here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the

Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in

their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M’Carthy took the

floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, which

in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all.

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid

stream. This is my body.

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of

warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk

and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward,

lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of

his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father

of thousands, a languid floating flower.

[ 6 ]

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking

carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in

after him, curving his height with care.

—Come on, Simon.

—After you, Mr Bloom said.

Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:

—Yes, yes.

—Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.

Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to

after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm

through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow

at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman

peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she

was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad

to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them.

Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’d

wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming

making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know

who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the

nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same

after. Unclean job.

All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am

sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better

shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.

All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer:

then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and

swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of

the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar.

At walking pace.

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were

passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels

rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook

rattling in the doorframes.

—What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.

—Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.

Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.

—That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died

out.

All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by

passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the

smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man,

clad in mourning, a wide hat.

—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.

—Who is that?

—Your son and heir.

—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway

before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back

to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus

fell back, saying:

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_!

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.

—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding

faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lump

of dung, the wise child that knows her own father.

Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the

bottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls

the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing

in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the

landlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night.

Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife

ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they

are. About six hundred per cent profit.

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a

contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks

all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll

make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother

or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a

gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

He cried above the clatter of the wheels:

—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’s

son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely.

He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power’s mild

face and Martin Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy

selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If

little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.

Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange

feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that

morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs

at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning

up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us

a touch, Poldy. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins.

Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.

I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent.

Learn German too.

—Are we late? Mr Power asked.

—Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch.

Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping

Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be a

woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too.

Life, life.

The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.

—Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.

—He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Do

you follow me?

He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away

crustcrumbs from under his thighs.

—What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?

—Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power

said.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless

leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward

and said:

—Unless I’m greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?

—It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite

clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.

—After all, he said, it’s the most natural thing in the world.

—Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of

his beard gently.

—Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He’s behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.

—And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.

—At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.

—I met M’Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he’d try to come.

The carriage halted short.

—What’s wrong?

—We’re stopped.

—Where are we?

Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.

—The grand canal, he said.

Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got

it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame

really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed

tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss

this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos,

Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave.

A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’s

dogs usually are.

A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower

spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a

colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.

—The weather is changing, he said quietly.

—A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.

—Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There’s the sun again coming

out.

Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled

a mute curse at the sky.

—It’s as uncertain as a child’s bottom, he said.

—We’re off again.

The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed

gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.

—Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking

him off to his face.

—O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear

him, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of _The Croppy Boy_.

—Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simple

ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the

whole course of my experience._

—Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And the

retrospective arrangement.

—Did you read Dan Dawson’s speech? Martin Cunningham asked.

—I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it?

—In the paper this morning.

Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change

for her.

—No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please.

Mr Bloom’s glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the

deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what

Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton,

Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper.

Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief

of his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month’s mind:

Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy.

It is now a month since dear Henry fled

To his home up above in the sky

While his family weeps and mourns his loss

Hoping some day to meet him on high.

I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it

in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry

fled. Before my patience are exhausted.

National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.

Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round

with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their

hats.

A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against a

tramway standard by Mr Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent something

automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow

would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job

making the new invention?

Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a

crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law

perhaps.

They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s, under the railway

bridge, past the Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene

Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see _Leah_ tonight, I

wonder. I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes Opera

Company. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun on

the Bristol_. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have

to stand a drink or two. As broad as it’s long.

He’s coming in the afternoon. Her songs.

Plasto’s. Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust. Who was he?

—How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in

salute.

—He doesn’t see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?

—Who? Mr Dedalus asked.

—Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.

Just that moment I was thinking.

Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the

white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed.

Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right

hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?

Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes

feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am

just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body

getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes

that? I suppose the skin can’t contract quickly enough when the flesh

falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders.

Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the

cheeks behind.

He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant

glance over their faces.

Mr Power asked:

—How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?

—O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It’s a good

idea, you see...

—Are you going yourself?

—Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the

county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the

chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.

—Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now.

Have you good artists?

—Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we’ll have all

topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in

fact.

—And _Madame_, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least.

Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and

clasped them. Smith O’Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.

Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage

wheeling by Farrell’s statue united noiselessly their unresisting

knees.

Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his

mouth opening: oot.

—Four bootlaces for a penny.

Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.

Same house as Molly’s namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford.

Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too.

Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake.

O’Callaghan on his last legs.

And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing

her hair, humming: _voglio e non vorrei_. No: _vorrei e non_. Looking

at the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un poco

il_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A

throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that.

His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power’s goodlooking face. Greyish over

the ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way.

Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the

woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it

told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played

out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her

a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury’s. Or the

Moira, was it?

They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form.

Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.

—Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner

of Elvery’s Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his

spine.

—In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.

Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:

—The devil break the hasp of your back!

Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as

the carriage passed Gray’s statue.

—We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly.

His eyes met Mr Bloom’s eyes. He caressed his beard, adding:

—Well, nearly all of us.

Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions’ faces.

—That’s an awfully good one that’s going the rounds about Reuben J and

the son.

—About the boatman? Mr Power asked.

—Yes. Isn’t it awfully good?

—What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn’t hear it.

—There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to

send him to the Isle of Man out of harm’s way but when they were

both.....

—What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried

to drown.....

—Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did!

Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.

—No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself.....

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely:

—Reuben J and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on

their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got

loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey.

—For God’s sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead?

—Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished

him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father

on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is.....

—And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for

saving his son’s life.

A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power’s hand.

—O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin.

—Isn’t it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly.

—One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily.

Mr Power’s choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage.

Nelson’s pillar.

—Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!

—We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Dedalus sighed.

—Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn’t grudge us a laugh.

Many a good one he told himself.

—The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his

fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last

and he was in his usual health that I’d be driving after him like this.

He’s gone from us.

—As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went

very suddenly.

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.

He tapped his chest sadly.

Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.

Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent

colouring it.

Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

—He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said.

—The best death, Mr Bloom said.

Their wide open eyes looked at him.

—No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep.

No-one spoke.

Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,

temperance hotel, Falconer’s railway guide, civil service college,

Gill’s, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or

wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the

late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.

White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,

galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning

coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for

a nun.

—Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.

A dwarf’s face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy’s was. Dwarf’s

body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society

pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant

nothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. If

not from the man. Better luck next time.

—Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It’s well out of it.

The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his

bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.

—In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.

—But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own

life.

Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back.

—The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added.

—Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We

must take a charitable view of it.

—They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said.

—It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham’s

large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent.

Like Shakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy

on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to

drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’t

broken already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the

riverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of

a wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then

pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the

life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday

morning. Start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have

looked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about

the place and capering with Martin’s umbrella.

And they call me the jewel of Asia,

Of Asia,

The geisha.

He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones.

That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The

room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight

through the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner’s sunlit ears, big

and hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw

like yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the

bed. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son

Leopold.

No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones.

—We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said.

—God grant he doesn’t upset us on the road, Mr Power said.

—I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow

in Germany. The Gordon Bennett.

—Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith.

As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent

over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has

anybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._

He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The

_Mater Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place.

Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for the

dying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They

look terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the

spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student

that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He’s gone over to the

lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other.

The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.

—What’s wrong now?

A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching

by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony

croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their

fear.

—Emigrants, Mr Power said.

—Huuuh! the drover’s voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks.

Huuuh! out of that!

Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold

them about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for

old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter

lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a

year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries,

soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off

the train at Clonsilla.

The carriage moved on through the drove.

—I can’t make out why the corporation doesn’t run a tramline from the

parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken

in trucks down to the boats.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite

right. They ought to.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have

municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line

out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage

and all. Don’t you see what I mean?

—O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon

diningroom.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.

—Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decent

than galloping two abreast?

—Well, there’s something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.

—And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that when

the hearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road.

—That was terrible, Mr Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fell

about the road. Terrible!

—First round Dunphy’s, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup.

—Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.

Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy

Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too

large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s up

now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides

decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also.

With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal up all.

—Dunphy’s, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right.

