The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ulysses, by James Joyce (2023)

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Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of latheron 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 aloftand 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 andblessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awakingmountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him andmade 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 thestaircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him,equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued likepale oak.

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

—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 andblood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A littletrouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhilein rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with goldpoints. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.

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

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering abouthis legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and sullen ovaljowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smilebroke 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, laughingto himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily halfway and satdown on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his mirror onthe 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 aHellenic ring, hasn’t it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We must goto 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 thinksyou’re not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money andindigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you have the realOxford 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 ishis guncase?

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

—I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the darkwith a man I don’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a blackpanther. You saved men from drowning. I’m not a hero, however. If he stays onhere I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down from hisperch 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 dirtycrumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. Then, gazingover the handkerchief, he said:

—The bard’s noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. Youcan almost taste it, can’t you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair oakpalehair stirring slightly.

—God! he said quietly. Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweetmother? 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 onthe 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’tlet 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 askedyou, Buck Mulligan said. I’m hyperborean as much as you. But to think of yourmother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And yourefused. There is something sinister in you....

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

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

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

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against hisbrow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. Pain, thatwas not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in a dream she hadcome to him after her death, her wasted body within its loose browngraveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, that had bentupon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of wetted ashes. Across thethreadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother by thewellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held a dull green mass ofliquid. A bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbed holding the greensluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loudgroaning vomiting.

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

—Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt anda 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. Godknows 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 wellwhen 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. Etiquetteis 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 smoothskin.

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

—That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, saysyou have g. p. i. He’s up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General paralysisof the insane!

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad insunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and the edgesof 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 acrooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this face forme? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

—I pinched it out of the skivvy’s room, Buck Mulligan said. It does herall right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead himnot 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. IfWilde 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 roundthe tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he had thrustthem.

—It’s not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. Godknows you have more spirit than any of them.

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

—Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap downstairsand touch him for a guinea. He’s stinking with money and thinks you’re not agentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling jalap to Zulus or some bloodyswindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I could only work together we might dosomething 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 onethat knows what you are. Why don’t you trust me more? What have you up yournose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I’ll bring downSeymour and we’ll give him a ragging worse than they gave Clive Kempthorpe.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe’s rooms. Palefaces: theyhold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall expire! Breakthe news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit ribbons of his shirtwhipping the air he hops and hobbles round the table, with trousers down atheels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the tailor’s shears. A scared calf’sface gilded with marmalade. I don’t want to be debagged! Don’t you play thegiddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deafgardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold’s face, pushes his mower on thesombre 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 atnight.

—Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I’m quitefrank with you. What have you against me now?

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the waterlike 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, fanningsoftly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of anxiety in hiseyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

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

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

—What? Where? I can’t remember anything. I remember only ideas andsensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?

—You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to getmore hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the drawingroom. Sheasked 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 isbeastly dead.

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck Mulligan’scheek.

—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 sawonly your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and Richmondand cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It’s a beastly thing and nothingelse. It simply doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t kneel down to pray for your motheron her deathbed when she asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuitstrain in you, only it’s injected the wrong way. To me it’s all a mockery andbeastly. Her cerebral lobes are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir PeterTeazle and picks buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it’s over. Youcrossed her last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don’t whingelike some hired mute from Lalouette’s. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I didn’tmean to offend the memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping wounds whichthe 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 overthe calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew dim. Pulses werebeating 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 theroof:

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

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

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 stairheadseaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of water whitened,spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twiningstresses, two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings, merging their twiningchords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in deepergreen. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’ song: I sang italone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her door was open: shewanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity I went to her bedside. Shewas crying in her wretched bed. For those words, Stephen: love’s bittermystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, a gaudof amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny window of herhouse when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the pantomime of Turkothe 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 broodingbrain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had approached thesacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, roasting for her at the hobon a dark autumn evening. Her shapely fingernails reddened by the blood ofsquashed lice from the children’s shirts.

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its loosegraveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, bent over himwith 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. Herhoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on their knees. Hereyes on me to strike me down. Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turmacircumdet: 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 thestaircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul’s cry, heardwarm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

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

His head disappeared and reappeared.

—I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it’s very clever. Touch himfor 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 aglorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of tunewith 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, smellingthe clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. So I carried theboat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and yet the same. A servanttoo. A server of a servant.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan’s gowned form movedbriskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its yellow glow. Twoshafts 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 greasefloated, 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 hammockwhere 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. BuckMulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside him. Then he carried the dish anda 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 aword more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, comein. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. Where’s thesugar? O, jay, there’s no milk.

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

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

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 hischair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, I can’tgo 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 domake strong tea, don’t you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman’swheedling voice:

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

—That’s folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five linesof 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 ofin 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 theMabinogion. 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 andblinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened raspingvoice 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 thecollector 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 andsecret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a messenger. She praised thegoodness of the milk, pouring it out. Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak inthe lush field, a witch on her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at thesquirting dugs. They lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk ofthe 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, theircommon 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 abogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with dust, horsedung andconsumptives’ 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 thatspeaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she slights. To thevoice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there is of her but herwoman’s unclean loins, of man’s flesh made not in God’s likeness, the serpent’sprey. And to the loud voice that now bids her be silent with wondering unsteadyeyes.

—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 thewest, sir?

—I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

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

—Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I’m ashamed I don’t speak thelanguage 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 usout some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma’am?

—No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the milkcanon 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 attwopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three morningsa quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That’s a shilling and oneand two is two and two, sir.

Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly butteredon both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his trouserpockets.

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

Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the thick richmilk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in his fingers andcried:

—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 usback some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland expects thatevery man this day will do his duty.

—That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your nationallibrary 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 honeytrickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the loosecollar 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. Yethere’s a spot.

—That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol ofIrish art is deuced good.

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

—Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

—Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was justthinking 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 thehammock, said:

—I don’t know, I’m sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and saidwith 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 themilkwoman or from him. It’s a toss up, I think.

—I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come alongwith 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 aregood for. Why don’t you play them as I do? To hell with them all. Let us getout of the kip.

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

—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, chidingthem, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and rummaged in histrunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God, we’ll simply have to dressthe character. I want puce gloves and green boots. Contradiction. Do Icontradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. Alimp 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 gravewords and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:

—And going forth he met Butterly.

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out and, asthey went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and locked it. He putthe 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 bathtowelthe 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 onthe 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 Aquinasand the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I have a fewpints in me first.

He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of hisprimrose 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’squite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’sgrandfather 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 looselaughter, 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 israther 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 towerand these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. That beetles o’er hisbase 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 mourningbetween 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. Theseas’ ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the smokeplume ofthe 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 suddenlywithdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll’s head toand fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to chant in a quiethappy 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 abrow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or wings of oneabout 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 winglikehands, leaping nimbly, Mercury’s hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore backto 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 abeliever myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of itsomehow, 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 thenarrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a personalGod.

—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 greenstone. 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 sidepocketand took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and,having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards Stephen in the shellof his hands.

—Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe oryou 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 exampleof free thought.

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Itsferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. My familiar,after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line along the path. Theywill walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. He wants that key. It ismine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt bread. Give him the key too. All. Hewill 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 allunkind.

—After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are yourown 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 theholy 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 likethat, 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 theirbrazen bells: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam: theslow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own rare thoughts, achemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass for pope Marcellus, thevoices blended, singing alone loud in affirmation: and behind their chant thevigilant angel of the church militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. Ahorde of heresies fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers ofwhom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon theconsubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning Christ’sterrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held that theFather was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken a moment since inmockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void awaits surely all them thatweave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a worsting from those embattledangels of the church, Michael’s host, who defend her ever in the hour ofconflict 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. Idon’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. That’sour 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 whenthe tide comes in about one. It’s nine days today.

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for aswollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Here Iam.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on astone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A youngman clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his green legsin 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 thingdown there. Photo girl he calls her.

—Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near thespur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, waterglistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water rilling over hischest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black sagging loincloth.

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines andStephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips andbreastbone.

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

—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. ToothlessKinch 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 middleof 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 Mulliganerect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:

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

His plump body plunged.

—We’ll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the pathand 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 notsleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.

A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning thecurve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a seal’s, far outon 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 memoryfabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings of excess. Ihear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time onelivid 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 gorescarredbook.

—Yes, sir. And he said: Another victory like that and we are donefor.

That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a hillabove a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, leaned upon hisspear. 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 hispalms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to the tissue of hislips. A sweetened boy’s breath. Welloff people, proud that their eldest son wasin the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey.

—Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round at hisclassmates, 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, whatis a pier.

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

Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back benchwhispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. Withenvy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their likes: theirbreaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in thestruggle.

—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 andtalk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester at the courtof his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master’s praise. Whyhad they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the smooth caress. For them toohistory 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 beenknifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has branded them andfettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite possibilities they haveousted. But can those have been possible seeing that they never were? Or wasthat 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 hissatchel. 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 intothe 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 delicateSiamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: underglowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind’s darkness asloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragonscaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soulis 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 justremembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these craven heartshis shadow lies and on the scoffer’s heart and lips and on mine. It lies upontheir eager faces who offered him a coin of the tribute. To Caesar what isCaesar’s, to God what is God’s. A long look from dark eyes, a riddling sentenceto 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. Crowdingtogether 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 Cochranesaid:

—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 echoeddismay.

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

—Hockey!

They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly theywere gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and clamour oftheir 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 hismisty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his cheek, dull and bloodless, asoft 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 blindloops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

—Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them toyou, 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 copythem 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 herthe race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed bonelesssnail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that thenreal? The only true thing in life? His mother’s prostrate body the fieryColumbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of atwig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had savedhim from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poorsoul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek ofrapine 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 thatShakespeare’s ghost is Hamlet’s grandfather. Sargent peered askance through hisslanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom: the hollow knock of aball and calls from the field.

Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of theirletters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, traverse, bow topartner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from the world, Averroes andMoses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mockingmirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness whichbrightness 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 ofhelp his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of shameflickering behind his dull skin. Amor matris: subjective and objectivegenitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed him and hid fromsight of others his swaddling bands.

Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My childhood bendsbeside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or lightly. Mine is far andhis secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of bothour 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 copybookback to his bench.

—You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said ashe 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 fieldwhere sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and Mr Deasy cameaway stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet. When he had reached theschoolhouse voices again contending called to him. He turned his angry whitemoustache.

—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 restoreorder here.

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

—What is the matter? What is it now?

Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms closed roundhim, 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 itschairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it was in thebeginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, base treasure ofa 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 raremoustache 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 slappedopen and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and laid themcarefully 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 theshells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money cowries and leopardshells: and this, whorled as an emir’s turban, and this, the scallop of saintJames. 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 forshillings. 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 shyhaste 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 ofbeauty 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 somewhereand 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. Threenooses 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’tknow 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 butmoney 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, butan Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you knowwhat 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 isto 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. Hetapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.

—I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. I paidmy way.

Good man, good man.

—I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life. Can youfeel 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 isuseless.

—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. Weare 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 shapelybulk 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. Isaw three generations since O’Connell’s time. I remember the famine in ’46. Doyou know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty yearsbefore O’Connell did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him asa demagogue? You fenians forget some things.

Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh thesplendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, theplanters’ 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 Iam 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 votedfor it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to doso.

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 theral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy.

—That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, withsome of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press. Sit down amoment. I have just to copy the end.

He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read offsome words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.

—Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, the dictates ofcommon 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, sometimesblowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.

Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed aroundthe walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek heads poised inair: lord Hastings’ Repulse, the duke of Westminster’s Shotover,the duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris, 1866. Elfin riderssat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing king’s colours, andshouted with the shouts of vanished crowds.

—Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of thisallimportant question...

Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among themudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek of thecanteen, over the motley slush. Even money Fair Rebel. Ten to one thefield. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying capsand jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher’s dame, nuzzling thirstilyher 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, thejoust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother’s darling who seems to beslightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. Jousts, slushand uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, a shout ofspearspikes 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 thefoot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two opinions onthe matter.

May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of laissez fairewhich so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our oldindustries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. Europeanconflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the channel. Thepluterperfect imperturbability of the department of agriculture. Pardoned aclassical 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, lowerAustria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous offer a fairtrial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In every sense of theword take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the hospitality of yourcolumns.

—I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at thenext outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be cured. Itis cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is regularly treated andcured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They offer to come over here. I amtrying to work up influence with the department. Now I’m going to trypublicity. I am surrounded by difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairsinfluence 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 anation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation’s vital strength. Ihave seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jewmerchants 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 broadsunbeam. 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 hehalted.

—A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew orgentile, is he not?

—They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can seethe darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the earth tothis day.

On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting prices ontheir gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud, uncouth about thetemple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk hats. Not theirs: theseclothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full slow eyes belied the words,the gestures eager and unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them andknew their zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time surely wouldscatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on. Theireyes knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of theirflesh.

—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 openuncertainly. 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 ifthat nightmare gave you a back kick?

—The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All humanhistory 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 betweenhis fingers. Looking up again he set them free.

—I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors andmany sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no betterthan she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeksmade war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the strangers to our shorehere, MacMurrough’s wife and her leman, O’Rourke, prince of Breffni. A womantoo brought Parnell low. Many errors, many failures but not the one sin. I am astruggler now at the end of my days. But I will fight for the right till theend.

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 atthis 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 greatteacher.

Stephen rustled the sheets again.

—As regards these, he began.

—Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have thempublished at once.

Telegraph. Irish Homestead.

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

—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 CityArms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You see if you canget 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 toanswer that letter from my cousin.

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

—Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I liketo 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, hearingthe cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The lions couchanton the pillars as he passed out through the gate: toothless terrors. Still Iwill help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub me a new name: thebullockbefriending 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 ofbeing 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 rattlingchain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted armswaving to the air.

—She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stampedon 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 throughmy eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, thenearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs.Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of thembodies 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 fivefingers 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. Youare walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short spaceof 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 thenebeneinander ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ashsword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are atthe ends of his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid: made by the mallet ofLos 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 andam 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 siltedsand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. Number one swunglourdily her midwife’s bag, the other’s gamp poked in the beach. From theliberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late PatkMacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged mesquealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirthwith 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 asgods? 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, whiteheapedcorn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to everlasting. Womb ofsin.

Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man with myvoice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clasped andsundered, did the coupler’s will. From before the ages He willed me and now maynot will me away or ever. A lex eterna stays about Him. Is that then thedivine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial? Where is poor dearArius to try conclusions? Warring his life long upon thecontransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred heresiarch! In a Greekwatercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. With beaded mitre and withcrozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of a widowed see, with upstiffedomophorion, with clotted hinderparts.

Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves. Thewhitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of Mananaan.

I mustn’t forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half twelve. Bythe 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 consubstantialfather’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 abit 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 drunkenlittle costdrawer and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectablegondoliers! 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 adun, 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 thehillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the uppermoiety.

—Morrow, nephew.

He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the eyes ofmaster Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and common searches anda writ of Duces Tecum. A bogoak frame over his bald head: Wilde’sRequiescat. 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. Wouldyou like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs here. The richof a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the better. We have nothing inthe 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, hisfists bigdrumming on his padded knees.

This wind is sweeter.

Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you had anuncle 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 readthe fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? The hundredheaded rabble ofthe 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. Abbasfather, furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff!Descende, calve, ut ne nimium decalveris. A garland of grey hair on hiscomminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace (descende!),clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! A choir gives backmenace and echo, assisting about the altar’s horns, the snorted Latin ofjackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat withthe 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! Andin a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own cheek. Dringdring! Down,up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that, invincible doctor. A mistyEnglish morning the imp hypostasis tickled his brain. Bringing his host downand 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 (heis kneeling) twang in diphthong.

Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were awfullyholy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you might not have ared nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue that the fubsy widow infront 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. Moretell 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 bowedto yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, strikingface. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books youwere going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but Iprefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies writtenon green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all thegreat libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read themthere 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 onefeels that one is at one with one who once...

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a dampcrackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebblesbeats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waitedto suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweedsmouldered in seafire under a midden of man’s ashes. He coasted them, walkingwarily. 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 amaze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on thehigher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brownsteersmen and master mariners. Human shells.

He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara’s. Am I not going there? Seemsnot. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand towards thePigeonhouse.

—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 ofthe wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father’s a bird, he lapped the sweetlait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny’s face. Lap,lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature ofwomen he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jésus by M. LéoTaxil. Lent it to his friend.

—C’est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pasen 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 pucegloves. 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 bybelching 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 analibi if they arrested you for murder somewhere. Justice. On the night of theseventeenth of February 1904 the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Otherfellow did it: other me. Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. Lui, c’est moi. Youseem 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 officeslammed in your face by the usher. Hunger toothache. Encore deuxminutes. Look clock. Must get. Fermé. Hired dog! Shoot him to bloodybits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered walls all brass buttons. Bits allkhrrrrklak in place clack back. Not hurt? O, that’s all right. Shake hands. Seewhat I meant, see? O, that’s all right. Shake a shake. O, that’s all only allright.

You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fieryColumbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from theirpintpots, loudlatinlaughing: Euge! Euge! Pretending to speak brokenEnglish as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across the slimy pier atNewhaven. Comment? Rich booty you brought back; Le Tutu, fivetattered numbers of Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge; a blue Frenchtelegram, 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 theboulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone mammothskulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is there, the slendertrees, the lemon houses.

Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of farls ofbread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the air. Belluomo risesfrom the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife, the kerchiefed housewife is astir, asaucer of acetic acid in her hand. In Rodot’s Yvonne and Madeleine newmaketheir tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry,their mouths yellowed with the pus of flan bréton. Faces of Parismen go by, their wellpleased pleasers, curled conquistadores.

Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers smearedwith printer’s ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his white. About usgobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. Un demi sétier! A jet ofcoffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me at his beck. Il estirlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, nous, Irlande, vous savezah, oui! She thought you wanted a cheese hollandais. Yourpostprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a fellow I knewonce in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well:slainte! Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths andgrumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the greenfairy’s fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes,conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. Toyoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You’re your father’sson. I know the voice. His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles itsSpanish tassels at his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, knowwhat he called queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. Vieilleogresse with the dents jaunes. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, LaPatrie, M. Millevoye, Félix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. Thefroeken, bonne à tout faire, who rubs male nakedness in the bath atUpsala. Moi faire, she said, Tous les messieurs. Not thisMonsieur, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. Iwouldn’t let my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Greeneyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.

The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose tobaccoshredscatch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw facebones under hispeep of day boy’s hat. How the head centre got away, authentic version. Got upas a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, drove out the road to Malahide.Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutchedat, gone, not here.

Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell you. I’llshow you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he prowled withcolonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of Clerkenwell and,crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the fog. Shatteredglass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, Egan of Paris, unsought byany save by me. Making his day’s stations, the dingy printingcase, his threetaverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutte-d’Or,damascened with flyblown faces of the gone. Loveless, landless, wifeless. Sheis quite nicey comfy without her outcast man, madame in rue Gît-le-Cœur, canaryand 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 poorPat a job one time. Mon fils, soldier of France. I taught him to singThe boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades. Know that old lay? Itaught Patrice that. Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow’s castle on theNore. 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 newair greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of seeds ofbrightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, am I? He stoodsuddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the quaking soil. Turn back.

Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in newsockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the barbacans theshafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet are sinking, creepingduskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, nightfall, deep blue night. In thedarkness 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 willnot sleep there when this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombingtheir blind bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. Helifted his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Takeall, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon’smidwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearingElsinore’s tempting flood.

The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back then bythe Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge and eelyoarweeds 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 gunwaleof a boat, sunk in sand. Un coche ensablé Louis Veuillot calledGautier’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 goldthere. Try it. You have some. Sands and stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout’stoys. Mind you don’t get one bang on the ear. I’m the bloody well gigant rollsall them bloody well boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellzde bloodz odz an Iridzman.

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. Lord, ishe going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be master of others ortheir slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking shorewardacross from the crested tide, figures, two. The two maries. They have tucked itsafe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running backto them. Who?

Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their bloodbeakedprows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, torcs of tomahawksaglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of gold. A school ofturlehide whales stranded in hot noon, spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Thenfrom the starving cagework city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, withflayers’ knives, running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine,plague and slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I movedamong them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the splutteringresin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me.

The dog’s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I justsimply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Terribilia meditans. A primrosedoublet, fortune’s knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the barkof their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The Bruce’s brother, ThomasFitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, York’s false scion, in breeches ofsilk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail ofnans and sutlers, a scullion crowned. All kings’ sons. Paradise of pretendersthen and now. He saved men from drowning and you shake at a cur’s yelping. Butthe courtiers who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. Houseof... We don’t want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what hedid? 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’srock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. Iwould try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. When I put my face intoit 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 sandquickly, shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life stillto be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out ofhorror 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 allsides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made off like abounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a lowskimming gull. Theman’s shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He turned, bounded back, camenearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a field tenney a buck, trippant,proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of the tide he halted with stiffforehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herdsof 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 theirbags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped running to them, rearedup and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again reared up at them with mutebearish 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 aheadof them and then loped off at a calf’s gallop. The carcass lay on his path. Hestopped, 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! Herelies poor dogsbody’s body.

—Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!

The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick senthim unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He slunk back in acurve. 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 trottedforward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock.The simple pleasures of the poor. His hindpaws then scattered the sand: thenhis forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he buried there, his grandmother. Herooted in the sand, dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scrapedup 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 ofharlots. 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. Youwill see who.

Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet out ofturnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler strangling hisunshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the ruffian and his strollingmort. 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 awastto Romeville. When night hides her body’s flaws calling under her brown shawlfrom an archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two RoyalDublins 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 daintyis. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber on theirgirdles: 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 thewest, 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 winedarksea. 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 adte veniet. He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sailsbloodying the sea, mouth to her mouth’s kiss.

Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss. No. Mustbe 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: roarof cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. Thebanknotes, blast them. Old Deasy’s letter. Here. Thanking you for thehospitality tear the blank end off. Turning his back to the sun he bent overfar to a table of rock and scribbled words. That’s twice I forgot to take slipsfrom the library counter.

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till thefarthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in thebrightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur’s rod ofash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet nightwalking 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 ona white field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop ofCloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space withcoloured 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 thetrick. 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 toher lover clinging, the more the more.

She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue hell amI bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of theineluctable 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 towrite. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the braided jesse of hersunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief and kickshaws, a lady ofletters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she wears thosecurse 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 noteand pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his eyes. That is Kevin Egan’smovement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. Et vidit Deus. Et erantvalde bona. Alo! Bonjour. Welcome as the flowers in May. Under itsleaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. I am caughtin this burning scene. Pan’s hour, the faunal noon. Among gumheavyserpentplants, 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 whereinanother’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 brothersoul: Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name. His arm: Cranly’s arm. He nowwill 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, coveringgreengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float away. Ishall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the low rocks,swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourwordedwavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amidseasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap:bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widelyflowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and swayreluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying andupturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: lifted, flooded andlet fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to, they sigh. Saint Ambroseheard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the fullness of theirtimes, diebus ac noctibus iniurias patiens ingemiscit. To no endgathered; vainly then released, forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon.Weary too in sight of lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in hercourts, 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 ofrubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising saltwhite from theundertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. There he is. Hook itquick. 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 spongytitbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God becomes manbecomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain. Dead breaths Iliving breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all dead. Hauledstark over the gunwale he breathes upward the stench of his green grave, hisleprous nosehole snoring to the sun.

A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths known toman. Old Father Ocean. Prix de Paris: beware of imitations. Just yougive 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 sandalshoon. 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 waynext 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, gentlemanjournalist. Già. My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one isgoing too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that money? Thatone. This. Toothless Kinch, the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does itmean 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. Forthe rest let look who will.

Behind. Perhaps there is someone.

He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the air highspars 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 likedthick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices friedwith crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled muttonkidneys 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 herbreakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen butout 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 herplate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob andset 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 thetable 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: thegloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the greenflashing 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 understandthem. 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 thechookchooks. 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 withgreed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took thejug Hanlon’s milkman had just filled for him, poured warmbubbled milk on asaucer 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 threetimes and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they can’t mouseafter. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind of feelers inthe dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with thisdrouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a muttonkidney at Buckley’s. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidneyat Dlugacz’s. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower, then licking thesaucer 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 thebedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter she likesin 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 sheturned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get thosesettled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. Forgotten any little Spanishshe 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 abargain, 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 hislost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback pictures.Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. The sweatedlegend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto’s high grade ha. Hepeeped 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 thetrousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No usedisturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the halldoor toafter him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently over thethreshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of numberseventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be a warm dayI 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 happywarmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays our daily but she prefersyesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewherein 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 oldertechnically. Walk along a strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentrythere, old ranker too, old Tweedy’s big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of aspear. Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves ofcarpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiledpipe. 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: priestwith a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, the evening wind. Ipass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from her doorway. She calls herchildren home in their dark language. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Nightsky, moon, violet, colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girlplaying 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 thesun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What ArthurGriffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerulesun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. Heprolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in thenorthwest.

He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up the flabbygush 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 atramline along the North Circular from the cattlemarket to the quays valuewould 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 curateswab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him off to a tee with his eyesscrewed 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 forthe Japanese.

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor Dignam, MrO’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 countyLeitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, theyblossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think of the competition.General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. Saveit they can’t. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down three and carry five. What isthat, 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 bossand we’ll split the job, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels ofstuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint Joseph’sNational school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps memory. Or alilt. 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 spicypigs’ blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He stood bythe nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling the items froma slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a pound and a half of Denny’ssausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. Woods his name is. Wonder whathe 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 hercrooked skirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with blotchyfingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at Kinnereth onthe lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter sanatorium. MosesMontefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round it, blurred cattlecropping. He held the page from him: interesting: read it nearer, the title,the blurred cropping cattle, the page rustling. A young white heifer. Thosemornings in the cattlemarket, the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep,flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through thelitter, slapping a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one,unpeeled switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bendinghis senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirtswinging, whack by whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime sausagesand 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 sunlightand sauntered lazily to the right. He sighed down his nose: they neverunderstand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted toenails too. Brown scapulars intatters, defending her both ways. The sting of disregard glowed to weakpleasure within his breast. For another: a constable off duty cuddling her inEccles’ 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 itfetched up three coins from his trousers’ pocket and laid them on the rubberprickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by disc, into thetill.

—Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze after aninstant. 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 witheucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction. Orangegroves andimmense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunamof 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 downand 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 fewleft from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste of them now.Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citronstill in Saint Kevin’s parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasantevenings we had then. Molly in Citron’s basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxenfruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Likethat, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. Theyfetched 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 atJaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them barefoot insoiled 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 Norwegiancaptain’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: nofish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, greymetal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: thecities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in adead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A benthag crossed from Cassidy’s, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldestpeople. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity,multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bearno 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 intoEccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling hisblood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Yes, I am herenow. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin againthose Sandow’s exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Numbereighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers,Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters ona 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 goldhair on the wind.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered them. MrsMarion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. Mrs Marion.

—Poldy!

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm yellowtwilight 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 aletter 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 atthe 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 witha 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 rinsedout the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the kettle then tolet the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took off the kettle, crushedthe 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 toomuch meat she won’t mouse. Say they won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let thebloodsmeared paper fall to her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling buttersauce. Pepper. He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chippedeggcup.

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 herthe amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of folded brown paper in theletterbox 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 oldchap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the littlemirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the parlour. O, lookwhat I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking out eventhen. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the teapoton the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread andbutter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumbhooked in the teapot handle.

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on thechair by the bedhead.

—What a time you were! she said.

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on thepillow. 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 couchedbody 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 ofgoing 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 SweetSong.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves nextday. 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 drawersfrom 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 pronouncesthat right: voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped andlifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of theorangekeyed chamberpot.

—Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I wanted to askyou.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having wipedher fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text with thehairpin 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. Thatmeans 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 firstnight after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn. He turned over the smudged pages.Ruby: the Pride of the Ring. Hello. Illustration. Fierce Italian withcarriagewhip. 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 theother way. Mob gaping. Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families ofthem. Bone them young so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Oursouls. 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 thefirst 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, myguarantor. Reincarnation: that’s the word.

—Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body afterdeath, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we all livedbefore on the earth thousands of years ago or some other planet. They say wehave forgotten it. Some say they remember their past lives.

The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better remind her ofthe word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example?

The Bath of the Nymph over the bed. Given away with the Easter number ofPhoto Bits: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you put milkin. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six I gave for theframe. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked nymphs: Greece: and forinstance all the people that lived then.

He turned the pages back.

—Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They usedto believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for instance. Whatthey called nymphs, for example.

Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, inhalingthrough 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 againstthe broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping hastily down thestairs with a flurried stork’s legs. Pungent smoke shot up in an angry jet froma side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the fork under the kidney he detachedit and turned it turtle on its back. Only a little burnt. He tossed it off thepan on to a plate and let the scanty brown gravy trickle over it.

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 ofcreams and am writing. They are lovely. I am getting on swimming in the photobusiness now. Mr Coghlan took one of me and Mrs. Will send when developed. Wedid great biz yesterday. Fair day and all the beef to the heels were in. We aregoing to lough Owel on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Givemy love to mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at thepiano 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 orsomething are big swells and he sings Boylan’s (I was on the pop of writingBlazes Boylan’s) song about those seaside girls. Tell him silly Milly sends mybest respects. I must now close with fondest love

Your fond daughter

Milly

P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.

Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first birthday awayfrom home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she was born, running toknock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old woman. Lot of babies shemust have helped into the world. She knew from the first poor little Rudywouldn’t live. Well, God is good, sir. She knew at once. He would be eleven nowif 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 aboutthe bracelet. Wouldn’t eat her cakes or speak or look. Saucebox. He soppedother dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after piece of kidney. Twelveand six a week. Not much. Still, she might do worse. Music hall stage. Youngstudent. He drank a draught of cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he readthe 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. Herslim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. Ripening now. Vain: very.

He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught her inthe street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. Was givenmilk too long. On the Erin’s King that day round the Kish. Damned oldtub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf loose in the wind withher hair.

All dimpled cheeks and curls,
Your head it simply swirls.

Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets, jarvey offfor 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 feltthe 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 thetime. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two and sixreturn. 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, nosedat 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 firetoo.

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 thelanding.

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 underhis 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 thenext garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. The maid was in thegarden. Fine morning.

He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. Make asummerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to manure the wholeplace over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. All soil like that withoutdung. 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 toclean ladies’ kid gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place.Grow peas in that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Stillgardens 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. Orhanging up on the floor. Funny I don’t remember that. Hallstand too full. Fourumbrellas, 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. Tarastreet. 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 thesetrousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the lowlintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stalecobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink upat the nextdoor windows. The king was in his countinghouse. Nobody.

Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over on hisbared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit. Our prizetitbit: Matcham’s Masterstroke. Written by Mr Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers’Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been made to thewriter. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds, thirteen and six.

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding butresisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowedhis bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently thatslight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it’s not too big bring onpiles 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 andneat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his ownrising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke bywhich he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Handin hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feelinghis water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it andreceived payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.

Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for someproverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she saiddressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her netherlip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.15. Did Roberts pay youyet? 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 ofher boot.

Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning afterthe 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 fansticksclicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a goodrich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strangekind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed herhandglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peeringinto it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn’t pan out somehow.

Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with daggers andeyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still, trueto life also. Day: then the night.

He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. Then hegirded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back the jerkyshaky 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 blacktrousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time is thefuneral? Better find out in the paper.

A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s church. Theytolled 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, pastWindmill lane, Leask’s the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph office. Couldhave given that address too. And past the sailors’ home. He turned from themorning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By Brady’scottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked, smoking achewed 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 dahome. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be many there. He crossed Townsendstreet, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. Andpast Nichols’ the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay CornyKelleher bagged the job for O’Neill’s. Singing with his eyes shut. Corny. Mether once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name andaddress 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 TeaCompany and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend, finestquality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan. Couldn’task him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he took off hishat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with slow grace overhis brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped lids his eyes foundthe tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. Hisright hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a cardbehind the headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket.

So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and hair. Thenhe put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice blend, made of thefinest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must be: the garden of theworld, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianasthey call them. Wonder is it like that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in thesun in dolce far niente, not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep sixmonths 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 theair. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was thechap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on hisback, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thickwith salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in thewater is equal to the weight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to theweight? It’s a law something like that. Vance in High school cracking hisfingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What isweight 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. Theearth. 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 hersausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freemanfrom his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped itat each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in tosee. Per second per second. Per second for every second it means. From thecurbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice. Too latebox. 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 posterwith soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton against hisnostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably. Went too farlast time.

The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a letter. Hethanked 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, reviewingagain 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 thewomen go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne’s letterabout 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. Eyesfront. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King’s own. Never see him dressedup as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes.

He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if thatwould mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt its wayunder the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will pay a lotof heed, I don’t think. His fingers drew forth the letter the letter andcrumpled 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 itlast 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 theGrosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood still,waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his pockets forchange. 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 patchpockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women all for caste tillyou touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. Thehonourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take thestarch out of her.

—I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what doyou 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 vailedeyelids 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 ofone thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side will she get up?

—And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? Isaid. 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 itwhen I heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it inthe Arch. Yes, he said. He’s gone. He died on Monday, poorfellow.

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 theperi. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace streethallway 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 glovedhand 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 theUlster 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. Nobook. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady and fairman. 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 drowningcase at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would have to godown if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I’m not there, willyou?

—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 myjob. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners, rivettededges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the Wicklowregatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that good day tothis.

Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has just gotan. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its way: for alittle 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 thatBelfast 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 multicolouredhoardings. 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. Maleimpersonator. 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 Londonwaited 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 blindAbraham 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 fatherto die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his father andleft 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. Nouse 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 ofhorsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they know or care aboutanything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too full for words. Stillthey get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded too: a stump of blackguttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might be happy all the samethat 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. Allweathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio enon. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flyingsyllables 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 ofthe station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements.With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its forgottenpickeystone. 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 ofhis mantle not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles when I went tothat old dame’s school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis’s. And Mr? He openedthe letter within the newspaper.

Dear Henry

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry you didnot like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am awfully angrywith you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you naughty boybecause I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the real meaningof that word? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? I dowish I could do something for you. Please tell me what you think of poor me. Ioften think of the beautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? Ithink of you so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawnto a man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell memore. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I will doto you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to meet you. Henrydear, do not deny my request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tellyou all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I have such a bad headache. today. andwrite by return to your longing

Martha

He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell andplaced it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because no-onecan hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then walking slowly forwardhe read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word. Angry tulips withyou darling manflower punish your cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenothow I long violets to dear roses when we soon anemone meet all naughtynightstalk wife Martha’s perfume. Having read it all he took it from thenewspaper and put it back in his sidepocket.

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did she wroteit herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me, respectablecharacter. 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 atime.

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 theCoombe, 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 daytyping. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife use. Nowcould 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 formoney. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the two sluts inthe Coombe would listen.

To keep it up.

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there: quietdusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, strangecustoms. 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 atAshtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the trottingmatches. Shelistens 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 inshreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away, sank inthe 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 millionin the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of porter. Still theother 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 agallon 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. Barrelsbumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The bungholessprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, winding throughmudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of liquor bearing alongwideleaved flowers of its froth.

He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the porch hedoffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again behind theleather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M’Coy for a pass toMullingar.

Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J. on saintPeter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the conversion ofGladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants are thesame. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the true religion. Save China’smillions. Wonder how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce ofopium. Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Buddha their god lying on his side inthe museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Notlike Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick theshamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him:distinguishedlooking. Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into thechoir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’retaught that. He’s not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off himto baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like tosee them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Stilllife. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.

The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, pushed theswingdoor and entered softly by the rere.

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place to benext some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music. Thatwoman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with crimsonhalters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altarrails. Thepriest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his hands. Hestopped 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 nextone. Her hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priestbent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The nextone. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus: body. Corpse.Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don’tseem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse. Whythe cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by one, andseek 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 havehats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with headsstill 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, breadof angels it’s called. There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God iswithin you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all likeone family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’m sureof that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. Letoff steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, waters ofoblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old fellow asleep nearthat confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. Safe in the arms ofkingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an instantbefore 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 spotbehind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S. Molly told me one time I askedher. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And the other one? Ironnails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with a veiland black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with a ribbonround 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 receivethe, Carey was his name, the communion every morning. This very church. PeterCarey, yes. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imaginethat. 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 somethingshiftylooking 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 areused to Guinness’s porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley’s Dublin hopbitters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn’t give them anyof 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, cadgingfor a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly rightthat is.

Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music. Pity. Whohas the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that instrumenttalk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in Gardinerstreet. 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 keepus all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pindrop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I could feel thethrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:

Quis est homo.

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words. Mozart’stwelfth mass: Gloria in that. Those old popes keen on music, on art andstatues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example too. They had a gayold time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting, regular hours, then brewliqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, having eunuchs in their choirthat was coming it a bit thick. What kind of voice is it? Must be curious tohear after their own strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feelanything 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 blessall the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced about himand then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the gospel ofcourse. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back quietly inhis 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 downand 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 immaculatevirgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if you understoodwhat 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 dyingto. 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 blatantimitation. 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’tthey rake in the money too? Bequests also: to the P.P. for the time being inhis absolute discretion. Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publiclywith open doors. Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh willcase in the witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat foreverything. Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctorsof the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

—Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be oursafeguard 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 ofGod thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other wicked spirits whowander through the world for the ruin of souls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The womenremained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate perhaps. Payyour 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 betteruntidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south. He passed, discreetly buttoning, downthe aisle and out through the main door into the light. He stood a momentunseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and behind twoworshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car ofPrescott’s dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourningmyself. 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’sin Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars tooheavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenotchurchyard near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the othertrousers. 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. Ichanged a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been or thesecond. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions book.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems tohave. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’s stone. Thealchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why?Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living allthe day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster lilypots.Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost cure you likethe 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 hada bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroformyou. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum.Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs thepores 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 drysmell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches andpains.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and thenorangeflower 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. Thosehomely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles andrainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the oldqueen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold, yes. Three wehave. 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 sofresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath roundthe corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicerif a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curiouslonging I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time formassage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought abottle?

—No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day andI’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 comeback.

—Good, Mr Bloom said.

He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, thecoolwrappered 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 onhis shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.

—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam Lyonssaid. Where the bugger is it?

He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. Barber’sitch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper and get shutof him.

—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.

—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum thesecond.

—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 awaythat moment.

Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread sheets backon 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 thensmuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots ofEgypt.

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 thehorseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like a codin a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel. Then thespokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something to catchthe eye.

There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands: mighttake 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. Sitaround under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it here. Duck forsix wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the Kildare street clubwith a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line. And the skullswe were acracking when M’Carthy took the floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Alwayspassing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life we trace is dearerthan 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 limbsriprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel,bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floatinghair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floatingflower.

[ 6 ]

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriageand, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after him, curvinghis 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 himand slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm through the armstrapand looked seriously from the open carriagewindow at the lowered blinds of theavenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose whiteflattened againstthe pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over. Extraordinary the interestthey take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Jobseems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers forfear he’d wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Flemingmaking the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know whowill touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and thehair. 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 onsomething 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: thenhorses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and swaying.Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue passedand number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace.

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were passingalong the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled rollingover the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in thedoorframes.

—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 pastWatery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a widehat.

—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 thetenement 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 Gouldingfaction, 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 streetwith Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady’s two hats pinned onhis head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on him now: thatbackache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it withpills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent profit.

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is acontaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks allover Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll make it mybusiness to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt orwhatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I’ll tickle hiscatastrophe, 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 faceand 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 Etonsuit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. From me. Just achance. Must have been that morning in Raymond terrace she was at the windowwatching the two dogs at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And thesergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she neverstitched. 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 couldhave 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! Yegods 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. Doyou follow me?

He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away crustcrumbs fromunder 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 Powersaid.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leatherof 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 ofhis 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. Poorchildren! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame really. Got offlightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea. Scarlatina,influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss this chance. Dogs’ homeover there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. Thywill 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 spraydots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. I thought itwould. 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 mutecurse 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 himoff 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 simpleballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the wholecourse of my experience.

—Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And theretrospective 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 forher.

—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? isit the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton, Urbright. Inkedcharacters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the LittleFlower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged 88 after a longand tedious illness. Month’s mind: Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus havemercy.

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 thebath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry fled. Beforemy patience are exhausted.

National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. Full asa tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with a fare. Anhour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats.

A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramwaystandard by Mr Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent something automatic so thatthe 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 crapearmlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law perhaps.

They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s, under the railway bridge, pastthe Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs BandmannPalmer. Could I go to see Leah tonight, I wonder. I said I. Or theLily of Killarney? Elster Grimes Opera Company. Big powerful change. Wetbright bills for next week. Fun on the Bristol. Martin Cunningham couldwork a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a drink or two. As broad as it’slong.

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 insalute.

—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 discof a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed.

Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right hand. Thenails, 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 personis. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am just looking at them: wellpared. And after: thinking alone. Body getting a bit softy. I would noticethat: from remembering. What causes that? I suppose the skin can’t contractquickly enough when the flesh falls off. But the shape is there. The shape isthere still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuckbetween the cheeks behind.

He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant glanceover 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 goodidea, you see...

—Are you going yourself?

—Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the countyClare 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 alltopnobbers. 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 hisdeathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by Farrell’s statueunited noiselessly their unresisting knees.

Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his mouthopening: oot.

—Four bootlaces for a penny.

Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. Samehouse as Molly’s namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. Has that silkhat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. Terrible comedown, poorwretch! 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. Doingher hair, humming: voglio e non vorrei. No: vorrei e non. Lookingat 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 theears. Madame: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way. Onlypoliteness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman hekeeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is nocarnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it wasCrofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is this shewas? 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 ofElvery’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 thecarriage 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 andthe 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 sendhim 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 triedto 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 ontheir way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got looseand 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 fishedhim out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father on thequay 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 forsaving 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 hisfingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and he wasin 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 verysuddenly.

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.

He tapped his chest sadly.

Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. Drink likethe 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, temperancehotel, Falconer’s railway guide, civil service college, Gill’s, catholic club,the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or wind. At night too. Chummiesand slaveys. Under the patronage of the late Father Mathew. Foundation stonefor 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, weakas putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society pays. Penny a weekfor 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 nexttime.

—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. Wemust 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 largeeyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. LikeShakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy on that hereor infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive a stake of woodthrough his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’t broken already. Yet sometimesthey 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 aftertime and then pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading himthe 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 thatnight Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about the place and capering withMartin’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 inthe hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through the slats ofthe Venetian blind. The coroner’s sunlit ears, big and hairy. Boots givingevidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like yellow streaks on hisface. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. Verdict: overdose. Death bymisadventure. 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 tomorrowin 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 andafter them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody here seenKelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from Saul. He’s as bad as oldAntonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The Mater Misericordiae.Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for incurables there. Veryencouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for the dying. Deadhouse handy underneath.Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look terrible the women. Her feeding cup andrubbing 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 overto 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 onpadded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony croups. Outsidethem 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 abouttwentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for old England. Theybuy 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. Byproductsof the slaughterhouses for tanneries, soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodgeworks 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 theparkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken intrucks down to the boats.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quiteright. They ought to.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to havemunicipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line out tothe cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage and all. Don’tyou see what I mean?

—O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloondiningroom.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.

—Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decentthan galloping two abreast?

—Well, there’s something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.

—And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that when thehearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road.

—That was terrible, Mr Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fellabout 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 shotout and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large for him. Redface: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s up now. Quite right to closeit. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose quickly. Much better to closeup 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 bythe wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull up here on the wayback 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 theknocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. Depends on where. Thecirculation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It would be betterto 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 raftcoastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime,mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make awalking 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. Developingwaterways. James M’Cann’s hobby to row me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. Byeasy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. PerhapsI will without writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping downlock by lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted hisbrown 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 landsilent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt ingrief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: appealing. Thebest 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. Afterlife’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 thelaw. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to bewrongfully condemned.

They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless,unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. Themurderer’s image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about it. Man’shead 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 lettingher 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 whiteforms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white formsand fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the air.

The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put out hisarm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his knee. Hestepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.

Change that soap now. Mr Bloom’s hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly andtransferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. He steppedout of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still held.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the same. Pallbearers, goldreins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. Beyond the hind carriage ahawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stucktogether: cakes for the dead. Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out.

He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes walkingafter them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took out the twowreaths. 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, draggingthrough 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 withhis plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, pressing on abloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here every day? Mustbe twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount Jerome for the protestants.Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them under bythe cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in the world.

Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy, hardwoman 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 deadweight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First the stiff: thenthe friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy followed with theirwreaths. 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 theQueen’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 towardsthe 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. Shewould marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after. Widowhood not the thingsince the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmorememorial mourning. But in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain inher heart of hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was thesubstance. 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 nomore in her warm bed.

—How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven’tseen 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 Lambertsaid. 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 insuranceis 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 isbehind. He put down his name for a quid.

—I’ll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought tomind 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 theboy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slenderfurrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there when thefather? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment and recognise for thelast time. All he might have done. I owe three shillings to O’Grady. Would heunderstand? 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. Thecoffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at itscorners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each forecorner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners knelt here and there inprayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the font and, when all had knelt,dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper from his pocket and knelt his rightknee upon it. He fitted his black hat gently on his left knee and, holding itsbrim, 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 readthe book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book with afluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Dominenamine. Bullyabout the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe betideanyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst sideways like asheep 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. Crapeweepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly place this.Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the gloom kicking hisheels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too. What swells him up thatway? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up ofbad gas. Must be an infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, forinstance: they get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Downin the vaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hundred and fifty they haveto bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Outit 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 bucketand shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and shook itagain. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you were before yourested. 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 betterto 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 withthat job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. What harm if hecould 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. Allthe year round he prayed the same thing over them all and shook water on top ofthem: 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 Kelleheropened 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 tothe boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed them out of the sidedoorsinto the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into hispocket. He gazed gravely at the ground till the coffincart wheeled off to theleft. The metal wheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the packof 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 hisheart 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 stretchedbeside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.

Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little in hiswalk. 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 inheaven 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 cando 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? MrKernan 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, moreimpressive 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 inmostheart.

—It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two with histoes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. Broken heart. Apump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One fine dayit 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 thelife. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all upout 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 lightsand the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweightof 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 yourtooraloom 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 knowhis 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 goldenyears 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 likethat 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 yourcustom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin Cunningham’sside 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 caretakerhung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke in a discreettone to their vacant smiles.

—They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggyevening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for Mulcahyfrom the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After traipsing about in thefog 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 thewidow 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 likethe man, says he. That’s not Mulcahy, says he, whoever doneit.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting thedockets 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 termswith 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 mustsee about that ad after the funeral. Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope Itook to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked inthe dead letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’sthe first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silverthreads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption topropose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that beforeher. It might thrill her first. Courting death. Shades of night hovering herewith all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when churchyardsyawn and Daniel O’Connell must be a descendant I suppose who is this used tosay he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the same like a big giant inthe dark. Will o’ the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it toconceive at all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bedto make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdarknight. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d kiss all right ifproperly 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 thewindow. Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field afterfield. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or kneelingyou couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up some day above ground in alandslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must be: oblongcells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. His garden MajorGamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep.Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastianskytold me. The Botanic Gardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in theearth gives new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy.Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluablefor fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor andaccountant, 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 dampearth. 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. Changingabout. 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 swirlingwith them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little seaside gurls. Helooks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the othersgo under first. Wonder how he looks at life. Cracking his jokes too: warms thecockles of his heart. The one about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4a.m. this morning. 11 p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The deadthemselves the men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to knowwhat’s in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keepout the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. Gravediggersin Hamlet. Shows the profound knowledge of the human heart. Daren’t jokeabout the dead for two years at least. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Go outof mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. Seems a sort of a joke. Readyour own obituary notice they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. Newlease 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 roundthe 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 knowwho is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in themacintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know? Now I’d give a trifle to know who heis. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. A fellow could live on hislonesome all his life. Yes, he could. Still he’d have to get someone to sod himafter 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 Crusoewas true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursdayif 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 allit does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could invent a handsomebier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that way. Ay but they mightobject to be buried out of another fellow’s. They’re so particular. Lay me inmy native earth. Bit of clay from the holy land. Only a mother and deadbornchild ever buried in the one coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect himas 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. Wherethe deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the chapel, that I’ll swear. Sillysuperstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had one likethat when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was once. Used tochange three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit of mine turned byMesias. Hello. It’s dyed. His wife I forgot he’s not married or his landladyought to have picked out those threads for him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on thegravetrestles. 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 bythe gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the black openspace. 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’tbelieve 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 andwandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. His sleep isnot natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jawsinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish itoff on the floor since he’s doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner’s deathshowing 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 talkabout you a bit: forget you. Don’t forget to pray for him. Remember him in yourprayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into ahole, one after the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you’re well and not inhell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire ofpurgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when youshiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy’s warning. Near you. Mineover there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor mamma, and littleRudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in on thecoffin. 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 isdead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the heart and makesure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and some kind of acanvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them insummer. 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. Themourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves without show. MrBloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way deftly through themaze 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 themall. No: coming to me.

—I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is yourchristian name? I’m not sure.

—L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M’Coy’s name too. Heasked 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 apostmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died of aTuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley, you’re mydarling. 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: costsnothing.

—And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was overthere 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 hisname?

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, whatbecame 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 moundof damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their spades. Alluncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath against acorner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on their capsand carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked the bladeslightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft ofgrass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, itsblade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband.His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his freehand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. Foryourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whilesto 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’sblank voice spoke:

—Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled withstones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

—Parnell will never come again, he said. He’s there, all that was mortalof him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, brokenpillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland’shearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for theliving. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really? Plant him andhave done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them together to savetime. All souls’ day. Twentyseventh I’ll be at his grave. Ten shillings for thegardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with hisshears clipping. Near death’s door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. Asif they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked thebucket. 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. Ora woman’s with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. Eulogy in a countrychurchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or ThomasCampbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren’s. The greatphysician called him home. Well it’s God’s acre for them. Nice countryresidence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke andread the Church Times. Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rustywreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money.Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, neverwithering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the weddingpresent alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him. Knows there areno catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. Silly-Milly buryingthe little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of brokenchainies on the grave.

The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be sidewaysand red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was dedicated to it orwhatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this infliction? Would birdscome then and peck like the boy with the basket of fruit but he said no becausethey ought to have been afraid of the boy. Apollo that was.

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As youare 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 amawfkrpthsth. 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 instancewho? 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. Anold stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive crushed itselfin under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good hidingplace fortreasure.

Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was buriedhere 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 nomatter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well andwhat’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China that theChinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better. Priests deadagainst it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch ovendealers. 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 bybirds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your wholelife in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can’t bury in the airhowever. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about whenever afresh one is let down. Underground communication. We learned that from them.Wouldn’t be surprised. Regular square feed for them. Flies come before he’swell 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 ofthis place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was here was MrsSinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even scraping up theearth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to get at fresh buriedfemales or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give you the creeps after abit. I will appear to you after death. You will see my ghost after death. Myghost will haunt you after death. There is another world after death namedhell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see andhear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in theirmaggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warmfullblooded 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. MatDillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, theTantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out thatevening 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. Mollyand 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 napwith 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 pacesso as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could wind asappyhead like that round his little finger, without his seeing it.

Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. Get thepull 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 forBlackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, PalmerstonPark and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend and SandymountTower, Harold’s Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company’s timekeeperbawled them off:

—Rathgar and Terenure!

—Come on, Sandymount Green!

Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck movedfrom 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 ontheir 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 andbumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthuddingbarrels 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 theTelegraph office.

The door of Ruttledge’s office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a largecapecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll ofpapers under his cape, a king’s courier.

Red Murray’s long shears sliced out the advertisement from the newspaper infour 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 behindhis 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 statelyfigure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and NationalPress and the Freeman’s Journal and National Press. DullthuddingGuinness’s barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase, steered by anumbrella, 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 offlesh 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 dooropposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.

Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha. Steeredby 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 OurSaviour.

Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his heart. InMartha.

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 steppedoff 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 inthrough a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the nowreverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping. Thumping.

He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packingpaper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards Nannetti’sreading closet.

WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST RESPECTEDDUBLIN BURGESS

Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This morningthe remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to atoms ifthey got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are pegging awaytoo. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away, tearing away. Andthat 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 Collegegreen. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth. It’s the adsand 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 allwhom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing return of number ofmules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake’sweekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle Toby’s page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin’squeries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? I’d like thatpart. Learn a lot teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P. Mainly allpictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand. World’s biggest balloon. Doublemarriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at eachother. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than the Irish.

The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he gotparalysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they’d clank on and on thesame, 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 andmade a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the dirty glassscreen.

—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 wantstwo keys at the top.

Hell of a racket they make. He doesn’t hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves. Maybe heunderstands what I.

The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began toscratch 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’ssallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the obedient reelsfeeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of it unreeled. Whatbecomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various uses, thousand and onethings.

Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew swiftly onthe 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 inleaded: 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 therequietly.

—The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor, theManx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the isle ofMan. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?

I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then ifhe 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 housethere too. I’ll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and just alittle 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. MrBloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the silenttypesetters at their cases.

ORTHOGRAPHICAL

Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot to giveus his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the unpar onear alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed pedlar whilegauging 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 havesaid something about an old hat or something. No. I could have said. Looks asgood as new now. See his phiz then.

Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its flyboard withsllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human the way it slltto 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 theTelegraph. 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 agood 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 theshow.

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 throughhis 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 bitin the savingsbank I’d say. Wife a good cook and washer. Daughter working themachine 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 itbackwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice that. mangiDkcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards with his finger tome. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All that long business aboutthat brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondagealleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that’s the other. Then thetwelve brothers, Jacob’s sons. And then the lamb and the cat and the dog andthe stick and the water and the butcher. And then the angel of death kills thebutcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly tillyou come to look into it well. Justice it means but it’s everybody eatingeveryone 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 thelanding. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him outperhaps. 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 wallswith matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell therealways 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 putthere. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he took outthe 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 Iforgot. 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 thedusty 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 onits way, tho’ quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling waters ofNeptune’s blue domain, ’mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest zephyrs, played onby the glorious sunlight or ’neath the shadows cast o’er its pensive bosom bythe 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 thefireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.

—That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don’t want tohear 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. Ratherupsets a man’s day, a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old Chatterton,the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle. Close on ninetythey say. Subleader for his death written this long time perhaps. Living tospite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The righthonourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque ortwo 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 answeredwith 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 anaccent 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. Thathectic 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 theinner door.

—Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He’s in hissanctum with Lenehan.

J. J. O’Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back the pinkpages 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 inGlasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the Express withGabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on theIndependent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they getwind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn’tknow which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for oneanother baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hail fellow well metthe next moment.

—Ah, listen to this for God’ sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if webut 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 batheour souls, as it were...

—Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is hetaking 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 pasturelandof vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of our mildmysterious 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 ofthe 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 instantafter a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh’s unshavenblackspectacled 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 cakethat stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn’t he? Why they call him DoughyDaw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in theinland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments. Openhouse. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by thestomach.

The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested by acomb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared about themand 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 afterthat.

—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 MrBloom’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. Wewon every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!

—Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at histoecaps.

—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 apiece, 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 tothe 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 sliplimply 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. Maddenup.

He tossed the tissues on to the table.

Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was flungopen.

—Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.

Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin by thecollar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps. The tissuesrustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue scrawls and under thetable 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 hurricaneblowing.

Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he stoopedtwice.

—Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was PatFarrell 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 inneroffice. Is the boss...? Yes, Telegraph... To where? Aha! Which auctionrooms?... 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 againstLenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.

—Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant andmaking a grimace.

—My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I’m in ahurry.

—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 theheavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed in thebare 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 adof 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, leaningagainst the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand, suddenly stretchedforth 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 themapart gently, without comment.

—He’ll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through hisblackrimmed 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’swake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail of whitebowknots.

—Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said, andyou’ll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk. Smallnines. Steal upon larks.

He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding feet pastthe 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 twogone?

—Who? the professor said, turning. They’re gone round to the Oval for adrink. 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 againstthe 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 inmurmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the mostmatches?

THE CALUMET OF PEACE

He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan promptlystruck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J. J. O’Molloy openedhis 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. Hedeclaimed 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 quickgrace, said:

—Silence for my brandnew riddle!

—Imperium romanum, J. J. O’Molloy said gently. It sounds noblerthan 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. Wemustn’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 behere. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman whofollows 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 himin his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct awatercloset.

—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 runningstream.

—They were nature’s gentlemen, J. J. O’Molloy murmured. But we have alsoRoman 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 thehallway. 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 byExperience visits Notoriety.

—How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Yourgovernor 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 theirshoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...?

Bullockbefriending bard.

SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT

—Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. MrGarrett Deasy asked me to...

—O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. Thebloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouthdisease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter’s face inthe 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 thetypescript. Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on theramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell, graf vonTirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrianfieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes, everytime. Don’t you forget that!

—The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O’Molloy said quietly, turninga 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 oneday...

LOST CAUSES NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED

—We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for usis the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal tothe successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak thetongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim: time is money.Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? LordJesus? 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 theSemite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. Iought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! Theclosetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liegesubjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and ofthe empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with theAthenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled byan oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to alost cause.

He strode away from them towards the window.

—They went forth to battle, Mr O’Madden Burke said greyly, but theyalways fell.

—Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received inthe latter half of the matinée. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!

He whispered then near Stephen’s ear:

LENEHAN’S LIMERICK

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 allright.

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 backwith 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’sand 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 quietmockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between you? Youlook 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 primefavourite.

Lenehan gave a loud cough.

—Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a coldin 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 init. 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. Greatnationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the public! Givethem 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 hewas on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the Clarence. Gallaher, thatwas a pressman for you. That was a pen. You know how he made his mark? I’lltell you. That was the smartest piece of journalism ever known. That was ineightyone, 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 aspecial. Remember that time?

Professor MacHugh nodded.

—New York World, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his strawhat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and the restof them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see?

—Skin-the-Goat, Mr O’Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that cabman’sshelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. You knowHolohan?

—Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.

—And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for thecorporation. 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 thestones, 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 WeeklyFreeman 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. Haveyou 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 Knockmaroongate.

The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock’s wattles. An illstarched dickyjutted 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 isDavy’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 bloodyhistory.

Nightmare from which you will never awake.

—I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, thebesthearted 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 wasthere first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of anadvertisement. 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’sgot in with Blumenfeld. That’s press. That’s talent. Pyatt! He was all theirdaddies!

—The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and thebrother-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 hawkerswere up before the recorder...

—O yes, J. J. O’Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home throughthe park to see all the trees that were blown down by that cyclone last yearand thought she’d buy a view of Dublin. And it turned out to be a commemorationpostcard of Joe Brady or Number One or Skin-the-Goat. Right outside theviceregal 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, likeWhiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O’Hagan. Eh? Ah, bloodynonsense. 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 writeit 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 thesame, 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 pacificaoriafiamma, gold of oriflamme, di rimirar fè più ardenti. But I oldmen, 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 falseconstruction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for the thirdprofession 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 thefarthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery guttersheet not tomention Paddy Kelly’s Budget, Pue’s Occurrences and our watchfulfriend The Skibbereen Eagle. Why bring in a master of forensic eloquencelike 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 hisface. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. Who haveyou 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 inhis 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 lifefell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide, theChilds 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 justiceas contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the lex talionis. And hecited 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 wasthat small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determinedthe 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 andterrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and ofprophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor haswrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves tolive, 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 acigarette 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 toStephen. 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 bagof tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer that you came to himin 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 veryhighest 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. Waita moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I ever heard wasa speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical society. Mr JusticeFitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had spoken and the paper underdebate was an essay (new for those days), advocating the revival of the Irishtongue.

He turned towards Myles Crawford and said:

—You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of hisdiscourse.

—He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O’Molloy said, rumour has it, on theTrinity college estates commission.

—He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child’sfrock. 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 saythe vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man’s contumely upon the newmovement. 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 anoutspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and ringfingertouching 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 hadprepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one shorthandwriterin the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy beard round it. He worea loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he looked (though he was not) adying man.

His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O’Molloy’s towards Stephen’s faceand then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His unglazed linen collarappeared behind his bent head, soiled by his withering hair. Still seeking, hesaid:

—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. Witlessshellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet.

He began:

—Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration inlistening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment since by mylearned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported into a country faraway from this country, into an age remote from this age, that I stood inancient Egypt and that I was listening to the speech of some highpriest of thatland addressed to the youthful Moses.

His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes ascending infrail 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 Egyptianhighpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard hiswords and their meaning was revealed to me.

FROM THE FATHERS

It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted whichneither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good could becorrupted. Ah, curse you! That’s saint Augustine.

—Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and ourlanguage? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people. You haveno cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and our galleys,trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise furrow the waters ofthe known globe. You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have aliterature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.

Nile.

Child, man, effigy.

By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple incombat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.

—You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic andmysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. Yoursserfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is weak and feware her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants anddaylabourers 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 andaccepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will and bowedhis spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have brought thechosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed the pillar of thecloud by day. He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings onSinai’s mountaintop nor ever have come down with the light of inspirationshining 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 thestaircase.

—That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted.

Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of earsof porches. The tribune’s words, howled and scattered to the four winds. Apeople sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of all that everanywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more.

I have money.

—Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may Isuggest that the house do now adjourn?

—You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? MrO’Madden Burke asked. ’Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, metaphoricallyspeaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.

—That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favour sayay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To whichparticular 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, wewill 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 theshoulder. 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 arethey? 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 hasthe prophetic vision. Fuit Ilium! The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms ofthis world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today.

The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and rushed outinto 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 willfollow.

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 fiftyand 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 tallowunder 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 outthe threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies with the blade of aknife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in coppers. They put on theirbonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas for fear it may come on torain.

—Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.

LIFE ON THE RAW

—They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf atthe north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins,proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a girl at thefoot of Nelson’s pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They give twothreepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin to waddle slowly upthe winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each other, afraid of the dark,panting, one asking the other have you the brawn, praising God and the BlessedVirgin, 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 lumbagofor which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who got a bottlefulfrom a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen and a bottle ofdouble X for supper every Saturday.

—Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can seethem. What’s keeping our friend?

He turned.

A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in alldirections, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them MylesCrawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet face, talkingwith 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 ofthe 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’llgive a renewal for two months, he says. After he’ll see. But he wants a par tocall attention in the Telegraph too, the Saturday pink. And he wants itcopied if it’s not too late I told councillor Nannetti from the KilkennyPeople. 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 practicallypromised he’d give the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will Itell him, Mr Crawford?

K.M.A.

—Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwing outhis 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’syachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is that young Dedalusthe moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him today. Last time I saw himhe had his heels on view. Been walking in muck somewhere. Careless chap. Whatwas he doing in Irishtown?

—Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design Isuppose 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 hisshoulder. Any time he likes, tell him.

While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode onjerkily.

RAISING THE WIND

—Nulla bona, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I’m upto here. I’ve been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to backa bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must take the will forthe 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 theothers and walked abreast.

—When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twentyfingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the railings.

—Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two oldDublin 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 theroofs 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 sothey pull up their skirts...

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES

—Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We’re in thearchdiocese here.

—And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue ofthe 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 tootired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between themand eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with theirhandkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and spitting theplumstones 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 againstothers or against himself. He was the son of a noble and a bondwoman. And hewrote a book in which he took away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen andhanded 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 stoodin their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstownand 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, aeratedmineral 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 theplums?

VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES.

—Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide toreflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: deus nobis hæc otia fecit.

—No, Stephen said. I call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or TheParable of The Plums.

—I see, the professor said.

He laughed richly.

—I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land. Wegave 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 hispeace.

—I see, the professor said.

He halted on sir John Gray’s pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson throughthe meshes of his wry smile.

DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE WIMBLES, FLOWANGLES—YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM?

—Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I mustsay.

—Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty’struth was known.

[ 8 ]

Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovellingscoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for theirtummies. 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 GrahamLemon’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 inthe 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 iscoming.

Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome.

Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put thestopper 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. Icould see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the pantry in thekitchen. Don’t like all the smells in it waiting to rush out. What was it shewanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before Rudy was born. Thephosphorescence, 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 someold furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. Lobbing about waiting forhim. Home always breaks up when the mother goes. Fifteen children he had. Birthevery year almost. That’s in their theology or the priest won’t give the poorwoman the confession, the absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hearsuch 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 seethem do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fearhe’d collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you couldpick 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. Bringyour 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 thepudding. Undermines the constitution.

As he set foot on O’Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from theparapet. 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. Regularworld in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in too. Drink themselvesbloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till theypuke 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 haveswallowed 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 secis com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of swells, floatedunder by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the day I threw that stalecake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the wake fifty yards astern. Liveby 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 norhymes: 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 theymust be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag or ahandkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for apenny 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, allseabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes topreen 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 quiteenough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and mouth diseasetoo. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that. Eat pig likepig. 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 thetreacly swells lazily its plastered board.

Kino’s
11/—
Trousers

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you ownwater really? It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same, which in thestream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of places are goodfor ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all thegreenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t costhim a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows tostick them up or stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running into loosen a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110PILLS. 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. Fascinatinglittle 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 himpike 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 afterall. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound. She’s notexactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. Still, I don’tknow. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone voice. He has legs likebarrels and you’d think he was singing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. Theyused 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 wasat stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him along thegutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like that priest they arethis morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He read the scarlet letters ontheir five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. Wisdom Hely’s. Y lagging behind drewa chunk of bread from under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth andmunched as he walked. Our staple food. Three bob a day, walking along thegutters, street after street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread andskilly. They are not Boyl: no, M’Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any businesseither. I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girlssitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I bet thatwould 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 youstare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women too. Curiosity. Pillar ofsalt. 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 ideasfor ads like Plumtree’s potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. Youcan’t lick ’em. What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can’tstop, Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraserKansell, 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. Tranquillaconvent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her smallhead. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. Very hardto bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her devotions thatmorning. But glad to communicate with the outside world. Our great day, shesaid. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew I, Ithink she knew by the way she. If she had married she would have changed. Isuppose they really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butterall the same. No lard for them. My heart’s broke eating dripping. They likebuttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? PatClaffey, the pawnbroker’s daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rovercycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil Gilligandied. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom’s. Got the job inWisdom Hely’s year we married. Six years. Ten years ago: ninetyfour he died yesthat’s right the big fire at Arnott’s. Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencreedinner. Alderman Robert O’Reilly emptying the port into his soup before theflag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldn’t hear what theband played. For what we have already received may the Lord make us. Milly wasa kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs.Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. She didn’t like it because I sprained myankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. OldGoodwin’s tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies’ picnic too. Never puta dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, shoulders and hips. Justbeginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we had that day. People looking afterher.

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 Ibought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped allover. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa’s daguerreotype atelier he toldme of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was alwayssquinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron’s saintKevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen ...? Ofcourse it’s years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he couldn’tremember the dayfather’s name that he sees every day.

Bartell d’Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home afterpractice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her that songWinds that blow from the south.

Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on aboutthose lottery tickets after Goodwin’s concert in the supperroom or oakroom ofthe Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew out of my handagainst the High school railings. Lucky it didn’t. Thing like that spoils theeffect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin linking her in front. Shaky on hispins, poor old sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on anystage. May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at thewind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust.Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. Shedid get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire andfrying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauceshe liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearthunclamping the busk of her stays: white.

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. Alwaysliked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two taking out herhairpins. 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 inMullingar, you know.

—Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?

—Yes. In a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire. How areall 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 inthere now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has meheartscalded. Wait till I show you.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out fromHarrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s gullet. Want tomake good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they’d taste it withthe 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 isit? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table.

Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on thosethings. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money. Pleasetake one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging. Where’sthe ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are you feeding your little brother’sfamily? Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What isshe?...

—There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do youknow 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 shamefor 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 anaction 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 bestdays. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old grapes totake the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty dresser. Linesround 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. Pungentmockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of pastry on the gussetof her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. Rhubarb tart withliberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’slong 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 themasterstroke. 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-inhospital 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 stiffbirth, 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 terriblefor 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 gazeinto the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a skullpiece a tinyhat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a stick and an umbrelladangled 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 Bloomsaid smiling. Watch!

—He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of thesedays.

She broke off suddenly.

—There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me toMolly, won’t you?

—I will, Mr Bloom said.

He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen inskimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison’s hugging twoheavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old times. He suffered herto 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 tightskullpiece, 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 moseylunatic 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 fora lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton’s office. His oystereyes 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 toaid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty darling because I do notlike that other world. Please tell me what is the meaning. Please tell me whatperfume does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The way they spring thosequestions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have hadthe 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 andgeneral, 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 Carlislemade that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big deal on Coates’sshares. Ca’ canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news. Our graciousand popular vicereine. Bought the Irish Field now. Lady Mountcashel hasquite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the Ward Unionstaghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunterstoo. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sither horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion forher, not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood maresome of those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss off a glass ofbrandy neat while you’d say knife. That one at the Grosvenor this morning. Upwith her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount toit. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who is this she was like? Oyes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that sold me her old wraps and black underclothes inthe Shelbourne hotel. Divorced Spanish American. Didn’t take a feather out ofher my handling them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregalparty 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 plumsthinking 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 andmilk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating with astopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his muttonchop whiskersgrew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore’s cousin in Dublin Castle. Onetony relative in every family. Hardy annuals he presents her with. Saw him outat the Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carryingone in a marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breastyear after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t’s are. Dog in themanger. 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 tapTom Kernan.

Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a vinegaredhandkerchief 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 outblindly, groping for the way out. Kill me that would. Lucky Molly got over herslightly. 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 wasconsumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the whatwas 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 allthe taxes give every child born five quid at compound interest up to twentyonefive per cent is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply bytwenty decimal system encourage people to put by money save hundred and ten anda bit twentyone years want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more thanyou 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 flatthey look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes. Weight off their mind. Old MrsThornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, she said. The spoon of pap in hermouth before she fed them. O, that’s nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old TomWall’s son. His first bow to the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy DrMurren. People knocking them up at all hours. For God’ sake, doctor. Wife inher throes. Then keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on yourwife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them.

Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeonsflew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick the fellowin 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. Aftertheir feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts. Policeman’s lot isoft a happy one. They split up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards theirbeats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in pudding time. A punch inhis dinner. A squad of others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railingsmaking 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 upover a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women. Runninginto cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. There is not in this wide world avallee. 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 Powercould a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble being laggedthey let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. Can’t blame them after allwith the job they have especially the young hornies. That horsepoliceman theday 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. LuckyI had the presence of mind to dive into Manning’s or I was souped. He did comea wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. Ioughtn’t to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the Trinityjibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to know that youngDixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now he’s in Holles streetwhere Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. Allskedaddled. 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. TheButter exchange band. Few years’ time half of them magistrates and civilservants. 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 thetime 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 usedto uniform. Squarepushing up against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the nextthing on the menu. And who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was theyoung 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. Outhalf 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 afellow couldn’t round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out you getthe knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey’s daughter got himout of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the Buckingham Palace hotel undertheir very noses. Garibaldi.

You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a squareheadedfellow 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. Thatrepublicanism is the best form of government. That the language question shouldtake precedence of the economic question. Have your daughters inveigling themto your house. Stuff them up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here’s agood lump of thyme seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart ofgoosegrease before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walkwith the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap paysbest sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show us over thoseapricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule sun rising up inthe northwest.

His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, shadowingTrinity’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. MinaPurefoy swollen belly on a bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her. Oneborn every second somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birdsfive minutes. Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born,washing the blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawlingmaaaaaa.

Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other coming on,passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledupbricks, 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 placeup with gold and still they have all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piledup in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread andonions. Slaves Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Restrubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built ofbreeze. 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 haveliver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum.

The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverwareopposite 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 acoincidence. 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 corporationmeeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s uniform since he gotthe 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 badegg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a pain. Great man’s brother: his brother’sbrother. He’d look nice on the city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably forhis coffee, play chess there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go topot. 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 othersister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright likesurgeon M’Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath. Apply for theChiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The patriot’s banquet. Eatingorangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said when they put him in parliamentthat Parnell would come back from the grave and lead him out of the house ofcommons by the arm.

—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which theends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with a Scotchaccent. The tentacles...

They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. Youngwoman.

And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: second time. Comingevents cast their shadows before. With the approval of the eminent poet, MrGeo. 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 listeningwoman 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 throughall eternity. They say it’s healthier. Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep youon the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call thatthing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea youare eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting bythe tap all night.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless. Thoseliterary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic. Esthetesthey are. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that kind of food you see producesthe like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of those policemensweating Irish stew into their shirts you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry outof 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 andSon, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris’s and have a chatwith young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his lunch. Must get thoseold glasses of mine set right. Goerz lenses six guineas. Germans making theirway everywhere. Sell on easy terms to capture trade. Undercutting. Might chanceon a pair in the railway lost property office. Astonishing the things peopleleave behind them in trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about?Women too. Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up thatfarmer’s daughter’s bag and hand it to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimedmoney too. There’s a little watch up there on the roof of the bank to testthose glasses by.

His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can’t see it. If youimagine 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 atarm’s length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes: completely. Thetip of his little finger blotted out the sun’s disk. Must be the focus wherethe rays cross. If I had black glasses. Interesting. There was a lot of talkabout those sunspots when we were in Lombard street west. Looking up from theback garden. Terrific explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse thisyear: autumn some time.

Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It’s theclock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there some firstSaturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to professor Joly orlearn up something about his family. That would do to: man always feelscomplimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman proud to be descendedfrom some king’s mistress. His foremother. Lay it on with a trowel. Cap in handgoes 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, crossingeach other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid: then world:then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, like that pineapplerock. 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 anew moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon. She washumming. 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 ofthe day of Bob Doran’s bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, M’Coy said. Theydrink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Up in theCoombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the rest of the year sober as ajudge.

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. Brothof 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 pantaloonsunder his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, laughed spluttering, their drink againsttheir 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. Shetwentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could neverlike it again after Rudy. Can’t bring back time. Like holding water in yourhand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you? Are you nothappy 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 bakingcauseway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the rain mucksthem 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 ofribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood ofbloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that here. La causaè santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must be washed inrainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.

Pincushions. I’m a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all over theplace. Needles in window curtains.

He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today anyhow. Mustgo 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.

Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.

High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home andhouses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim. Wealthof the world.

A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded. Perfume ofembraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he mutely craved toadore.

Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.

He turned Combridge’s corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds. Perfumedbodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields, tangled pressedgrass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas, creaking beds.

—Jack, love!

—Darling!

—Kiss me, Reggy!

—My boy!

—Love!

His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink grippedhis trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See the animals feed.

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling formore bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyesbulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished histumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man withan infant’s saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup downhis gullet. A man spitting back on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: noteeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over.Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? Seeourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw.Don’t! O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoemchoked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating.Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn’tswallow it all however.

—Roast beef and cabbage.

—One stew.

Smells of men. Spat-on sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarettesmoke, reek of plug,spilt beer, men’s beery piss, the stale of ferment.

His gorge rose.

Couldn’t eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all beforehim, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing the cud. Beforeand after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on that. Scoffing upstewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the plate, man! Get out ofthis.

He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of his nose.

—Two stouts here.

—One corned and cabbage.

That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended on it.Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three hands.Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver knife in hismouth. That’s witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich. Born with a knife.But then the allusion is lost.

An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head bailiff,standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well up: it splashedyellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, elbows on table, readyfor a second helping stared towards the foodlift across his stained square ofnewspaper. Other chap telling him something with his mouth full. Sympatheticlistener. Table talk. I munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Didyou, faith?

Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said:

—Not here. Don’t see him.

Out. I hate dirty eaters.

He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne’s. Stopgap. Keep megoing. Had a good breakfast.

—Roast and mashed here.

—Pint of stout.

Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.

He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat or beeaten. Kill! Kill!

Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down withporringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. JohnHoward Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother’s son don’t talk ofyour provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsonsfieldmarshals archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans’dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queenin a bathchair. My plate’s empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup.Like sir Philip Crampton’s fountain. Rub off the microbes with yourhandkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O’Flynn would makehares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number one. Childrenfighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as big as the Phoenixpark. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Hate people all roundyou. City Arms hotel table d’hôte she called it. Soup, joint and sweet.Never know whose thoughts you’re chewing. Then who’d wash up all the plates andforks? Might be all feeding on tabloids that time. Teeth getting worse andworse.

After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from theearth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onionsmushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw fowl. Wretchedbrutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skullsopen. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble and squeak.Butchers’ buckets wobbly lights. Give us that brisket off the hook. Plup.Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their haunches,sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers goingout. Don’t maul them pieces, young one.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed. Insidious.Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.

Ah, I’m hungry.

He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now andthen. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?

—Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook.

—Hello, Flynn.

—How’s things?

—Tiptop... Let me see. I’ll take a glass of burgundy and... let me see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham and hisdescendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home withoutPlumtree’s potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituarynotices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s potted meat. Cannibals wouldwith lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like pickled pork. Expect thechief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be tough from exercise. His wivesin a row to watch the effect. There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate orsomething the somethings of the reverend Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode ofbliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked andminced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygienethat was what they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peaceand war depend on some fellow’s digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys andgeese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards fullafter. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese.

—Have you a cheese sandwich?

—Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass ofburgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber, TomKernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me thatcutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, thedevil the cooks. Devilled crab.

—Wife well?

—Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

—Yes, sir.

Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.

—Doing any singing those times?

Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. Music.Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no harm.Free ad.

—She’s engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heardperhaps.

—No. O, that’s the style. Who’s getting it up?

The curate served.

—How much is that?

—Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.

Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrigger. Easierthan the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of theirlives.

—Mustard, sir?

—Thank you.

He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have it.It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.

—Getting it up? he said. Well, it’s like a company idea, you see. Partshares and part profits.

—Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket toscratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn’t Blazes Boylan mixed up init?

A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom’s heart. He raised hiseyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five minutes fast.Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.

His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,longingly.

Wine.

He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it,set his wineglass delicately down.

—Yes, he said. He’s the organiser in point of fact.

No fear: no brains.

Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.

—He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over thatboxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks. ByGod, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling me...

Hope that dewdrop doesn’t come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up.

—For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God tillfurther orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a hairy chap.

Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, cleaninghis lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring’s blush. Whose smile upon eachfeature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the parsnips.

—And here’s himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give usa good one for the Gold cup?

—I’m off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on ahorse.

—You’re right there, Nosey Flynn said.

Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of disgustpungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine soothed hispalate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the chill off.

Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like the wayit curves there.

—I wouldn’t do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruinedmany a man, the same horses.

Vintners’ sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits forconsumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.

—True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you’re in the know. There’s nostraight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He’s giving Sceptretoday. Zinfandel’s the favourite, Lord Howard de Walden’s, won at Epsom. MornyCannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one against Saint Amant afortnight before.

—That so? Davy Byrne said...

He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned itspages.

—I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit ofhorseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm,Rothschild’s filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow cap. Badluck to big Ben Dollard and his John O’Gaunt. He put me off it. Ay.

He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the flutes.

—Ay, he said, sighing.

Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull. Will Itell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him forget. Go andlose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. Cold nose he’d havekissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly beards they like. Dogs’ coldnoses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach’s Skye terrier in the CityArms hotel. Molly fondling him in her lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy!

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish cheese.Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I’m not thirsty. Bath of course doesthat. Just a bite or two. Then about six o’clock I can. Six. Six. Time will begone then. She...

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour.His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy lobsters’ claws. Allthe odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin,off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait ona hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn’t know riskyputting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundnessyou think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on.Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Icecones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation.Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like a clot of phlegm.Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage theyfeed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was inthe Red Bank this morning. Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he youngflesh in bed no June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like thingshigh. Tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggsfifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dishharmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold wasit no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat thescruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, thenthe others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastryI like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep upthe price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in greenglasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The élite. Crèmede la crème. They want special dishes to pretend they’re. Hermit with aplatter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me.Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of theforest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in theMaster of the Rolls’ kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi.Combustible duck. Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme. Just as well towrite it on the bill of fare so you can know what you’ve eaten. Too many drugsspoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards’ desiccated soup.Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan.Wouldn’t mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnakedladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat?Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedatlived in Killiney, I remember. Du de la is French. Still it’s the samefish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of makingmoney hand over fist finger in fishes’ gills can’t write his name on a chequethink he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A AitchaHa ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapesof Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory.Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth belowus bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion’s head.Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the linesfaint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair,earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. Owonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon medid not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed hermouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed.Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it:joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips.Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. Agoat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted,dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay onher, kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman’s breastsfull in her blouse of nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her.She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, shekissed me.

Me. And me now.

Stuck, the flies buzzed.

His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab. Beauty: itcurves: curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the worldadmires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall, nakedgoddesses. Aids to digestion. They don’t care what man looks. All to see. Neverspeaking. I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she did Pygmalion andGalatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in your proper place.Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes, all ambrosial. Not like atanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and turnips, bottle of Allsop.Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods’ food. Lovely forms of womensculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we stuffing food in one hole and outbehind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food: have to feed it like stoking anengine. They have no. Never looked. I’ll look today. Keeper won’t see. Benddown let something fall see if she.

Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do there todo. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and walked, to men toothey gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a youth enjoyedher, to the yard.

When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book:

—What is this he is? Isn’t he in the insurance line?

—He’s out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for theFreeman.

—I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble?

—Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why?

—I noticed he was in mourning.

—Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all athome. You’re right, by God. So he was.

—I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see agentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their minds.

—It’s not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day beforeyesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan’s wife hasin Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home to his betterhalf. She’s well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast.

—And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said.

Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.

—He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of that.

—How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.

Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He winked.

—He’s in the craft, he said.

—Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.

—Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He’s anexcellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I wastold that by a—well, I won’t say who.

—Is that a fact?

—O, it’s a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you’redown. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they’re as close as damnit. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.

Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:

—Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!

—There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to findout what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore herin on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint Legers of Doneraile.

Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes:

—And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here andI never once saw him—you know, over the line.

—God Almighty couldn’t make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips offwhen the fun gets too hot. Didn’t you see him look at his watch? Ah, youweren’t there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does he outs withthe watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he does.

—There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He’s a safe man, I’d say.

—He’s not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He’s been known toput his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O, Bloom hashis good points. But there’s one thing he’ll never do.

His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.

—I know, Davy Byrne said.

—Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said.

Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning, aplaining hand on his claret waistcoat.

—Day, Mr Byrne.

—Day, gentlemen.

They paused at the counter.

—Who’s standing? Paddy Leonard asked.

—I’m sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered.

—Well, what’ll it be? Paddy Leonard asked.

—I’ll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said.

—How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God’ sake? What’s yours,Tom?

—How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping.

For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and hiccupped.

—Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said.

—Certainly, sir.

Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates.

—Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I’m standing drinks to! Coldwater and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. He hassome bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip.

—Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked.

Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set before him.

—That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking.

—Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.

Tom Rochford nodded and drank.

—Is it Zinfandel?

—Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I’m going to plunge five bob on myown.

—Tell us if you’re worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonardsaid. Who gave it to you?

Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting.

—So long! Nosey Flynn said.

The others turned.

—That’s the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered.

—Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we’ll take two ofyour small Jamesons after that and a...

—Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly.

—Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby.

Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth smooth.Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with those Röntgen rayssearchlight you could.

At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on thecobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks havingfully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom coasted warily.Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move. Wonder if Tom Rochfordwill do anything with that invention of his? Wasting time explaining it toFlynn’s mouth. Lean people long mouths. Ought to be a hall or a place whereinventors could go in and invent free. Course then you’d have all the crankspestering.

He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars:

Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
M’invitasti.

Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap in theblues. Dutch courage. That Kilkenny People in the national library now Imust.

Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber, turnedback his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way down, swallow a pinsometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the body changingbiliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines likepipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the time with his insidesentrails on show. Science.

—A cenar teco.

What does that teco mean? Tonight perhaps.

Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited
To come to supper tonight,
The rum the rumdum.

Doesn’t go properly.

Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That’ll be two pounds ten about twopounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott’s dyeworks van overthere. If I get Billy Prescott’s ad: two fifteen. Five guineas about. On thepig’s back.

Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new garters.

Today. Today. Not think.

Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate.Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls. AgainstJohn Long’s a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crustedknuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. Will eat anything.

Mr Bloom turned at Gray’s confectioner’s window of unbought tarts and passedthe reverend Thomas Connellan’s bookstore. Why I left the church of Rome?Birds’ Nest. Women run him. They say they used to give pauper children soupto change to protestants in the time of the potato blight. Society over the waypapa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same bait. Why we left the churchof Rome.

A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No tram insight. Wants to cross.

—Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.

The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He moved hishead uncertainly.

—You’re in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite.Do you want to cross? There’s nothing in the way.

The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom’s eye followed its line andsaw again the dyeworks’ van drawn up before Drago’s. Where I saw hisbrillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in John Long’s.Slaking his drouth.

—There’s a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it’s not moving. I’ll see youacross. Do you want to go to Molesworth street?

—Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.

—Come, Mr Bloom said.

He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to guide itforward.

Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust what youtell them. Pass a common remark.

—The rain kept off.

No answer.

Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different for him.Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child’s hand, his hand. Like Milly’s was.Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder if he has a name. Van.Keep his cane clear of the horse’s legs: tired drudge get his doze. That’sright. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a horse.

—Thanks, sir.

Knows I’m a man. Voice.

—Right now? First turn to the left.

The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing his caneback, feeling again.

Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed.Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? Must have feltit. See things in their forehead perhaps: kind of sense of volume. Weight orsize of it, something blacker than the dark. Wonder would he feel it ifsomething was removed. Feel a gap. Queer idea of Dublin he must have, tappinghis way round by the stones. Could he walk in a beeline if he hadn’t that cane?Bloodless pious face like a fellow going in to be a priest.

Penrose! That was that chap’s name.

Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers. Tunepianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a deformedperson or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. Of course theother senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People ought to help.Workbasket I could buy for Molly’s birthday. Hates sewing. Might take anobjection. Dark men they call them.

Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched together.Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring, the summer:smells. Tastes? They say you can’t taste wines with your eyes shut or a cold inthe head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no pleasure.

And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl passingthe Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have them all on. Mustbe strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his mind’s eye. The voice,temperatures: when he touches her with his fingers must almost see the lines,the curves. His hands on her hair, for instance. Say it was black, forinstance. Good. We call it black. Then passing over her white skin. Differentfeel perhaps. Feeling of white.

Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two shillings, halfa crown. Accept my little present. Stationer’s just here too. Wait. Think overit.

With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above hisears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt the skin ofhis right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough. The belly is thesmoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick street. Perhaps toLevenston’s dancing academy piano. Might be settling my braces.

Walking by Doran’s publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat andtrousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of his belly.But I know it’s whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to see.

He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to.

Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would he have,not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being born that way? Allthose women and children excursion beanfeast burned and drowned in New York.Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration for sins you did in a past lifethe reincarnation met him pike hoses. Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course: butsomehow you can’t cotton on to them someway.

Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons’ hall. Solemn as Troy. Afterhis good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking a magnum. Talesof the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat school. I sentenced him toten years. I suppose he’d turn up his nose at that stuff I drank. Vintage winefor them, the year marked on a dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice inthe recorder’s court. Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed withcases get their percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout.The devil on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J a great strawcalling. Now he’s reallywhat they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old topers in wigs.Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant. Sixteenth.Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer’s hospital. The Messiah wasfirst given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out there: Ballsbridge.Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a leech. Wear out my welcome.Sure to know someone on the gate.

Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library.

Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is.

His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to theright.

Is it? Almost certain. Won’t look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too heady. Yes,it is. The walk. Not see. Get on.

Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes. Handsomebuilding. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me?

Didn’t see me perhaps. Light in his eyes.

The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold statues: quietthere. Safe in a minute.

No. Didn’t see me. After two. Just at the gate.

My heart!

His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir Thomas Deanewas the Greek architecture.

Look for something I.

His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded AgendathNetaim. Where did I?

Busy looking.

He thrust back quick Agendath.

Afternoon she said.

I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman.Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where?

Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart.

His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap lotionhave to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate.

Safe!

[ 9 ]

Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred:

—And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of WilhelmMeister. A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul takingarms against a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in reallife.

He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step backwarda sinkapace on the solemn floor.

A noiseless attendant setting open the door but slightly made him a noiselessbeck.

—Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautifulineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always feelsthat Goethe’s judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis.

Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door he gavehis large ear all to the attendant’s words: heard them: and was gone.

Two left.

—Monsieur de la Palice, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes beforehis death.

—Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked withelder’s gall, to write Paradise Lost at your dictation? The Sorrowsof Satan he calls it.

Smile. Smile Cranly’s smile.

First he tickled her
Then he patted her
Then he passed the female catheter
For he was a medical
Jolly old medi...

—I feel you would need one more for Hamlet. Seven is dear to themystic mind. The shining seven W.B. calls them.

Glittereyed his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought the facebearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He laughed low: a sizar’slaugh of Trinity: unanswered.

Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood
Tears such as angels weep.
Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta.

He holds my follies hostage.

Cranly’s eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed Kathleen,her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house. And one more tohail him: ave, rabbi: the Tinahely twelve. In the shadow of the glen hecooees for them. My soul’s youth I gave him, night by night. God speed. Goodhunting.

Mulligan has my telegram.

Folly. Persist.

—Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create afigure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare’s Hamlet though Iadmire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry.

—All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of hisshadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. Clergymen’sdiscussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal to us ideas,formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a work of art is out ofhow deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the paintingof ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mindsinto contact with the eternal wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest isthe speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.

A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike me!

—The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely.Aristotle was once Plato’s schoolboy.

—And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said. Onecan see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm.

He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face.

Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the heavenly man.Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who suffers in us at everymoment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon the altar. I am the sacrificialbutter.

Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval, the Name Ineffable,in heaven hight: K.H., their master, whose identity is no secret to adepts.Brothers of the great white lodge always watching to see if they can help. TheChrist with the bridesister, moisture of light, born of an ensouled virgin,repentant sophia, departed to the plane of buddhi. The life esoteric is not forordinary person. O.P. must work off bad karma first. Mrs Cooper Oakley onceglimpsed our very illustrious sister H.P.B.’s elemental.

O, fie! Out on’t! Pfuiteufel! You naughtn’t to look, missus, so younaughtn’t when a lady’s ashowing of her elemental.

Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with grace anotebook, new, large, clean, bright.

—That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet’s musings aboutthe afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant andundramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato’s.

John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth:

—Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotlewith Plato.

—Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from hiscommonwealth?

Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse.Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the street: veryperipatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through spaces smaller thanred globules of man’s blood they creepycrawl after Blake’s buttocks intoeternity of which this vegetable world is but a shadow. Hold to the now, thehere, through which all future plunges to the past.

Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague.

—Haines is gone, he said.

—Is he?

—I was showing him Jubainville’s book. He’s quite enthusiastic, don’t youknow, about Hyde’s Lovesongs of Connacht. I couldn’t bring him in tohear the discussion. He’s gone to Gill’s to buy it.

Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick
To greet the callous public.
Writ, I ween, ’twas not my wish
In lean unlovely English.

—The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined.

We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green twinklingstone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea.

—People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg ofRussell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the world areborn out of the dreams and visions in a peasant’s heart on the hillside. Forthem the earth is not an exploitable ground but the living mother. The rarefiedair of the academy and the arena produce the sixshilling novel, the musichallsong. France produces the finest flower of corruption in Mallarmé but thedesirable life is revealed only to the poor of heart, the life of Homer’sPhæacians.

From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen.

—Mallarmé, don’t you know, he said, has written those wonderful prosepoems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one aboutHamlet. He says: il se promène, lisant au livre de lui-même,don’t you know, reading the book of himself. He describes Hamletgiven in a French town, don’t you know, a provincial town. They advertised it.

His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air.

Hamlet
ou
Le Distrait
Pièce de Shakespeare

He repeated to John Eglinton’s newgathered frown:

—Pièce de Shakespeare, don’t you know. It’s so French. The Frenchpoint of view. Hamlet ou...

—The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended.

John Eglinton laughed.

—Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, butdistressingly shortsighted in some matters.

Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder.

—A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not fornothing was he a butcher’s son, wielding the sledded poleaxe and spitting inhis palms. Nine lives are taken off for his father’s one. Our Father who art inpurgatory. Khaki Hamlets don’t hesitate to shoot. The bloodboltered shambles inact five is a forecast of the concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne.

Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar.

Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none
But we had spared...

Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea.

—He will have it that Hamlet is a ghoststory, John Eglinton saidfor Mr Best’s behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our fleshcreep.

List! List! O List!

My flesh hears him: creeping, hears.

If thou didst ever...

—What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has fadedinto impalpability through death, through absence, through change of manners.Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris lies from virginDublin. Who is the ghost from limbo patrum, returning to the world thathas forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet?

John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge.

Lifted.

—It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with a swiftglance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bearSackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailedwith Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.

Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices.

—Shakespeare has left the huguenot’s house in Silver street and walks bythe swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the pen chivyingher game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon has other thoughts.

Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me!

—The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in thecastoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is the ghost,the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare who has studiedHamlet all the years of his life which were not vanity in order to playthe part of the spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, the young player whostands before him beyond the rack of cerecloth, calling him by a name:

Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit,

bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince, youngHamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has died inStratford that his namesake may live for ever.

Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and in thevesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words to his ownson’s name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been prince Hamlet’stwin), is it possible, I want to know, or probable that he did not draw orforesee the logical conclusion of those premises: you are the dispossessed son:I am the murdered father: your mother is the guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare,born Hathaway?

—But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell beganimpatiently.

Art thou there, truepenny?

—Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I meanwhen we read the poetry of King Lear what is it to us how the poetlived? As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de l’Isle hassaid. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet’s drinking,the poet’s debts. We have King Lear: and it is immortal.

Mr Best’s face, appealed to, agreed.

Flow over them with your waves and with your waters,
Mananaan, Mananaan MacLir...

How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry?

Marry, I wanted it.

Take thou this noble.

Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson’s bed, clergyman’s daughter.Agenbite of inwit.

Do you intend to pay it back?

O, yes.

When? Now?

Well... No.

When, then?

I paid my way. I paid my way.

Steady on. He’s from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe it.

Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound.

Buzz. Buzz.

But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under everchangingforms.

I that sinned and prayed and fasted.

A child Conmee saved from pandies.

I, I and I. I.

A.E.I.O.U.

—Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries? JohnEglinton’s carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid for ever. Shedied, for literature at least, before she was born.

—She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She sawhim into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She bore hischildren and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids closed when helay on his deathbed.

Mother’s deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into this worldlies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. Liliata rutilantium.

I wept alone.

John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp.

—The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got outof it as quickly and as best he could.

—Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errorsare volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, softcreakfooted,bald, eared and assiduous.

—A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal ofdiscovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn fromXanthippe?

—Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring thoughtsinto the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (absit nomen!),Socratididion’s Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever know. But neitherthe midwife’s lore nor the caudlelectures saved him from the archons of SinnFein and their naggin of hemlock.

—But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best’s quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seemto be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her.

His look went from brooder’s beard to carper’s skull, to remind, to chide themnot unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless though maligned.

—He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory. Hecarried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling The girlI left behind me. If the earthquake did not time it we should know where toplace poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds, the studded bridle andher blue windows. That memory, Venus and Adonis, lay in the bedchamberof every light-of-love in London. Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensiocalls her young and beautiful. Do you think the writer of Antony andCleopatra, a passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head thathe chose the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good: he left herand gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy. Theirlife, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He was chosen, itseems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way. By cock, she was toblame. She put the comether on him, sweet and twentysix. The greyeyed goddesswho bends over the boy Adonis, stooping to conquer, as prologue to the swellingact, is a boldfaced Stratford wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover youngerthan herself.

And my turn? When?

Come!

—Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly,brightly.

He murmured then with blond delight for all:

Between the acres of the rye
These pretty countryfolk would lie.

Paris: the wellpleased pleaser.

A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its cooperativewatch.

—I am afraid I am due at the Homestead.

Whither away? Exploitable ground.

—Are you going? John Eglinton’s active eyebrows asked. Shall we see youat Moore’s tonight? Piper is coming.

—Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back?

Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper.

—I don’t know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get awayin time.

Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. Isis Unveiled. Their Pali book we triedto pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an Aztec logos,functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. The faithfulhermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, ringroundabout him. Louis H.Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies tend them i’the eyes, their pinealglands aglow. Filled with his god, he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer ofsouls, engulfer. Hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailingcreecries, whirled, whirling, they bewail.

In quintessential triviality
For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt.

—They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian said,friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering together a sheafof our younger poets’ verses. We are all looking forward anxiously.

Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces, lighted,shone.

See this. Remember.

Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his ashplanthandle overhis knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with two index fingers.Aristotle’s experiment. One or two? Necessity is that in virtue of which it isimpossible that one can be otherwise. Argal, one hat is one hat.

Listen.

Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part. Longworthwill give it a good puff in the Express. O, will he? I liked Colum’sDrover. Yes, I think he has that queer thing genius. Do you think he hasgenius really? Yeats admired his line: As in wild earth a Grecian vase.Did he? I hope you’ll be able to come tonight. Malachi Mulligan is coming too.Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did you hear Miss Mitchell’s joke about Mooreand Martyn? That Moore is Martyn’s wild oats? Awfully clever, isn’t it? Theyremind one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to bewritten, Dr Sigerson says. Moore is the man for it. A knight of the ruefulcountenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O’Neill Russell? O, yes, hemust speak the grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing someclever sketches. We are becoming important, it seems.

Cordelia. Cordoglio. Lir’s loneliest daughter.

Nookshotten. Now your best French polish.

—Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be sokind as to give the letter to Mr Norman...

—O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so muchcorrespondence.

—I understand, Stephen said. Thanks.

God ild you. The pigs’ paper. Bullockbefriending.

Synge has promised me an article for Dana too. Are we going to be read?I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope you will comeround tonight. Bring Starkey.

Stephen sat down.

The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing, his mask said:

—Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating.

He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a chopine,and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low:

—Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet?

Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light?

—Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have beenfirst a sundering.

—Yes.

Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks, from hueand cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women he won to him,tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, bully tapsters’ wives.Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack dishonoured body that once was comely,once as sweet, as fresh as cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare,frighted of the narrow grave and unforgiven.

—Yes. So you think...

The door closed behind the outgoer.

Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and broodingair.

A vestal’s lamp.

Here he ponders things that were not: what Cæsar would have lived to do had hebelieved the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of the possible aspossible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when he lived among women.

Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. Thoth,god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice of thatEgyptian highpriest. In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks.

They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of death isin them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak their will.

—Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the mostenigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so much.Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest.

—But Hamlet is so personal, isn’t it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, akind of private paper, don’t you know, of his private life. I mean, I don’tcare a button, don’t you know, who is killed or who is guilty...

He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his defiance. Hisprivate papers in the original. Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim in mo shagart.Put beurla on it, littlejohn.

Quoth littlejohn Eglinton:

—I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but Imay as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that Shakespeare isHamlet you have a stern task before you.

Bear with me.

Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under wrinkledbrows. A basilisk. E quando vede l’uomo l’attosca. Messer Brunetto, Ithank thee for the word.

—As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, fromday to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist weave andunweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where it was when Iwas born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff time after time, sothrough the ghost of the unquiet father the image of the unliving son looksforth. In the intense instant of imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is afading coal, that which I was is that which I am and that which in possibilityI may come to be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself asI sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.

Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile.

—Yes, Mr Best said youngly. I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitternessmight be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from the son.

Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son.

—That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing.

John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow.

—If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a drug inthe market. The plays of Shakespeare’s later years which Renan admired so muchbreathe another spirit.

—The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed.

—There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been asundering.

Said that.

—If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over thehell of time of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, lookto see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a man,shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, prince ofTyre?

Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded.

—A child, a girl, placed in his arms, Marina.

—The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constantquantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead to thetown.

Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon’s wild oats. Cypherjugglers going thehighroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town, good masters? Mummed innames: A. E., eon: Magee, John Eglinton. East of the sun, west of the moon:Tir na n-og. Booted the twain and staved.

How many miles to Dublin?
Three score and ten, sir.
Will we be there by candlelight?

—Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closingperiod.

—Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver hisname is, say of it?

—Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, thatwhich was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s child. Mydearest wife, Pericles says, was like this maid. Will any man lovethe daughter if he has not loved the mother?

—The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. L’art d’êtregrand...

—Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added,another image?

Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all men.Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus ...

—His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard ofall experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The imagesof other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them grotesqueattempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself.

The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope.

—I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of thepublic. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr George BernardShaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles on Shakespeare in theSaturday Review were surely brilliant. Oddly enough he too draws for usan unhappy relation with the dark lady of the sonnets. The favoured rival isWilliam Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I own that if the poet must be rejected sucha rejection would seem more in harmony with—what shall I say?—ournotions of what ought not to have been.

Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk’s egg, prize oftheir fray.

He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost lovethy man?

—That may be too, Stephen said. There’s a saying of Goethe’s which MrMagee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because you will getit in middle life. Why does he send to one who is a buonaroba, a baywhere all men ride, a maid of honour with a scandalous girlhood, a lordling towoo for him? He was himself a lord of language and had made himself a coistrelgentleman and he had written Romeo and Juliet. Why? Belief in himselfhas been untimely killed. He was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, Ishould say) and he will never be a victor in his own eyes after nor playvictoriously the game of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism will notsave him. No later undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of the boarhas wounded him there where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is worsted yetthere remains to her woman’s invisible weapon. There is, I feel in the words,some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a darker shadow of thefirst, darkening even his own understanding of himself. A like fate awaits himand the two rages commingle in a whirlpool.

They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour.

—The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the porchof a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep cannot know themanner of their quell unless their Creator endow their souls with thatknowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the beast with two backs thaturged it King Hamlet’s ghost could not know of were he not endowed withknowledge by his creator. That is why the speech (his lean unlovely English) isalways turned elsewhere, backward. Ravisher and ravished, what he would butwould not, go with him from Lucrece’s bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen’sbreast, bare, with its mole cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creationhe has piled up to hide him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But,because loss is his gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminishedpersonality, untaught by the wisdom he has written or by the laws he hasrevealed. His beaver is up. He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind by Elsinore’srocks or what you will, the sea’s voice, a voice heard only in the heart of himwho is the substance of his shadow, the son consubstantial with the father.

—Amen! was responded from the doorway.

Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?

Entr’acte.

A ribald face, sullen as a dean’s, Buck Mulligan came forward, then blithe inmotley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram.

—You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he askedof Stephen.

Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a bauble.

They make him welcome. Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen.

Brood of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most.

He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself,Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, strippedand whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on crosstree, Who let Himbury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven and there these nineteenhundred years sitteth on the right hand of His Own Self but yet shall come inthe latter day to doom the quick and dead when all the quick shall be deadalready.

He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bellsaquiring.

—Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion.Mr Mulligan, I’ll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of Shakespeare.All sides of life should be represented.

He smiled on all sides equally.

Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled:

—Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name.

A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features.

—To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes likeSynge.

Mr Best turned to him.

—Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He’ll see you after at theD. B. C. He’s gone to Gill’s to buy Hyde’s Lovesongs of Connacht.

—I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here?

—The bard’s fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tiredperhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played Hamletfor the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining held that theprince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an Irishman? Judge Barton, Ibelieve, is searching for some clues. He swears (His Highness not His Lordship)by saint Patrick.

—The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde’s, Mr Best said,lifting his brilliant notebook. That Portrait of Mr W. H. where heproves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues.

—For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked.

Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I?

—I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Ofcourse it’s all paradox, don’t you know, Hughes and hews and hues, the colour,but it’s so typical the way he works it out. It’s the very essence of Wilde,don’t you know. The light touch.

His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe. Tameessence of Wilde.

You’re darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan Deasy’sducats.

How much did I spend? O, a few shillings.

For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry.

Wit. You would give your five wits for youth’s proud livery he pranks in.Lineaments of gratified desire.

There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool ruttime sendthem. Yea, turtledove her.

Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in’s kiss.

—Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking. Themocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.

They talked seriously of mocker’s seriousness.

Buck Mulligan’s again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head wagging,he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His mobile lips read,smiling with new delight.

—Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull!

He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully:

—The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring theimmense debtorship for a thing done. Signed: Dedalus. Where did you launchit from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four quid? The aunt isgoing to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram! Malachi Mulligan, TheShip, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer! O, you priestified Kinchite!

Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a querulousbrogue:

—It’s what I’m telling you, mister honey, it’s queer and sick we were,Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. ’Twas murmur we did for agallus potion would rouse a friar, I’m thinking, and he limp with leching. Andwe one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery’s sitting civil waitingfor pints apiece.

He wailed:

—And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us yourconglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the drouthyclerics do be fainting for a pussful.

Stephen laughed.

Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down.

—The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He heardyou pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He’s out in pampooties to murder you.

—Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature.

Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping ceiling.

—Murder you! he laughed.

Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash of lights inrue Saint-André-des-Arts. In words of words for words, palabras. Oisin withPatrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, brandishing a winebottle. C’estvendredi saint! Murthering Irish. His image, wandering, he met. I mine. Imet a fool i’the forest.

—Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar.

—... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in hisDiary of Master William Silence has found the hunting terms... Yes? Whatis it?

—There’s a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward andoffering a card. From the Freeman. He wants to see the files of theKilkenny People for last year.

—Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?...

He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked, asked,creaked, asked:

—Is he?... O, there!

Brisk in a galliard he was off, out. In the daylit corridor he talked withvoluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most honestbroadbrim.

—This gentleman? Freeman’s Journal? Kilkenny People? To be sure.Good day, sir. Kilkenny... We have certainly...

A patient silhouette waited, listening.

—All the leading provincial... Northern Whig, Cork Examiner,Enniscorthy Guardian, 1903... Will you please?... Evans, conduct thisgentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me... This way...Please, sir...

Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing darkfigure following his hasty heels.

The door closed.

—The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried.

He jumped up and snatched the card.

—What’s his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom.

He rattled on:

—Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in themuseum where I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth that hasnever been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to her. Life oflife, thy lips enkindle.

Suddenly he turned to Stephen:

—He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker thanthe Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove. VenusKallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! The god pursuing the maidenhid.

—We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best’s approval. Webegin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if at all, asa patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome.

—Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beautyfrom Kyrios Menelaus’ brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy in whom ascore of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty years he lived inLondon and, during part of that time, he drew a salary equal to that of thelord chancellor of Ireland. His life was rich. His art, more than the art offeudalism as Walt Whitman called it, is the art of surfeit. Hot herringpies,green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane, gooseberriedpigeons, ringocandies. Sir Walter Raleigh, when they arrested him, had half amillion francs on his back including a pair of fancy stays. The gombeenwomanEliza Tudor had underlinen enough to vie with her of Sheba. Twenty years hedallied there between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatorylove and its foul pleasures. You know Manningham’s story of the burgher’s wifewho bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had seen him in Richard IIIand how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado about nothing, took the cowby the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, answered from thecapon’s blankets: William the conqueror came before Richard III. And thegay lakin, mistress Fitton, mount and cry O, and his dainty birdsnies, ladyPenelope Rich, a clean quality woman is suited for a player, and the punks ofthe bankside, a penny a time.

Cours la Reine. Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries.Minette? Tu veux?

—The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of Oxford’s motherwith her cup of canary for any cockcanary.

Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed:

—Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock!

—And Harry of six wives’ daughter. And other lady friends from neighbourseats as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those twenty years whatdo you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing behind the diamond panes?

Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist, hewalks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of Juno’s eyes,violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. Afar, in a reek oflust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness.

Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton’s desk sharply.

—Whom do you suspect? he challenged.

—Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twicespurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove.

Love that dare not speak its name.

—As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved alord.

Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them.

—It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for allother and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for thestallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he had a shrew towife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow. Two deeds are rank inthat ghost’s mind: a broken vow and the dullbrained yokel on whom her favourhas declined, deceased husband’s brother. Sweet Ann, I take it, was hot in theblood. Once a wooer, twice a wooer.

Stephen turned boldly in his chair.

—The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said frowning. If youdeny that in the fifth scene of Hamlet he has branded her with infamytell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years between theday she married him and the day she buried him. All those women saw their mendown and under: Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her poor dear Willun, when he wentand died on her, raging that he was the first to go, Joan, her four brothers,Judith, her husband and all her sons, Susan, her husband too, while Susan’sdaughter, Elizabeth, to use granddaddy’s words, wed her second, having killedher first.

O, yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in royalLondon to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her father’sshepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein he has commendedher to posterity.

He faced their silence.

Woa!

—Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, asthey have still if our peasant plays are true to type.

—He was a rich country gentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms andlanded estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalistshareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her his bestbed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in peace?

—It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, MrSecondbest Best said finely.

—Separatio a mensa et a thalamo, bettered Buck Mulligan and wassmiled on.

—Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered, bedsmiling.Let me think.

—Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage,Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves, pays tributeto his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his dead wife andbids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don’t forget Nell Gwynn Herpyllis)and let her live in his villa.

—Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean...

—He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish for aking. O, I must tell you what Dowden said!

—What? asked Besteglinton.

William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people’s William. For termsapply: E. Dowden, Highfield house...

—Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he thought ofthe charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his hands and said:All we can say is that life ran very high in those days. Lovely!

Catamite.

—The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best tougling Eglinton.

Steadfast John replied severe:

—The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You cannot eat your cakeand have it.

Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me, the palm of beauty?

—And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his ownlong pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself acornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in the famine riots.His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship mentioned by ChettleFalstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing. He sued a fellowplayer forthe price of a few bags of malt and exacted his pound of flesh in interest forevery money lent. How else could Aubrey’s ostler and callboy get rich quick?All events brought grist to his mill. Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting thatfollowed the hanging and quartering of the queen’s leech Lopez, his jew’s heartbeing plucked forth while the sheeny was yet alive: Hamlet andMacbeth with the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with aturn for witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in Love’s LabourLost. His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide of Mafekingenthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a porter’s theory ofequivocation. The Sea Venture comes home from Bermudas and the playRenan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American cousin. The sugaredsonnets follow Sidney’s. As for fay Elizabeth, otherwise carrotty Bess, thegross virgin who inspired The Merry Wives of Windsor, let some meinherrfrom Almany grope his life long for deephid meanings in the depths of thebuckbasket.

I think you’re getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture oftheolologicophilolological. Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere.

—Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared, expectantly. Your dean ofstudies holds he was a holy Roman.

Sufflaminandus sum.

—He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French polisherof Italian scandals.

—A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him myriadminded.

Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitiainter multos.

—Saint Thomas, Stephen began...

—Ora pro nobis, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair.

There he keened a wailing rune.

—Pogue mahone! Acushla machree! It’s destroyed we are from thisday! It’s destroyed we are surely!

All smiled their smiles.

—Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoyreading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different fromthat of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his wise andcurious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the love so given toone near in blood is covetously withheld from some stranger who, it may be,hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with avarice, are of all races themost given to intermarriage. Accusations are made in anger. The christian lawswhich built up the hoards of the jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm wasshelter) bound their affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sinsor virtues old Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds sotightly to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will holdtightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls his wife. Nosir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his manservant or hismaidservant or his jackass.

—Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned.

—Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently.

—Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed.

—The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will’swidow, is the will to die.

—Requiescat! Stephen prayed.

What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago...

—She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the mobledqueen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as rare as a motorcaris now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven parishes. In old age shetakes up with gospellers (one stayed with her at New Place and drank a quart ofsack the town council paid for but in which bed he slept it skills not to ask)and heard she had a soul. She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferringthem to the Merry Wives and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan,she thought over Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches and The mostSpiritual Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze. Venus has twistedher lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age ofexhausted whoredom groping for its god.

—History shows that to be true, inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos.The ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man’sworst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that Russellis right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say that only familypoets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. I feel that the fatknight is his supreme creation.

Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping with thegodless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it him. Visits himhere on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there’s a gentleman to see you. Me? Sayshe’s your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter Magee Mor Matthew, a ruggedrough rugheaded kern, in strossers with a buttoned codpiece, his nether stocksbemired with clauber of ten forests, a wand of wilding in his hand.

Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower.

Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I touched hishand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is attending her. The eyesthat wish me well. But do not know me.

—A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessaryevil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father’s death. If youhold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters, with thirtyfiveyears of life, nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, with fifty ofexperience, is the beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg then you must holdthat his seventyyear old mother is the lustful queen. No. The corpse of JohnShakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to hour it rots and rots. Herests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised that mystical estate upon hisson. Boccaccio’s Calandrino was the first and last man who felt himself withchild. Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man. Itis a mystical estate, an apostolic succession, from only begetter to onlybegotten. On that mystery and not on the madonna which the cunning Italianintellect flung to the mob of Europe the church is founded and foundedirremovably because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon thevoid. Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood. Amor matris, subjective andobjective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be alegal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or heany son?

What the hell are you driving at?

I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons.

Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea.

Are you condemned to do this?

—They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminalannals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, hardlyrecord its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, lesbic sisters,loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with grandmothers, jailbirds withkeyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son unborn mars beauty: born, he bringspain, divides affection, increases care. He is a new male: his growth is hisfather’s decline, his youth his father’s envy, his friend his father’s enemy.

In rue Monsieur-le-Prince I thought it.

—What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut.

Am I a father? If I were?

Shrunken uncertain hand.

—Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of thefield, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of Aquin, withwhom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well: if the father who has nota son be not a father can the son who has not a father be a son? WhenRutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet of the same name in thecomedy of errors wrote Hamlet he was not the father of his own sonmerely but, being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all hisrace, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who,by the same token, never was born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her,abhors perfection.

Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly glancing, amerry puritan, through the twisted eglantine.

Flatter. Rarely. But flatter.

—Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big withchild. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The play’sthe thing! Let me parturiate!

He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands.

—As for his family, Stephen said, his mother’s name lives in the forestof Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia inCoriolanus. His boyson’s death is the deathscene of young Arthur inKing John. Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who thegirls in The Tempest, in Pericles, in Winter’s Tale are weknow. Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may guess.But there is another member of his family who is recorded.

—The plot thickens, John Eglinton said.

The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with haste,quake, quack.

Door closed. Cell. Day.

They list. Three. They.

I you he they.

Come, mess.

STEPHEN: He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in his oldage told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister Gatherer one timemass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the playwriter up in Lunnon in awrastling play wud a man on’s back. The playhouse sausage filled Gilbert’ssoul. He is nowhere: but an Edmund and a Richard are recorded in the works ofsweet William.

MAGEEGLINJOHN: Names! What’s in a name?

BEST: That is my name, Richard, don’t you know. I hope you are going to say agood word for Richard, don’t you know, for my sake. (Laughter)

BUCKMULLIGAN: (Piano, diminuendo)

Then outspoke medical Dick
To his comrade medical Davy...

STEPHEN: In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago, RichardCrookback, Edmund in King Lear, two bear the wicked uncles’ names. Nay,that last play was written or being written while his brother Edmund lay dyingin Southwark.

BEST: I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don’t want Richard, my name ...

(Laughter)

QUAKERLYSTER: (A tempo) But he that filches from me my good name...

STEPHEN: (Stringendo) He has hidden his own name, a fair name, William,in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old Italy set hisface in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in the sonnets wherethere is Will in overplus. Like John o’Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dearas the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeledargent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatestshakescene in the country. What’s in a name? That is what we ask ourselves inchildhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, afiredrake, rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighterthan Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, therecumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars.His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as hewalked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from Shottery andfrom her arms.

Both satisfied. I too.

Don’t tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched.

And from her arms.

Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you?

Read the skies. Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos. Where’s yourconfiguration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: sua donna. Già:di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amare S. D.

—What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a celestialphenomenon?

—A star by night, Stephen said. A pillar of the cloud by day.

What more’s to speak?

Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots.

Stephanos, my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of myfeet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too.

—You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name isstrange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour.

Me, Magee and Mulligan.

Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? Newhaven-Dieppe,steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. Pater, ait.Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing be.

Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say:

—That’s very interesting because that brother motive, don’t you know, wefind also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three brothersShakespeare. In Grimm too, don’t you know, the fairytales. The third brotherthat always marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best prize.

Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best.

The quaker librarian springhalted near.

—I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand you tosuggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps I amanticipating?

He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained.

An attendant from the doorway called:

—Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants...

—O, Father Dineen! Directly.

Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone.

John Eglinton touched the foil.

—Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund.You kept them for the last, didn’t you?

—In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie andnuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A brotheris as easily forgotten as an umbrella.

Lapwing.

Where is your brother? Apothecaries’ hall. My whetstone. Him, then Cranly,Mulligan: now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They mock to try you.Act. Be acted on.

Lapwing.

I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink.

On.

—You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which hetook the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others? Richard,a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann (what’s in aname?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard the conqueror, thirdbrother, came after William the conquered. The other four acts of that playhang limply from that first. Of all his kings Richard is the only kingunshielded by Shakespeare’s reverence, the angel of the world. Why is theunderplot of King Lear in which Edmund figures lifted out of Sidney’sArcadia and spatchcocked on to a Celtic legend older than history?

—That was Will’s way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine aNorse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. Quevoulez-vous? Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and makesUlysses quote Aristotle.

—Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or theusurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to Shakespeare, whatthe poor are not, always with him. The note of banishment, banishment from theheart, banishment from home, sounds uninterruptedly from The Two Gentlemenof Verona onward till Prospero breaks his staff, buries it certain fathomsin the earth and drowns his book. It doubles itself in the middle of his life,reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis,catastrophe. It repeats itself again when he is near the grave, when hismarried daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery. But itwas the original sin that darkened his understanding, weakened his will andleft in him a strong inclination to evil. The words are those of my lordsbishops of Maynooth. An original sin and, like original sin, committed byanother in whose sin he too has sinned. It is between the lines of his lastwritten words, it is petrified on his tombstone under which her four bones arenot to be laid. Age has not withered it. Beauty and peace have not done itaway. It is in infinite variety everywhere in the world he has created, inMuch Ado about Nothing, twice in As you like It, in TheTempest, in Hamlet, in Measure for Measure—and in allthe other plays which I have not read.

He laughed to free his mind from his mind’s bondage.

Judge Eglinton summed up.

—The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He isall in all.

—He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act five.All in all. In Cymbeline, in Othello he is bawd and cuckold. Heacts and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like José he kills thereal Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago ceaselessly willingthat the moor in him shall suffer.

—Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear!

Dark dome received, reverbed.

—And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. Whenall is said Dumas fils (or is it Dumas père?) is right. After GodShakespeare has created most.

—Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns after alife of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he has alwaysbeen, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of life ended, heplants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The motion is ended.Gravediggers bury Hamlet père and Hamlet fils. A king and aprince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what though murdered andbetrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, Dane or Dubliner, sorrow forthe dead is the only husband from whom they refuse to be divorced. If you likethe epilogue look long on it: prosperous Prospero, the good man rewarded,Lizzie, grandpa’s lump of love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off bypoetic justice to the place where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He foundin the world without as actual what was in his world within as possible.Maeterlinck says: If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sageseated on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps willtend. Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves,meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows,brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright who wrote thefolio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light first and the sun twodays later), the lord of things as they are whom the most Roman of catholicscall dio boia, hangman god, is doubtless all in all in all of us, ostlerand butcher, and would be bawd and cuckold too but that in the economy ofheaven, foretold by Hamlet, there are no more marriages, glorified man, anandrogynous angel, being a wife unto himself.

—Eureka! Buck Mulligan cried. Eureka!

Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton’s desk.

—May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi.

He began to scribble on a slip of paper.

Take some slips from the counter going out.

—Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one, shalllive. The rest shall keep as they are.

He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor.

Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his variorumedition of The Taming of the Shrew.

—You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You havebrought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe your owntheory?

—No, Stephen said promptly.

—Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it adialogue, don’t you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote.

John Eclecticon doubly smiled.

—Well, in that case, he said, I don’t see why you should expect paymentfor it since you don’t believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is somemystery in Hamlet but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man Pipermet in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes that the secretis hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to visit the present duke,Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor wrote the plays. It will come asa surprise to his grace. But he believes his theory.

I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help me tounbelieve? Who helps to believe? Egomen. Who to unbelieve? Other chap.

—You are the only contributor to Dana who asks for pieces ofsilver. Then I don’t know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for anarticle on economics.

Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics.

—For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview.

Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then gravelysaid, honeying malice:

—I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upperMecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the Summa contraGentiles in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and Rosalie,the coalquay whore.

He broke away.

—Come, Kinch. Come, wandering Ængus of the birds.

Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left. Ay. I will serve you your orts andoffals.

Stephen rose.

Life is many days. This will end.

—We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. Notre ami Mooresays Malachi Mulligan must be there.

Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama.

—Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth ofIreland. I’ll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walkstraight?

Laughing, he...

Swill till eleven. Irish nights entertainment.

Lubber...

Stephen followed a lubber...

One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After. His lubback: I followed. I gall his kibe.

Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a wellkempt head,newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering daylight of no thought.

What have I learned? Of them? Of me?

Walk like Haines now.

The constant readers’ room. In the readers’ book Cashel Boyle O’ConnorFitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet mad?The quaker’s pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk.

—O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased...

Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself, selfnodding:

—A pleased bottom.

The turnstile.

Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?...

The curving balustrade: smoothsliding Mincius.

Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling:

John Eglinton, my jo, John,
Why won’t you wed a wife?

He spluttered to the air:

—O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to theirplaybox, Haines and I, the plumbers’ hall. Our players are creating a new artfor Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I smell the pubicsweat of monks.

He spat blank.

Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And left thefemme de trente ans. And why no other children born? And his first childa girl?

Afterwit. Go back.

The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, minionof pleasure, Phedo’s toyable fair hair.

Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he...

—Longworth and M’Curdy Atkinson were there...

Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling:

I hardly hear the purlieu cry
Or a Tommy talk as I pass one by
Before my thoughts begin to run
On F. M’Curdy Atkinson,
The same that had the wooden leg
And that filibustering filibeg
That never dared to slake his drouth,
Magee that had the chinless mouth.
Being afraid to marry on earth
They masturbated for all they were worth.

Jest on. Know thyself.

Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt.

—Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing blackto be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black.

A laugh tripped over his lips.

—Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that oldhake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you a job on thepaper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. Couldn’t you do the Yeatstouch?

He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:

—The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. Onethinks of Homer.

He stopped at the stairfoot.

—I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.

The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men’s morrice withcaps of indices.

In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet:

Everyman His Own Wife
or
A Honeymoon in the Hand
(a national immorality in three orgasms)
by
Ballocky Mulligan.

He turned a happy patch’s smirk to Stephen, saying:

—The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen.

He read, marcato:

—Characters:

 TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole) CRAB (a bushranger) MEDICAL DICK ) and ) (two birds with one stone) MEDICAL DAVY ) MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier) FRESH NELLY and ROSALIE (the coalquay whore).

He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen: andmirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:

—O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lifttheir skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured,multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!

—The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever liftedthem.

About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.

Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, ifJudas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must come to,ineluctably.

My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.

A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting.

—Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.

The portico.

Here I watched the birds for augury. Ængus of the birds. They go, they come.Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots after. Acreamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.

—The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown’s awe. Did you seehis eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient mariner. O,Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.

Manner of Oxenford.

Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.

A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, underportcullis barbs.

They followed.

Offend me still. Speak on.

Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail fromthe housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw of softnesssoftly were blown.

Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic: fromwide earth an altar.

Laud we the gods
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our bless’d altars.

[ 10 ]

The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. reset his smooth watch in hisinterior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to three. Just nicetime to walk to Artane. What was that boy’s name again? Dignam. Yes. Veredignum et iustum est. Brother Swan was the person to see. Mr Cunningham’sletter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good practical catholic: useful atmission time.

A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his crutches,growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the sisters ofcharity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very reverend JohnConmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his purse held, he knew,one silver crown.

Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, ofsoldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, ending theirdays in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey’s words: If I had served myGod as I have served my king He would not have abandoned me in my old days.He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking leaves: and towards him came thewife of Mr David Sheehy M.P.

—Very well, indeed, father. And you, father?

Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton probably forthe waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at Belvedere? Was that so?Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Stillin London. The house was still sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather itwas, delightful indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughanwould come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful manreally.

Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. Iooking sowell and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P. Yes, he wouldcertainly call.

—Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy.

Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the jetbeads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again, in going. Hehad cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste.

Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father BernardVaughan’s droll eyes and cockney voice.

—Pilate! Wy don’t you old back that owlin mob?

A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his way.Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. Of goodfamily too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?

O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial.

Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy square.Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were they good boysat school? O. That was very good now. And what was his name? Jack Sohan. Andhis name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? His name was Brunny Lynam.O, that was a very nice name to have.

Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and pointedto the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street.

—But mind you don’t post yourself into the box, little man, he said.

The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed:

—O, sir.

—Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.

Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee’s letter tofather provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father Conmeesmiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square east.

Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate frockcoatwith silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender trousers, canary glovesand pointed patent boots, walking with grave deportment most respectfully tookthe curbstone as he passed lady Maxwell at the corner of Dignam’s court.

Was that not Mrs M’Guinness?

Mrs M’Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the fartherfootpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and saluted. How didshe do?

A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to thinkthat she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he say?... such aqueenly mien.

Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup freechurch on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will (D.V.) speak. Theincumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say a few words. Butone should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They acted according to theirlights.

Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular road. Itwas a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important thoroughfare.Surely, there ought to be.

A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All raised untidycaps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly. Christian brotherboys.

Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint Joseph’schurch, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. Father Conmee raised hishat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but occasionally they were alsobadtempered.

Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift nobleman. Andnow it was an office or something.

Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted by MrWilliam Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father Conmee salutedMr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came from baconflitches andample cools of butter. He passed Grogan’s the Tobacconist against whichnewsboards leaned and told of a dreadful catastrophe in New York. In Americathose things were continually happening. Unfortunate people to die like that,unprepared. Still, an act of perfect contrition.

Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin’s publichouse against the window of whichtwo unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted.

Father Conmee passed H. J. O’Neill’s funeral establishment where Corny Kellehertotted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. A constable onhis beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted the constable. InYoukstetter’s, the porkbutcher’s, Father Conmee observed pig’s puddings, whiteand black and red, lie neatly curled in tubes.

Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a turfbarge, atowhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty straw seatedamidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above him. It was idyllic:and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator who had made turfto be in bogs whence men might dig it out and bring it to town and hamlet tomake fires in the houses of poor people.

On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint FrancisXavier’s church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound tram.

Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of saintAgatha’s church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge.

At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for hedisliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.

Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with care inthe eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence and fivepennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse. Passing the ivychurch he reflected that the ticket inspector usually made his visit when onehad carelessly thrown away the ticket. The solemnity of the occupants of thecar seemed to Father Conmee excessive for a journey so short and cheap. FatherConmee liked cheerful decorum.

It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father Conmeehad finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee supposed. Atiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with the glasses. Sheraised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, tiptapping her smallgloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, sweetly.

Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that theawkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the seat.

Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the mouth ofthe awkward old man who had the shaky head.

At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old womanrose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the bellstrap tostay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a marketnet: andFather Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and basket down: and FatherConmee thought that, as she had nearly passed the end of the penny fare, shewas one of those good souls who had always to be told twice bless you, mychild, that they have been absolved, pray for me. But they had somany worries in life, so many cares, poor creatures.

From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at FatherConmee.

Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and of hissermon on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission and of thepropagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and yellowsouls that had not received the baptism of water when their last hour came likea thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, Le Nombre desÉlus, seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those were millions ofhuman souls created by God in His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.V.)been brought. But they were God’s souls, created by God. It seemed to FatherConmee a pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might say.

At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the conductor andsaluted in his turn.

The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name. Thejoybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, immediatehereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining. Then came the callto arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. Those were old worldishdays, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times in the barony.

Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book Old Times in theBarony and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and ofMary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere.

A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel, Mary,first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, not startledwhen an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the jealous lord Belvedereand not her confessor if she had not committed adultery fully, eiaculatioseminis inter vas naturale mulieris, with her husband’s brother? She wouldhalf confess if she had not all sinned as women did. Only God knew and she andhe, her husband’s brother.

Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for man’srace on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways.

Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and honouredthere. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at smiling noble facesin a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters. And the hands of abride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble, were impalmed by Don John Conmee.

It was a charming day.

The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, curtseyingto him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of small white cloudsgoing slowly down the wind. Moutonner, the French said. A just andhomely word.

Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds overRathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowesfield. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the cries of theboys’ lines at their play, young cries in the quiet evening. He was theirrector: his reign was mild.

Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An ivorybookmark told him the page.

Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come.

Father Conmee read in secret Pater and Ave and crossed hisbreast. Deus in adiutorium.

He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he came toRes in Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas: ineternum omnia iudicia iustitiæ tuæ.

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a young womanwith wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised his cap abruptly:the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care detached from her light skirta clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his breviary.Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis formidavit cormeum.

***

Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at apine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, went to it and,spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass furnishings. Chewing hisblade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came to the doorway. There he tiltedhis hatbrim to give shade to his eyes and leaned against the doorcase, lookingidly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat downtilted,chewing his blade of hay.

Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.

—That’s a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

—Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

—It’s very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth while agenerous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a coin.

—What’s the best news? he asked.

—I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with batedbreath.

***

A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell’s corner, skirtingRabaiotti’s icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards LarryO’Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

—For England...

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted andgrowled:

—home and beauty.

J. J. O’Molloy’s white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in thewarehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it into thecap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly at theunheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

—For England...

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, gaping athis stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head towards awindow and bayed deeply:

—home and beauty.

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. The blindof the window was drawn aside. A card Unfurnished Apartments slippedfrom the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was seen, held forthfrom a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A woman’s hand flung forth acoin over the area railings. It fell on the path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the minstrel’scap, saying:

—There, sir.

***

Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen.

—Did you put in the books? Boody asked.

Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds twice withher potstick and wiped her brow.

—They wouldn’t give anything on them, she said.

Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles tickled bystubble.

—Where did you try? Boody asked.

—M’Guinness’s.

Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.

—Bad cess to her big face! she cried.

Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.

—What’s in the pot? she asked.

—Shirts, Maggy said.

Boody cried angrily:

—Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?

Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:

—And what’s in this?

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

—Peasoup, Maggy said.

—Where did you get it? Katey asked.

—Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

—Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

—Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, sittingopposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her mouth randomcrumbs:

—A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?

—Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

—Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:

—Boody! For shame!

A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the Liffey,under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed around thebridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, between theCustomhouse old dock and George’s quay.

***

The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling fibre.Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper and a smalljar.

—Put these in first, will you? he said.

—Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.

—That’ll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.

She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe shamefacedpeaches.

Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the fruitsmellingshop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red tomatoes, sniffingsmells.

H. E. L. Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, ploddingtowards their goal.

He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from his foband held it at its chain’s length.

—Can you send them by tram? Now?

A darkbacked figure under Merchants’ arch scanned books on the hawker’s cart.

—Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?

—O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.

The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.

—Will you write the address, sir?

Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.

—Send it at once, will you? he said. It’s for an invalid.

—Yes, sir. I will, sir.

Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers’ pocket.

—What’s the damage? he asked.

The blond girl’s slim fingers reckoned the fruits.

Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took a redcarnation from the tall stemglass.

—This for me? he asked gallantly.

The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie a bitcrooked, blushing.

—Yes, sir, she said.

Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.

Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the redflower between his smiling teeth.

—May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.

***

—Ma! Almidano Artifoni said.

He gazed over Stephen’s shoulder at Goldsmith’s knobby poll.

Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, gripping thehandrests. Palefaces. Men’s arms frankly round their stunted forms. They lookedfrom Trinity to the blind columned porch of the bank of Ireland where pigeonsroocoocooed.

—Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee, Almidano Artifoni said,quand’ ero giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è unabestia. È peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via.Invece, Lei si sacrifica.

—Sacrifizio incruento, Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplantin slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.

—Speriamo, the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. Ma, diaretta a me. Ci rifletta.

By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram unloadedstraggling Highland soldiers of a band.

—Ci rifletterò, Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.

—Ma, sul serio, eh? Almidano Artifoni said.

His heavy hand took Stephen’s firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously aninstant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.

—Eccolo, Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. Venga atrovarmi e ci pensi. Addio, caro.

—Arrivederla, maestro, Stephen said, raising his hat when his handwas freed. E grazie.

—Di che? Almidano Artifoni said. Scusi, eh? Tante bellecose!

Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, trotted onstout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, signalling in vainamong the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling implements of music throughTrinity gates.

***

Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of The Woman in White farback in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her typewriter.

Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion? Change itand get another by Mary Cecil Haye.

The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them: six.

Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:

—16 June 1904.

Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny’s corner and the slab whereWolfe Tone’s statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. Y.’S and ploddedback as they had come.

Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, and,listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and capital esses. Mustardhair and dauby cheeks. She’s not nicelooking, is she? The way she’s holding upher bit of a skirt. Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I couldget that dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle’s. They kick outgrand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope togoodness he won’t keep me here till seven.

The telephone rang rudely by her ear.

—Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll ring them up after five. Onlythose two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go aftersix if you’re not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and six. I’lltell him. Yes: one, seven, six.

She scribbled three figures on an envelope.

—Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from Sport was in looking foryou. Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he’ll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes,sir. I’ll ring them up after five.

***

Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch.

—Who’s that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?

—Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold.

—Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute hispliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there.

The vesta in the clergyman’s uplifted hand consumed itself in a long soft flameand was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and mouldy air closed roundthem.

—How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.

—Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historiccouncil chamber of saint Mary’s abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed himself arebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin. O’Madden Burke isgoing to write something about it one of these days. The old bank of Irelandwas over the way till the time of the union and the original jews’ temple washere too before they built their synagogue over in Adelaide road. You werenever here before, Jack, were you?

—No, Ned.

—He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memoryserves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.

—That’s right, Ned Lambert said. That’s quite right, sir.

—If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to allowme perhaps...

—Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I’llget those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here or fromhere.

In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piledseedbags and points of vantage on the floor.

From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.

—I’m deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won’t trespass onyour valuable time...

—You’re welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Nextweek, say. Can you see?

—Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.

—Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered.

He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among thepillars. With J. J. O’Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary’s abbey wheredraymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal, O’Connor,Wexford.

He stood to read the card in his hand.

—The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint Michael’s,Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He’s writing a book about the Fitzgeralds hetold me. He’s well up in history, faith.

The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

—I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O’Molloy said.

Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air.

—God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildareafter he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? I’m bloody sorry Idid it, says he, but I declare to God I thought the archbishop wasinside. He mightn’t like it, though. What? God, I’ll tell him anyhow. Thatwas the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they were all of them, theGeraldines.

The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He slapped apiebald haunch quivering near him and cried:

—Woa, sonny!

He turned to J. J. O’Molloy and asked:

—Well, Jack. What is it? What’s the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard.

With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an instant,sneezed loudly.

—Chow! he said. Blast you!

—The dust from those sacks, J. J. O’Molloy said politely.

—No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast yoursoul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of draught...

He held his handkerchief ready for the coming...

—I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you callhim... Chow!... Mother of Moses!

***

Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his claretwaistcoat.

—See? he said. Say it’s turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On.

He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove, wobbled awhile, ceased, ogling them: six.

Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the consolidatedtaxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying the costbag ofGoulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the admiralty division ofking’s bench to the court of appeal an elderly female with false teeth smilingincredulously and a black silk skirt of great amplitude.

—See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here: Turns Over.The impact. Leverage, see?

He showed them the rising column of disks on the right.

—Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late cansee what turn is on and what turns are over.

—See? Tom Rochford said.

He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle, stop: four.Turn Now On.

—I’ll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One goodturn deserves another.

—Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I’m Boylan with impatience.

—Goodnight, M’Coy said abruptly. When you two begin...

Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it.

—But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked.

—Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later.

He followed M’Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court.

—He’s a hero, he said simply.

—I know, M’Coy said. The drain, you mean.

—Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole.

They passed Dan Lowry’s musichall where Marie Kendall, charming soubrette,smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.

Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall Lenehanshowed M’Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like a bloodygaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it, half choked with sewergas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky’s vest and all, with the rope roundhim. And be damned but he got the rope round the poor devil and the two werehauled up.

—The act of a hero, he said.

At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past them forJervis street.

—This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam’s tosee Sceptre’s starting price. What’s the time by your gold watch and chain?

M’Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses’ sombre office, then at O’Neill’s clock.

—After three, he said. Who’s riding her?

—O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is.

While he waited in Temple bar M’Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle pushes ofhis toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy get a nasty fallthere coming along tight in the dark.

The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal cavalcade.

—Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons inthere going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn’t an earthly.Through here.

They went up the steps and under Merchants’ arch. A darkbacked figure scannedbooks on the hawker’s cart.

—There he is, Lenehan said.

—Wonder what he’s buying, M’Coy said, glancing behind.

—Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye, Lenehan said.

—He’s dead nuts on sales, M’Coy said. I was with him one day and hebought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were fineplates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and comets withlong tails. Astronomy it was about.

Lenehan laughed.

—I’ll tell you a damn good one about comets’ tails, he said. Come over inthe sun.

They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by theriverwall.

Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s,carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.

—There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan saideagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord mayor wasthere, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan Dawson spoke andthere was music. Bartell d’Arcy sang and Benjamin Dollard...

—I know, M’Coy broke in. My missus sang there once.

—Did she? Lenehan said.

A card Unfurnished Apartments reappeared on the windowsash of number 7Eccles street.

He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh.

—But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had thecatering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were there.Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and curacoa to which we didample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came solids. Cold jointsgalore and mince pies...

—I know, M’Coy said. The year the missus was there...

Lenehan linked his arm warmly.

—But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after allthe jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o’clock the morningafter the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter’s night on theFeatherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one side of the car and Iwas with the wife on the other. We started singing glees and duets: Lo, theearly beam of morning. She was well primed with a good load of Delahunt’sport under her bellyband. Every jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping upagainst me. Hell’s delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.

He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:

—I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. Knowwhat I mean?

His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in delight, hisbody shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.

—The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She’s a gameymare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in theheavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and Hercules and thedragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, inthe milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy onemiles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she hadBloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that’sonly what you might call a pinprick. By God, he wasn’t far wide of themark.

Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft laughter.

—I’m weak, he gasped.

M’Coy’s white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan walkedon again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead rapidly. Heglanced sideways in the sunlight at M’Coy.

—He’s a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He’s not oneof your common or garden... you know... There’s a touch of the artist about oldBloom.

***

Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk,then of Aristotle’s Masterpiece. Crooked botched print. Plates: infantscuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered cows. Lots ofthem like that at this moment all over the world. All butting with their skullsto get out of it. Child born every minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.

He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: Tales of the Ghettoby Leopold von Sacher Masoch.

—That I had, he said, pushing it by.

The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter.

—Them are two good ones, he said.

Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth. He bentto make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his unbuttonedwaistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain.

On O’Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay apparelof Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c.

Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. Fair Tyrants by James Lovebirch.Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes.

He opened it. Thought so.

A woman’s voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: the man.

No: she wouldn’t like that much. Got her it once.

He read the other title: Sweets of Sin. More in her line. Let us see.

He read where his finger opened.

—All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores onwondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul!

Yes. This. Here. Try.

—Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his handsfelt for the opulent curves inside her déshabillé.

Yes. Take this. The end.

—You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare.

The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenlyshoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played round herperfect lips as she turned to him calmly.

Mr Bloom read again: The beautiful woman.

Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply amidrumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched themselves forprey. Melting breast ointments (for him! For Raoul!). Armpits’ onionysweat. Fishgluey slime (her heaving embonpoint!). Feel! Press! Crished!Sulphur dung of lions!

Young! Young!

An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of chancery,king’s bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in the lord chancellor’scourt the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the admiralty division the summons,exparte motion, of the owners of the Lady Cairns versus the owners of thebarque Mona, in the court of appeal reservation of judgment in the case ofHarvey versus the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation.

Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy curtains.The shopman’s uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven reddened face,coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the floor. He put hisboot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it, and bent, showing arawskinned crown, scantily haired.

Mr Bloom beheld it.

Mastering his troubled breath, he said:

—I’ll take this one.

The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.

—Sweets of Sin, he said, tapping on it. That’s a good one.

***

The lacquey by the door of Dillon’s auctionrooms shook his handbell twice againand viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.

Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the bell, thecries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely curtains. Fiveshillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any advance on fiveshillings? Going for five shillings.

The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:

—Barang!

Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint. J. A.Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched necks wagging,negotiated the curve by the College library.

Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams’s row. He haltednear his daughter.

—It’s time for you, she said.

—Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. Areyou trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon shoulder?Melancholy God!

Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and held themback.

—Stand up straight, girl, he said. You’ll get curvature of the spine. Doyou know what you look like?

He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders anddropping his underjaw.

—Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you.

Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.

—Did you get any money? Dilly asked.

—Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublinwould lend me fourpence.

—You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes.

—How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek.

Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along James’sstreet.

—I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now?

—I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns taughtyou to be so saucy? Here.

He handed her a shilling.

—See if you can do anything with that, he said.

—I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.

—Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You’re like the rest ofthem, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother died.But wait awhile. You’ll all get a short shrift and a long day from me. Lowblackguardism! I’m going to get rid of you. Wouldn’t care if I was stretchedout stiff. He’s dead. The man upstairs is dead.

He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat.

—Well, what is it? he said, stopping.

The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs.

—Barang!

—Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.

The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell butfeebly:

—Bang!

Mr Dedalus stared at him.

—Watch him, he said. It’s instructive. I wonder will he allow us to talk.

—You got more than that, father, Dilly said.

—I’m going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I’ll leave youall where Jesus left the jews. Look, there’s all I have. I got two shillingsfrom Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the funeral.

He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously.

—Can’t you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said.

Mr Dedalus thought and nodded.

—I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O’Connellstreet. I’ll try this one now.

—You’re very funny, Dilly said, grinning.

—Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk foryourself and a bun or a something. I’ll be home shortly.

He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on.

The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out ofParkgate.

—I’m sure you have another shilling, Dilly said.

The lacquey banged loudly.

Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing mincingmouth gently:

—The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn’t do anything!O, sure they wouldn’t really! Is it little sister Monica!

***

From the sundial towards James’s gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the orderhe had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James’s street, pastShackleton’s offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr Crimmins?First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other establishment inPimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive. Lovely weather we’re having.Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those farmers are always grumbling. I’lljust take a thimbleful of your best gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes,sir. Terrible affair that General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible!A thousand casualties. And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women andchildren. Most brutal thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneouscombustion. Most scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float andthe firehose all burst. What I can’t understand is how the inspectors everallowed a boat like that... Now, you’re talking straight, Mr Crimmins. You knowwhy? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look at that. AndAmerica they say is the land of the free. I thought we were bad here.

I smiled at him. America, I said quietly, just like that. What is it?The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn’t that true? That’s afact.

Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there’s money going there’s alwayssomeone to pick it up.

Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressyappearance. Bowls them over.

—Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?

—Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.

Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of PeterKennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson street.Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built under threeguineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street club toff had itprobably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian bank, gave me a verysharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he remembered me.

Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road.Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom again,sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying has it.

North wall and sir John Rogerson’s quay, with hulls and anchorchains, sailingwestward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the ferrywash,Elijah is coming.

Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course. Grizzledmoustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy body forward onspatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned Lambert’s brother over theway, Sam? What? Yes. He’s as like it as damn it. No. The windscreen of thatmotorcar in the sun there. Just a flash like that. Damn like him.

Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good dropof gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his fat strut.

Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope. Dogslicking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant’s wife drove by inher noddy.

Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too.Fourbottle men.

Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan’s? Or no, there was a midnight burialin Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the wall. Dignam isthere now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn down here. Make adetour.

Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by the corner ofGuinness’s visitors’ waitingroom. Outside the Dublin Distillers Company’sstores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, the reins knotted to thewheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary bosthoon endangering the lives ofthe citizens. Runaway horse.

Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John HenryMenton’s office, led his wife over O’Connell bridge, bound for the office ofMessrs Collis and Ward.

Mr Kernan approached Island street.

Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those reminiscences ofsir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all now in a kind ofretrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly’s. No cardsharping then. One of thosefellows got his hand nailed to the table by a dagger. Somewhere here lordEdward Fitzgerald escaped from major Sirr. Stables behind Moira house.

Damn good gin that was.

Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that shamsquire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were on the wrongside. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is: Ingram. They weregentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad touchingly. Masterly rendition.

At the siege of Ross did my father fall.

A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, leapingin their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.

Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily.

His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a pity!

***

Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary’s fingers provea timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened thetoiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronzeand silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones.

Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights shining inthe darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of their brows. Muddyswinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest them.

She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman,rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed silent rut.She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her hips, on her grossbelly flapping a ruby egg.

Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it andheld it at the point of his Moses’ beard. Grandfather ape gloating on a stolenhoard.

And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words ofsophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat standing fromeverlasting to everlasting.

Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through Irishtownalong London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella, one with amidwife’s bag in which eleven cockles rolled.

The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the powerhouseurged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always without you andthe throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I between them. Where? Betweentwo roaring worlds where they swirl, I. Shatter them, one and both. But stunmyself too in the blow. Shatter me you who can. Bawd and butcher were thewords. I say! Not yet awhile. A look around.

Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say right,sir. A Monday morning, ’twas so, indeed.

Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against hisshoulderblade. In Clohissey’s window a faded 1860 print of Heenan boxing Sayersheld his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood round the roped prizering.The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed gently each to other his bulbousfists. And they are throbbing: heroes’ hearts.

He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart.

—Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.

Tattered pages. The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Curé of Ars.Pocket Guide to Killarney.

I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. Stephano Dedalo, alumnooptimo, palmam ferenti.

Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet ofDonnycarney, murmuring vespers.

Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses. Secretof all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read. Who haspassed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for white winevinegar. How to win a woman’s love. For me this. Say the following talismanthree times with hands folded:

—Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen.

Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter Salankato all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot’s charms, asmumbling Joachim’s. Down, baldynoddle, or we’ll wool your wool.

—What are you doing here, Stephen?

Dilly’s high shoulders and shabby dress.

Shut the book quick. Don’t let see.

—What are you doing? Stephen said.

A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It glowedas she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her of Paris. Latelieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a pinchbeck bracelet, DanKelly’s token. Nebrakada femininum.

—What have you there? Stephen asked.

—I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughingnervously. Is it any good?

My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring. Shadow ofmy mind.

He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal’s French primer.

—What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French?

She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips.

Show no surprise. Quite natural.

—Here, Stephen said. It’s all right. Mind Maggy doesn’t pawn it on you. Isuppose all my books are gone.

—Some, Dilly said. We had to.

She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will drownme with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, my heart, mysoul. Salt green death.

We.

Agenbite of inwit. Inwit’s agenbite.

Misery! Misery!

***

—Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?

—Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.

They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter’s. Father Cowley brushedhis moustache often downward with a scooping hand.

—What’s the best news? Mr Dedalus said.

—Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I’m barricaded up, Simon, withtwo men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance.

—Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it?

—O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance.

—With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked.

—The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I’m justwaiting for Ben Dollard. He’s going to say a word to long John to get him totake those two men off. All I want is a little time.

He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in hisneck.

—I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He’s alwaysdoing a good turn for someone. Hold hard!

He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant.

—There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets.

Ben Dollard’s loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops crossed thequay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards them at an amble,scratching actively behind his coattails.

As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted:

—Hold that fellow with the bad trousers.

—Hold him now, Ben Dollard said.

Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben Dollard’sfigure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered sneeringly:

—That’s a pretty garment, isn’t it, for a summer’s day?

—Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, Ithrew out more clothes in my time than you ever saw.

He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his roomy clothes frompoints of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying:

—They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow.

—Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be toGod he’s not paid yet.

—And how is that basso profondo, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked.

Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring, glassyeyed,strode past the Kildare street club.

Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter’s mouth, gave forth a deepnote.

—Aw! he said.

—That’s the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone.

—What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What?

He turned to both.

—That’ll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also.

The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint Mary’sabbey past James and Charles Kennedy’s, rectifiers, attended by Geraldines talland personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of hurdles.

Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward, hisjoyful fingers in the air.

—Come along with me to the subsheriff’s office, he said. I want to showyou the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He’s a cross between Lobengula andLynchehaun. He’s well worth seeing, mind you. Come along. I saw John HenryMenton casually in the Bodega just now and it will cost me a fall if I don’t...Wait awhile... We’re on the right lay, Bob, believe you me.

—For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously.

Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button of hiscoat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the heavy shraumsthat clogged his eyes to hear aright.

—What few days? he boomed. Hasn’t your landlord distrained for rent?

—He has, Father Cowley said.

—Then our friend’s writ is not worth the paper it’s printed on, BenDollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the particulars.29 Windsor avenue. Love is the name?

—That’s right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He’s a ministerin the country somewhere. But are you sure of that?

—You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put thatwrit where Jacko put the nuts.

He led Father Cowley boldly forward, linked to his bulk.

—Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his glasseson his coatfront, following them.

***

—The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they passedout of the Castleyard gate.

The policeman touched his forehead.

—God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily.

He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on towardsLord Edward street.

Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy’s head by Miss Douce’s head, appeared above thecrossblind of the Ormond hotel.

—Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to FatherConmee and laid the whole case before him.

—You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward.

—Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not.

John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them quickly downCork hill.

On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed AldermanCowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending.

The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street.

—Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at theMail office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings.

—Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down thefive shillings too.

—Without a second word either, Mr Power said.

—Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added.

John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes.

—I’ll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly.

They went down Parliament street.

—There’s Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh’s.

—Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.

Outside la Maison Claire Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney’sbrother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties.

John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took the elbowof a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked uncertainly, withhasty steps past Micky Anderson’s watches.

—The assistant town clerk’s corns are giving him some trouble, John WyseNolan told Mr Power.

They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh’s winerooms. The emptycastle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, speakingalways, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not glance.

—And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large aslife.

The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.

—Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted andgreeted.

Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Claydecisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all theirfaces.

—Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he saidwith rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.

Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, abouttheir damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to know, to keeporder in the council chamber. And old Barlow the macebearer laid up withasthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, no quorum even, and Hutchinson,the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little Lorcan Sherlock doing locumtenens for him. Damned Irish language, language of our forefathers.

Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.

Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to theassistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his peace.

—What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked.

Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot.

—O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness’ sake tillI sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!

Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning’s flank and passed inand up the stairs.

—Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don’t think youknew him or perhaps you did, though.

With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in.

—Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of longJohn Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror.

—Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton’s office that was, Martin Cunninghamsaid.

Long John Fanning could not remember him.

Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.

—What’s that? Martin Cunningham said.

All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the coolshadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, harness andglossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past before his coolunfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, leaping leaders, rodeoutriders.

—What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the staircase.

—The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John WyseNolan answered from the stairfoot.

***

As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his Panamato Haines:

—Parnell’s brother. There in the corner.

They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose beardand gaze hung intently down on a chessboard.

—Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat.

—Yes, Mulligan said. That’s John Howard, his brother, our city marshal.

John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw went upagain to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after, under its screen,his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell once more upon aworking corner.

—I’ll take a mélange, Haines said to the waitress.

—Two mélanges, Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones andbutter and some cakes as well.

When she had gone he said, laughing:

—We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missedDedalus on Hamlet.

Haines opened his newbought book.

—I’m sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all mindsthat have lost their balance.

The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street:

—England expects...

Buck Mulligan’s primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.

—You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. WanderingÆngus I call him.

—I am sure he has an idée fixe, Haines said, pinching his chinthoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it would belikely to be. Such persons always have.

Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely.

—They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will nevercapture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white deathand the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. The joy ofcreation...

—Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled himthis morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It’s ratherinteresting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an interesting point outof that.

Buck Mulligan’s watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to unloadher tray.

—He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amidthe cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, ofretribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does he writeanything for your movement?

He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. BuckMulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its smokingpith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily.

—Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write somethingin ten years.

—Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon.Still, I shouldn’t wonder if he did after all.

He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup.

—This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don’twant to be imposed on.

Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of ships andtrawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping street past Benson’sferry, and by the threemasted schooner Rosevean from Bridgwater withbricks.

***

Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell’s yard. Behind himCashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with stickumbrelladustcoatdangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith’s house and, crossing, walkedalong Merrion square. Distantly behind him a blind stripling tapped his way bythe wall of College park.

Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr LewisWerner’s cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along Merrion square,his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling.

At the corner of Wilde’s house he halted, frowned at Elijah’s name announced onthe Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of duke’s lawn. Hiseyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth bared he muttered:

—Coactus volui.

He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word.

As he strode past Mr Bloom’s dental windows the sway of his dustcoat brushedrudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, having buffeteda thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly face after the stridingform.

—God’s curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You’re blinder norI am, you bitch’s bastard!

***

Opposite Ruggy O’Donohoe’s Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the pound anda half of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s, porksteaks he had been sent for, wentalong warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming dull sitting in theparlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs MacDowell and the blind down andthey all at their sniffles and sipping sups of the superior tawny sherry uncleBarney brought from Tunney’s. And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake,jawing the whole blooming time and sighing.

After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner, stoppedhim. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their pelts and puttingup their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning Masters Dignam gapedsilently. Myler Keogh, Dublin’s pet lamb, will meet sergeantmajor Bennett, thePortobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty sovereigns. Gob, that’d be a goodpucking match to see. Myler Keogh, that’s the chap sparring out to him with thegreen sash. Two bar entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk onma. Master Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That’s me in mourning. Whenis it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He turned tothe right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, his collarsticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the image of MarieKendall, charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One of them mots that dobe in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old fellow welted hell out ofhim for one time he found out.

Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going forstrength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would knock youinto the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for science was JemCorbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of him, dodging and all.

In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff’s mouth and a swellpair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was telling him andgrinning all the time.

No Sandymount tram.

Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his otherhand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud wastoo small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He metschoolboys with satchels. I’m not going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday.He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I’m in mourning? Uncle Barney said he’dget it into the paper tonight. Then they’ll all see it in the paper and read myname printed and pa’s name.

His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a flywalking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were screwing thescrews into the coffin: and the bumps when they were bringing it downstairs.

Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling the menhow to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and heavylooking.How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing on the landing therebawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney’s for to boose more and he lookedbutty and short in his shirt. Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead.My father is dead. He told me to be a good son to ma. I couldn’t hear the otherthings he said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poorpa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he’s in purgatory now because he wentto confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night.

***

William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied bylieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal lodge.In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de Courcy and thehonourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. in attendance.

The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix park saluted byobsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern quays.The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the metropolis. AtBloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted him vainly from afar.Between Queen’s and Whitworth bridges lord Dudley’s viceregal carriages passedand were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. L., M. A., who stood on Arran quayoutside Mrs M. E. White’s, the pawnbroker’s, at the corner of Arran street weststroking his nose with his forefinger, undecided whether he should arrive atPhibsborough more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or onfoot through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In theporch of Four Courts Richie Goulding with the costbag of Goulding, Collis andWard saw him with surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the doorstep of the officeof Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company, anelderly female about to enter changed her plan and retracing her steps byKing’s windows smiled credulously on the representative of His Majesty. Fromits sluice in Wood quay wall under Tom Devan’s office Poddle river hung out infealty a tongue of liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel,gold by bronze, Miss Kennedy’s head by Miss Douce’s head watched and admired.On Ormond quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for thesubsheriff’s office, stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low. HisExcellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus’ greeting. From Cahill’s corner thereverend Hugh C. Love, M. A., made obeisance unperceived, mindful of lordsdeputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich advowsons. On Grattanbridge Lenehan and M’Coy, taking leave of each other, watched the carriages goby. Passing by Roger Greene’s office and Dollard’s big red printinghouse GertyMacDowell, carrying the Catesby’s cork lino letters for her father who was laidup, knew by the style it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn’t seewhat Her Excellency had on because the tram and Spring’s big yellow furniturevan had to stop in front of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant.Beyond Lundy Foot’s from the shaded door of Kavanagh’s winerooms John WyseNolan smiled with unseen coldness towards the lord lieutenantgeneral andgeneral governor of Ireland. The Right Honourable William Humble, earl ofDudley, G. C. V. O., passed Micky Anderson’s all times ticking watches andHenry and James’s wax smartsuited freshcheeked models, the gentleman Henry,dernier cri James. Over against Dame gate Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynnwatched the approach of the cavalcade. Tom Rochford, seeing the eyes of ladyDudley fixed on him, took his thumbs quickly out of the pockets of his claretwaistcoat and doffed his cap to her. A charming soubrette, great MarieKendall, with dauby cheeks and lifted skirt smiled daubily from her poster uponWilliam Humble, earl of Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine, andalso upon the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C.Buck Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipageover the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboardwhereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes’s street Dilly Dedalus,straining her sight upward from Chardenal’s first French primer, saw sunshadesspanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare. John Henry Menton, filling thedoorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a fatgold hunter watch not looked at in his fat left hand not feeling it. Where theforeleg of King Billy’s horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hasteninghusband back from under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear thetidings. Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast and saluted thesecond carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C., agreeably surprised, madehaste to reply. At Ponsonby’s corner a jaded white flagon H. halted and fourtallhatted white flagons halted behind him, E.L.Y.’S, while outriders prancedpast and carriages. Opposite Pigott’s music warerooms Mr Denis J Maginni,professor of dancing &c, gaily apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by aviceroy and unobserved. By the provost’s wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan,stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of Mygirl’s a Yorkshire girl.

Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders’ skyblue frontlets and high action askyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a suit of indigoserge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute but he offered to thethree ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and the red flower between hislips. As they drove along Nassau street His Excellency drew the attention ofhis bowing consort to the programme of music which was being discoursed inCollege park. Unseen brazen highland laddies blared and drumthumped after thecortège:

But though she’s a factory lass
And wears no fancy clothes.
Baraabum.
Yet I’ve a sort of a
Yorkshire relish for
My little Yorkshire rose.
Baraabum.

Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H. Shrift,T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, C. Adderly andW. C. Huggard, started in pursuit. Striding past Finn’s hotel Cashel BoyleO’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a fierce eyeglass acrossthe carriages at the head of Mr M. E. Solomons in the window of theAustro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster street by Trinity’s postern aloyal king’s man, Hornblower, touched his tallyho cap. As the glossy horsespranced by Merrion square Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutesbeing given to the gent with the topper and raised also his new black cap withfingers greased by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up. The viceroy, onhis way to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer’s hospital,drove with his following towards Lower Mount street. He passed a blindstripling opposite Broadbent’s. In Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a brownmacintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and unscathed across the viceroy’spath. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his hoarding, Mr Eugene Stratton, hisblub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome to Pembroke township. At Haddingtonroad corner two sanded women halted themselves, an umbrella and a bag in whicheleven cockles rolled to view with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoresswithout his golden chain. On Northumberland and Lansdowne roads His Excellencyacknowledged punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two smallschoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired by thelate queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the princeconsort, in 1849 and the salute of Almidano Artifoni’s sturdy trousersswallowed by a closing door.

[ 11 ]

Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing.

Imperthnthn thnthnthn.

Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.

Horrid! And gold flushed more.

A husky fifenote blew.

Blew. Blue bloom is on the.

Goldpinnacled hair.

A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile.

Trilling, trilling: Idolores.

Peep! Who’s in the... peepofgold?

Tink cried to bronze in pity.

And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.

Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping answer.

O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking.

Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.

Coin rang. Clock clacked.

Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. Lacloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!

Jingle. Bloo.

Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.

A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.

Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.

Horn. Hawhorn.

When first he saw. Alas!

Full tup. Full throb.

Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.

Martha! Come!

Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap.

Goodgod henev erheard inall.

Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.

A moonlit nightcall: far, far.

I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming.

Listen!

The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other, plashand silent roar.

Pearls: when she. Liszt’s rhapsodies. Hissss.

You don’t?

Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra.

Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do.

Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee.

But wait!

Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore.

Naminedamine. Preacher is he:

All gone. All fallen.

Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair.

Amen! He gnashed in fury.

Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding.

Bronzelydia by Minagold.

By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom.

One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock.

Pray for him! Pray, good people!

His gouty fingers nakkering.

Big Benaben. Big Benben.

Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone.

Pwee! Little wind piped wee.

True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your tschinkwith tschunk.

Fff! Oo!

Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs?

Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl.

Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt.

Done.

Begin!

Bronze by gold, miss Douce’s head by miss Kennedy’s head, over the crossblindof the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing steel.

—Is that her? asked miss Kennedy.

Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and eau de Nil.

—Exquisite contrast, miss Kennedy said.

When all agog miss Douce said eagerly:

—Look at the fellow in the tall silk.

—Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly.

—In the second carriage, miss Douce’s wet lips said, laughing in the sun.

He’s looking. Mind till I see.

She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against thepane in a halo of hurried breath.

Her wet lips tittered:

—He’s killed looking back.

She laughed:

—O wept! Aren’t men frightful idiots?

With sadness.

Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair behind anear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a hair. Sadly shetwined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear.

—It’s them has the fine times, sadly then she said.

A man.

Bloowho went by by Moulang’s pipes bearing in his breast the sweets of sin, byWine’s antiques, in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by Carroll’s duskybattered plate, for Raoul.

The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them unheeding himhe banged on the counter his tray of chattering china. And

—There’s your teas, he said.

Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned lithiacrate, safe from eyes, low.

—What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked.

—Find out, miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint.

—Your beau, is it?

A haughty bronze replied:

—I’ll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of yourimpertinent insolence.

—Imperthnthn thnthnthn, bootssnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as shethreatened as he had come.

Bloom.

On her flower frowning miss Douce said:

—Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn’t conduct himself I’llwring his ear for him a yard long.

Ladylike in exquisite contrast.

—Take no notice, miss Kennedy rejoined.

She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered undertheir reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned, waiting fortheir teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black satin, two and ninea yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and seven.

Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear, hoofs ringfrom afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel.

—Am I awfully sunburnt?

Miss bronze unbloused her neck.

—No, said miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax withthe cherry laurel water?

Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror gildedletteredwhere hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their midst a shell.

—And leave it to my hands, she said.

—Try it with the glycerine, miss Kennedy advised.

Bidding her neck and hands adieu miss Douce

—Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that oldfogey in Boyd’s for something for my skin.

Miss Kennedy, pouring now a fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed:

—O, don’t remind me of him for mercy’ sake!

—But wait till I tell you, miss Douce entreated.

Sweet tea miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears withlittle fingers.

—No, don’t, she cried.

—I won’t listen, she cried.

But Bloom?

Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey’s tone:

—For your what? says he.

Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak: but said, but prayed again:

—Don’t let me think of him or I’ll expire. The hideous old wretch! Thatnight in the Antient Concert Rooms.

She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped, sweet tea.

—Here he was, miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three quarters,ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa!

Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from miss Kennedy’s throat. Miss Douce huffedand snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a snout in quest.

—O! shrieking, miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget his goggle eye?

Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting:

—And your other eye!

Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner’s name. Why do I always think Figather?Gathering figs, I think. And Prosper Loré’s huguenot name. By Bassi’s blessedvirgins Bloom’s dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white under, come to me. God theybelieve she is: or goddess. Those today. I could not see. That fellow spoke. Astudent. After with Dedalus’ son. He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins.That brings those rakes of fellows in: her white.

By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets.

Of sin.

In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy yourother eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let freefly theirlaughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other, high piercing notes.

Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down.

Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and gigglegiggled. MissDouce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her nose and rolled drollfattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping, her fair pinnacles of hair,stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed, spluttered out of her mouth her tea,choking in tea and laughter, coughing with choking, crying:

—O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried. Withhis bit of beard!

Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman, delight,joy, indignation.

—Married to the greasy nose! she yelled.

Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each each topeal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze, shrilldeep, tolaughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I knows. Exhausted,breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and pinnacled byglossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!), panting, sweating(O!), all breathless.

Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom.

—O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I wishedI hadn’t laughed so much. I feel all wet.

—O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!

And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly.

By Cantwell’s offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi’s virgins, bright of theiroils. Nannetti’s father hawked those things about, wheedling at doors as I.Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I want. Not yet. At four,she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. Where eat? The Clarence,Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five guineas with those ads. The violetsilk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets of sin.

Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled.

Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his rockythumbnails. Chips. He strolled.

—O, welcome back, miss Douce.

He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?

—Tiptop.

He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor.

—Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the strandall day.

Bronze whiteness.

—That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed herhand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males.

Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away.

—O go away! she said. You’re very simple, I don’t think.

He was.

—Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle theychristened me simple Simon.

—You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did thedoctor order today?

—Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I’ll trouble youfor some fresh water and a half glass of whisky.

Jingle.

—With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed.

With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane’s sheturned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from her crystalkeg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought pouch and pipe.Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky fifenotes.

—By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must be agreat tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at last, theysay. Yes. Yes.

Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid’s, into the bowl.Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute.

None nought said nothing. Yes.

Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling:

—O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!

—Was Mr Lidwell in today?

In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex bridge. Yes,Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. Buy paper. Daly’s.Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on the rye.

—He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said.

Lenehan came forward.

—Was Mr Boylan looking for me?

He asked. She answered:

—Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?

She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her gazeupon a page:

—No. He was not.

Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the sandwichbellwound his round body round.

—Peep! Who’s in the corner?

No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her stops. Toread only the black ones: round o and crooked ess.

Jingle jaunty jingle.

Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice whilehe read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:

—Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put yourbill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?

He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.

He sighed aside:

—Ah me! O my!

He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod.

—Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.

—Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked.

Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who?

—Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard.

Dry.

Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe.

—I see, he said. I didn’t recognise him for the moment. I hear he iskeeping very select company. Have you seen him lately?

He had.

—I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. InMooney’s en ville and in Mooney’s sur mer. He had received therhino for the labour of his muse.

He smiled at bronze’s teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes:

—The élite of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, HughMacHugh, Dublin’s most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy of thewild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the O’Madden Burke.

After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and

—That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see.

He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his glass.

He looked towards the saloon door.

—I see you have moved the piano.

—The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smokingconcert and I never heard such an exquisite player.

—Is that a fact?

—Didn’t he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too,poor fellow. Not twenty I’m sure he was.

—Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said.

He drank and strayed away.

—So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled.

God’s curse on bitch’s bastard.

Tink to her pity cried a diner’s bell. To the door of the bar and diningroomcame bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. Lager for diner.Lager without alacrity she served.

With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for jinglejauntyblazes boy.

Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique triple(piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her hand), softpedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt advancing, to hearthe muffled hammerfall in action.

Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in WisdomHely’s wise Bloom in Daly’s Henry Flower bought. Are you not happy in yourhome? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means something, language offlow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. Respectable girl meet after mass.Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaidsmoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming:lovelorn. For some man. For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gayhat riding on a jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence.

Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. Follow.Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out.

—Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say.

—Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse...

—And four.

At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go. Ternoon.Think you’re the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all.

For men.

In drowsy silence gold bent on her page.

From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the tuner hadthat he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now poised that it nowthrobbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly and softlier, its buzzingprongs. Longer in dying call.

Pat paid for diner’s popcorked bottle: and over tumbler, tray and popcorkedbottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss Douce.

—The bright stars fade...

A voiceless song sang from within, singing:

—... the morn is breaking.

A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive hands.Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, called to a voiceto sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love’s leavetaking, life’s,love’s morn.

—The dewdrops pearl...

Lenehan’s lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy.

—But look this way, he said, rose of Castile.

Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped.

She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile: fretted, forlorn, dreamilyrose.

—Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her.

She answered, slighting:

—Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.

Like lady, ladylike.

Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. Yes,gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and hailed him:

—See the conquering hero comes.

Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered hero. Seeme he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked towards RichieGoulding’s legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting.

—And I from thee...

—I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan.

He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled on him.But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer hair, a bosom anda rose.

Smart Boylan bespoke potions.

—What’s your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a sloeginfor me. Wire in yet?

Not yet. At four she. Who said four?

Cowley’s red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff’s office.

Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. Wait.

Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What, Ormond?Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. See, not beseen. I think I’ll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom followed bag. Dinnerfit for a prince.

Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her bust,that all but burst, so high.

—O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!

But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.

—Why don’t you grow? asked Blazes Boylan.

Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his lips,looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and syrupped with hervoice:

—Fine goods in small parcels.

That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.

—Here’s fortune, Blazes said.

He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang.

—Hold on, said Lenehan, till I...

—Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.

—Sceptre will win in a canter, he said.

—I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, youknow. Fancy of a friend of mine.

Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce’s lips thatall but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. Idolores. Theeastern seas.

Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), bearingaway teatray. Clock clacked.

Miss Douce took Boylan’s coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It clanged.Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till and hummed andhanded coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For me.

—What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four?

O’clock.

Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged BlazesBoylan’s elbowsleeve.

—Let’s hear the time, he said.

The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables.Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door.Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. Icouldn’t do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited.

Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure’s skyblue bow and eyes.

—Go on, pressed Lenehan. There’s no-one. He never heard.

—... to Flora’s lips did hie.

High, a high note pealed in the treble clear.

Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought Blazes Boylan’sflower and eyes.

—Please, please.

He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal.

—I could not leave thee...

—Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly.

—No, now, urged Lenehan. Sonnez la cloche! O do! There’s no-one.

She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling faceswatched her bend.

Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord, and lostand found it, faltering.

—Go on! Do! Sonnez!

Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted themstill, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes.

—Sonnez!

Smack. She set free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter smackwarmagainst her smackable a woman’s warmhosed thigh.

—La cloche! cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdustthere.

She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward gliding, mildshe smiled on Boylan.

—You’re the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said.

Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his chalice tiny,sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound eyes went after, afterher gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch for gingerale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, a spiky shell, where it concerted,mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze.

Yes, bronze from anearby.

—... Sweetheart, goodbye!

—I’m off, said Boylan with impatience.

He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change.

—Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you.Tom Rochford...

—Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going.

Lenehan gulped to go.

—Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I’m coming.

He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the threshold,saluting forms, a bulky with a slender.

—How do you do, Mr Dollard?

—Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard’s vague bass answered, turning aninstant from Father Cowley’s woe. He won’t give you any trouble, Bob. AlfBergan will speak to the long fellow. We’ll put a barleystraw in that JudasIscariot’s ear this time.

Sighing Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an eyelid.

—Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon. Give us aditty. We heard the piano.

Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders. Power for Richie. AndBloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now. How warm thisblack is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat. Let me see. Cider. Yes,bottle of cider.

—What’s that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man.

—Come on, come on, Ben Dollard called. Begone dull care. Come, Bob.

He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the: holdhim now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His gouty pawsplumped chords. Plumped, stopped abrupt.

Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered, he wanted Powerand cider. Bronze by the window, watched, bronze from afar.

Jingle a tinkle jaunted.

Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He’s off. Light sob of breath Bloom sighedon the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He’s gone. Jingle. Hear.

—Love and War, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times.

Miss Douce’s brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind, smitten bysunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting light), she loweredthe dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive (why did he go soquick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar where bald stood by sister gold,inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreensliding depth of shadow, eau de Nil.

—Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley remindedthem. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the Collardgrand.

There was.

—A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn’t stop him.He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink.

—God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the punishedkeyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment.

They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding garment.

—Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said. Where’s mypipe, by the way?

He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried twodiners’ drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again.

—I saved the situation, Ben, I think.

—You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too. Thatwas a brilliant idea, Bob.

Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the situa. Tighttrou. Brilliant ide.

—I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano inthe coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and who was itgave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you remember? We had tosearch all Holles street to find them till the chap in Keogh’s gave us thenumber. Remember?

Ben remembered, his broad visage wondering.

—By God, she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there.

Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand.

—Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. Hewouldn’t take any money either. What? Any God’s quantity of cocked hats andboleros and trunkhose. What?

—Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of alldescriptions.

Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres.

Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat.

Mrs Marion. Met him pike hoses. Smell of burn. Of Paul de Kock. Nice name he.

—What’s this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion...

—Tweedy.

—Yes. Is she alive?

—And kicking.

—She was a daughter of...

—Daughter of the regiment.

—Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor.

Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after

—Irish? I don’t know, faith. Is she, Simon?

Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling.

—Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My IrishMolly, O.

He puffed a pungent plumy blast.

—From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way.

They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze bymaraschino, thoughtful all two. Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace, Drumcondrawith Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent.

Pat served, uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before he atewith relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods’ roes while RichieGoulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, bite by bite ofpie he ate Bloom ate they ate.

Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes.

By Bachelor’s walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun in heat,mare’s glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres: sprawled,warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the? Horn. Have youthe? Haw haw horn.

Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding chords:

—When love absorbs my ardent soul...

Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roofpanes.

—War! War! cried Father Cowley. You’re the warrior.

—So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love ormoney.

He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge.

—Sure, you’d burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said throughsmoke aroma, with an organ like yours.

In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would.

—Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time, Ben.Amoroso ma non troppo. Let me there.

Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She passed aremark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful weather. They drank coolstout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant was going? And heard steelhoofsringhoof ring. No, she couldn’t say. But it would be in the paper. O, she neednot trouble. No trouble. She waved about her outspread Independent,searching, the lord lieutenant, her pinnacles of hair slowmoving, lord lieuten.Too much trouble, first gentleman said. O, not in the least. Way he lookedthat. Lord lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron steel.

—............ my ardent soul
I care not foror the morrow.

In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and War someone is. BenDollard’s famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit for thatconcert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers. Molly did laugh whenhe went out. Threw herself back across the bed, screaming, kicking. With allhis belongings on show. O saints above, I’m drenched! O, the women in the frontrow! O, I never laughed so many! Well, of course that’s what gives him the basebarreltone. For instance eunuchs. Wonder who’s playing. Nice touch. Must beCowley. Musical. Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap.Stopped.

Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George Lidwell,gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist (a lady’s) hand to hisfirm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old dingdong again.

—Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell.

George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand.

Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the Burton,gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables, flowers, mitresof napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do. Best value in Dub.

Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together, mutualunderstanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the bowend, sawing thecello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. Night we were in the box.Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between the acts, other brass chapunscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor’s legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedyjiggedy. Do right to hide them.

Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty.

Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a lovely.Gravy’s rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that once or twice.Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their harps. I. He. Old.Young.

—Ah, I couldn’t, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless.

Strongly.

—Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits.

—M’appari, Simon, Father Cowley said.

Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long armsoutheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he sang to adusty seascape there: A Last Farewell. A headland, a ship, a sail uponthe billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the wind upon theheadland, wind around her.

Cowley sang:

—M’appari tutt’amor:
Il mio sguardo l’incontr...

She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to wind,love, speeding sail, return.

—Go on, Simon.

—Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben... Well...

Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting, touchedthe obedient keys.

—No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat.

The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused.

Up stage strode Father Cowley.

—Here, Simon, I’ll accompany you, he said. Get up.

By Graham Lemon’s pineapple rock, by Elvery’s elephant jingly jogged.

Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom andGoulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider.

Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: Sonnambula. He heardJoe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M’Guckin! Yes. In his way. Choirboystyle. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like. Never forget it.Never.

Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. Backachehe. Bright’s bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the piper. Pills,pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. Sings too: Downamong the dead men. Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to the. Not making muchhand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about hisdrink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters tosave. Then squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs. And when he’s wanted not afarthing. Screwed refusing to pay his fare. Curious types.

Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived: never. In the godsof the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note.

Speech paused on Richie’s lips.

Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. Believes his ownlies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good memory.

—Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom.

—All is lost now.

Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee murmured: all.A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth he’s proud of, flutedwith plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two notes in one there. Blackbird Iheard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my motives he twined and turned them. Allmost too new call is lost in all. Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done?All lost now. Mournful he whistled. Fall, surrender, lost.

Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase. Order.Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence in the moon.Brave. Don’t know their danger. Still hold her back. Call name. Touch water.Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That’s why. Woman. As easy stop thesea. Yes: all is lost.

—A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well.

Never in all his life had Richie Goulding.

He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise childthat knows her father, Dedalus said. Me?

Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking Richieonce. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his eye. Now beggingletters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I did sir. Wouldn’t troubleonly I was expecting some money. Apologise.

Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably. Stoppedagain.

Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.

—With it, Simon.

—It, Simon.

—Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kindsolicitations.

—It, Simon.

—I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall endeavourto sing to you of a heart bowed down.

By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a lady’sgrace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous eau de Nil Mina totankards two her pinnacles of gold.

The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant, drew avoice away.

—When first I saw that form endearing...

Richie turned.

—Si Dedalus’ voice, he said.

Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flowendearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to Pat,bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the bar. The doorof the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting to hear, for he washard of hear by the door.

—Sorrow from me seemed to depart.

Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves inmurmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem dulcimerstouching their still ears with words, still hearts of their each his rememberedlives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each seemed to from both departwhen first they heard. When first they saw, lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty,heard from a person wouldn’t expect it in the least, her first mercifullovesoft oftloved word.

Love that is singing: love’s old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the elasticband of his packet. Love’s old sweet sonnez la gold. Bloom wound a skeinround four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound it round his troubleddouble, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.

—Full of hope and all delighted...

Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his feet.When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He can’t sing fortall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. What perfume does yourwife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last look at mirror always before sheanswers the door. The hall. There? How do you? I do well. There? What? Or?Phial of cachous, kissing comfits, in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for theopulent.

Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud.

—But alas, ’twas idle dreaming...

Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly man! Couldhave made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his wife: now sings.But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he doesn’t break down. Keep atrot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing too. Drink. Nerves overstrung.Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pintof cream. For creamy dreamy.

Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That’s the chat. Ha,give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect.

Words? Music? No: it’s what’s behind.

Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.

Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music out, indesire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her tapping her toppingher. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy the feel the warm the. Tup. Topour o’er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now!Language of love.

—... ray of hope is...

Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse unsqueakeda ray of hopk.

Martha it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel’s song. Lovelyname you have. Can’t write. Accept my little pres. Play on her heartstringspursestrings too. She’s a. I called you naughty boy. Still the name: Martha.How strange! Today.

The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to RichiePoldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to wait. How firsthe saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, how look, form, wordcharmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom’s heart.

Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in Drago’salways looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still hear it betterhere than in the bar though farther.

—Each graceful look...

First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon’s in Terenure. Yellow, blacklace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. Fate. Roundand round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she sat. All oustedlooked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees.

—Charmed my eye...

Singing. Waiting she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume ofwhat perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat warbling.First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy eyes. Under apeartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in shadow Doloresshedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.

—Martha! Ah, Martha!

Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant to loveto return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In cry of lionelloneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For only her he waited.Where? Here there try there here all try where. Somewhere.

—Co-ome, thou lost one!
Co-ome, thou dear one!

Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return!

—Come!

It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb itleaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don’t spin it out too long longbreath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned,high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the etherial bosom, high, of thehigh vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, theendlessnessnessness...

—To me!

Siopold!

Consumed.

Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her, youtoo, me, us.

—Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclapclap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said, cried,clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina Kennedy, twogentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank and bronze Miss Douceand gold Miss Mina.

Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before. Jingle bymonuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, reverend father TheobaldMathew, jaunted, as said before just now. Atrot, in heat, heatseated.Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. Slower the mare went up the hillby the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatienceBoylan, joggled the mare.

An afterclang of Cowley’s chords closed, died on the air made richer.

And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank, Lidwellhis Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two more tankards ifshe did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, coral lips, at first, atsecond. She did not mind.

—Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you’dsing, Simon, like a garden thrush.

Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy served.Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired, admired. ButBloom sang dumb.

Admiring.

Richie, admiring, descanted on that man’s glorious voice. He remembered onenight long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang ’Twas rank and fame: inNed Lambert’s ’twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a note like thathe never did then false one we had better part so clear so God he neverheard since love lives not a clinking voice lives not ask Lambert he cantell you too.

Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the night, Siin Ned Lambert’s, Dedalus house, sang ’Twas rank and fame.

He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom, of thenight he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing ’Twas rank and fame inhis, Ned Lambert’s, house.

Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the lute Ithink. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The night Sisang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, wonderful, more than all others.

That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It’s in the silence after you feelyou hear. Vibrations. Now silent air.

Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the slendercatgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzz, it twanged. While Goulding talkedof Barraclough’s voice production, while Tom Kernan, harking back in aretrospective sort of arrangement talked to listening Father Cowley, who playeda voluntary, who nodded as he played. While big Ben Dollard talked with SimonDedalus, lighting, who nodded as he smoked, who smoked.

Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his string.Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. Then tearasunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life.Dignam. Ugh, that rat’s tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpusparadisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing.Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then.Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Herwavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevyhair un comb:’d.

Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in your?Twang. It snapped.

Jingle into Dorset street.

Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased.

—Don’t make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted.

George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe.

First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And secondtankard told her so. That that was so.

Miss Douce, miss Lydia, did not believe: miss Kennedy, Mina, did not believe:George Lidwell, no: miss Dou did not: the first, the first: gent with the tank:believe, no, no: did not, miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: the tank.

Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted.

Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A pad toblot. He heard, deaf Pat.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is.Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is thiswrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, envelope:unconcerned. It’s so characteristic.

—Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said.

—It is, Bloom said.

Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two dividedby half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two plus six isseven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find out this equalto that. Symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn’t see my mourning. Callous:all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think you’re listening to theetherial. But suppose you said it like: Martha, seven times nine minus x isthirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It’s on account of the sounds it is.

Instance he’s playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like, till you hearthe words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear chords a bitoff: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over barrels, through wirefences,obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you’re in. Still alwaysnice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two together nextdoorneighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that. Blumenlied I boughtfor her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came home, the girl. Doorof the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, Imean.

Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite flat pad.Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went.

It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy inRingabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstownharbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight withthose earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as aboy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole.

Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed amoonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying.

Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom’s, your other eye,scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho!Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking...

Hope he’s not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman.Can’t see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir. DearHenry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some pock oroth. It is utterl imposs. Underline imposs. To write today.

Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting fingers onflat pad Pat brought.

On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres enclos. Askher no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls. Elijah is com.Seven Davy Byrne’s. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor little pres: p.o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle, have you the? Soexcited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the stringof her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call methat other. Other world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. Youmust believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True.

Folly am I writing? Husbands don’t. That’s marriage does, their wives. BecauseI’m away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found out. Cardin my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don’t see. Woman.Sauce for the gander.

A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James ofnumber one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young gentleman,stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George Robert Mesias,tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a straw hat verydressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick street, hatter. Eh?This is the jingle that joggled and jingled. By Dlugacz’ porkshop bright tubesof Agendath trotted a gallantbuttocked mare.

—Answering an ad? keen Richie’s eyes asked Bloom.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect.

Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You know how.In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he playing now?Improvising. Intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will you pun? You punishme? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want to. Know. O. Course if Ididn’t I wouldn’t ask. La la la ree. Trails off there sad in minor. Why minorsad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sadtoday. La ree. So lonely. Dee.

He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper.Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:

Miss Martha Clifford
c/o P. O.
Dolphin’s Barn Lane
Dublin.

Blot over the other so he can’t read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit.Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea percol. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. P: up.

Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms. Shakespearesaid. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be. Wisdom while youwait.

In Gerard’s rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life is all. Onebody. Do. But do.

Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. Enough.Barney Kiernan’s I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. House of mourning.Walk. Pat! Doesn’t hear. Deaf beetle he is.

Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn’t. Settling those napkins. Lot ofground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then he’d be two.Wish they’d sing more. Keep my mind off.

Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of hishearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He waitswhile you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits while youwait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. Hee hee hee hee.Hoh. Wait while you wait.

Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose.

She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell shebrought.

To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding seahornthat he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear.

—Listen! she bade him.

Under Tom Kernan’s ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow. Authenticfact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband took him by thethroat. Scoundrel, said he, You’ll sing no more lovesongs. Hedid, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. Cowley lay back.

Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful. Sheheld it to her own. And through the sifted light pale gold in contrast glided.To hear.

Tap.

Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more faintlythat that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for other, hearing theplash of waves, loudly, a silent roar.

Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened.

Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside. Lovelyseaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream first make itbrown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn’t forget. Fever near her mouth.Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with seaweed. Why do they hidetheir ears with seaweed hair? And Turks the mouth, why? Her eyes over thesheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. No admittance except on business.

The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in theear sometimes. Well, it’s a sea. Corpuscle islands.

Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur, hearing:then laid it by, gently.

—What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled.

Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled.

Tap.

By Larry O’Rourke’s, by Larry, bold Larry O’, Boylan swayed and Boylan turned.

From the forsaken shell miss Mina glided to her tankards waiting. No, she wasnot so lonely archly miss Douce’s head let Mr Lidwell know. Walks in themoonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly answered: with agentleman friend.

Bob Cowley’s twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord has theprior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben. Lightly he played a light brighttinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, and for their gallants,gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one, one, one: two, one, three, four.

Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket, cocks, hensdon’t crow, snakes hissss. There’s music everywhere. Ruttledge’s door: eecreaking. No, that’s noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he’s playing now.Court dresses of all descriptions in castle chambers dancing. Misery. Peasantsoutside. Green starving faces eating dockleaves. Nice that is. Look: look,look, look, look, look: you look at us.

That’s joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other joy. Butboth are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows you are. Oftenthought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then know.

M’Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing cat. Like tearing silk. Tonguewhen she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can’t manage men’sintervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I’m warm, dark, open. Molly inquis est homo: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. Want a womanwho can deliver the goods.

Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue clockscame light to earth.

O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It is akind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. Tinkling. Emptyvessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the resonance changes accordingas the weight of the water is equal to the law of falling water. Like thoserhapsodies of Liszt’s, Hungarian, gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddleiddleaddleaddle ooddleooddle. Hissss. Now. Maybe now. Before.

One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock with aloud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock.

Tap.

—Qui sdegno, Ben, said Father Cowley.

—No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered. The Croppy Boy. Our native Doric.

—Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true.

—Do, do, they begged in one.

I’ll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To me. Howmuch?

—What key? Six sharps?

—F sharp major, Ben Dollard said.

Bob Cowley’s outstretched talons griped the black deepsounding chords.

Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must. Got moneysomewhere. He’s on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears lipspeech.One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence tip. Deaf, bothered.But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting Patty come home. Hee heehee hee. Deaf wait while they wait.

But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the darkmiddle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic.

The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth’s fatigue made grave approach andpainful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men and true. Thepriest he sought. With him would he speak a word.

Tap.

Ben Dollard’s voice. Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. Croak ofvast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big ships’ chandler’sbusiness he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships’ lanterns. Failed to thetune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle number so and so.Number one Bass did that for him.

The priest’s at home. A false priest’s servant bade him welcome. Step in. Theholy father. With bows a traitor servant. Curlycues of chords.

Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their days in.Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die.

The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered a lonelyhall, told them how solemn fell his footsteps there, told them the gloomychamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive.

Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he’ll win in Answers, poets’ picturepuzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching in a nest. Layof the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee what domestic animal? Teedash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he has still. No eunuch yet withall his belongings.

Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf Pat,bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened.

The chords harped slower.

The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous. Ben’scontrite beard confessed. in nomine Domini, in God’s name he knelt. Hebeat his hand upon his breast, confessing: mea culpa.

Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion corpusfor those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey, corpusnomine.Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape.

Tap.

They listened. Tankards and miss Kennedy. George Lidwell, eyelid wellexpressive, fullbusted satin. Kernan. Si.

The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since Easter he had cursed threetimes. You bitch’s bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play. Once by thechurchyard he had passed and for his mother’s rest he had not prayed. A boy. Acroppy boy.

Bronze, listening, by the beerpull gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn’t half knowI’m. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking.

Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face? Theyalways know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate.

Cockcarracarra.

What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes. NightMichael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked that best. Remindhim of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. Custom his countryperhaps. That’s music too. Not as bad as it sounds. Tootling. Brasses brayingasses through uptrunks. Doublebasses helpless, gashes in their sides. Woodwindsmooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile music hath jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin’sname.

She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show. Cloveher breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. Told her whatSpinoza says in that book of poor papa’s. Hypnotised, listening. Eyes likethat. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down into her with his operaglassfor all he was worth. Beauty of music you must hear twice. Nature woman half alook. God made the country man the tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. Orocks!

All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all hisbrothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of hisname and race.

I too. Last of my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No son.Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?

He bore no hate.

Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old.

Big Ben his voice unfolded. Great voice Richie Goulding said, a flushstruggling in his pale, to Bloom soon old. But when was young?

Ireland comes now. My country above the king. She listens. Who fears to speakof nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough.

—Bless me, father, Dollard the croppy cried. Bless me and letme go.

Tap.

Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week. Fellowsshell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those girls, thoselovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl’s romance. Letters read out for breachof promise. From Chickabiddy’s owny Mumpsypum. Laughter in court. Henry. Inever signed it. The lovely name you.

Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest rustlingsoldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by heart. Thethrill they itch for. Yeoman cap.

Tap. Tap.

Thrilled she listened, bending in sympathy to hear.

Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it: page.If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. Even admirethemselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, a flute alive.Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes, all women. Goddess I didn’t see. They want it.Not too much polite. That’s why he gets them. Gold in your pocket, brass inyour face. Say something. Make her hear. With look to look. Songs withoutwords. Molly, that hurdygurdy boy. She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Orbecause so like the Spanish. Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Giftof nature.

Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What?

Will? You? I. Want. You. To.

With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed, swelling in apoplectic bitch’sbastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour’s your time to live, your last.

Tap. Tap.

Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs that want to, dyingto, die. For all things dying, for all things born. Poor Mrs Purefoy. Hopeshe’s over. Because their wombs.

A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly,hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder river. Ateach slow satiny heaving bosom’s wave (her heaving embon) red rose rose slowlysank red rose. Heartbeats: her breath: breath that is life. And all the tinytiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair.

But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castile. The morn. Ha. Lidwell. Forhim then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here though. Poppedcorks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties.

On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave it tomy hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the polished knob(she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger passed in pity:passed, reposed and, gently touching, then slid so smoothly, slowly down, acool firm white enamel baton protruding through their sliding ring.

With a cock with a carra.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing.

The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be.

Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where’s my hat. Pass by her.Can leave that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No. Walk,walk, walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall Farrell.Waaaaaaalk.

Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O’er ryehigh blue. Ow. Bloomstood up. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have sweated: music. Thatlotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card inside. Yes.

By deaf Pat in the doorway straining ear Bloom passed.

At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid. Dolor! O,he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to dolorous prayer.

By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties, by poppedcorks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and faint gold indeepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely Bloom.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace. Breathe aprayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy.

Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway heardthe growls and roars of bravo, fat backslapping, their boots all treading,boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to wash it down.Glad I avoided.

—Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you’re as good as ever youwere.

—Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad,upon my soul and honour it is.

—Lablache, said Father Cowley.

Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and all bigroseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering castagnettes in theair.

Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben.

Rrr.

And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all laughingthey brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer.

—You’re looking rubicund, George Lidwell said.

Miss Douce composed her rose to wait.

—Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben’s fat back shoulderblade. Fitas a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his person.

Rrrrrrrsss.

—Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled.

Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly hewaited. Unpaid Pat too.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one.

—Mr Dollard, they murmured low.

—Dollard, murmured tankard.

Tank one believed: miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the tank.

He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that is tosay. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it? Dollard, yes.

Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely, murmuredMina. Mr Dollard. And The last rose of summer was a lovely song. Minaloved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina.

’Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round inside.

Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J’s one andeightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I hadn’tpromised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your nerves. Beerpull. Her handthat rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. That rules the world.

Far. Far. Far. Far.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with sweetsof sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went Poldy on.

Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap.

Cowley, he stuns himself with it: kind of drunkenness. Better give way onlyhalf way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All ears. Not losea demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. You daren’t budge.Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop. Fiddlefaddle about notes.

All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you never knowexac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year. Queer up there inthe cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys. Seated all day at theorgan. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or the other fellow blowing thebellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing (want to have wadding or something inhis no don’t she cried), then all of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipywind.

Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom’s little wee.

—Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with himthis morning at poor little Paddy Dignam’s...

—Ay, the Lord have mercy on him.

—By the bye there’s a tuningfork in there on the...

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

—The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked.

—O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw, forgotit when he was here.

Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so exquisitely,treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid, minagold.

—Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out!

—’lldo! cried Father Cowley.

Rrrrrr.

I feel I want...

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap

—Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine.

Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely, lastsardine of summer. Bloom alone.

—Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bloom went by Barry’s. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had.Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love oneanother. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of attorney.Goulding, Collis, Ward.

But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation: MickeyRooney’s band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after pig’scheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band part. Pom.Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses’ skins. Welt them through life, then wallopafter death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call yashmak or I mean kismet.Fate.

Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by Daly’swindow where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn’t see) blew whiffs ofa mermaid (blind couldn’t), mermaid, coolest whiff of all.

Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb andtissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in Lombard streetwest, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its own, don’t you see?Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? Cloche. Sonnez la. Shepherd hispipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle. Locks and keys! Sweep! Fouro’clock’s all’s well! Sleep! All is lost now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know.Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John. Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor littlenominedomine. Pom. It is music. I mean of course it’s all pom pom pomvery much what they call da capo. Still you can hear. As we march, wemarch along, march along. Pom.

I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of customshah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he must have been abit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. Muffled up. Wonder who wasthat chap at the grave in the brown macin. O, the whore of the lane!

A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the day alongthe quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing? Yes, it is. Ifeel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had the? Heehaw shesaw. Offher beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any chance of your wash. KnewMolly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with you in the brown costume. Put youoff your stroke, that. Appointment we made knowing we’d never, well hardlyever. Too dear too near to home sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a frightin the day. Face like dip. Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest.Look in here.

In Lionel Marks’s antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold dearHenry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered candlesticksmelodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might learn to play. Cheap.Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you don’t want it. That’s what goodsalesman is. Make you buy what he wants to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razorhe shaved me with. Wanted to charge me for the edge he gave it. She’s passingnow. Six bob.

Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund.

Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking glassesall, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia’s tempting last rose ofsummer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth: Lidwell, SiDedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard.

Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.

Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks’s window. Robert Emmet’slast words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is.

—True men like you men.

—Ay, ay, Ben.

—Will lift your glass with us.

They lifted.

Tschink. Tschunk.

Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw notgold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie nor Pat.Hee hee hee hee. He did not see.

Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. When my country takes herplace among.

Prrprr.

Must be the bur.

Fff! Oo. Rrpr.

Nations of the earth. No-one behind. She’s passed. Then and not tillthen. Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I’m sureit’s the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Kraaaaaa.Written. I have.

Pprrpffrrppffff.

Done.

[ 12 ]

I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the cornerof Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he neardrove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the weight of mytongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes.

—Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloodychimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?

—Soot’s luck, says Joe. Who’s the old ballocks you were talking to?

—Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I’m on two minds not to give thatfellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and ladders.

—What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.

—Devil a much, says I. There’s a bloody big foxy thief beyond by thegarrison church at the corner of Chicken lane—old Troy was just giving mea wrinkle about him—lifted any God’s quantity of tea and sugar to paythree bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hop-of-my-thumb bythe name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street.

—Circumcised? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I’mhanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can’t get a penny out ofhim.

—That the lay you’re on now? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtfuldebts. But that’s the most notorious bloody robber you’d meet in a day’s walkand the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain. Tell him,says he, I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him to send you roundhere again or if he does, says he, I’ll have him summonsed up before thecourt, so I will, for trading without a licence. And he after stuffinghimself till he’s fit to burst. Jesus, I had to laugh at the little jewygetting his shirt out. He drink me my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because heno pay me my moneys?

For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin’s parade inthe city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter called the vendor,and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, esquire, of 29 Arbour hill inthe city of Dublin, Arran quay ward, gentleman, hereinafter called thepurchaser, videlicet, five pounds avoirdupois of first choice tea at threeshillings and no pence per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois ofsugar, crushed crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaserdebtor to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling forvalue received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor inweekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pencesterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or pledged orsold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall be and remain andbe held to be the sole and exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposedof at his good will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been dulypaid by the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth asthis day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors, trusteesand assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs, successors,trustees and assigns of the other part.

—Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe.

—Not taking anything between drinks, says I.

—What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe.

—Who? says I. Sure, he’s out in John of God’s off his head, poor man.

—Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.

—Come around to Barney Kiernan’s, says Joe. I want to see the citizen.

—Barney mavourneen’s be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe?

—Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms.

—What was that, Joe? says I.

—Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want togive the citizen the hard word about it.

So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the courthousetalking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he has it but sure likethat he never has it. Jesus, I couldn’t get over that bloody foxy Geraghty, thedaylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he.

In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises awatchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in life theyslept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land it is in sooth ofmurmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the gurnard, the plaice, theroach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the grilse, the dab, the brill, theflounder, the pollock, the mixed coarse fish generally and other denizens ofthe aqueous kingdom too numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of thewest and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions theirfirstclass foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exaltedplanetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal worldwith which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in closeproximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs whilethey play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden ingots,silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels offingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from afar towoo them, from Eblana to Slievemargy, the peerless princes of unfetteredMunster and of Connacht the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and of Cruachan’sland and of Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of Boyle, princes,the sons of kings.

And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen bymariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for thatpurpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits of that landfor O’Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain descended fromchieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields,flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans,strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes andtallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of theearth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bereand rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellatedapples and chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy andpelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes.

I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, younotorious bloody hill and dale robber!

And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed ewes andshearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and roaring maresand polled calves and longwools and storesheep and Cuffe’s prime springers andculls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various different varieties of highlydistinguished swine and Angus heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculatepedigree together with prime premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is everheard a trampling, cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling,grunting, champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine frompasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales ofThomond, from the M’Gillicuddy’s reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon theunfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar,their udders distended with superabundance of milk and butts of butter andrennets of cheese and farmer’s firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks ofcorn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with thisdun.

So we turned into Barney Kiernan’s and there, sure enough, was the citizen upin the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody mangy mongrel,Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the way of drink.

—There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and hisload of papers, working for the cause.

The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps. Be acorporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody dog. I’mtold for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a constabulary man inSantry that came round one time with a blue paper about a licence.

—Stand and deliver, says he.

—That’s all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here.

—Pass, friends, says he.

Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he:

—What’s your opinion of the times?

Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to theoccasion.

—I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down hisfork.

So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:

—Foreign wars is the cause of it.

And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:

—It’s the Russians wish to tyrannise.

—Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I’ve a thirst on me Iwouldn’t sell for half a crown.

—Give it a name, citizen, says Joe.

—Wine of the country, says he.

—What’s yours? says Joe.

—Ditto MacAnaspey, says I.

—Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how’s the old heart, citizen? says he.

—Never better, a chara, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win?Eh?

And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck and, byJesus, he near throttled him.

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of abroadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckledshaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneedbrawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From shoulder to shoulderhe measured several ells and his rocklike mountainous knees were covered, aswas likewise the rest of his body wherever visible, with a strong growth oftawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (UlexEuropeus). The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawnyhue projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous obscuritythe fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in which a tear and asmile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsizedcauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath issued at regular intervals fromthe profound cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud stronghale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing theground, the summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the caveto vibrate and tremble.

He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to theknees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a girdle ofplaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of deerskin, roughlystitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased in high Balbrigganbuskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod with brogues of saltedcowhide laced with the windpipe of the same beast. From his girdle hung a rowof seastones which jangled at every movement of his portentous frame and onthese were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irishheroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall ofnine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, ShaneO’Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O’Donnell,Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O’Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins,Henry Joy M’Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington,the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri,Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne,Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, theRose of Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at MonteCarlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn’t, Benjamin Franklin, NapoleonBonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar,Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, theBride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, PatrickW. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, CaptainNemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, theBold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the ColleenBawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth,Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus,Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balorof the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta,Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare. A couched spear ofacuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal ofthe canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasyslumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements whichhis master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a mightycudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone.

So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the sightnearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid. O, as true as I’m tellingyou. A goodlooking sovereign.

—And there’s more where that came from, says he.

—Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I.

—Sweat of my brow, says Joe. ’Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze.

—I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane andGreek street with his cod’s eye counting up all the guts of the fish.

Who comes through Michan’s land, bedight in sable armour? O’Bloom, the son ofRory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory’s son: he of the prudent soul.

—For the old woman of Prince’s street, says the citizen, the subsidisedorgan. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at thisblasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. The Irish Independent, ifyou please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman’s friend. Listen to thebirths and deaths in the Irish all for Ireland Independent, and I’llthank you and the marriages.

And he starts reading them out:

—Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne’s onSea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How’s that, eh? Wright and Flint,Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the late George AlfredGillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and Ridsdale at Saint Jude’s,Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths.Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London: Carr, Stoke Newington, of gastritis andheart disease: Cockburn, at the Moat house, Chepstow...

—I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience.

—Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller,Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, Liverpool,Isabella Helen. How’s that for a national press, eh, my brown son! How’s thatfor Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber?

—Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they hadthe start of us. Drink that, citizen.

—I will, says he, honourable person.

—Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form.

Ah! Ow! Don’t be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declareto God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.

And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came swiftly in,radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him there passed anelder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred scrolls of law and withhim his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, fairest of her race.

Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney’s snug,squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in the corner thatI hadn’t seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob Doran. I didn’t knowwhat was up and Alf kept making signs out of the door. And begob what was itonly that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bathslippers with two bloodybig books tucked under his oxter and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunatewretched woman, trotting like a poodle. I thought Alf would split.

—Look at him, says he. Breen. He’s traipsing all round Dublin with apostcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li...

And he doubled up.

—Take a what? says I.

—Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds.

—O hell! says I.

The bloody mongrel began to growl that’d put the fear of God in you seeingsomething was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs.

—Bi i dho husht, says he.

—Who? says Joe.

—Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton’s and then he went round toCollis and Ward’s and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to thesubsheriff’s for a lark. O God, I’ve a pain laughing. U. p: up. The long fellowgave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old lunatic is goneround to Green street to look for a G man.

—When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe.

—Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan?

—Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us apony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen longJohn’s eye. U. p ....

And he started laughing.

—Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan?

—Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.

Terence O’Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of thefoamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brewever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For theygarner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brewthem and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fireand cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords ofthe vat.

Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, thatnectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that thirsted, thesoul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals.

But he, the young chief of the O’Bergan’s, could ill brook to be outdone ingenerous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliestbronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the image of a queenof regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her MostExcellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain andIreland and of the British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of thefaith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples,the wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to thegoing down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop.

—What’s that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up anddown outside?

—What’s that? says Joe.

—Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging,I’ll show you something you never saw. Hangmen’s letters. Look at here.

So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his pocket.

—Are you codding? says I.

—Honest injun, says Alf. Read them.

So Joe took up the letters.

—Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran.

So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust. Bob’s a queer chap when theporter’s up in him so says I just to make talk:

—How’s Willy Murray those times, Alf?

—I don’t know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel street with PaddyDignam. Only I was running after that...

—You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who?

—With Dignam, says Alf.

—Is it Paddy? says Joe.

—Yes, says Alf. Why?

—Don’t you know he’s dead? says Joe.

—Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf.

—Ay, says Joe.

—Sure I’m after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as apikestaff.

—Who’s dead? says Bob Doran.

—You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm.

—What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray withhim, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim’s... What? Dignam dead?

—What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who’s talking about...?

—Dead! says Alf. He’s no more dead than you are.

—Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morninganyhow.

—Paddy? says Alf.

—Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him.

—Good Christ! says Alf.

Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted.

In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by tantrashad been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing luminosity ofruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of the etheric double beingparticularly lifelike owing to the discharge of jivic rays from the crown ofthe head and face. Communication was effected through the pituitary body andalso by means of the orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacralregion and solar plexus. Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts inthe heavenworld he stated that he was now on the path of prālāyāor return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirstyentities on the lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his firstsensations in the great divide beyond he stated that previously he had seen asin a glass darkly but that those who had passed over had summit possibilitiesof atmic development opened up to them. Interrogated as to whether life thereresembled our experience in the flesh he stated that he had heard from morefavoured beings now in the spirit that their abodes were equipped with everymodern home comfort such as tālāfānā,ālāvātār, hātākāldā,wātāklāsāt and that the highest adepts were steeped inwaves of volupcy of the very purest nature. Having requested a quart ofbuttermilk this was brought and evidently afforded relief. Asked if he had anymessage for the living he exhorted all who were still at the wrong side ofMāyā to acknowledge the true path for it was reported in devaniccircles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the eastern angle wherethe ram has power. It was then queried whether there were any special desireson the part of the defunct and the reply was: We greet you, friends ofearth, who are still in the body. Mind C. K. doesn’t pile it on. It wasascertained that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of MessrsH. J. O’Neill’s popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of thedefunct, who had been responsible for the carrying out of the intermentarrangements. Before departing he requested that it should be told to his dearson Patsy that the other boot which he had been looking for was at presentunder the commode in the return room and that the pair should be sent toCullen’s to be soled only as the heels were still good. He stated that this hadgreatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly requestedthat his desire should be made known.

Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was intimatedthat this had given satisfaction.

He is gone from mortal haunts: O’Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was his footon the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with your wind: andwail, O ocean, with your whirlwind.

—There he is again, says the citizen, staring out.

—Who? says I.

—Bloom, says he. He’s on point duty up and down there for the last tenminutes.

And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again.

Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was.

—Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him.

And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest blackguard inDublin when he’s under the influence:

—Who said Christ is good?

—I beg your parsnips, says Alf.

—Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little WillyDignam?

—Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He’s over all his troubles.

But Bob Doran shouts out of him.

—He’s a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam.

Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn’t wantthat kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran startsdoing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you’re there.

—The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character.

The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter forhim go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, thebumbailiff’s daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that used to bestravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there attwo in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing her person, open to allcomers, fair field and no favour.

—The noblest, the truest, says he. And he’s gone, poor little Willy, poorlittle Paddy Dignam.

And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that beam ofheaven.

Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round the door.

—Come in, come on, he won’t eat you, says the citizen.

So Bloom slopes in with his cod’s eye on the dog and he asks Terry was MartinCunningham there.

—O, Christ M’Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to this,will you?

And he starts reading out one.

7 Hunter Street,
Liverpool.

To the High Sheriff of Dublin,
Dublin.

Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful case ihanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of Febuary 1900 and i hanged...

—Show us, Joe, says I.

—... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit inPentonville prison and i was assistant when...

—Jesus, says I.

—... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith...

The citizen made a grab at the letter.

—Hold hard, says Joe, i have a special nack of putting the noose oncein he can’t get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my terms isfive ginnees.

H. Rumbold,
Master Barber.

—And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen.

—And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take themto hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have?

So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn’t and hecouldn’t and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well he’djust take a cigar. Gob, he’s a prudent member and no mistake.

—Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe.

And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with a blackborder round it.

—They’re all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hangtheir own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses.

And he was telling us there’s two fellows waiting below to pull his heels downwhen he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop up the ropeafter and sell the bits for a few bob a skull.

In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their deadlycoil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever wight hathdone a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so saith the Lord.

So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom comes outwith the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the business and the olddog smelling him all the time I’m told those jewies does have a sort of a queerodour coming off them for dogs about I don’t know what all deterrent effect andso forth and so on.

—There’s one thing it hasn’t a deterrent effect on, says Alf.

—What’s that? says Joe.

—The poor bugger’s tool that’s being hanged, says Alf.

—That so? says Joe.

—God’s truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was inKilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when they cuthim down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker.

—Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.

—That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It’s only a naturalphenomenon, don’t you see, because on account of the...

And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and thisphenomenon and the other phenomenon.

The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered medicalevidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervicalvertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to thebest approved tradition of medical science, be calculated to inevitably producein the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of thegenital apparatus, thereby causing the elastic pores of the corporacavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitatethe flow of blood to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or maleorgan resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty amorbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis perdiminutionem capitis.

So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and hestarts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the menof sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about allthe fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause by drumheadcourtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other. Talking aboutnew Ireland he ought to go and get a new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brutesniffing and sneezing all round the place and scratching his scabs. And roundhe goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what hecould get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him:

—Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw here!Give us the paw!

Arrah, bloody end to the paw he’d paw and Alf trying to keep him from tumblingoff the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking all kinds ofdrivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and intelligent dog:give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit outof the bottom of a Jacobs’ tin he told Terry to bring. Gob, he golloped it downlike old boots and his tongue hanging out of him a yard long for more. Near atethe tin and all, hungry bloody mongrel.

And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the brothersSheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet and die for yourcountry, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and she’s far from the land.And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown cigar putting on swank with hislardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he married is a nice old phenomenon with aback on her like a ballalley. Time they were stopping up in the CityArms pisser Burke told me there was an old one there with a crackedloodheramaun of a nephew and Bloom trying to get the soft side of her doing themollycoddle playing bézique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will andnot eating meat of a Friday because the old one was always thumping her crawand taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds ofDublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him homeas drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him the evils ofalcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn’t near roast him, it’s a queerstory, the old one, Bloom’s wife and Mrs O’Dowd that kept the hotel. Jesus, Ihad to laugh at pisser Burke taking them off chewing the fat. And Bloom withhis but don’t you see? and but on the other hand. And sure, morebe token, the lout I’m told was in Power’s after, the blender’s, round in Copestreet going home footless in a cab five times in the week after drinking hisway through all the samples in the bloody establishment. Phenomenon!

—The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass andglaring at Bloom.

—Ay, ay, says Joe.

—You don’t grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is...

—Sinn Fein! says the citizen. Sinn Fein amhain! The friendswe love are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far and nearthe funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precinctsrolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollowbooming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening claps of thunder and the dazzlingflashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly scene testified that theartillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp to the already gruesomespectacle. A torrential rain poured down from the floodgates of the angryheavens upon the bared heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at thelowest computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of DublinMetropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in personmaintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reedband whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on theirblackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle bySperanza’s plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains and upholsteredcharabancs had been provided for the comfort of our country cousins of whomthere were large contingents. Considerable amusement was caused by thefavourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and M-ll-g-n who sang The Nightbefore Larry was stretched in their usual mirth-provoking fashion. Our twoinimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers ofthe comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish funwithout vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children ofthe Male and Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking thescene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day’s entertainmentand a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for theirexcellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children agenuinely instructive treat. The viceregal houseparty which included manywellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their Excellencies to the most favourablepositions on the grandstand while the picturesque foreign delegation known asthe Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated on a tribune directlyopposite. The delegation, present in full force, consisted of CommendatoreBacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had tobe assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), MonsieurPierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, theArchjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha VirágaKisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, AliBaba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo yPalabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi HungChang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky,Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, HerrHurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli,NationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentgeneralhistoryspecialprofessordoctorKriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the delegates without exception expressedthemselves in the strongest possible heterogeneous terms concerning thenameless barbarity which they had been called upon to witness. An animatedaltercation (in which all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as towhether the eighth or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth ofIreland’s patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars,boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, catapults,knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to and blows werefreely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable MacFadden, summoned by specialcourier from Booterstown, quickly restored order and with lightning promptitudeproposed the seventeenth of the month as a solution equally honourable for bothcontending parties. The readywitted ninefooter’s suggestion at once appealed toall and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartilycongratulated by all the F. O. T. E. I., several of whom were bleedingprofusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from underneath thepresidential armchair, it was explained by his legal adviser Avvocato Pagamimithat the various articles secreted in his thirtytwo pockets had been abstractedby him during the affray from the pockets of his junior colleagues in the hopeof bringing them to their senses. The objects (which included several hundredladies’ and gentlemen’s gold and silver watches) were promptly restored totheir rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.

Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless morningdress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. Heannounced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough which so many have tried(unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking yet withal socharacteristic of the man. The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman wasgreeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladieswaving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitableforeign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai,eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which theringing evviva of the delegate of the land of song (a high double Frecalling those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalanibeglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It wasexactly seventeen o’clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given bymegaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore’spatriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family since therevolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in attendance, DrPippi. The learned prelate who administered the last comforts of holy religionto the hero martyr when about to pay the death penalty knelt in a mostchristian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, andoffered up to the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by theblock stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in atengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyesglowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of hishorrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated in rapidsuccession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the admirers of his fellbut necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table near him were neatlyarranged the quartering knife, the various finely tempered disembowellingappliances (specially supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs JohnRound and Sons, Sheffield), a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of theduodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extractedand two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of themost precious victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats’ and dogs’ homewas in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished to that beneficentinstitution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, friedsteak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls andinvigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for theconsumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital spiritswhen prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the proceedingsfrom beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in these our times, rosenobly to the occasion and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded to)that the meal should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of the sickand indigent roomkeepers’ association as a token of his regard and esteem. Thenec and non plus ultra of emotion were reached when the blushingbride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and flungherself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched intoeternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving embracemurmuring fondly Sheila, my own. Encouraged by this use of her christianname she kissed passionately all the various suitable areas of his person whichthe decencies of prison garb permitted her ardour to reach. She swore to him asthey mingled the salt streams of their tears that she would ever cherish hismemory, that she would never forget her hero boy who went to his death with asong on his lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park.She brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhoodtogether on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the innocentpastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present, they both laughedheartily, all the spectators, including the venerable pastor, joining in thegeneral merriment. That monster audience simply rocked with delight. But anonthey were overcome with grief and clasped their hands for the last time. Afresh torrent of tears burst from their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourseof people, touched to the inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not theleast affected being the aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers ofthe peace and genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frankuse of their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eyein that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a handsomeyoung Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair sex, steppedforward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree,solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day,and was accepted on the spot. Every lady in the audience was presented with atasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbonesbrooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: andwhen the gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the mosttimehonoured names in Albion’s history) placed on the finger of his blushingfiancée an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of afourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the sternprovostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, whopresided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a considerable number of sepoysfrom the cannonmouth without flinching, could not now restrain his naturalemotion. With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and wasoverheard, by those privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediateentourage, to murmur to himself in a faltering undertone:

—God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey itmakes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause Ithinks of my old mashtub what’s waiting for me down Limehouse way.

So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the corporationmeeting and all to that and the shoneens that can’t speak their own languageand Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a quid and Bloom putting inhis old goo with his twopenny stump that he cadged off of Joe and talking aboutthe Gaelic league and the antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland.Antitreating is about the size of it. Gob, he’d let you pour all manner ofdrink down his throat till the Lord would call him before you’d ever see thefroth of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of theirmusical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of hay shecould my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly blue ribbon badgespiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen bawns going about withtemperance beverages and selling medals and oranges and lemonade and a few olddry buns, gob, flahoolagh entertainment, don’t be talking. Ireland sober isIreland free. And then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and allthe gougers shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one ortwo sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with thefemales, hitting below the belt.

So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty startsmousing around by Joe and me. I’d train him by kindness, so I would, if he wasmy dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again where it wouldn’t blind him.

—Afraid he’ll bite you? says the citizen, jeering.

—No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost.

So he calls the old dog over.

—What’s on you, Garry? says he.

Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the oldtowser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera. Such growlingyou never heard as they let off between them. Someone that has nothing betterto do ought to write a letter pro bono publico to the papers about themuzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling and grousing and his eyeall bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the hydrophobia dropping out of hisjaws.

All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the loweranimals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not missing thereally marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the famous old Irish redsetter wolfdog formerly known by the sobriquet of Garryowen and recentlyrechristened by his large circle of friends and acquaintances Owen Garry. Theexhibition, which is the result of years of training by kindness and acarefully thoughtout dietary system, comprises, among other achievements, therecitation of verse. Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall notdrag it from us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate andcompare the verse recited and has found it bears a striking resemblance(the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic bards. We are notspeaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which the writer whoconceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the Little Sweet Branchhas familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as a contributor D. O. C.points out in an interesting communication published by an eveningcontemporary) of the harsher and more personal note which is found in thesatirical effusions of the famous Raftery and of Donal MacConsidine to saynothing of a more modern lyrist at present very much in the public eye. Wesubjoin a specimen which has been rendered into English by an eminent scholarwhose name for the moment we are not at liberty to disclose though we believethat our readers will find the topical allusion rather more than an indication.The metrical system of the canine original, which recalls the intricatealliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely morecomplicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has been wellcaught. Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly increased ifOwen’s verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in a tone suggestive ofsuppressed rancour.

The curse of my curses
Seven days every day
And seven dry Thursdays
On you, Barney Kiernan,
Has no sup of water
To cool my courage,
And my guts red roaring
After Lowry’s lights.

So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could hear himlapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have another.

—I will, says he, a chara, to show there’s no ill feeling.

Gob, he’s not as green as he’s cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one pub toanother, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap’s dog and getting fedup by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for man and beast. And saysJoe:

—Could you make a hole in another pint?

—Could a swim duck? says I.

—Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won’t have anything in theway of liquid refreshment? says he.

—Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meetMartin Cunningham, don’t you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam’s. Martinasked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn’t serve anynotice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally under the actthe mortgagee can’t recover on the policy.

—Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that’s a good one if old Shylock islanded. So the wife comes out top dog, what?

—Well, that’s a point, says Bloom, for the wife’s admirers.

—Whose admirers? says Joe.

—The wife’s advisers, I mean, says Bloom.

Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act likethe lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit of the wifeand that a trust is created but on the other hand that Dignam owed Bridgemanthe money and if now the wife or the widow contested the mortgagee’s right tillhe near had the head of me addled with his mortgagor under the act. He wasbloody safe he wasn’t run in himself under the act that time as a rogue andvagabond only he had a friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do youcall it royal Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you’re there. O, commend meto an israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery.

So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he was sorryfor her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and to tell her that hesaid and everyone who knew him said that there was never a truer, a finer thanpoor little Willy that’s dead to tell her. Choking with bloody foolery. Andshaking Bloom’s hand doing the tragic to tell her that. Shake hands, brother.You’re a rogue and I’m another.

—Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, howeverslight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, as Ihope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of you thisfavour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve let the sincerityof my feelings be the excuse for my boldness.

—No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives whichactuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to meconsoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proofof your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup.

—Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, Ifeel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the expressionswhich are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy, were I to givevent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech.

And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five o’clock. Nighthe was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the bobby, 14A. Blind to theworld up in a shebeen in Bride street after closing time, fornicating with twoshawls and a bully on guard, drinking porter out of teacups. And callinghimself a Frenchy for the shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against theCatholic religion, and he serving mass in Adam and Eve’s when he was young withhis eyes shut, who wrote the new testament, and the old testament, and huggingand smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his pockets,the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawlsscreeching laughing at one another. How is your testament? Have you got anold testament? Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you what. Then see himof a Sunday with his little concubine of a wife, and she wagging her tail upthe aisle of the chapel with her patent boots on her, no less, and her violets,nice as pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney’s sister. And the oldprostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. Gob, Jack made himtoe the line. Told him if he didn’t patch up the pot, Jesus, he’d kick theshite out of him.

So Terry brought the three pints.

—Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.

—Slan leat, says he.

—Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.

Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small fortuneto keep him in drinks.

—Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.

—Friend of yours, says Alf.

—Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?

—I won’t mention any names, says Alf.

—I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with WilliamField, M. P., the cattle traders.

—Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of allcountries and the idol of his own.

So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and thecattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen sending them allto the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his sheepdip for the scab and ahoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue.Because he was up one time in a knacker’s yard. Walking about with his book andpencil here’s my head and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the orderof the boot for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmotherhow to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to bein rivers of tears some times with Mrs O’Dowd crying her eyes out with hereight inches of fat all over her. Couldn’t loosen her farting strings but oldcod’s eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do it. What’s yourprogramme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor animals suffer andexperts say and the best known remedy that doesn’t cause pain to the animal andon the sore spot administer gently. Gob, he’d have a soft hand under a hen.

Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for us. Whenshe lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then comes good uncleLeo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her fresh egg. Ga ga ga gaGara. Klook Klook Klook.

—Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London toask about it on the floor of the house of commons.

—Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see him,as it happens.

—Well, he’s going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.

—That’s too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr Fieldis going. I couldn’t phone. No. You’re sure?

—Nannan’s going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a questiontomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the park.What do you think of that, citizen? The Sluagh na h-Eireann.

Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of myhonourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right honourablegentleman whether the government has issued orders that these animals shall beslaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their pathologicalcondition?

Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in possession ofthe evidence produced before a committee of the whole house. I feel I cannotusefully add anything to that. The answer to the honourable member’s questionis in the affirmative.

Mr Orelli O’Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued for theslaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phoenix park?

Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.

Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman’s famous Mitchelstowntelegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury bench? (O! O!)

Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.

Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don’t hesitate to shoot.

(Ironical opposition cheers.)

The speaker: Order! Order!

(The house rises. Cheers.)

—There’s the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There heis sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion of allIreland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best throw, citizen?

—Na bacleis, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There wasa time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.

—Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.

—Is that really a fact? says Alf.

—Yes, says Bloom. That’s well known. Did you not know that?

So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of lawntennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil and buildingup a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom had to have his saytoo about if a fellow had a rower’s heart violent exercise was bad. I declareto my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you saidto Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That’s a straw. Declareto my aunt he’d talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.

A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of BrianO’Ciarnain’s in Sraid na Bretaine Bheag, under the auspices ofSluagh na h-Eireann, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and theimportance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and ancientRome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The venerablepresident of the noble order was in the chair and the attendance was of largedimensions. After an instructive discourse by the chairman, a magnificentoration eloquently and forcibly expressed, a most interesting and instructivediscussion of the usual high standard of excellence ensued as to thedesirability of the revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancientPanceltic forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in the causeof our old tongue, Mr Joseph M’Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for theresuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning andevening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manlystrength and prowess handed down to us from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who metwith a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the negative thevocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in response to repeatedrequests and hearty plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkablynoteworthy rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis’ evergreen verses(happily too familiar to need recalling here) A nation once again in theexecution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear ofcontradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi wasin superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatestadvantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it. Hissuperb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced hisalready international reputation, was vociferously applauded by the largeaudience among which were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy aswell as representatives of the press and the bar and the other learnedprofessions. The proceedings then terminated.

Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. L. D.;the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. Sp.; the rev.T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. P. J. Cleary, O. S.F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr. Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; thevery rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T. Maher, S. J.; the very rev. JamesMurphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D.D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J.Flavin, C. C.; the rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rtrev. Mgr M’Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D.Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy canonGorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. Fay, T.Quirke, etc., etc.

—Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that Keogh-Bennettmatch?

—No, says Joe.

—I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.

—Who? Blazes? says Joe.

And says Bloom:

—What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training theeye.

—Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run upthe odds and he swatting all the time.

—We know him, says the citizen. The traitor’s son. We know what putEnglish gold in his pocket.

—True for you, says Joe.

And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood,asking Alf:

—Now, don’t you think, Bergan?

—Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only abloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See thelittle kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, he gave himone last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made him puke what henever ate.

It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to donthe gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he was by lack ofpoundage, Dublin’s pet lamb made up for it by superlative skill in ringcraft.The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both champions. Thewelterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret in the previous mixupduring which Keogh had been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, theartilleryman putting in some neat work on the pet’s nose, and Myler came onlooking groggy. The soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful leftjab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flushto the point of Bennett’s jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted himwith a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips.Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with thebulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose right eyewas nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with waterand when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident ofknocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and thebest man for it. The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. Thereferee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky andhis footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies duringwhich a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from hisopponent’s mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed aterrific left to Battling Bennett’s stomach, flooring him flat. It was aknockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser wasbeing counted out when Bennett’s second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the toweland the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public whobroke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight.

—He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he’s runninga concert tour now up in the north.

—He is, says Joe. Isn’t he?

—Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That’s quite true. Yes, a kind of summer tour,you see. Just a holiday.

—Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn’t she? says Joe.

—My wife? says Bloom. She’s singing, yes. I think it will be a successtoo. He’s an excellent man to organise. Excellent.

Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the cocoanut andabsence of hair on the animal’s chest. Blazes doing the tootle on the flute.Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger’s son off Island bridge that sold the samehorses twice over to the government to fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I calledabout the poor and water rate, Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan.You whatwhat? That’s the bucko that’ll organise her, take my tip. ’Twixt me andyou Caddareesh.

Pride of Calpe’s rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There grewshe to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The gardens ofAlameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. The chaste spouseof Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms.

And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O’Molloy’s, a comely hero of whiteface yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty’s counsel learned in the law, andwith him the prince and heir of the noble line of Lambert.

—Hello, Ned.

—Hello, Alf.

—Hello, Jack.

—Hello, Joe.

—God save you, says the citizen.

—Save you kindly, says J. J. What’ll it be, Ned?

—Half one, says Ned.

So J. J. ordered the drinks.

—Were you round at the court? says Joe.

—Yes, says J. J. He’ll square that, Ned, says he.

—Hope so, says Ned.

Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list and theother give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs’s. Playing cards,hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz andhe half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Pawning his gold watch inCummins of Francis street where no-one would know him in the private officewhen I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. What’s yourname, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and done says I. Gob, he’ll come home by weepingcross one of those days, I’m thinking.

—Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up.

—Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.

—Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court onlyCorny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined first.

—Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I’d give anything to hearhim before a judge and jury.

—Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and nothingbut the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.

—Me? says Alf. Don’t cast your nasturtiums on my character.

—Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidenceagainst you.

—Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is notcompos mentis. U. p: up.

—Compos your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he’s balmy?Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on witha shoehorn.

—Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an indictmentfor publishing it in the eyes of the law.

—Ha ha, Alf, says Joe.

—Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.

—Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half andhalf.

—How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he...

—Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that’s neither fish norflesh.

—Nor good red herring, says Joe.

—That what’s I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what thatis.

Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on accountof it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old stutteringfool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody povertystricken Breen outon grass with his beard out tripping him, bringing down the rain. And she withher nose cockahoop after she married him because a cousin of his old fellow’swas pewopener to the pope. Picture of him on the wall with his SmashallSweeney’s moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papalZouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And whowas he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings aweek, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to theworld.

—And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to besufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my opinionan action might lie.

Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our pints inpeace. Gob, we won’t be let even do that much itself.

—Well, good health, Jack, says Ned.

—Good health, Ned, says J. J.

—-There he is again, says Joe.

—Where? says Alf.

And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter and thewife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as they wentpast, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a secondhand coffin.

—How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe.

—Remanded, says J. J.

One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James Wought aliasSaphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he’d give apassage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see any green in the white of myeye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? Swindled them all, skivvies andbadhachs from the county Meath, ay, and his own kidney too. J. J. was tellingus there was an ancient Hebrew Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessboxwith his hat on him, swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid.

—Who tried the case? says Joe.

—Recorder, says Ned.

—Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes.

—Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrearsof rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he’ll dissolve in tearson the bench.

—Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn’t clap him in the dockthe other day for suing poor little Gumley that’s minding stones, for thecorporation there near Butt bridge.

And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry:

—A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children?Ten, did you say?

—Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid.

—And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the courtimmediately, sir. No, sir, I’ll make no order for payment. How dare you, sir,come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking industriousman! I dismiss the case.

And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and in thethird week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the daughterof the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first quarter, it came to passthat those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law. There masterCourtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave his rede and master JusticeAndrews, sitting without a jury in the probate court, weighed well and ponderedthe claim of the first chargeant upon the property in the matter of the willpropounded and final testamentary disposition in re the real andpersonal estate of the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versusLivingstone, an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn courtof Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat him thereabout the hour of five o’clock to administer the law of the brehons at thecommission for all that and those parts to be holden in and for the county ofthe city of Dublin. And there sat with him the high sinhedrim of the twelvetribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe of Patrick and of thetribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the tribe of Conn and of thetribe of Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and of the tribe of Finn and of thetribe of Dermot and of the tribe of Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of thetribe of Caolte and of the tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good menand true. And he conjured them by Him who died on rood that they should welland truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined between theirsovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and true verdict giveaccording to the evidence so help them God and kiss the book. And they rose intheir seats, those twelve of Iar, and they swore by the name of Him Who is fromeverlasting that they would do His rightwiseness. And straightway the minionsof the law led forth from their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds ofjustice had apprehended in consequence of information received. And theyshackled him hand and foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise butpreferred a charge against him for he was a malefactor.

—Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Irelandfilling the country with bugs.

So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, telling himhe needn’t trouble about that little matter till the first but if he would justsay a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high and holy by this and by thathe’d do the devil and all.

—Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must haverepetition. That’s the whole secret.

—Rely on me, says Joe.

—Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. Wewant no more strangers in our house.

—O, I’m sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It’s just thatKeyes, you see.

—Consider that done, says Joe.

—Very kind of you, says Bloom.

—The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. Webrought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon robbershere.

—Decree nisi, says J. J.

And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider’s webin the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling after him and the olddog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and when.

—A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that’s what’s the cause of all ourmisfortunes.

—And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the PoliceGazette with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.

—Give us a squint at her, says I.

And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off ofCorny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct of societybelle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty but faithlesswife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, andher fancyman feeling for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with hispeashooter just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop withofficer Taylor.

—O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!

—There’s hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off ofthat one, what?

So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him aslong as a late breakfast.

—Well, says the citizen, what’s the latest from the scene of action? Whatdid those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide about theIrish language?

O’Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the puissant andhigh and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of that which hadbefallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient city, second of therealm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after due prayers to the godswho dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn counsel whereby they might, if sobe it might be, bring once more into honour among mortal men the winged speechof the seadivided Gael.

—It’s on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutalSassenachs and their patois.

So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till you heardanother and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your blind eye to thetelescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a nation, and Bloomtrying to back him up moderation and botheration and their colonies and theircivilisation.

—Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them! Thecurse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged sons ofwhores’ gets! No music and no art and no literature worthy of the name. Anycivilisation they have they stole from us. Tonguetied sons of bastards’ ghosts.

—The European family, says J. J....

—They’re not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin Eganof Paris. You wouldn’t see a trace of them or their language anywhere in Europeexcept in a cabinet d’aisance.

And says John Wyse:

—Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:

—Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!

He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the medherof dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg Abu,he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulersof the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods.

—What’s up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that hadlost a bob and found a tanner.

—Gold cup, says he.

—Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.

—Throwaway, says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And therest nowhere.

—And Bass’s mare? says Terry.

—Still running, says he. We’re all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid onmy tip Sceptre for himself and a lady friend.

—I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on Zinfandel that Mr Flynngave me. Lord Howard de Walden’s.

—Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse.Throwaway, says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions.Frailty, thy name is Sceptre.

So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was anythinghe could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangysnout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard.

—Not there, my child, says he.

—Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She’d have won the money only for theother dog.

And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom sticking inan odd word.

—Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others’ eyes but they can’tsee the beam in their own.

—Raimeis, says the citizen. There’s no-one as blind as the fellowthat won’t see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing twentymillions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost tribes? Andour potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! And our wool thatwas sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax and our damask from thelooms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our tanneries and our white flint glassdown there by Ballybough and our Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard deLyon and our woven silk and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from theCarmelite convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Whereare the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, theGibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple tosell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even GiraldusCambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver from Tipperary, second tonone, our farfamed horses even today, the Irish hobbies, with king Philip ofSpain offering to pay customs duties for the right to fish in our waters. Whatdo the yellowjohns of Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruinedhearths? And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won’t deepen with millionsof acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption?

—As treeless as Portugal we’ll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligolandwith its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. Larches,firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was reading areport of lord Castletown’s...

—Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftainelm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the trees ofIreland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O.

—Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan.

The fashionable international world attended en masse this afternoon atthe wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger ofthe Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. LadySylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes,Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs RowanGreene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, MissOlive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, MissPriscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O MimosaSan, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss TimidityAspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, MrsLiana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regisgraced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by herfather, the M’Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creationcarried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey,sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce ofdarkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions ofacorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer,sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same tone, a daintymotif of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a pinstripe andrepeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers ofpaletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknownability and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, playeda new and striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at theconclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre inHorto after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a playfulcrossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod,hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse ConiferNeaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.

—And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade withSpain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were pupped,Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway.

—And will again, says Joe.

—And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says thecitizen, clapping his thigh. Our harbours that are empty will be full again,Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom of Kerry,Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a fleet of masts ofthe Galway Lynches and the Cavan O’Reillys and the O’Kennedys of Dublin whenthe earl of Desmond could make a treaty with the emperor Charles the Fifthhimself. And will again, says he, when the first Irish battleship is seenbreasting the waves with our own flag to the fore, none of your Henry Tudor’sharps, no, the oldest flag afloat, the flag of the province of Desmond andThomond, three crowns on a blue field, the three sons of Milesius.

And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like atanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody life isworth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude inShanagolden where he daren’t show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking forhim to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant.

—Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?

—An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.

—Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you asleep?

—Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir.

Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead ofattending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to cracktheir bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head down like abull at a gate. And another one: Black Beast Burned in Omaha, Ga. A lotof Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a Sambo strung up in a treewith his tongue out and a bonfire under him. Gob, they ought to drown him inthe sea after and electrocute and crucify him to make sure of their job.

—But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at bay?

—I’ll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is.Read the revelations that’s going on in the papers about flogging on thetraining ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself DisgustedOne.

So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of tarsand officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the parson with hisprotestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad brought out, howling forhis ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of a gun.

—A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir JohnBeresford called it but the modern God’s Englishman calls it caning on thebreech.

And says John Wyse:

—’Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane and hedraws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad till he yellsmeila murder.

—That’s your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses theearth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamberon the face of God’s earth and their land in the hands of a dozen gamehogs andcottonball barons. That’s the great empire they boast about of drudges andwhipped serfs.

—On which the sun never rises, says Joe.

—And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. Theunfortunate yahoos believe it.

They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and inJacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of thefighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, flayed andcurried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose again from the bed,steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till further orders whence he shallcome to drudge for a living and be paid.

—But, says Bloom, isn’t discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn’tit be the same here if you put force against force?

Didn’t I tell you? As true as I’m drinking this porter if he was at his lastgasp he’d try to downface you that dying was living.

—We’ll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greaterIreland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the black 47.Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by thebatteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whiteliveredSaxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America. Eventhe Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the Sassenach tried to starve thenation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas boughtand sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twentythousand of them died in the coffinships. But those that came to the land ofthe free remember the land of bondage. And they will come again and with avengeance, no cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen niHoulihan.

—Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...

—We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since thepoor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at Killala.

—Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged usagainst the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the brokentreatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the wild geese.Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O’Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain, and UlyssesBrowne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. But what did we ever getfor it?

—The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know whatit is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren’t they trying tomake an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay’s dinnerparty with perfidiousAlbion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were.

—Conspuez les Français, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.

—And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven’t we hadenough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the electordown to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that’s dead?

Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one withthe winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of God, oldVic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting her up body andbones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the whiskers and singing him oldbits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the boose ischeaper.

—Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.

—Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There’s a bloody sight more poxthan pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!

—And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests andbishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty’sracing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his jockeys rode. Theearl of Dublin, no less.

—They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says littleAlf.

And says J. J.:

—Considerations of space influenced their lordships’ decision.

—Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.

—Yes, sir, says he. I will.

—You? says Joe.

—Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.

—Repeat that dose, says Joe.

Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with hisdunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about.

—Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it.Perpetuating national hatred among nations.

—But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.

—Yes, says Bloom.

—What is it? says John Wyse.

—A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the sameplace.

—By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that’s so I’m a nation for I’mliving in the same place for the past five years.

So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck out ofit:

—Or also living in different places.

—That covers my case, says Joe.

—What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.

—Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.

The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, hespat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.

—After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief toswab himself dry.

—Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and repeatafter me the following words.

The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish faceclothattributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors of theBook of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth prolongedadmiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the cornerpieces, theacme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each of the four evangelists inturn presenting to each of the four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoaksceptre, a North American puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the Britisharticle, be it said in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle fromCarrantuohill. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancientduns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning andmaledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicateas when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy longlong ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes ofKillarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the TwelvePins, Ireland’s Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the breweryof Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh’s banks, thevale of Ovoca, Isolde’s tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital,Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch’s castle, the Scotch house, RathdownUnion Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids,Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury’s Hotel, S. Patrick’sPurgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley’s hole, thethree birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bogof Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal’s Cave—all these movingscenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the watersof sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time.

—Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?

—That’s mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.

—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted.Also now. This very moment. This very instant.

Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.

—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs tous by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold by auctionin Morocco like slaves or cattle.

—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

—I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.

—Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.

That’s an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old lardyfacestanding up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he’d adorn a sweepingbrush, sohe would, if he only had a nurse’s apron on him. And then he collapses all of asudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag.

—But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s notlife for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s thevery opposite of that that is really life.

—What? says Alf.

—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says heto John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is there. If hecomes just say I’ll be back in a second. Just a moment.

Who’s hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.

—A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.

—Well, says John Wyse. Isn’t that what we’re told. Love your neighbour.

—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,moya! He’s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.

Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A loves MaryKelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. B. loves a fairgentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, the elephant, lovesAlice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old MrsVerschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the brown macintosh loves a ladywho is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W.Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this person lovesthat other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.

—Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, citizen.

—Hurrah, there, says Joe.

—The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.

And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.

—We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. Whatabout sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and childrenof Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted roundthe mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit in the UnitedIrishman today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting England?

—What’s that? says Joe.

So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts readingout:

—A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presentedyesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, LordWalkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks ofBritish traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. Thedelegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which the dusky potentate,in the course of a happy speech, freely translated by the British chaplain, thereverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkupand emphasised the cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the Britishempire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions anilluminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England’sgreatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the greatsquaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the RoyalDonor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the toastBlack and White from the skull of his immediate predecessor in thedynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited the chieffactory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors’ book, subsequentlyexecuting a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which heswallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girlhands.

—Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn’t doubt her. Wonder did he put thatbible to the same use as I would.

—Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful landthe broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.

—Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.

—No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only initialled:P.

—And a very good initial too, says Joe.

—That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.

—Well, says J. J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the CongoFree State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man what’s this hisname is?

—Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.

—Yes, that’s the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and floggingthe natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them.

—I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.

—Who? says I.

—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob onThrowaway and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.

—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a horsein anger in his life?

—That’s where he’s gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to backthat horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. Bet youwhat you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He’s the only man inDublin has it. A dark horse.

—He’s a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.

—Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.

—There you are, says Terry.

Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the yard topumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was letting off my(Throwaway twenty to) letting off my load gob says I to myself I knew hewas uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in Slattery’s off) in his mindto get off the mark to (hundred shillings is five quid) and when they were inthe (dark horse) pisser Burke was telling me card party and letting on thechild was sick (gob, must have done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wifespeaking down the tube she’s better or she’s (ow!) all a plan sohe could vamoose with the pool if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) tradingwithout a licence (ow!) Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be upto those bloody (there’s the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.

So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it wasBloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds ofjerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the government andappointing consuls all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries.Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppyeyes is mucking up the show. Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from thelikes of that bloody mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his oldfellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbingbagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping thecountry with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms.Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No security.Gob, he’s like Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go a piece of the road with everyone.

—Well, it’s a fact, says John Wyse. And there’s the man now that’ll tellyou all about it, Martin Cunningham.

Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power with himand a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the collectorgeneral’s, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the registration and he drawinghis pay or Crawford gallivanting around the country at the king’s expense.

Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys.

—Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party.Saucy knave! To us!

So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.

Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.

—Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.

—Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds.And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.

—Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a barelarder. I know not what to offer your lordships.

—How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasantcountenance, So servest thou the king’s messengers, master Taptun?

An instantaneous change overspread the landlord’s visage.

—Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king’smessengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The king’sfriends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my house I warrantme.

—Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trenchermanby his aspect. Hast aught to give us?

Mine host bowed again as he made answer:

—What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops ofvenison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s head withpistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon of oldRhenish?

—Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!

—Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a barelarder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.

So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.

—Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.

—Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen aboutBloom and the Sinn Fein?

—That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.

—Who made those allegations? says Alf.

—I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.

—And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like thenext fellow?

—Why not? says J. J., when he’s quite sure which country it is.

—Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hellis he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.

—Who is Junius? says J. J.

—We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.

—He’s a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was hedrew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that in thecastle.

—Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.

—Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, thefather’s name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the father did.

—That’s the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saintsand sages!

—Well, they’re still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For thatmatter so are we.

—Yes, says J. J., and every male that’s born they think it may be theirMessiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till heknows if he’s a father or a mother.

—Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.

—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of histhat died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a tin ofNeave’s food six weeks before the wife was delivered.

—En ventre sa mère, says J. J.

—Do you call that a man? says the citizen.

—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.

—Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.

—And who does he suspect? says the citizen.

Gob, there’s many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed middlings heis. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a month with headache likea totty with her courses. Do you know what I’m telling you? It’d be an act ofGod to take a hold of a fellow the like of that and throw him in the bloodysea. Justifiable homicide, so it would. Then sloping off with his five quidwithout putting up a pint of stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not asmuch as would blind your eye.

—Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can’t wait.

—A wolf in sheep’s clothing, says the citizen. That’s what he is. Viragfrom Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.

—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.

—You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.

—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores.

—Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is myprayer.

—Amen, says the citizen.

—And I’m sure He will, says Joe.

And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes,thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the blessedcompany drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and monks andfriars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and Camaldolesi,Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and the friars ofAugustine, Brigittines, Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and thechildren of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children ofElijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other:and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers,minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of Dominic, thefriars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks of S. Wolstan: andIgnatius his children: and the confraternity of the christian brothers led bythe reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And after came all saints andmartyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and S. Isidore Arator and S. James theLess and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantaliceand S. Simon Stylites and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S.Ferreol and S. Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S.Vincent de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred andS. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S.Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymousand S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous andS. Laurence O’Toole and S. James of Dingle and Compostella and S. Columcilleand S. Columba and S. Celestine and S. Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan andS. Frigidian and S. Senan and S. Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S.Fursey and S. Fintan and S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinasand S. Ives of Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the threepatrons of holy youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. JohnBerchmans and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride andS. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr andS. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother LouisBellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of Bethanyand S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and S. Dympnaand S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa of the ChildJesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousandvirgins. And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms andharps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessedsymbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes,trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, dragons,lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, soupladles, stars,snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, forceps, stags’ horns,watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a dish, wax candles, aspergills,unicorns. And as they wended their way by Nelson’s Pillar, Henry street, Marystreet, Capel street, Little Britain street chanting the introit inEpiphania Domini which beginneth Surge, illuminare and thereaftermost sweetly the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba venient theydid divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead to life,multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering variousarticles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures,blessing and prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came thereverend Father O’Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the goodfathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co,limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine and brandyshippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption onthe premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed the mullioned windowsand the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and the capitals and thepediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches and the spires and thecupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with blessed water and prayed thatGod might bless that house as he had blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac andJacob and make the angels of His light to inhabit therein. And entering heblessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessedanswered his prayers.

—Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.

—Qui fecit cœlum et terram.

—Dominus vobiscum.

—Et cum spiritu tuo.

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed andthey all with him prayed:

—Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effundesuper creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatemTuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis Tuicorporis sanitatem et animæ tutelam Te auctore percipiat per Christum Dominumnostrum.

—And so say all of us, says Jack.

—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.

—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.

I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when bedamned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry.

—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope I’mnot...

—No, says Martin, we’re ready.

Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. Meanbloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There’s a jew foryou! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to five.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen.

—Beg your pardon, says he.

—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It’s asecret.

And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.

—Bye bye all, says Martin.

And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whateveryou call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at sea and upwith them on the bloody jaunting car.

—Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop thehelmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with allsail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh tostarboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark, theylinked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashionsabout the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister toanother and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feetof men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair.Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters.And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave thewaves.

But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizengetting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and hecursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spittingand spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a leprechauntrying to peacify him.

—Let me alone, says he.

And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out ofhim:

—Three cheers for Israel!

Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’ sake anddon’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s always somebloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. Gob,it’d turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would.

And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and Martintelling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and Joe athim to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers callingfor a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car and holdhis bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts singing If theman in the moon was a jew, jew, jew and a slut shouts out of her:

—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!

And says he:

—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And theSaviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.

—Whose God? says the citizen.

—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a jewlike me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holyname.By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

—Stop! Stop! says Joe.

A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from themetropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid farewell toNagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander Thom’s, printers to HisMajesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime ofSzázharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of Murmuring Waters). The ceremonywhich went off with great éclat was characterised by the most affectingcordiality. An illuminated scroll of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irishartists, was presented to the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of alarge section of the community and was accompanied by the gift of a silvercasket, tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a workwhich reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob agus Jacob. Thedeparting guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who werepresent being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck upthe wellknown strains of Come Back to Erin, followed immediately byRakóczsy’s March. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted along thecoastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of Howth, Three RockMountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of Mourne, the Galtees, the Oxand Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemarahills, the reeks of M’Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and SlieveBloom. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers froma big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, themastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tributefrom the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numberswhile, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, theflags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were alsothose of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light.Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra! Gone but notforgotten.

Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow andout with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like astuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen’s royal theatre:

—Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.

—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other way andoff with him.

—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun wasin his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into thecounty Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the carlike bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinboxclattering along the street.

The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The observatoryof Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth grade ofMercalli’s scale, and there is no record extant of a similar seismicdisturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year of therebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part of themetropolis which constitutes the Inn’s Quay ward and parish of Saint Michancovering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch.All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the palace of justice weredemolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of thecatastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass ofruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have been buriedalive. From the reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waveswere accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character.An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerkof the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handlewith the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the eruditeand worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder ofDublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the islandrespectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant’s causeway,the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beachof Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose thatthey observed an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling throughthe atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest bywest. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from allparts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciouslypleased to decree that a special missa pro defunctis shall be celebratedsimultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral church of all theepiscopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See insuffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedlycalled away from our midst. The work of salvage, removal of débris,human remains etc has been entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 GreatBrunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall,assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry underthe general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sirHercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. C. B.,M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus.Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S. I.

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that lotteryticket on the side of his poll he’d remember the gold cup, he would so, butbegob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and battery and Joe foraiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by furious driving as sure asGod made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And he let a volley of oaths after him.

—Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

—After him, Garry! After him, boy!

And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsfaceon it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for allhe was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, hetook the value of it out of him, I promise you.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld thechariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot,clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fairas the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And therecame a voice out of heaven, calling: Elijah! Elijah! And He answeredwith a main cry: Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben BloomElijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angleof fortyfive degrees over Donohoe’s in Little Green street like a shot off ashovel.

[ 13 ]

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Faraway in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all too fleeting daylingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud promontory of dear old Howthguarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymountshore and, last but not least, on the quiet church whence there streamed forthat times upon the stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pureradiance a beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening scene andthe air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft were they wontto come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat beside the sparklingwaves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and Edy Boardman with thebaby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys,dressed in sailor suits with caps to match and the name H. M. S.Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarcefour years old and very noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all thatdarling little fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them.They were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building castlesas children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy as the day waslong. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcarwhile that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but elevenmonths and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just beginningto lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to him to tease hisfat little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin.

—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink ofwater.

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children, sopatient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to take hiscastor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and promised him thescatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasivepower that girl had! But to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, aperfect little dote in his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, FloraMacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath oflife, always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on hercherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughedtoo at the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and MasterJacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to this goldenrule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand which Master Jacky hadbuilt and Master Tommy would have it right go wrong that it was to bearchitecturally improved by a frontdoor like the Martello tower had. But ifMaster Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was selfwilled too and, true to themaxim that every little Irishman’s house is his castle, he fell upon his hatedrival and to such purpose that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas torelate!) the coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfitedMaster Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.

—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I catch youfor that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their bigsister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was too after hismisadventure. His little man-o’-war top and unmentionables were full of sandbut Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing over life’s tiny troublesand very quickly not one speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit.Still the blue eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so shekissed away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit andsaid if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancing inadmonition.

—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

—What’s your name? Butter and cream?

—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy yoursweetheart?

—Nao, tearful Tommy said.

—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

—Nao, Tommy said.

—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from hershortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty is Tommy’ssweetheart.

—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to EdyBoardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman couldn’t seeand to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing faraway into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irishgirlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knewher though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Herfigure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those ironjelloids she had been taking of late had done her a world of good much betterthan the Widow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those dischargesshe used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almostspiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuineCupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster withtapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments could makethem though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves in bed or take amilk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once to Edy Boardman, adeliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girlchums had of course their little tiffs from time to time like the rest ofmortals) and she told her not to let on whatever she did that it was her thattold her or she’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due.There was an innate refinement, a languid queenly hauteur about Gertywhich was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her ownright and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowellmight easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seenherself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at herfeet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this,the love that might have been, that lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles alook, tense with suppressed meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendencyto the beautiful eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes ofwitchery? Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes anddark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive.It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of thePrincess Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which gavethat haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders of fashion, andshe had never regretted it. Then there was blushing scientifically cured andhow to be tall increase your height and you have a beautiful face but yournose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’scrowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with anatural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the new moonand it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of luxuriant clusters andpared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And just now at Edy’s words as atelltale flush, delicate as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks shelooked so lovely in her sweet girlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair landof Ireland did not hold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was about toretort but something checked the words on her tongue. Inclination prompted herto speak out: dignity told her to be silent. The pretty lips pouted awhile butthen she glanced up and broke out into a joyous little laugh which had in itall the freshness of a young May morning. She knew right well, no-one better,what made squinty Edy say that because of him cooling in his attentions when itwas simply a lovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of jointabout the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding upand down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in theevenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was on andhe was going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when he left thehigh school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the bicycle races inTrinity college university. Little recked he perhaps for what she felt, thatdull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was youngand perchance he might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in hisfamily and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virginand then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite noseand he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too atthe back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something off thecommon and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his hands off thebars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they wereboth of a size too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was sofrightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front of herbit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of DameFashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be out. A neatblouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it was expected inthe Lady’s Pictorial that electric blue would be worn) with a smart veeopening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in which she always kept apiece of cottonwool scented with her favourite perfume because the handkerchiefspoiled the sit) and a navy threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off herslim graceful figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hatof wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggbluechenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday weekafternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she found what shewanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightly shopsoiled but you wouldnever notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She did it up all by herself andwhat joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the lovely reflectionwhich the mirror gave back to her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keepthe shape she knew that that would take the shine out of some people she knew.Her shoes were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself thatshe was very petite but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, afive, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smartbuckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfectproportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of hershapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and wide gartertops. As for undies they were Gerty’s chief care and who that knows thefluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though Gerty would never seeseventeen again) can find it in his heart to blame her? She had four dinky setswith awfully pretty stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each setslotted with different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve andpeagreen, and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home fromthe wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because shewouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorching the things.She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour andlucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because the greenshe wore that day week brought grief because his father brought him in to studyfor the intermediate exhibition and because she thought perhaps he might be outbecause when she was dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pairon her inside out and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put thosethings on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you solong as it wasn’t of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is there allthe time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds to be in theprivacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to tears, she could havea good cry and relieve her pentup feelings though not too much because she knewhow to cry nicely before the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The palylight of evening falls upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowellyearns in vain. Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of amarriage has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs Wylie) and inthe fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was wearing a sumptuousconfection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox was not to be. He was tooyoung to understand. He would not believe in love, a woman’s birthright. Thenight of the party long ago in Stoer’s (he was still in short trousers) whenthey were alone and he stole an arm round her waist she went white to the verylips. He called her little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a halfkiss (the first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened fromthe room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength ofcharacter had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who would woo andwin Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting, always waiting to beasked and it was leap year too and would soon be over. No prince charming isher beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manlyman with a strong quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hairslightly flecked with grey, and who would understand, take her in hissheltering arms, strain her to him in all the strength of his deep passionatenature and comfort her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For sucha one she yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs tobe his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health,till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was justthinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his little wife tobe. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in the face, BerthaSupple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would be twentytwo inNovember. She would care for him with creature comforts too for Gerty waswomanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that feeling of hominess. Hergriddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue and queen Ann’s pudding of delightfulcreaminess had won golden opinions from all because she had a lucky hand alsofor lighting a fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir inthe same direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white ofeggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any people thatmade her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something poeticallike violets or roses and they would have a beautifully appointed drawingroomwith pictures and engravings and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap’s lovelydog Garryowen that almost talked it was so human and chintz covers for thechairs and that silver toastrack in Clery’s summer jumble sales like they havein rich houses. He would be tall with broad shoulders (she had always admiredtall men for a husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmedsweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon(three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug andcosy little homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple butperfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to businesshe would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze for a momentdeep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then shebuttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off and playwith Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said he wanted theball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the ball and if he took itthere’d be wigs on the green but Tommy said it was his ball and he wanted hisball and he pranced on the ground, if you please. The temper of him! O, he wasa man already was little Tommy Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy toldhim no, no and to be off now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give into him.

—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her finger andshe snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and Tommy after it infull career, having won the day.

—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and played here’s thelord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbread carriage and here hewalks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin. But Edy got as cross astwo sticks about him getting his own way like that from everyone always pettinghim.

—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’t say.