Dunphy’s corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A

pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull up

here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation.

Elixir of life.

But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in

the knocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. Depends on

where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery.

It would be better to bury them in red: a dark red.

In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted

by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.

Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.

Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping

barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a

slacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._

Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on

his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of

reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar,

Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or

cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at

the auction but a lady’s. Developing waterways. James M’Cann’s hobby to

row me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats.

Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without

writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by

lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his

brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam.

They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now.

—I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said.

—Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.

—How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose?

—Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear.

The carriage steered left for Finglas road.

The stonecutter’s yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of

land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands,

knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence:

appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder

and sculptor.

Passed.

On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton’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 added. 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 Prospect 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 sleekcombed hair and

at 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 prayingdesks. 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 bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they

get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. 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 businessmen, consumptive girls

with little sparrows’ breasts. All the year round he prayed the same

thing over them all and 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 trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.

The ree the ra the ree 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’ll 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, secretsearching. 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 A1, 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, Madame 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 long 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 watchchain 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. _Habeas 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 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 grilled 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 corpsemanure, 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, 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 Cæsar. 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. Embalming 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. Wellcut 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! He 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 away 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

at whiles 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. Hoo! 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 awfullygladaseeagain

hellohello amawf krpthsth. 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 feverpits 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 bowlinggreen 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!

[ 7 ]

IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS

Before Nelson’s pillar trams 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 printingworks, 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 statelily 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.

Jesusmario 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 a 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 DISSOLUTION 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 and 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 Tinnahinch. 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, thump. 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 awhile and nodded.

—He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.

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. He doesn’t hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.

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. Highclass

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 with a y of a peeled

pear under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn’t it? Cemetery put in of course

on account of the symmetry.

I should 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 phiz then.

Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its

flyboard with sllt 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 sllt 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 savingsbank 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? Yes. 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 those

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 MacHugh 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, tho’ quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling

waters of Neptune’s blue domain, ’mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest

zephyrs, 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 vicechancellor, 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, 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 to 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 the 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. Hail fellow well met the next moment.

—Ah, listen to this for God’ 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 shine 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 blackspectacled 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 blowout. 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.

—Getonouthat, 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.

—Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes.

SPOT THE WINNER

Lenehan came out of the inner office with _Sport_’s 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

Farrell shoved me, sir.

He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe.

—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 CORTÈGE

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 cigarettecase 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. Cloacae: 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 railwayline? 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 I 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 Tirconnell 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. A 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 Aegospotami. 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 railwayline?

—Opera? Mr O’Madden Burke’s sphinx face reriddled.

Lenehan announced gladly:

—_The Rose of Castile_. 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 Bastile, 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 Jakes 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 it?

—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... 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 Davy’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. Psha! 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

Mentre che 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_, gold of oriflamme, _di rimirar fè più 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 guttersheet not to mention _Paddy Kelly’s Budget_, _Pue’s

Occurrences_ and our watchful friend _The Skibbereen 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 cigarettecase.

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

of 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 mastermystic? 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 cigarettecase 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, Myles Crawford said, in a child’s

frock. 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 sickbed. 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 white silk 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 smokes

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 a 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 added. 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 that 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, clapping 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, Stephen said.

Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering

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 sixpences 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 diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate

Collins, proprietress... They purchase four 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, scattering 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 copied 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...

K.M.R.I.A.

—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. Sorry, Jack. You must take

the will for the deed. 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 bread 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, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water

floats with rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, 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 hæc 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 towards 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 smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must

say.

—Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty’s

truth was known.

[ 8 ]

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,

druids’ 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

£. 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 world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats

get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead

drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians.

Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the

things.

Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt

quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben

J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and

eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It’s the droll way he comes out with the

things. Knows how to tell a story too.

They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.

He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet

per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of

swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the

day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the

wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.

The hungry famished gull

Flaps o’er the waters dull.

That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has

no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.

Solemn.

Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit

Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.

—Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!

His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand.

Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them

up with a rag or a handkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes

for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down

into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all

from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his

hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they

have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down

here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder

what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.