—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy saying anunladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her life to say,flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure the gentlemanopposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss.

—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of hernose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look at him.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes. Forinstance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and jaspberryram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces on her nails with redink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go where you know she saidshe wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss White. That was just likeCissycums. O, and will you ever forget her the evening she dressed up in herfather’s suit and hat and the burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonvilleroad, smoking a cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But shewas sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever made,not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the pealing anthemof the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreat conducted by the missioner,the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and benediction of the MostBlessed Sacrament. They were there gathered together without distinction ofsocial class (and a most edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fanebeside the waves, after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before thefeet of the immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseechingher to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin ofvirgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoided the clutchesof the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit curedin Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, second to none.Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in abrown study without the lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazingout of the window dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket,thinking. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homeshad cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in thehome circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen her ownfather, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for ifthere was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who liftshis hand to a woman save in the way of kindness, deserves to be branded as thelowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful, Virginmost merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her companionsor the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off Sandymount green thatCissy Caffrey called the man that was so like himself passing along the strandtaking a short walk. You never saw him any way screwed but still and for allthat she would not like him for a father because he was too old or something oron account of his face (it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbunclynose with the pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose.Poor father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang Tell me,Mary, how to woo thee or My love and cottage near Rochelle and theyhad stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supper andwhen he sang The moon hath raised with Mr Dignam that died suddenly andwas buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her mother’s birthday thatwas and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs andPatsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have had a group taken. No-one wouldhave thought the end was so near. Now he was laid to rest. And her mother saidto him to let that be a warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’teven go to the funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town tobring him the letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and alwaysbright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the house, aministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in gold. And whenher mother had those raging splitting headaches who was it rubbed the mentholcone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’t like her mother’s takingpinches of snuff and that was the only single thing they ever had words about,taking snuff. Everyone thought the world of her for her gentle ways. It wasGerty who turned off the gas at the main every night and it was Gerty whotacked up on the wall of that place where she never forgot every fortnight thechlorate of lime Mr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture ofhalcyon days where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then witha threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove witholdtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a storybehind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a soft clingingwhite in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in chocolate and he looked athorough aristocrat. She often looked at them dreamily when she went there fora certain purpose and felt her own arms that were white and soft just like herswith the sleeves back and thought about those times because she had found outin Walker’s pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about thehalcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till at lastMaster Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no getting behind thatdeliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he could down towards the seaweedyrocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was not slow to voice his dismay but luckilythe gentleman in black who was sitting there by himself came gallantly to therescue and intercepted the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything withlusty cries and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throwit to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw itup the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and stoppedright under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamouredagain for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and let them fight for it soGerty drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn’t come rollingdown to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.

—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her prettycheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her skirt alittle but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly good kickand it went ever so far and the two twins after it down towards the shingle.Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw attention on account of thegentleman opposite looking. She felt the warm flush, a danger signal alwayswith Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they hadonly exchanged glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hatshe ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in thetwilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted and withit the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of original sin,spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for us, vessel ofsingular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn hearts were thereand toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred and wandered, theireyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with hope for the reverendfather Father Hughes had told them what the great saint Bernard said in hisfamous prayer of Mary, the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it wasnot recorded in any age that those who implored her powerful protection wereever abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of childhoodare but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with baby Boardmantill he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep she cried behind thehood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy gone and then Cissy popped upher head and cried ah! and, my word, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! Andthen she told him to say papa.

—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for elevenmonths everyone said and big for his age and the picture of health, a perfectlittle bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out to be something great,they said.

—Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to sit upproperly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried out, holysaint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half blanket the otherway under him. Of course his infant majesty was most obstreperous at suchtoilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all no usesoothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the geegee andwhere was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave him in his mouth theteat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out of thatand not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little brats of twins.She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the paintings that man usedto do on the pavement with all the coloured chalks and such a pity too leavingthem there to be all blotted out, the evening and the clouds coming out and theBailey light on Howth and to hear the music like that and the perfume of thoseincense they burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed herheart went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning inhis look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through andthrough, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly expressive, butcould you trust them? People were so queer. She could see at once by his darkeyes and his pale intellectual face that he was a foreigner, the image of thephoto she had of Martin Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache whichshe preferred because she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wantedthey two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not seewhether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly retroussé from where hewas sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of ahaunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given worlds to knowwhat it was. He was looking up so intently, so still, and he saw her kick theball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if sheswung them like that thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad thatsomething told her to put on the transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wyliemight be out but that was far away. Here was that of which she had so oftendreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on her face because shewanted him because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. Thevery heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she knewon the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against thansinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked man, shecared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could convert himeasily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted healing withheartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty girls unfeminine hehad known, those cyclists showing off what they hadn’t got and she just yearnedto know all, to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, makehim forget the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently,like a real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownestgirlie, for herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. Ora pro nobis. Well hasit been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy can never belost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge for the afflictedbecause of the seven dolours which transpierced her own heart. Gerty couldpicture the whole scene in the church, the stained glass windows lighted up,the candles, the flowers and the blue banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodalityand Father Conroy was helping Canon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things inand out with his eyes cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionboxwas so quiet and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and ifever she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come tothe convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time when shetold him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots of her hair forfear he could see, not to be troubled because that was only the voice of natureand we were all subject to nature’s laws, he said, in this life and that thatwas no sin because that came from the nature of woman instituted by God, hesaid, and that Our Blessed Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel be itdone unto me according to Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and oftenshe thought and thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floraldesign for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on themantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little house totell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the forty hours’adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to give or perhapsan album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky threwthe ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little monkeys commonas ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them a good hiding forthemselves to keep them in their places, the both of them. And Cissy and Edyshouted after them to come back because they were afraid the tide might come inon them and be drowned.

—Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very last timeshe’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and she ran down theslope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had a good enough colour ifthere had been more of it but with all the thingamerry she was always rubbinginto it she couldn’t get it to grow long because it wasn’t natural so she couldjust go and throw her hat at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was awonder she didn’t rip up her skirt at the side that was too tight on herbecause there was a lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forwardpiece whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and justbecause she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see all theend of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. Itwould have served her just right if she had tripped up over somethingaccidentally on purpose with her high crooked French heels on her to make herlook tall and got a fine tumble. Tableau! That would have been a verycharming exposé for a gentleman like that to witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints, theyprayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed thethurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the BlessedSacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was itching to givethem a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn’t because she thought he mightbe watching but she never made a bigger mistake in all her life because Gertycould see without looking that he never took his eyes off of her and then CanonO’Hanlon handed the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up atthe Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the Tantum ergo andshe just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to theTantumer gosa cramen tum. Three and eleven she paid for those stockingsin Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Monday before Easter andthere wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he was looking at, transparent,and not at her insignificant ones that had neither shape nor form (the cheek ofher!) because he had eyes in his head to see the difference for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with her hatanyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a streel tugging thetwo kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only a fortnight before like arag on her back and a bit of her petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gertyjust took off her hat for a moment to settle her hair and a prettier, adaintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—aradiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You wouldhave to travel many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like ofthat. She could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyesthat set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she could seefrom underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster for her breathcaught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was eying her as a snakeeyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her that she had raised the devil inhim and at the thought a burning scarlet swept from throat to brow till thelovely colour of her face became a glorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, halfsmiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby.Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why no-one couldget on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of hers. And she saidto Gerty:

—A penny for your thoughts.

—What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. Iwas only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they’d take the snottynosed twins and theirbabby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just gave a gentlehint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy asked her the time andMiss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half past kissing time, time tokiss again. But Edy wanted to know because they were told to be in early.

—Wait, said Cissy, I’ll run ask my uncle Peter over there what’s the timeby his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his hand outof his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his watchchain,looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was Gerty could see thathe had enormous control over himself. One moment he had been there, fascinatedby a loveliness that made him gaze, and the next moment it was the quietgravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed in every line of hisdistinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the righttime and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it and lookingup and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his watch was stoppedbut he thought it must be after eight because the sun was set. His voice had acultured ring in it and though he spoke in measured accents there was asuspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. Cissy said thanks and came back withher tongue out and said uncle said his waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the Tantum ergo and Canon O’Hanlongot up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told FatherConroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the flowers andFather Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could see the gentlemanwinding his watch and listening to the works and she swung her leg more in andout in time. It was getting darker but he could see and he was looking all thetime that he was winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then heput it back and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of asensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalp and thatirritation against her stays that that thing must be coming on because the lasttime too was when she clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyesfixed themselves on her again drinking in her every contour, literallyworshipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a man’spassionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man’s face. It is foryou, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty noticedthat that little hint she gave had had the desired effect because it was a longway along the strand to where there was the place to push up the pushcar andCissy took off the twins’ caps and tidied their hair to make herself attractiveof course and Canon O’Hanlon stood up with his cope poking up at his neck andFather Conroy handed him the card to read off and he read out Panem de coelopraestitisti eis and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the timeand asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she justanswered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken abouther best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze shonefrom her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt—O yes, itcut deep because Edy had her own quiet way of saying things like that she knewwould wound like the confounded little cat she was. Gerty’s lips parted swiftlyto frame the word but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim,so flawless, so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamedof. She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and ficklelike all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and for aninstant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes wereprobing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in sympathyas she glanced at her new conquest for them to see.

—O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud headflashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the ringdove,but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young voice that toldthat she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As for Mr Reggy with hisswank and his bit of money she could just chuck him aside as if he was so muchfilth and never again would she cast as much as a second thought on him andtear his silly postcard into a dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared topresume she could give him one look of measured scorn that would make himshrivel up on the spot. Miss puny little Edy’s countenance fell to no slightextent and Gerty could see by her looking as black as thunder that she wassimply in a towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because thatshaft had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she wassomething aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and neverwould be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it so they couldput that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked in theball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the sandmanwas on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told him too that billywinks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby looked just too ducky,laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy poked him like that out of funin his wee fat tummy and baby, without as much as by your leave, sent up hiscompliments to all and sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

—O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight contretemps claimed her attention but in two twos she setthat little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy askedwhat and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was flying but shewas ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it off with consummatetact by saying that that was the benediction because just then the bell rangout from the steeple over the quiet seashore because Canon O’Hanlon was up onthe altar with the veil that Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving thebenediction with the Blessed Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse of Erin,the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time a bat flew forthfrom the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, thither, with a tiny lost cry.And she could see far away the lights of the lighthouses so picturesque shewould have loved to do with a box of paints because it was easier than to makea man and soon the lamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterianchurch grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walkedand lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn hisfreewheel like she read in that book The Lamplighter by Miss Cummins,author of Mabel Vaughan and other tales. For Gerty had her dreams thatno-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a keepsake fromBertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the coralpink cover to writeher thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her toilettable which, though itdid not err on the side of luxury, was scrupulously neat and clean. It wasthere she kept her girlish treasure trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her childof Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetboxand the ribbons to change when her things came home from the wash and therewere some beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought inHely’s of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she couldonly express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she hadcopied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. Artthou real, my ideal? it was called by Louis J Walsh, Magherafelt, and afterthere was something about twilight, wilt thou ever? and ofttimes thebeauty of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted her eyes withsilent tears for she felt that the years were slipping by for her, one by one,and but for that one shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and thatwas an accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. Butit must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be noholding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the greatsacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than thewhole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness. There was theallimportant question and she was dying to know was he a married man or awidower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the nobleman with theforeign name from the land of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruelonly to be kind. But even if—what then? Would it make a very greatdifference? From everything in the least indelicate her finebred natureinstinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women offthe accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and coarsemen with no respect for a girl’s honour, degrading the sex and being taken upto the police station. No, no: not that. They would be just good friends like abig brother and sister without all that other in spite of the conventions ofSociety with a big ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in mourning for fromthe days beyond recall. She thought she understood. She would try to understandhim because men were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting withlittle white hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! Shewould follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he washer all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the masterguide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled,free.

Canon O’Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle andgenuflected and the choir sang Laudate Dominum omnes gentes and then helocked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and Father Conroyhanded him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn’t she coming but JackyCaffrey called out:

—O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over the treesbeside the church, blue and then green and purple.

—It’s fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy holdingTommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn’t fall running.

—Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It’s the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and call. Ifthey could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could see from whereshe was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her pulses tingling. Shelooked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and a light broke in upon her.Whitehot passion was in that face, passion silent as the grave, and it had madeher his. At last they were left alone without the others to pry and passremarks and she knew he could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterlingman, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face wereworking and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where thefireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall backlooking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she revealed allher graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply soft and delicatelyrounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse breathing,because she knew too about the passion of men like that, hotblooded, becauseBertha Supple told her once in dead secret and made her swear she’d never aboutthe gentleman lodger that was staying with them out of the Congested DistrictsBoard that had pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickersand she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imaginesometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing like thatbecause there was all the difference because she could almost feel him draw herface to his and the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides therewas absolution so long as you didn’t do the other thing before being marriedand there ought to be women priests that would understand without your tellingout and Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in hereyes so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors’photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on the wayit did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back andthe garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and they all sawit and they all shouted to look, look, there it was and she leaned back ever sofar to see the fireworks and something queer was flying through the air, a softthing, to and fro, dark. And she saw a long Roman candle going up over thetrees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitementas it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look upafter it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with adivine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her otherthings too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better thanthose other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being whiteand she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out ofsight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far backthat he had a full view high up above her knee where no-one ever not even onthe swing or wading and she wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t either to look in thatimmodest way like that because he couldn’t resist the sight of the wondrousrevealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest beforegentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried tohim chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lipslaid on her white brow, the cry of a young girl’s love, a little strangled cry,wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocketsprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it waslike a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of ita stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greenydewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She glanced athim as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of piteous protest,of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl. He was leaning backagainst the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) stands silent, with bowedhead before those young guileless eyes. What a brute he had been! At it again?A fair unsullied soul had called to him and, wretch that he was, how had heanswered? An utter cad he had been! He of all men! But there was an infinitestore of mercy in those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he haderred and sinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no.That was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there wasnone to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through theevening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to show what agreat person she was: and then she cried:

—Gerty! Gerty! We’re going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love’s little ruses. She slipped a hand into herkerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course withoutletting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he’s too far to. She rose. Wasit goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet again, there, and she woulddream of that till then, tomorrow, of her dream of yester eve. She drew herselfup to her full height. Their souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyesthat reached her heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweetflowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile, a smilethat verged on tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy, to Edyto Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was darker now andthere were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy seaweed. She walkedwith a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but with care and veryslowly because—because Gerty MacDowell was...

Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’s left onthe shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong by the cutof her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makesthem polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was on show. Hot little devil allthe same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity like a nun or a negress or a girl withglasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes themfeel ticklish. I have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter?Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl inTranquilla convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad inthe end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she.Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t all women menstruateat the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends on the time they were bornI suppose. Or all start scratch then get out of step. Sometimes Molly and Millytogether. Anyhow I got the best of that. Damned glad I didn’t do it in the baththis morning over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for thattramdriver this morning. That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And hiswife engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for smallmercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves.Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices.Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. Pitythey can’t see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes.Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat andwhat the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake?Lingerie does it. Felt for the curves inside her déshabillé.Excites them also when they’re. I’m all clean come and dirty me. And they likedressing one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly’s newblouse. At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought herthe violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turneduptrousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met. His lovelyshirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a charm withevery pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy lost the pin of her. Dressedup to the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just changes whenyou’re on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as then.No reasonable offer refused. She wasn’t in a hurry either. Always off to afellow when they are. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably.They believe in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined to giveher an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other’s necks or withten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about nothing in the conventgarden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up anddown, vindictive too for what they can’t get. Barbed wire. Be sure now andwrite to me. And I’ll write to you. Now won’t you? Molly and Josie Powell. TillMr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon. Tableau! O, lookwho it is for the love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doingwith yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in eachother’s appearance. You’re looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing their teethat one another. How many have you left? Wouldn’t lend each other a pinch ofsalt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that’s coming on them. Dark devilish appearance. Mollyoften told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my foot. O thatway! O, that’s exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest once in a way.Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. Turns milk, makesfiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I read in a garden.Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she’s a flirt. All are.Daresay she felt I. When you feel like that you often meet what you feel. Likedme or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow courting: collars andcuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tieundone or something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it.Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me.Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap with bearsgreaseplastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary.Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn’t let her see me in profile.Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and thebeast. Besides I can’t be so if Molly. Took off her hat to show her hair. Widebrim. Bought to hide her face, meeting someone might know her, bend down orcarry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got forMolly’s combings when we were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Supposehe gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice. She’s worth ten, fifteen, more, apound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion. Did Iforget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent to Flynn? Andthe day I went to Drimmie’s without a necktie. Wrangle with Molly it was put meoff. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he’s another. Weighs on his mind. Funnymy watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean.Could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that littlelimping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. Stillyou have to get rid of it someway. They don’t care. Complimented perhaps. Gohome to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers with the kiddies. Well,aren’t they? See her as she is spoil all. Must have the stage setting, therouge, costume, position, music. The name too. Amours of actresses. NellGwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silvereffulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come andkiss me. Still, I feel. The strength it gives a man. That’s the secret of it.Good job I let off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider thatwas. Otherwise I couldn’t have. Makes you want to sing after. Lacaus esanttaratara. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you don’tknow how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they ask you another.Good idea if you’re stuck. Gain time. But then you’re in a cart. Wonderful ofcourse if you say: good evening, and you see she’s on for it: good evening. Obut the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinkingshe was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made hersay. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It’s so hard to find one who.Aho! If you don’t answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till theyharden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings. Parrots.Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn’t called me sir. O,her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a single girl! That’s whatthey enjoy. Taking a man from another woman. Or even hear of it. Different withme. Glad to get away from other chap’s wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap inthe Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in mypocketbook. Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don’tthink. Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How theychange the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you like mushroomsbecause she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you what someone was going to saywhen he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I wantto, something like that. Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up.Pretend to want something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them.She must have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must sinceshe came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. Thepropitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by theireye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their dying day.Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the Moorish wall beside thegardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts were developed. Fell asleep then.After Glencree dinner that was when we drove home. Featherbed mountain.Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon.Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up like arocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be, waiting forsomething to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in mother’s clothes. Timeenough, understand all the ways of the world. And the dark one with the mophead and the nigger mouth. I knew she could whistle. Mouth made for that. LikeMolly. Why that highclass whore in Jammet’s wore her veil only to her nose.Would you mind, please, telling me the right time? I’ll tell you the right timeup a dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for fatlips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game. Of coursethey understand birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn’t look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn’t give thatsatisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine eyesshe had, clear. It’s the white of the eye brings that out not so much thepupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond a dog’s jump.Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school drawing a picture ofVenus with all his belongings on show. Call that innocence? Poor idiot! Hiswife has her work cut out for her. Never see them sit on a bench marked WetPaint. Eyes all over them. Look under the bed for what’s not there. Longingto get the fright of their lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said toMolly the man at the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she mightlike, twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that?Typist going up Roger Greene’s stairs two at a time to show her understandings.Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean. Bred in the bone. Millyfor example drying her handkerchief on the mirror to save the ironing. Bestplace for an ad to catch a woman’s eye on a mirror. And when I sent her forMolly’s Paisley shawl to Prescott’s by the way that ad I must, carrying homethe change in her stocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way shecarries parcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand,shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you learn thatfrom? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don’t they know! Three yearsold she was in front of Molly’s dressingtable, just before we left Lombardstreet west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world.Young student. Straight on her pins anyway not like the other. Still she wasgame. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings,stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpledstockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads and zrads,zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see and Edy after withthe pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. Will she? Watch!Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan’s, Dignam’s. For this reliefmuch thanks. In Hamlet, that is. Lord! It was all things combined.Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of my tongue. Yourhead it simply swirls. He’s right. Might have made a worse fool of myselfhowever. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I will tell you all. Still itwas a kind of language between us. It couldn’t be? No, Gerty they called her.Might be false name however like my name and the address Dolphin’s barn ablind.

Her maiden name was Jemina Brown
And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush. Wipingpens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it understood.Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw anything straight atschool. Crooked as a ram’s horn. Sad however because it lasts only a few yearstill they settle down to potwalloping and papa’s pants will soon fit Willy andfuller’s earth for the baby when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job.Saves them. Keeps them out of harm’s way. Nature. Washing child, washingcorpse. Dignam. Children’s hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys,not even closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds.Oughtn’t to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind.Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan therestill. She used to look over some nights when Molly was in the Coffee Palace.That young doctor O’Hare I noticed her brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and MrsDignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan toldme in the City Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like apolecat. Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask inthe morning: was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault the husband.Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another like glue. Maybe thewomen’s fault also. That’s where Molly can knock spots off them. It’s the bloodof the south. Moorish. Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent.Just compare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in thecupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of anondescript, wouldn’t know what to call her. Always see a fellow’s weak pointin his wife. Still there’s destiny in it, falling in love. Have their ownsecrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman didn’t takethem in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, withlittle hubbies. As God made them he matched them. Sometimes children turn outwell enough. Twice nought makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and blushingbride. Marry in May and repent in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck.Well the foreskin is not back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the shortof it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch. Wristwatches arealways going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic influence between the personbecause that was about the time he. Yes, I suppose, at once. Cat’s away, themice will play. I remember looking in Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism.Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled.That causes movement. And time, well that’s the time the movement takes. Thenif one thing stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it’s allarranged. Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, the stars.Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Womanand man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest andlet you see and see more and defy you if you’re a man to see that and, like asneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have tolet fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third person.More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw stuck out, headback, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at the horse show. And whenthe painters were in Lombard street west. Fine voice that fellow had. HowGiuglini began. Smell that I did. Like flowers. It was too. Violets. Came fromthe turpentine probably in the paint. Make their own use of everything. Sametime doing it scraped her slipper on the floor so they wouldn’t hear. But lotsof them can’t kick the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of ageneral all round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave you thisto think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it? Heliotrope? No.Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of that kind. Sweet and cheap:soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, with a little jessamine mixed.Her high notes and her low notes. At the dance night she met him, dance of thehours. Heat brought it out. She was wearing her black and it had the perfume ofthe time before. Good conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there’s someconnection. For instance if you go into a cellar where it’s dark. Mysteriousthing too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself,slow but sure. Suppose it’s ever so many millions of tiny grains blown across.Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell themleagues off. Tell you what it is. It’s like a fine fine veil or web they haveall over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and they’re alwaysspinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow colours without knowingit. Clings to everything she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe.Stays. Drawers: little kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the catlikes to sniff in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwatertoo. Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There orthe armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners.Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. Muskrat. Bag under theirtails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at each other behind. Goodevening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go bythat. Yes now, look at it that way. We’re the same. Some women, instance, warnyou off when they have their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hangyour hat on. Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep offthe grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long John hadon his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives that. No.Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests that are supposedto be are different. Women buzz round it like flies round treacle. Railed offthe altar get on to it at any cost. The tree of forbidden priest. O, father,will you? Let me be the first to. That diffuses itself all through the body,permeates. Source of life. And it’s extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce.Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat. Almondsor. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that’s the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never went backand the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag this morning.Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could mention Meagher’s justto remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. Two and nine. Bad opinion ofme he’ll have. Call tomorrow. How much do I owe you? Three and nine? Two andnine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving credit another time. Lose your customersthat way. Pubs do. Fellows run up a bill on the slate and then slinking aroundthe back streets into somewhere else.

Here’s this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as far asturn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a good tuck in.Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk a mile. Sure he has asmall bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk after him now make himawkward like those newsboys me today. Still you learn something. See ourselvesas others see us. So long as women don’t mock what matter? That’s the way tofind out. Ask yourself who is he now. The Mystery Man on the Beach,prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea percolumn. And that fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns onhis kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain theysay. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels theatmosphere. Old Betty’s joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton’s prophecy thatis about ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. Theroyal reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or theymight think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the dark.Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash better. Women.Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you. Better now of course thanlong ago. Country roads. Run you through the small guts for nothing. Still twotypes there are you bob against. Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best timeto spray plants too in the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays arelongest. Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,violet. A star I see. Venus? Can’t tell yet. Two. When three it’s night. Werethose nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No. Wait.Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting sun this.Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white fluxions.Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way up through.Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on the mouth. Cutwith grass or paper worst. Friction of the position. Like to be that rock shesat on. O sweet little, you don’t know how nice you looked. I begin to likethem at that age. Green apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it’s the onlytime we cross legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happychairs under them. But it’s the evening influence. They feel all that. Openlike flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms,chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat Dillon’s garden where Ikissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length oilpainting of her then. Junethat was too I wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself. Ye crags andpeaks I’m with you once again. Life, love, voyage round your own little world.And now? Sad about her lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel toomuch pity. They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The rhododendrons. Iam a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the plumstones. Where I come in.All that old hill has seen. Names change: that’s all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of me,little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it comes. Orhers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the same. Like kids yoursecond visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing new under the sun. Care of P.O. Dolphin’s Barn. Are you not happy in your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’sbarn charades in Luke Doyle’s house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters:Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Yearbefore we. And the old major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she anonly child, I an only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run intoyourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she.Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip: tear in HennyDoyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle: cockles and periwinkles.Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the sideboard watching.Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. Theyoung are old. His gun rusty from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a tree, soblind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could be changedinto a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny little beggar.Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging by his heels inthe odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over.Could hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Goodidea the repetition. Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes,there’s the light in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal. Remember about themistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Two housesthey have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder why they comeout at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice.What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit still. All instinct like thebird in drouth got water out of the end of a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like alittle man in a cloak he is with tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see themshimmering, kind of a bluey white. Colours depend on the light you see. Starethe sun for example like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blobyellowish. Wants to stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat thismorning on the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them withthree colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the CityArms with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different colours.Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That’s how that wise man what’s hisname with the burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can’t betourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind andlight. Or broken bottles in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun.Archimedes. I have it! My memory’s not so bad.

Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects? That bee last week gotinto the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be the one bit me,come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what they say. Like our smalltalk. And says she and says he. Nerve they have to fly over the ocean and back.Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too.Big brutes of oceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing outlike seacows. Faugh a ballagh! Out of that, bloody curse to you! Othersin vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake whenthe stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at the ends ofthe earth somewhere. No ends really because it’s round. Wife in every port theysay. She has a good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching home again.If ever he does. Smelling the tail end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yetthey do. The anchor’s weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on himfor luck. Well. And the tephilim no what’s this they call it poor papa’s fatherhad on his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into thehouse of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when you go outnever know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grimlife, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and that’s the last of his nibstill the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, crew andcargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down so peaceful. Not myfault, old cockalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of fundsfor Mercer’s hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of violet but onewhite stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The shepherd’s hour: the hour offolding: hour of tryst. From house to house, giving his everwelcome doubleknock, went the nine o’clock postman, the glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaminghere and there through the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees ahoisted lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy’s terrace. By screens of lightedwindows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: EveningTelegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races! and from thedoor of Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat flew here,flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth settledfor slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was old) and feltgladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a redeye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far onKish bank the anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish Lightsboard. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches buoy andlifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin’s King, throwingthem the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out toshake up their livers. Puking overboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And thewomen, fear of God in their faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarfloose, laughing. Don’t know what death is at that age. And then their stomachsclean. But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. Ididn’t want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with maskstoo. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I’ll murder you. Is it onlyhalf fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns ateach other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire andnettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better asleep withMolly. Very same teeth she has. What do they love? Another themselves? But themorning she chased her with the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt herpulse. Ticking. Little hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the handsays when you touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays Iremember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is moresensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves out if fatis in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened shewas when her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for themother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista.O’Hara’s tower. The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all hisfamily. Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking out over thesea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I’dmarry a lord or a rich gentleman coming with a private yacht. Buenas noches,señorita. El hombre ama la muchacha hermosa. Why me? Because you were soforeign from the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you dull.Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for Leah, Lilyof Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see. Hopeshe’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral, house of Keyes,museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then that bawler in BarneyKiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what I said about his Godmade him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and laugh atthemselves. Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like achild of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round. Not so bad then.Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for thesister-in-law he hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty.Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of thewild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early morning atclose range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. ButDignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so depressing because younever know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to those Scottish Widows as Ipromised. Strange name. Takes it for granted we’re going to pop off first. Thatwidow on Monday was it outside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poorhusband but progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? Whatdo you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see.Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five children poisoned by musselshere. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to motherhim. Take him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelettebloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, lovedfor ever, they say. Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome fortomorrow we die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who playedthe trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed. Curseseems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She had redslippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does? Would I like her inpyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead bynow. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats forMolly. She has something to put in them. What’s that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He brought itnear his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can’t read. Better go. Better. I’m tiredto move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and pebbles. Who could countthem? Never know what you find. Bottle with story of a treasure in it, thrownfrom a wreck. Parcels post. Children always want to throw things in the sea.Trust? Bread cast on the waters. What’s this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here tomorrow?Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write amessage for her. Might remain. What?

I.

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide comeshere. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark mirror, breatheon it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and letters. O, thosetransparent! Besides they don’t know. What is the meaning of that other world.I called you naughty boy because I do not like.

AM. A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. Nothinggrows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here. ExceptGuinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by design.

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now if youwere trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance. We’ll never meetagain. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone. Noteven the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I won’t go.Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a moment. Won’tsleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat again. No harm in him.Just a few.

O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do lovesticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met him pikehoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave under embonseñorita young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle red slippersshe rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end Agendath swoony loveyshowed me her next year in drawers return next in her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom withopen mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a few

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where Canon O’Hanlonand Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were taking tea andsodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup and talking about

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.

Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to tellthe time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there because she was asquick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty MacDowell, and she noticedat once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was

Cuckoo
Cuckoo
Cuckoo.

[ 14 ]

Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send usbright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one,light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerningwhatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapienceendowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrineerudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deservingof veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm thatother circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of anation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward mayhave progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuancewhich of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately presentconstitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature’s incorrupted benefaction.For who is there who anything of some significance has apprehended but isconscious that that exterior splendour may be the surface of a downwardtendinglutulent reality or on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not toperceive that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase soit behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher ofhis semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nationexcellently commenced might be in the future not with similar excellenceaccomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced thehonourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of profundity thatthat one was audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to riseaffirming that no more odious offence can for anyone be than to obliviousneglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on allmortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted ofreiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians relate,among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature admirable admired, theart of medicine shall have been highly honoured. Not to speak of hostels,leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, their greatest doctors, theO’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, the O’Lees, have sedulously set down the diversmethods by which the sick and the relapsed found again health whether themalady had been the trembling withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly inevery public work which in it anything of gravity contains preparation shouldbe with importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted(whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it isdifficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent inquirersare not up to the present congrued to render manifest) whereby maternity was sofar from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient inthat allhardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely for the copiouslyopulent but also for her who not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and oftennot even scarcely could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolumentwas provided.

To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be molestfulfor this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers prosperityat all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generationto befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient invehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impellingon of her to be received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation notmerely in being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praisedthat they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly tobe about to be cherished had been begun she felt!

Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in that onecase done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with wholesomefood reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were now done and bywise foresight set: but to this no less of what drugs there is need andsurgical implements which are pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of allvery distracting spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offeredtogether with images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunctfemales is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbrightwellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, itis come by her thereto to lie in, her term up.

Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night’s oncoming. Of Israel’sfolk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark ruth of man hiserrand that him lone led till that house.

Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers arewont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God’s angel toMary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters in ward sleepless. Smartsthey still, sickness soothing: in twelve moons thrice an hundred. Truestbedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding wariest ward.

In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising withswire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens ineyeblink Ireland’s westward welkin. Full she drad that God the Wreaker allmankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. Christ’s rood made she onbreastbone and him drew that he would rathe infare under her thatch. That manher will wotting worthful went in Horne’s house.

Loth to irk in Horne’s hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow he erewas living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land andseafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe meeting he toher bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with good ground of herallowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so young then had looked. Lightswift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning.

As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad aftershe was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O’Hare Doctor tidings sent fromfar coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O’Hare Doctor in heavenwas. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful.All she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwillingGod’s rightwiseness to withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death throughGod His goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men’s oilto his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death the deadman was died and the nun answered him and said that he was died in Mona Islandthrough bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God theAllruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her sad words,in held hat sad staring. So stood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowingone with other.

Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust thatgripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from hismother’s womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came.

The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and heasked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. Thenursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes now full threedays and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear but that now in a littleit would be. She said thereto that she had seen many births of women but neverwas none so hard as was that woman’s birth. Then she set it all forth to himfor because she knew the man that time was had lived nigh that house. The manhearkened to her words for he felt with wonder women’s woe in the travail thatthey have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fairface for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Ninetwelve bloodflows chiding her childless.

And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed them amickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came against theplace as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And the travellerLeopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each withother in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause thetraveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breastby a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for whichhe did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice.And he said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with themthat were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhitherfor he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady was of his avis andrepreved the learningknight though she trowed well that the traveller had saidthing that was false for his subtility. But the learningknight would not hearsay nay nor do her mandement ne have him in aught contrarious to his list andhe said how it was a marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into thecastle for to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marchesenvironing in divers lands and sometime venery.

And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and itwas upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move more forenchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are madein a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix then inthe horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there werevessels that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of seasand and the air by awarlock with his breath that he blases in to them like to bubbles. And fullfair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller nericher. And there was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in thewhich lay strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that thisbe possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fisheslie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatnessthat therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was a marvelto see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of fecundwheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they doin to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And they teach theserpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and ofthe scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead.

And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp theretothe while all they that were there drank every each. And childe Leopold did uphis beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he neverdrank no manner of mead which he then put by and anon full privily he voidedthe more part in his neighbour glass and his neighbour nist not of this wile.And he sat down in that castle with them for to rest him there awhile. Thankedbe Almighty God.

This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at thereverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for there wasabove one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time hied fast. Sir Leopoldheard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that it was whetherof child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now. Meseems itdureth overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on thatside the table that was older than any of the tother and for that they bothwere knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder hespoke to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forthby God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellouslong. And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be hernext. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never noneasking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably,and he quaffed as far as he might to their both’s health for he was a passinggood man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest thatever sat in scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest thatever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight of theworld one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly inthe cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering.

Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be drunkenan they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side the board, thatis to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable’s with other his fellowsLynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan andone from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frerethat was at head of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello alllong of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved youngStephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and besidethe meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised tohave come and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow.And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to sir Simon and tothis his son young Stephen and for that his languor becalmed him there afterlongest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for that time in thehonourablest manner. Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth toleave.

For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each gen otheras touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that put suchcase it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a matter of someyear agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne’s house that now was trespassed outof this world and the self night next before her death all leeches andpothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And they said farther she shouldlive because in the beginning, they said, the woman should bring forth in painand wherefore they that were of this imagination affirmed how young Madden hadsaid truth for he had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these wasyoung Lynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it wasnever other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor hisjudges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said but allcried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife should live and thebabe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argumentand what for their drinking but the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when topour them ale so that at the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Maddenshowed all the whole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holyreligion sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to SaintUltan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby theywere all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words following:Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now glorify theirMaker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire. But, gramercy, what ofthose Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sinagainst the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said,our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and naturehas other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he whatends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him wasthat he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman ifit so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. WhereatCrotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi’s praise of that beast the unicornhow once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other all this while,pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did malice him, witnessing alland several by saint Foutinus his engines that he was able to do any manner ofthing that lay in man to do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only youngStephen and sir Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strangehumour which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that barewhoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of motherChurch that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith,patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness or bypotency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence ofthe occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which herman has but lain with, effectu secuto, or peradventure in her bathaccording to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how atthe end of the second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holymother foldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly motherwhich was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he thatholdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holychurch for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold wouldhe in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness ofmind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he saiddissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever lovedthe art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience ofso seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blowhad birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions.That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant word. Which hearingyoung Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he averred that he who stealethfrom the poor lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild manner when he wasdrunken and that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons.

But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had pity ofthe terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and as he wasminded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild which on hiseleventh day on live had died and no man of art could save so dark is destiny.And she was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap and for his burial didhim on a fair corselet of lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he mightperish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter)and now sir Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked uponhim his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness andas sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for allaccounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure for youngStephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goodswith whores.

About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty so asthere remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed their approachfrom him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the intentions of thesovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the vicar of Christ which also ashe said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff yethis mead which is not indeed parcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leaveye fraction of bread to them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neitherfor any want for this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See yehere. And he showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notesthe worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song whichhe writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of money aswas herebefore. His words were then these as followeth: Know all men, he said,time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blaststhe thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon therood of time. Mark me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spiritof the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.This is the postcreation. Omnis caro ad te veniet. No question but hername is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer andHerd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptlythat She hath an omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem, that is to wit, analmightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and she won us, saithAugustine too, whereas that other, our grandam, which we are linked up with bysuccessive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation,for a penny pippin. But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second Isay, and was but creature of her creature, vergine madre, figlia di tuofiglio, or she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial orignorancy with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and withJoseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages,parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cette fichueposition c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entwedertransubstantiality oder consubstantiality but in no casesubsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. Apregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without blemish,a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With willwill we withstand, withsay.

Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would sing abawdy catch Staboo Stabella about a wench that was put in pod of a jollyswashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack: The first threemonths she was not well, Staboo, when here nurse Quigley from the doorangerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she rememberedthem being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came forbecause she was jealous that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour ofher guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christianwalking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did herhortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them allembraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked himwith menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrainseize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got inpeasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thoudykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like acurse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flowerof quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacredand most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign.

To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in Eccles,goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he had not cidedto take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in the womb, chastity in thetomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master Lenehan at this made returnthat he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted,he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption ofminors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to hisfathership. But he said very entirely it was clean contrary to their supposefor he was the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the moreand they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing anddeflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she to be inguise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with burning of nardand tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and the anthem Ut novetursexus omnis corporis mysterium till she was there unmaided. He gave themthen a much admirable hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcherand Master Francis Beaumont that is in their Maid’s Tragedy that waswrit for a like twining of lovers: To bed, to bed was the burden of itto be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcetepithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom theodoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedalproscenium of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon,joyed, but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecherfor, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeedto his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of thestews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in thosedays and the custom of the country approved with it. Greater love than this, hesaid, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and dolikewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regiusprofessor of French letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there everthat man to whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy towerit will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. Orate, fratres, promemetipso. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thygenerations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my wordand broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my sight andto wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned against my lightand hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants. Return, return, ClanMilly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before methat thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to theRoman and to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lieluxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of behest, even fromHoreb and from Nebo and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a landflowing with milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: mymoon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone forever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast thoukissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to say, hathnot been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much as mentioned forthe Orient from on high which brake hell’s gates visited a darkness that wasforaneous. Assuefaction minorates atrocities (as Tully saith of his darlingStoics) and Hamlet his father showeth the prince no blister of combustion. Theadiaphane in the noon of life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights ofprenativity and postmortemity is their most proper ubi andquomodo. And as the ends and ultimates of all things accord in some meanand measure with their inceptions and originals, that same multiplicitconcordance which leads forth growth from birth accomplishing by aretrogressive metamorphosis that minishing and ablation towards the final whichis agreeable unto nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sistersdraw us into life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die:over us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes,a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occultedsepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as no manknows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby beushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hiddenwhen we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of ourwhoness hath fetched his whenceness.

Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly Etienne chanson but he loudlybid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majesticlongstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all in applepie order,a penny for him who finds the pea.

Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack
See the malt stored in many a refluent sack,
In the proud cirque of Jackjohn’s bivouac.

A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on leftThor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that histhis heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and witwanton as thegod self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he that had erstchallenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all mark and shranktogether and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now of a suddenquite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his breast as hetasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and PunchCostello fell hard again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would doafter and he was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But thebraggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhatindifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye hisdesperation as cowed he crouched in Horne’s hall. He drank indeed at onedraught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it thundered long rumblingly overall the heavens so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked himon his ribs upon that crack of doom and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side,spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was noother thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from thethunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a naturalphenomenon.

But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s words? No, for he had inhis bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be done away. Andwas he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the other? He was neitheras much as he would have liked to be either. But could he not have endeavouredto have found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness that then he livedwithal? Indeed no for Grace was not there to find that bottle. Heard he then inthat clap the voice of the god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub ofPhenomenon? Heard? Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up thetube Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw thathe was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one day die as hewas like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to die like therest and pass away? By no means would he though he must nor would he make moreshows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has commanded them to doby the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that other land which is calledBelieve-on-Me, that is the land of promise which behoves to the king Delightfuland shall be for ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving normothering at which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had toldhim of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was thatin the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whosename, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him wrongways from thetrue path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turnaside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him soflatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named Two-in-the-Bush or, bysome learned, Carnal Concupiscence.

This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothersthe most lusted after and if they met with this whore Bird-in-the-Hand (whichwas within all foul plagues, monsters and a wicked devil) they would strain thelast but they would make at her and know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me theysaid it was nought else but notion and they could conceive no thought of itfor, first, Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grotand in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words printedon them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl and, second,for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they cared not for them forPreservative had given them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that theymight take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtueof this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blindfancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, MrDainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretchedcompany, were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in avery grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spill theirsouls for their abuses and their spillings done by them contrariwise to hisword which forth to bring brenningly biddeth.

So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and afterhard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a fifty mile orthereabout with turf saying the seed won’t sprout, fields athirst, verysadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. Hard to breathe andall the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle this long while back as noman remembered to be without. The rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobsand on the hills nought but dry flag and faggots that would catch at firstfire. All the world saying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last Februarya year that did havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside thisbarrenness. But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the windsitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increasedand the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first andafter, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in abrace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, themen making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolkskipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place,Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street aswash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach orfiacre seen about but no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon.Mr Justice Fitzgibbon’s door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon thecollege lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman’s gentleman that had but come from MrMoore’s the writer’s (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a goodWilliamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now in withdance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with thestage where his coz and Mal M’s brother will stay a month yet till SaintSwithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he toAndrew Horne’s being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but wouldtell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and allthis while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne’s. There Leop.Bloom of Crawford’s journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely branglingfellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy’s, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow,Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D.Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he having dreamedtonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair ofTurkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and MistressPurefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now on the stools,poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put to it and can’tdeliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of theinsides and her breath very heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy fromthe knocks, they say, but God give her soon issue. ’Tis her ninth chick tolive, I hear, and Lady day bit off her last chick’s nails that was then atwelvemonth and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fairhand in the king’s bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes thesacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys offBullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt hehas trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum aninfinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase theharvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come for aprognostication of Malachi’s almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell has done aprophetical charm of the same gist out of the Hindustanish for his farmer’sgazette) to have three things in all but this a mere fetch without bottom ofreason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes they are found in the rightguess with their queerities no telling how.