They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw any more. Penny

quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and

mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes

like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are

not salty? How is that?

His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor

on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

Kino’s

11/—

Trousers

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you

own water really? It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same,

which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All

kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used

to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly

confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t cost him a red like Maginni the

dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or

stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen

a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110

PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.

If he...?

O!

Eh?

No... No.

No, no. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about

that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.

Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball’s. Parallax. I never

exactly understood. There’s a priest. Could ask him. Par it’s Greek:

parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her

about the transmigration. O rocks!

Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She’s

right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the

sound. She’s not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was

thinking. Still, I don’t know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base

barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you’d think he was

singing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. They used to call him big

Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an

albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at

stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him

along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like

that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He

read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.

Wisdom Hely’s. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his

foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our

staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after

street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are

not Boyl: no, M’Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any business either. I

suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls

sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I

bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the

eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she’s writing. Get twenty of

them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women

too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn’t have it of course because he

didn’t think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a

false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree’s

potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can’t lick ’em.

What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can’t stop,

Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser

_Kansell,_ sold by Hely’s Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I

am. Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents.

Tranquilla convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face.

Wimple suited her small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed

in love by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I

disturbed her at her devotions that morning. But glad to communicate

with the outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of

Mount Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by

the way she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they

really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the

same. No lard for them. My heart’s broke eating dripping. They like

buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister?

Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker’s daughter. It was a nun they say invented

barbed wire.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover

cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil

Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom’s. Got

the job in Wisdom Hely’s year we married. Six years. Ten years ago:

ninetyfour he died yes that’s right the big fire at Arnott’s. Val

Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O’Reilly

emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it

for the inner alderman. Couldn’t hear what the band played. For what we

have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then.

Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored

with selfcovered buttons. She didn’t like it because I sprained my

ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old

Goodwin’s tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies’ picnic too.

Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove,

shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we

had that day. People looking after her.

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper.

Dockrell’s, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly’s tubbing night. American

soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she

looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa’s

daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was

always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in

Citron’s saint Kevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is

getting. Pen ...? Of course it’s years ago. Noise of the trams

probably. Well, if he couldn’t remember the dayfather’s name that he

sees every day.

Bartell d’Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home

after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her

that song _Winds that blow from the south_.

Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting

on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin’s concert in the

supperroom or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of

her music blew out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky

it didn’t. Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her.

Professor Goodwin linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old

sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage.

May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at the

wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that

gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old

Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home

raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her

supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could see

her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the busk of her stays:

white.

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her.

Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two

taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy.

That was the night...

—O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?

—O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?

—No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven’t seen her for

ages.

—In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in

Mullingar, you know.

—Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?

—Yes. In a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire. How

are all your charges?

—All on the baker’s list, Mrs Breen said.

How many has she? No other in sight.

—You’re in black, I see. You have no...

—No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.

Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did he

die of? Turn up like a bad penny.

—O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn’t any near relation.

May as well get her sympathy.

—Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly,

poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.

Your funeral’s tomorrow

While you’re coming through the rye.

Diddlediddle dumdum

Diddlediddle...

—Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said melancholily.

Now that’s quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.

—And your lord and master?

Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.

—O, don’t be talking! she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes. He’s in

there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me

heartscalded. Wait till I show you.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured

out from Harrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s

gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar,

or they’d taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab

stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of

hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork

chained to the table.

Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on

those things. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open.

Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain.

Husband barging. Where’s the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are

you feeding your little brother’s family? Soiled handkerchief:

medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?...

—There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do you

know what he did last night?

Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in

alarm, yet smiling.

—What? Mr Bloom asked.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

—Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.

Indiges.

—Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.

—The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.

She took a folded postcard from her handbag.

—Read that, she said. He got it this morning.

—What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U. P.?

—U. p: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great

shame for them whoever he is.

—Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.

She took back the card, sighing.

—And now he’s going round to Mr Menton’s office. He’s going to take an

action for ten thousand pounds, he says.

She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.

Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen

its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three

old grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a

tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than

Molly.

See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.

He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.

Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of

pastry on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her

cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie

Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’s long ago. Dolphin’s Barn, the

charades. U. p: up.

Change the subject.

—Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked.

—Mina Purefoy? she said.

Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ Club. Matcham often thinks of

the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.

—Yes.

—I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She’s in the

lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She’s three

days bad now.

—O, Mr Bloom said. I’m sorry to hear that.

—Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It’s a very stiff

birth, the nurse told me.

—O, Mr Bloom said.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in

compassion. Dth! Dth!

—I’m sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That’s

terrible for her.

Mrs Breen nodded.

—She was taken bad on the Tuesday...

Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her:

—Mind! Let this man pass.

A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a

rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a

skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat,

a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.

—Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts.

Watch!

—Who is he if it’s a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?

—His name is Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr

Bloom said smiling. Watch!

—He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these

days.

She broke off suddenly.

—There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to

Molly, won’t you?

—I will, Mr Bloom said.

He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis

Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of

Harrison’s hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay.

Like old times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and

thrust his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he

spoke earnestly.

Meshuggah. Off his chump.

Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the

tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two

days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world.

And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have

with him.

U. p: up. I’ll take my oath that’s Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote

it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton’s

office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the

gods.

He passed the _Irish Times_. There might be other answers lying there.

Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their

lunch now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn’t know me. O, leave them

there to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them.

Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called

you naughty darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell

me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife.

Tell me who made the world. The way they spring those questions on you.

And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good

fortune to meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo.

Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of

poetry.

Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook

and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit

counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork

shop. James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made

a big deal on Coates’s shares. Ca’ canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All

the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the _Irish

Field_ now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement

and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement

yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects

juices make it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse

like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her,

not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood

mare some of those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss

off a glass of brandy neat while you’d say knife. That one at the

Grosvenor this morning. Up with her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or

fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it

out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that

sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel.

Divorced Spanish American. Didn’t take a feather out of her my handling

them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when

Stubbs the park ranger got me in with Whelan of the _Express._

Scavenging what the quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the

plums thinking it was custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few

weeks after. Want to be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work

for her, thanks.

Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun

and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating

with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his

muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore’s

cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy

annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers

marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a

marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast

year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t’s are. Dog in

the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please.

He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at

Rowe’s? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in

the Burton. Better. On my way.

He walked on past Bolton’s Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot

to tap Tom Kernan.

Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a

vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew!

Dreadful simply! Child’s head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her

trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me

that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent

something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea:

queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman

that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was

consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the

what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to

feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing

quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at

compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings

and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage

people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years

want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think.

Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for

nothing.

Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs

Moisel. Mothers’ meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then

returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes.

Weight off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my

babies, she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O,

that’s nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall’s son. His first

bow to the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People

knocking them up at all hours. For God’ sake, doctor. Wife in her

throes. Then keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on

your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them.

Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of

pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I

pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here’s good luck. Must be

thrilling from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the

trees near Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me.

A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian

file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their

truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their

belts. Policeman’s lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and

scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment

to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of

others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the

station. Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare

to receive soup.

He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger. They did right to put

him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for

women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. _There is not in

this wide world a vallee_. Great song of Julia Morkan’s. Kept her voice

up to the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe’s, wasn’t she?

He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack

Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them

trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the

bridewell. Can’t blame them after all with the job they have especially

the young hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was

given his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did!

His horse’s hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had

the presence of mind to dive into Manning’s or I was souped. He did

come a wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the

cobblestones. I oughtn’t to have got myself swept along with those

medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for

trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that sting

for me in the Mater and now he’s in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy.

Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled.

Why he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began.

—Up the Boers!

—Three cheers for De Wet!

—We’ll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree.

Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill.

The Butter exchange band. Few years’ time half of them magistrates and

civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows

used to. Whether on the scaffold high.

Never know who you’re talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in

his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on

the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to

get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the

castle. Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are

always courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform.

Squarepushing up against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next

thing on the menu. And who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was

the young master saying anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole.

Decoy duck. Hotblooded young student fooling round her fat arms

ironing.

—Are those yours, Mary?

—I don’t wear such things... Stop or I’ll tell the missus on you. Out

half the night.

—There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.

—Ah, gelong with your great times coming.

Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls.

James Stephens’ idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that

a fellow couldn’t round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out

you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey’s

daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the

Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi.

You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a

squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about

our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company’s tearoom.

Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government.

That the language question should take precedence of the economic

question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them

up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here’s a good lump of thyme

seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease

before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk

with the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap

pays best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show

us over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day.

Homerule sun rising up in the northwest.

His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly,

shadowing Trinity’s surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing,

outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day:

squads of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies

mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a bed

groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second

somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five

minutes. Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born,

washing the blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling

maaaaaa.

Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other

coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of

pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that.

Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets

his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have

all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away

age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves

Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble,

sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of

breeze. Shelter, for the night.

No-one is anything.

This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate

this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.

Provost’s house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in

there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn’t live in it if they paid me.

Hope they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum.

The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the

silverware opposite in Walter Sexton’s window by which John Howard

Parnell passed, unseeing.

There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that’s a

coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don’t

meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a

corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s

uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on his

high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the

woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a

pain. Great man’s brother: his brother’s brother. He’d look nice on the

city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess

there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to

pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That’s the

fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other

sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright

like surgeon M’Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath.

Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The

patriot’s banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said

when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the

grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm.

—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which

the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks

with a Scotch accent. The tentacles...

They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and

bicycle. Young woman.

And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: second time.

Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the

eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A.

E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur

Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the

world with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult:

symbolism. Holding forth. She’s taking it all in. Not saying a word. To

aid gentleman in literary work.

His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a

listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only

weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of

that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s healthier.

Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a

bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me

nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating

rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by

the tap all night.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless.

Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy,

symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that

kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical.

For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their

shirts you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don’t know

what poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood.

The dreamy cloudy gull

Waves o’er the waters dull.

He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of

Yeates and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old

Harris’s and have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow.

Probably at his lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right.

Goerz lenses six guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on

easy terms to capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in

the railway lost property office. Astonishing the things people leave

behind them in trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about?

Women too. Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up

that farmer’s daughter’s bag and hand it to her at Limerick junction.

Unclaimed money too. There’s a little watch up there on the roof of the

bank to test those glasses by.

His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can’t see it. If

you imagine it’s there you can almost see it. Can’t see it.

He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right

hand at arm’s length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes:

completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun’s disk.

Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses.

Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we were

in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific

explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn

some time.

Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It’s

the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there

some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to

professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do

to: man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected.

Nobleman proud to be descended from some king’s mistress. His

foremother. Lay it on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land.

Not go in and blurt out what you know you’re not to: what’s parallax?

Show this gentleman the door.

Ah.

His hand fell to his side again.

Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,

crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then

solid: then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen

rock, like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she

said. I believe there is.

He went on by la maison Claire.

Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly

there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview

moon. She was humming. The young May moon she’s beaming, love. He other

side of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm’s la-amp is gleaming, love.

Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.

Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.

Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court.

With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here

middle of the day of Bob Doran’s bottle shoulders. On his annual bend,

M’Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or _cherchez la

femme_. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the

rest of the year sober as a judge.

Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him

good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the

Queen’s. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon

face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies,

eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking,

laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat.

Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white

hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp

that once did starve us all.

I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was.

She twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed.

Could never like it again after Rudy. Can’t bring back time. Like

holding water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning

then. Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty

boy? Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the

library.

Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,

silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in

the baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings.

Hope the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef

to the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out

of plumb.

He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.

Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its

mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots

brought that here. _La causa è santa!_ Tara tara. Great chorus that.

Taree tara. Must be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.

Pincushions. I’m a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all

over the place. Needles in window curtains.

He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today

anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.

Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn’t

like it. Women won’t pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.

Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk

stockings.