With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the letter was inthat night’s gazette and he made a show to find it about him (for he swore withan oath that he had been at pains about it) but on Stephen’s persuasion he gaveover the search and was bidden to sit near by which he did mighty brisk. He wasa kind of sport gentleman that went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and whatbelonged of women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truthhe was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehousesand low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul’s men, runners, flatcaps,waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues of the game or with achanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at nights till broad day of whom hepicked up between his sackpossets much loose gossip. He took his ordinary at aboilingcook’s and if he had but gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or aplatter of tripes with a bare tester in his purse he could always bring himselfoff with his tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that everymother’s son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is,hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank(that was his name), ’tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered alongof the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with theirbully beef, a pox on it. There’s as good fish in this tin as ever came out ofit and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that stood bywhich he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place which was indeedthe chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. Mort aux vaches,says Frank then in the French language that had been indentured to abrandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like agentleman too. From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father, aheadborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the useof the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but hetook the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with thejusticiary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be aplayactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from thebearpit and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it onthe roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire’s heir by favour ofmoonlight or fecking maids’ linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He hadbeen off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets asmany more to his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as hesaw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest to knowthe drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but this daymorning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce believe ’tis sobad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood beasts and of springers,greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been some years before actuary for MrJoseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock andmeadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low’s yard in Prussia street. I question withyou there, says he. More like ’tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen,a little moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he haddispatches from the emperor’s chief tailtickler thanking him for thehospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquoted cowcatcherin all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take the bull by the horns.Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He’ll find himself on the horns ofa dilemma if he meddles with a bull that’s Irish, says he. Irish by name andirish by nature, says Mr Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about, an Irishbull in an English chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that samebull that was sent to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreederof them all, with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincentcross the table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and aportlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a coat ofcloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils so that thewomen of our island, leaving doughballs and rollingpins, followed after himhanging his bulliness in daisychains. What for that, says Mr Dixon, but beforehe came over farmer Nicholas that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by acollege of doctors who were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he,and do all my cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’sblessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slapand the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taughthim a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to thisday affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear inthe dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue thanlie with the finest strapping young ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland.Another then put in his word: And they dressed him, says he, in a point shiftand petticoat with a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clippedhis forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables forhim at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full of the best hayin the market so that he could doss and dung to his heart’s content. By thistime the father of the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavythat he could scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames anddamsels brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his belly wasfull he would rear up on his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mysteryand roar and bellow out of him in bulls’ language and they all after him. Ay,says another, and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in allthe land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to his mind)and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the island with aprinted notice, saying: By the Lord Harry, Green is the grass that grows on theground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a cattleraider in Roscommonor the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as ahandful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he’d run amok over half thecountryside rooting up with his horns whatever was planted and all by lordHarry’s orders. There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, andthe lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an oldwhoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle in his matters,says he. I’ll make that animal smell hell, says he, with the help of that goodpizzle my father left me. But one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harrywas cleaning his royal pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he hadspade oars for himself but the first rule of the course was that the otherswere to row with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to abull and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry hefound sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous championbull of the Romans, Bos Bovum, which is good bog Latin for boss of theshow. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his head into a cow’sdrinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers and pulling it out againtold them all his new name. Then, with the water running off him, he got intoan old smock and skirt that had belonged to his grandmother and bought agrammar of the bulls’ language to study but he could never learn a word of itexcept the first personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heartand if ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write itupon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale ofcotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as fastfriends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end wasthat the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women wereall of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles ofchattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang theirluff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind andwater, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave threetimes three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to seato recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of thecomposing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty:

—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed.
A man’s a man for a’ that.

Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway as thestudents were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend whom he hadjust rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who had late cometo town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fenciblesand list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil enough to express some relish ofit all the more as it jumped with a project of his own for the cure of the veryevil that had been touched on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set ofpasteboard cards which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell’s bearing alegend printed in fair italics: Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser andIncubator. Lambay Island. His project, as he went on to expound, was towithdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business ofsir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself tothe noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, let ushear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks ofwenching. Come, be seated, both. ’Tis as cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulliganaccepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon his design, told his hearersthat he had been led into this thought by a consideration of the causes ofsterility, both the inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition inits turn were due to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance aswell as whether the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or fromproclivities acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptialcouch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeablefemales with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide theirflambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloomin the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply theinlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when ahundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made hisheart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which he concluded due to a suppressionof latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors of worth and inspectedinto this matter, he had resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever thefreehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Torygentleman of note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to setup there a national fertilising farm to be named Omphalos with anobelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutifulyeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life soeverwho should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions ofher natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he take a penny for hispains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the opulent lady of fashion, if sobe their constructions and their tempers were warm persuaders for theirpetitions, would find in him their man. For his nutriment he shewed how hewould feed himself exclusively upon a diet of savoury tubercles and fish andconeys there, the flesh of these latter prolific rodents being highlyrecommended for his purpose, both broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and apod or two of capsicum chillies. After this homily which he delivered with muchwarmth of asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchiefwith which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by therain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be observedby Mr Mulligan’s smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now somewhat piebald.His project meanwhile was very favourably entertained by his auditors and wonhearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of Mary’s excepted to it, asking witha finicking air did he purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulliganhowever made court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classicswhich, as it dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful supportof his contention: Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, utmatresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici titillationestestibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum Romanorum magnopereanteponunt, while for those of ruder wit he drove home his point byanalogies of the animal kingdom more suitable to their stomach, the buck anddoe of the forest glade, the farmyard drake and duck.

Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper man ofperson, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with animadversions ofsome heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics while the company lavishedtheir encomiums upon the project he had advanced. The young gentleman, hisfriend, overjoyed as he was at a passage that had late befallen him, could notforbear to tell it his nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving thetable, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, hemade him a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professionalassistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very heartily,though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he was come there abouta lady, now an inmate of Horne’s house, that was in an interesting condition,poor body, from woman’s woe (and here he fetched a deep sigh) to know if herhappiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon, to turn the table, took on to ask ofMr Mulligan himself whether his incipient ventripotence, upon which he ralliedhim, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb orwas due, as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in thestomach. For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smotehimself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll mimicof Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though ’tis pity she’sa trollop): There’s a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy aconceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into themost violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the same veinof mimicry but for some larum in the antechamber.

Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little fume ofa fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion with the younggentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient point, having desiredhis visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to pass him a flagon ofcordial waters at the same time by a questioning poise of the head (a wholecentury of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture) to which wasunited an equivalent but contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator asplainly as was ever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it.Mais bien sûr, noble stranger, said he cheerily, et millecompliments. That you may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing butthis cup to crown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but acrust in my wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would acceptof them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give thanksto the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver of goodthings. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took acomplacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his bosom, outpopped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very picture which he hadcherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. Gazing upon those featureswith a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he said, had you but beheld her as Idid with these eyes at that affecting instant with her dainty tucker and hernew coquette cap (a gift for her feastday as she told me prettily) in such anartless disorder, of so melting a tenderness, ’pon my conscience, even you,Monsieur, had been impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly intothe hands of such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I wasnever so touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days!Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her favours.A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having replaced thelocket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Beneficent Disseminatorof blessings to all Thy creatures, how great and universal must be thatsweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in thrall the free and the bond, thesimple swain and the polished coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of recklesspassion and the husband of maturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from thepoint. How mingled and imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! heexclaimed in anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to takemy cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured sevenshowers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me, he cried,clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and, thousandthunders, I know of a marchand de capotes, Monsieur Poyntz, from whom Ican have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion as ever kepta lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fécondateur, tripping in, my friendMonsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller (I have just cracked a halfbottle avec lui in a circle of the best wits of the town), is myauthority that in Cape Horn, ventre biche, they have a rain that willwet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, hetells me, sans blague, has sent more than one luckless fellow in goodearnest posthaste to another world. Pooh! A livre! cries Monsieur Lynch.The clumsy things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than afairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one.My dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a deluge before ever shewould starve in such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushingpiquantly and whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words butgiddy butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it inour hearts and it has become a household word that il y a deux chosesfor which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a breachof the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The first, said she(and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to fix myattention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my ear), thefirst is a bath... But at this point a bell tinkling in the hall cut short adiscourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment of our store ofknowledge.

Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while allwere conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and, havingspoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with a profound bowto the company. The presence even for a moment among a party of debauchees of awoman endued with every quality of modesty and not less severe than beautifulrefrained the humourous sallies even of the most licentious but her departurewas the signal for an outbreak of ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, alow fellow who was fuddled. A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I’ll be sworn shehas rendezvoused you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad’s bud,immensely so, said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in theMater hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O’Gargle chuck the nuns there under thechin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid thereany time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in theprimrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest squirmings of hisbody, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I’m all of a wibblywobbly. Why, you’re as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem, that you are! Maythis pot of four half choke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way.I knows a lady what’s got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. Theyoung surgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat asthe nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Mercifulprovidence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady whowas enceinte which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she hadgiven birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who,without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling professionwhich, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest power forhappiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I couldproduce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitationswhich, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the humanbreast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable MissCallan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And atan instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish thethought! I shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of suchmalice have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother andmaid in house of Horne. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he salutedthose present on the by and repaired to the door. A murmur of approval arosefrom all and some were for ejecting the low soaker without more ado, a designwhich would have been effected nor would he have received more than his baredeserts had he not abridged his transgression by affirming with a horridimprecation (for he swore a round hand) that he was as good a son of the truefold as ever drew breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was always thesentiments of honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most particular tohonour thy father and thy mother that had the best hand to a rolypoly or ahasty pudding as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart.

To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of someimpudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits of that ageupon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity. The young sparks, itis true, were as full of extravagancies as overgrown children: the words oftheir tumultuary discussions were difficultly understood and not often nice:their testiness and outrageous mots were such that his intellectsresiled from: nor were they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties thoughtheir fund of strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of MrCostello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch thatseemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out ofwedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the world,which the dint of the surgeon’s pliers in his skull lent indeed a colour to, soas to put him in thought of that missing link of creation’s chain desideratedby the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now for more than the middle span ofour allotted years that he had passed through the thousand vicissitudes ofexistence and, being of a wary ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, hehad enjoined his heart to repress all motions of a rising choler and, byintercepting them with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast thatplenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and allfind tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create themselves wits at thecost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which he never did hold with) tothem he would concede neither to bear the name nor to herit the tradition of aproper breeding: while for such that, having lost all forbearance, can lose nomore, there remained the sharp antidote of experience to cause their insolencyto beat a precipitate and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel withmettlesome youth which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlingsof the severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer expresses it)for eating of the tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanityupon any condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her lawfuloccasions. To conclude, while from the sister’s words he had reckoned upon aspeedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little alleviated bythe intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such duressnow testified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty of the SupremeBeing.

Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express hisnotion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express one) wasthat one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not to be rejoicedby this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement since she had been insuch pain through no fault of hers. The dressy young blade said it was herhusband’s that put her in that expectation or at least it ought to be unlessshe were another Ephesian matron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers,clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old GloryAllelujurum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferringthrough his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he callsher. I bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event would burst anon.’Slife, I’ll be round with you. I cannot but extol the virile potency of theold bucko that could still knock another child out of her. All fell to praisingof it, each after his own fashion, though the same young blade held with hisformer view that another than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, aclerk in orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles neededin every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfullyunequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperaldormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of suchfrivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice totransform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplarypractitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed thenoblest. But, he further added, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelingsthat in common oppress them for I have more than once observed that birds of afeather laugh together.

But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, has thisalien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights,constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where is nowthat gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the recent warwhenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados did this traitorto his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece against the empire ofwhich he is a tenant at will while he trembled for the security of his four percents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is it thatfrom being a deluder of others he has become at last his own dupe as he is, ifreport belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer? Far be it from candour toviolate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant major,or to cast the most distant reflections upon her virtue but if he challengesattention there (as it was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then beit so. Unhappy woman, she has been too long and too persistently denied herlegitimate prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feelingthan the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a verypelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, toattempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strataof society! Nay, had the hussy’s scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, ithad gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the question of thegrazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe’s hearingbrought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in termsas straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach thatgospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of theploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and anopprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrumsand apothegms of dubious taste to restore to health a generation of unfledgedprofligates let his practice consist better with the doctrines that now engrosshim. His marital breast is the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctantto adduce. The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for aconsort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer ofills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its native orient,throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a climemore temperate, its roots have lost their quondam vigour while the stuff thatcomes away from it is stagnant, acid and inoperative.

The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial usage ofthe Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the junior medicalofficer in residence, who in his turn announced to the delegation that an heirhad been born. When he had betaken himself to the women’s apartment to assistat the prescribed ceremony of the afterbirth in the presence of the secretaryof state for domestic affairs and the members of the privy council, silent inunanimous exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the lengthand solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence wouldpalliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and obstetricianrendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of tongues. In vain thevoice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to mollify, torefrain. The moment was too propitious for the display of that discursivenesswhich seemed the only bond of union among tempers so divergent. Every phase ofthe situation was successively eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterinebrothers, the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and,that rarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as theChilds Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr AdvocateBushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the rights ofprimogeniture and king’s bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages andinfanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac foetus in foetuand aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia of certain chinless Chinamen(cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in consequence of defective reunion of themaxillary knobs along the medial line so that (as he said) one ear could hearwhat the other spoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, theprolongation of labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure onthe vein, the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in theactual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificialinsemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon themenopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in the case offemales impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of deliverycalled by the Brandenburghers Sturzgeburt, the recorded instances ofmultiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenicperiod or of consanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of humannativity which Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece withchromolithographic illustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics andforensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popularbeliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman tostep over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangleher creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardentlyand ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of herperson which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. Theabnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro’s inkle,strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a prima facieand natural hypothetical explanation of those swineheaded (the case of MadameGrissel Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. Thehypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy and worthy ofthe metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for, envisaged in such casesan arrest of embryonic development at some stage antecedent to the human. Anoutlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat asalmost carried conviction, the theory of copulation between women and the malesof brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of fables such asthat of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet has handed downto us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression made by his words wasimmediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as it had been evoked by anallocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of pleasantry which nonebetter than he knew how to affect, postulating as the supremest object ofdesire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisenbetween Mr Delegate Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical andtheological dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing theother, the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom forinstant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether thebetter to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb withwhich he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he delivered brieflyand, as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding manto put asunder what God has joined.

But Malachias’ tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up the scenebefore them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in the recessappeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh creep! He had aportfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the other a phial markedPoison. Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted on all faces while heeyed them with a ghostly grin. I anticipated some such reception, he began withan eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, history is to blame. Yes, it is true. Iam the murderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has noterrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what way wouldI be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping Dublin this while backwith my share of songs and himself after me the like of a soulth or abullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland’s, is in this life. It is what I tried toobliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting, the Erse language (he recitedsome), laudanum (he raised the phial to his lips), camping out. In vain! Hisspectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope... Ah! Destruction! The black panther!With a cry he suddenly vanished and the panel slid back. An instant later hishead appeared in the door opposite and said: Meet me at Westland Row station atten past eleven. He was gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipatedhost. The seer raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: The vendetta of Mananaun!The sage repeated: Lex talionis. The sentimentalist is he who wouldenjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Malachias,overcome by emotion, ceased. The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the thirdbrother. His real name was Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost ofhis own father. He drank drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. Thelonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. Thespider pitches her web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers from his hole.A curse is on it. It is haunted. Murderer’s ground.

What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon tochange her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournfulwith the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer isLeopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, thatstaid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. A scoreof years are blown away. He is young Leopold. There, as in a retrospectivearrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself.That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nippingmorning from the old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, hisbooksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, amother’s thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in hisfirst hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledgedtraveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scentedhandkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! a thingnow of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwonhousewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shylyacknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, thesmile, but, more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address, brought homeat duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob’s pipeafter like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure,is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from theEurope of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and theyoung knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the mist.Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say?The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatchstreet, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poorwaif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and herluckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincapedshadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will neverforget the name, ever remember the night: first night, the bridenight. They areentwined in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant(fiat!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fairreader. In a breath ’twas done but—hold! Back! It must not be! In terrorthe poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, adaughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold.Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength wastaken from thee—and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There isnone now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.

The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the infinite ofspace: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of cycles ofgenerations that have lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, neverfalls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering aperennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a mareleading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms are they, yet moulded in propheticgrace of structure, slim shapely haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meekapprehensive skull. They fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a wasteland, a home of screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is nomore. And on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder ofrebellion, the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind andgoads them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk andyak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they cometrooping to the sunken sea, Lacus Mortis. Ominous revengeful zodiacalhost! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the trumpetedwith the tusked, the lionmaned, the giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent,ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning multitude, murderers of thesun.

Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horriblegulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent growsagain, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven’s own magnitude, tillit looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder of metempsychosis, itis she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar, the bride, evervirgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, Millicent, the young, the dear, theradiant. How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in thepenultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veilof what do you call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn fleshand loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained oncurrents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling,writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad metamorphosesof symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign upon the forehead ofTaurus.

Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at schooltogether in Conmee’s time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pisistratus.Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the past and itsphantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them into life across thewaters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to my call? Who supposes it? I,Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending bard, am lord and giver of their life.He encircled his gadding hair with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent.That answer and those leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitlywhen something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can callyour genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to seeyou bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I heartilywish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent Lenehan said, laying a hand on theshoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. Theyoung man’s face grew dark. All could see how hard it was for him to bereminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He would have withdrawn fromthe feast had not the noise of voices allayed the smart. Madden had lost fivedrachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the rider’s name: Lenehan as much more. Hetold them of the race. The flag fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran outfreshly with O. Madden up. She was leading the field. All hearts were beating.Even Phyllis could not contain herself. She waved her scarf and cried: Huzzah!Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run home when all were in close orderthe dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All was lostnow. Phyllis was silent: her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I amundone. But her lover consoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold inwhich lay some oval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell: one only. Awhacking fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and threetoday. What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterous buffalothe victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear it as was theancient wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh.She is not the filly that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold suchanother. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish youcould have seen my queen today, Vincent said. How young she was and radiant(Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, Ido not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us were in bloom:the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen floating by us. Inthe sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch of those bunswith Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in his booth near thebridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the arm with which I held her andin that she nibbled mischievously when I pressed too close. A week ago she layill, four days on the couch, but today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril.She is more taking then. Her posies too! Mad romp that she is, she had pulledher fill as we reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you will notthink who met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was walking by thehedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a witty letter in itfrom Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet creature turned all coloursin her confusion, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her dress: a slip ofunderwood clung there for the very trees adore her. When Conmee had passed sheglanced at her lovely echo in that little mirror she carries. But he had beenkind. In going by he had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said.If I had poor luck with Bass’s mare perhaps this draught of his may serve memore propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it andwithheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. Warily,Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is aspainful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object,intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of thegods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos told me so, Stephen answered,whom in a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the mysteries ofkarmic law. The lords of the moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shiploadfrom planet Alpha of the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles andthese were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the secondconstellation.

However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him beingin some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which was entirely dueto a misconception of the shallowest character, was not the case at all. Theindividual whose visual organs while the above was going on were at thisjuncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of animation was as astute if notastuter than any man living and anybody that conjectured the contrary wouldhave found themselves pretty speedily in the wrong shop. During the past fourminutes or thereabouts he had been staring hard at a certain amount of numberone Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to besituated amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which wascertainly calculated to attract anyone’s remark on account of its scarletappearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently transpired for reasonsbest known to himself, which put quite an altogether different complexion onthe proceedings, after the moment before’s observations about boyhood days andthe turf, recollecting two or three private transactions of his own which theother two were as mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however,both their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other wasendeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily determined to helphim himself and so he accordingly took hold of the neck of the mediumsizedglass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and made a capacioushole in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the same time, however, aconsiderable degree of attentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer thatwas in it about the place.

The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the courseof life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The debaters werethe keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on the loftiest and mostvital. The high hall of Horne’s house had never beheld an assembly sorepresentative and so varied nor had the old rafters of that establishment everlistened to a language so encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made.Crotthers was there at the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, hisface glowing from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, oppositeto him, was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of earlydepravity and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place assigned toCostello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in stolid repose thesquat form of Madden. The chair of the resident indeed stood vacant before thehearth but on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in explorer’s kit oftweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted sharply with the primroseelegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at thehead of the board was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours ofpedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socraticdiscussion, while to right and left of him were accommodated the flippantprognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiledby the dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelibledishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril orthreat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous lovelinesswhich the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.

It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the pervertedtranscendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) contentions would appearto prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientificmethods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with tangiblephenomena. The man of science like the man in the street has to face hardheadedfacts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he can. There may be, itis true, some questions which science cannot answer—at present—suchas the first problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding thefuture determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacriathat the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsiblefor the birth of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemaspermsthe differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to opine,such as Culpepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti,a mixture of both? This would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature’sfavourite devices) between the nisus formativus of the nemasperm on theone hand and on the other a happily chosen position, succubitus felix,of the passive element. The other problem raised by the same inquirer isscarcely less vital: infant mortality. It is interesting because, as hepertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but we all die indifferent ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitaryconditions in which our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonarycomplaints etc. by inhaling the bacteria which lurk in dust. These factors, healleged, and the revolting spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicityposters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers andsailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals,paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas—these, he said, wereaccountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia,he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life,genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructivepictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as Venus andApollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these littleattentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass theintervening months in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.)attributes some of these demises to abdominal trauma in the case of womenworkers subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital discipline inthe home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or official,culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminalabortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former (we arethinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he cites of nursesforgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity is too rare to benormative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonder is that so manypregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do, all things considered andin spite of our human shortcomings which often baulk nature in her intentions.An ingenious suggestion is that thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) thatboth natality and mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidalmovements, lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general, everything,in fine, in nature’s vast workshop from the extinction of some remote sun tothe blossoming of one of the countless flowers which beautify our public parksis subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. Still the plainstraightforward question why a child of normally healthy parents and seeminglya healthy child and properly looked after succumbs unaccountably in earlychildhood (though other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly,in the poet’s words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her owngood and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability suchdeaths are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbousgerms have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown thatonly the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at anincreasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement which, thoughproductive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), isnevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the race ingeneral in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div.Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) that an omnivorousbeing which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass through theordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious alimentsas cancrenous females emaciated by parturition, corpulent professionalgentlemen, not to speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, mightpossibly find gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob,reveals as nought else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency abovealluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately acquaintedwith the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this morbidminded esthete andembryo philosopher who for all his overweening bumptiousness in thingsscientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali prides himself onbeing, it should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in the vile parlance ofour lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh ofa calf newly dropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L.Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons’ hall of the NationalMaternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, of which, as is well known, DrA. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, heis reported by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the catinto the bag (an esthete’s allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicatedand marvellous of all nature’s processes—the act of sexual congress) shemust let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. Atthe risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none theless effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it was delivered.

Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a happyaccouchement. It had been a weary weary while both for patient anddoctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave woman hadmanfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and now she was veryvery happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone before, are happy too asthey gaze down and smile upon the touching scene. Reverently look at her as shereclines there with the motherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for babyfingers (a pretty sight it is to see), in the first bloom of her newmotherhood, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, theUniversal Husband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only oneblessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy, to layin his arms that mite of God’s clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces. He isolder now (you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in the shoulders yetin the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the conscientious secondaccountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O Doady, loved one of old,faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that faroff time of the roses!With the old shake of her pretty head she recalls those days. God! Howbeautiful now across the mist of years! But their children are grouped in herimagination about the bedside, hers and his, Charley, Mary Alice, FrederickAlbert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy (Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet ConstanceLouisa, darling little Bobsy (called after our famous hero of the South Africanwar, lord Bobs of Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of theirunion, a Purefoy if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Younghopeful will be christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousinof Mr Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer’s office, Dublin Castle. And so timewags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh break fromthat bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from your pipe, theseasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for you (may it be thedistant day!) and dout the light whereby you read in the Sacred Book for theoil too has run low, and so with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows andwill call in His own good time. You too have fought the good fight and playedloyally your man’s part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithfulservant!

There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memorieswhich are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abidethere and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as thoughthey had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at leastwere otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they willrise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream,or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquilityof the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine.Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under herwrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded in thepiteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful.

The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of thatfalse calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied trick, uponwords so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an unhealthiness, aflair, for the cruder things of life. A scene disengages itself in theobserver’s memory, evoked, it would seem, by a word of so natural a homelinessas if those days were really present there (as some thought) with theirimmediate pleasures. A shaven space of lawn one soft May evening, thewellremembered grove of lilacs at Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slenderspectators of the game but with much real interest in the pellets as they runslowly forward over the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with abrief alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves attimes in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey,Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in herpose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent from anear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily against the coolardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey (blossomtime but therewill be cheer in the kindly hearth when ere long the bowls are gathered andhutched) is standing on the urn secured by that circle of girlish fond hands.He frowns a little just as this young man does now with a perhaps too consciousenjoyment of the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where hismother watches from the piazzetta giving upon the flowerclose with afaint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (alles Vergängliche) in herglad look.

Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that antechamberof birth where the studious are assembled and note their faces. Nothing, as itseems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of custody, rather, befitting theirstation in that house, the vigilant watch of shepherds and of angels about acrib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago. But as before the lightning the serriedstormclouds, heavy with preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen massesturgidly distended, compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending aboveparched field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till inan instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of thethunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was thetransformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word.

Burke’s! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and bobtail ofall them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor, punctual Bloom atheels with a universal grabbing at headgear, ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats andscabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and what not. A dedale of lusty youth, nobleevery student there. Nurse Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay themnor smiling surgeon coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a fullpound if a milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They areout, tumultuously, off for a minute’s race, all bravely legging it, Burke’s ofDenzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them sharplanguage but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with nurse a thoughtto send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up there. Doctor Diet andDoctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward of watching in Horne’s househas told its tale in that washedout pallor. Then all being gone, a glance ofmotherwit helping, he whispers close in going: Madam, when comes the storkbirdfor thee?

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial,glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny coelum. God’s air, theAllfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep intothee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch!Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chafferingallincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a GodframedGodgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum ofman’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and letscholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore.Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’s bills at home and ingots(not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shaltgather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy DarbyDullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all theirprogeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim orstamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, sayI! Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables,forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding!She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions,hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, biliousattacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentalsand jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it,regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and waitand never—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge tocover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? Deine Kuh Trübsalmelkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters. See! it displodesfor thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’s milk, Purefoy, themilk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thinrainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den,milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what?Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick richbonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nuncest bibendum!

All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides. Whereyou slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo. Anybrollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil’s sawbones and oleclo? Sorra one o’ me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward to the ribbon counter.Where’s Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the drunken minister coming out of thematernity hospal! Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. Amake, mister. The Denzille lane boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs,shove em out of the bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusionin life. Lou heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. En avant, mesenfants! Fire away number one on the gun. Burke’s! Burke’s! Thence theyadvanced five parasangs. Slattery’s mounted foot. Where’s that bleeding awfur?Parson Steve, apostates’ creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead.Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What’s on you? Ma mèrem’a mariée. British Beatitudes! Retamplatan digidi boumboum. Ayeshave it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designingfemales. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautifulbook come out of Ireland my time. Silentium! Get a spurt on. Tention.Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp,tramp, the boys are (attitudes!) parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles,bulldogs battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer,beef, trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers.Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox.Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt?Most amazingly sorry!

Query. Who’s astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declaremisery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone.Yours? Mead of our fathers for the Übermensch. Dittoh. Five number ones.You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby’s caudle. Stimulate the caloric.Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go again when the old. Absinthefor me, savvy? Caramba! Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster. Enemy?Avuncular’s got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don’t mention it. Got apectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wussettin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Knowhis dona? Yup, sartin I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peelsoff a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down theblind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don’t wait toget up. Five, seven, nine. Fine! Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And hertake me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Yourstarving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spudagain the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you’ll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi.I vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your corporositysagaciating O K? How’s the squaws and papooses? Womanbody after going on thestraw? Stand and deliver. Password. There’s hair. Ours the white death and theruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer’s wire. Cribbed out ofMeredith. Jesified, orchidised, polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine’s writing PaKinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi.

Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock brawHielentman’s your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil! Mytipple. Merci. Here’s to us. How’s that? Leg before wicket. Don’t stainmy brandnew sitinems. Give’s a shake of peppe, you there. Catch aholt. Carawayseed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every cove to his gentry mort.Venus Pandemos. Les petites femmes. Bold bad girl from the town ofMullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the roadto Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do you wantfor ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pullall together. Ex!

Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, seeing ashow no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He’ve got the chink ad lib.Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on yourinvite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing. You larnthat go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won’t wash here for nuts nohow. Lilchile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth,Chawley. We are nae fou. We’re nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you.

’Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, twodays teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. Gum, I’mjiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With a railway bloke.How come you so? Opera he’d like? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police! SomeH₂O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam’s flowers. Gemini. He’s goingto holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurryDutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a deadcert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. Hestrike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joeyand grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that.Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him inchokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden’s amaddening back. O lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Offto mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome,our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel.Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, herspouse. No fake, old man Leo. S’elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if Ihad. There’s a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if thataint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord,Amen.

You move a motion? Steve boy, you’re going it some. More bluggy drunkables?Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme povertyand one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inauguratedlibation? Give’s a breather. Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo?Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthethe lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posteriorianostria. Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear yousay onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo’s papli, by all that’s gorgeous. Play low,pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And snares of the poxfiend.Where’s the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e’en gangyer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoosefrend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night.Crickey, I’m about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestestputtiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot’splood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down tohell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander throughthe world. Health all! À la vôtre!

Golly, whatten tunket’s yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep at hiswearables. By mighty! What’s he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by James. Wants itreal bad. D’ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond? Rawthere! Thought hehad a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread wecalls him. That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn thatmarried a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love.Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix forthe hornies. Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o’ yourn passed in hischecks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou’ll no be telling me thot, Pold veg!Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in black bag?Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like since I wasborn. Tiens, tiens, but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes. O, get, revon a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to oneJenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk bywar specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There’seleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allahthe Excellent One your soul this night ever tremendously conserve.

Your attention! We’re nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The leasttholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable regions.Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook.

Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. Brigade!Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not come? Run,skelter, race. Pflaaaap!

Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me. Denzille lane this way. Change here forBawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto,any old time. Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. You coming long? Whisper,who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned against thelight and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world byfire. Pflaap! Ut implerentur scripturae. Strike up a ballad. Thenoutspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. Christicle, who’s thisexcrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in theblood of the Lamb. Come on you winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzlingexistences! Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled,peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Comeon, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that’s my name,that’s yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok.The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He’s on the squareand a corking fine business proposition. He’s the grandest thing yet and don’tyou forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You’ll need to rise preciousearly, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Nothalf. He’s got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in hisback pocket. Just you try it on.

[ 15 ]

(The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches anuncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green will-o’-the-wispsand danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps withfaint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti’s halted ice gondola stunted men and womensquabble. They grab wafers between which are wedged lumps of coral and coppersnow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola,highreared, forges on through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse.Whistles call and answer.)

THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you.

THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable.

(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerkspast, shaken in Saint Vitus’ dance. A chain of children ’s hands imprisonshim.)

THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute!

THE IDIOT: (Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.) Grhahute!

THE CHILDREN: Where’s the great light?

THE IDIOT: (Gobbling.) Ghaghahest.

(They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung betweentwo railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by itsarm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and snores again. On astep a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags andbones. A crone standing by with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the mawof his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles offmutely. The crone makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child,asquat on the doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her inspurts, clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both handsthe railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch inshouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A platecrashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease.Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in abottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child.Cissy Caffrey’s voice, still young, sings shrill from a lane.)

CISSY CAFFREY:

I gave it to Molly
Because she was jolly,
The leg of the duck,
The leg of the duck.

(Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, asthey march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths avolleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)

THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.

CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. (Shesings.)

I gave it to Nelly
To stick in her belly,
The leg of the duck,
The leg of the duck.

(Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunicsbloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls.Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the redcoats.)

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Jerks his finger.) Way for the parson.

PRIVATE CARR: (Turns and calls.) What ho, parson!

CISSY CAFFREY: (Her voice soaring higher.)

She has it, she got it,
Wherever she put it,
The leg of the duck.

(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy theintroit for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, attends him,a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)

STEPHEN: Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia.

(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)

THE BAWD: (Her voice whispering huskily.) Sst! Come here till I tellyou. Maidenhead inside. Sst!

STEPHEN: (Altius aliquantulum.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista.

THE BAWD: (Spits in their trail her jet of venom.) Trinity medicals.Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.

(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawlacross her nostrils.)

EDY BOARDMAN: (Bickering.) And says the one: I seen you up Faithfulplace with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobedhat. Did you, says I. That’s not for you to say, says I. You never seen me inthe mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that oneis! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time,Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant.

STEPHEN: (Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti sunt.

(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light overthe world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, growling.Lynch scares it with a kick.)

LYNCH: So that?

STEPHEN: (Looks behind.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would bea universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sensebut the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.

LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even theallwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love.

LYNCH: Ba!

STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? Thismovement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar. Hold my stick.

LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?

STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, to la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson,ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam.

(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, hishead going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned, inplanes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher.)

LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the customhouse.Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.

(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs inspasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. Thenavvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The navvy,swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects from thefarther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he staggersaway through the crowd with his flaring cresset.

Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middensarise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond the seawardreaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, cleaves the crowd andlurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the railway bridgeBloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into asidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s window a composite portrait shows himgallant Nelson’s image. A concave mirror at the side presents to him lovelornlonglost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom.He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convexmirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy therixdix doldy.

At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp.He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)

BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

(He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the downcomingrollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffingPoldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing alukewarm pig’s crubeen, the other a cold sheep’s trotter, sprinkled withwholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one side he presses aparcel against his ribs and groans.)

BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampsetsiding. The glow leaps again.)

BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

(He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)

BLOOM: Aurora borealis or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course.South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s bush. We’re safe.(He hums cheerfully.) London’s burning, London’s burning! On fire, onfire! (He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at thefarther side of Talbot street.) I’ll miss him. Run. Quick. Better crosshere.

(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)

THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister!

(Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him,their bells rattling.)

THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall.

BLOOM: (Halts erect, stung by a spasm.) Ow!

(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragonsandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge redheadlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs hisfootgong.)

THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.

(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved hand,blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown forward, pugnosed,on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)

THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a mudflakefrom his cheek with a parcelled hand.)

BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take upSandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street accidenttoo. The Providential. (He feels his trouser pocket.) Poor mamma’spanacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of theblack Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s corner. Third time is the charm.Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous.Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same styleof beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest.That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why?Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. (He closes his eyes aninstant.) Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other.Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall, a visageunknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero thefigure regards him with evil eye.)

BLOOM: Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?

THE FIGURE: (Impassive, raises a signal arm.) Password. SraidMabbot.

BLOOM: Haha. Merci. Esperanto. Slan leath. (He mutters.) Gaelicleague spy, sent by that fireeater.

(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left,ragsackman left.)

BLOOM: I beg.

(He leaps right, sackragman right.)

BLOOM: I beg.

(He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on.)

BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted by theTouring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost my way andcontributed to the columns of the Irish Cyclist the letter headed Indarkest Stepaside. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones atmidnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off hissins of the world.

(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)

BLOOM: O.

(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. Bloompats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoke, sweets ofsin, potato soap.)

BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch yourpurse.

(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled formsneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elderin Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles hang down atthe wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.)

RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with drunken goyever. So you catch no money.

BLOOM: (Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen,feels warm and cold feetmeat.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi.

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? (With feeblevulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom.) Are you not my sonLeopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left thehouse of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?

BLOOM: (With precaution.) I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that’sleft of him.

RUDOLPH: (Severely.) One night they bring you home drunk as dog afterspend your good money. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: (In youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent’s sterling silver waterburykeyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side of him coatedwith stiffening mud.) Harriers, father. Only that once.

RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make youkaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM: (Weakly.) They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. Islipped.

RUDOLPH: (With contempt.) Goim nachez! Nice spectacles for your poormother!

BLOOM: Mamma!

ELLEN BLOOM: (In pantomime dame’s stringed mobcap, widow Twankey’s crinolineand bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens andcameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, appears over the staircasebanisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, and cries out in shrillalarm.) O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling salts!(She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blaypetticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fallout.) Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all?

(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in hisfilled pockets but desists, muttering.)

A VOICE: (Sharply.) Poldy!

BLOOM: Who? (He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.) At your service.

(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkishcostume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers andjacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. A whiteyashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her large darkeyes and raven hair.)

BLOOM: Molly!

MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me.(Satirically.) Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

BLOOM: (Shifts from foot to foot.) No, no. Not the least little bit.

(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes,crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, spellbound. A coingleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled toerings. Her ankles arelinked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a camel, hooded with a turretingturban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah.He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch,her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)

MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum!

(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit,offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his headand, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back forleapfrog.)

BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs Marion... ifyou...

MARION: So you notice some change? (Her hands passing slowly over hertrinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes.) O Poldy, Poldy,you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world.

BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Shopcloses early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning. (He patsdivers pockets.) This moving kidney. Ah!

(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon soaparises, diffusing light and perfume.)

THE SOAP:

We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I.
He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.

(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of thesoapsun.)

SWENY: Three and a penny, please.

BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe.

MARION: (Softly.) Poldy!

BLOOM: Yes, ma’am?

MARION: Ti trema un poco il cuore?

(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon, hummingthe duet from Don Giovanni.)

BLOOM: Are you sure about that Voglio? I mean the pronunciati...

(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes hissleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)

THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. Fifteen.There’s no-one in it only her old father that’s dead drunk.

(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, BridieKelly stands.)

BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind?

(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues withbooted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom. Weaksqueaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)

THE BAWD: (Her wolfeyes shining.) He’s getting his pleasure. You won’tget a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don’t be all night before thepolis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.

(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling, andshows coyly her bloodied clout.)

GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. (She murmurs.) You didthat. I hate you.

BLOOM: I? When? You’re dreaming. I never saw you.

THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman falseletters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the strap toyou at the bedpost, hussy like you.

GERTY: (To Bloom.) When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.) Dirty married man! I love you fordoing that to me.

(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man’s frieze overcoat with loosebellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling inall her herbivorous buckteeth.)

MRS BREEN: Mr...

BLOOM: (Coughs gravely.) Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letterdated the sixteenth instant...

MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you nicely!Scamp!

BLOOM: (Hurriedly.) Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me?Don’t give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It’s ages since I. You’relooking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this time ofyear. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting quarter. Rescue offallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary...

MRS BREEN: (Holds up a finger.) Now, don’t tell a big fib! I knowsomebody won’t like that. O just wait till I see Molly! (Slily.) Accountfor yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: (Looks behind.) She often said she’d like to visit. Slumming. Theexotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. Othello blackbrute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at the Livermorechristies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.

(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes, leapout. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle thetwingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through abreakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to back, toe heel, heel toe,with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)

TOM AND SAM:

There’s someone in the house with Dina
There’s someone in the house, I know,
There’s someone in the house with Dina
Playing on the old banjo.

(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling, chortling,trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)

BLOOM: (With a sour tenderish smile.) A little frivol, shall we, if youare so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fractionof a second?

MRS BREEN: (Screams gaily.) O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: For old sake’ sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriagemingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft corner foryou. (Gloomily.) ’Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle.

MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. (She putsout her hand inquisitively.) What are you hiding behind your back? Tell us,there’s a dear.

BLOOM: (Seizes her wrist with his free hand.) Josie Powell that was,prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in aretrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson’s housewarmingwhile they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold andthoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuffbox?

MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation andyou looked the part. You were always a favourite with the ladies.

BLOOM: (Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, bluemasonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, aprismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.) Ladies and gentlemen, I giveyou Ireland, home and beauty.

MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song.

BLOOM: (Meaningfully dropping his voice.) I confess I’m teapot withcuriosity to find out whether some person’s something is a little teapot atpresent.

MRS BREEN: (Gushingly.) Tremendously teapot! London’s teapot and I’msimply teapot all over me! (She rubs sides with him.) After the parlourmystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman.Under the mistletoe. Two is company.

BLOOM: (Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his fingersand thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrendersgently.) The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out of this hand,carefully, slowly. (Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby ring.) Là cidarem la mano.

MRS BREEN: (In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinselsylph’s diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satinslipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e non. You’rehot! You’re scalding! The left hand nearest the heart.

BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the beast.I can never forgive you for that. (His clenched fist at his brow.) Thinkwhat it means. All you meant to me then. (Hoarsely.) Woman, it’sbreaking me!

(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards, shufflespast them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right andleft. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him toleft and right, doubled in laughter.)

ALF BERGAN: (Points jeering at the sandwichboards.) U. p: up.

MRS BREEN: (To Bloom.) High jinks below stairs. (She gives him theglad eye.) Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to.

BLOOM: (Shocked.) Molly’s best friend! Could you?

MRS BREEN: (Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: (Offhandedly.) Kosher. A snack for supper. The home withoutpotted meat is incomplete. I was at Leah, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchantexponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling goodplace round there for pigs’ feet. Feel.

(Richie Goulding, three ladies’ hats pinned on his head, appears weighted toone side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a skull andcrossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it and shows it full ofpolonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills.)

RICHIE: Best value in Dub.

(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his napkin,waiting to wait.)

PAT: (Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.) Steak andkidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.

RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall...

(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by,gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)

RICHIE: (With a cry of pain, his hand to his back.) Ah! Bright’s!Lights!

BLOOM: (Points to the navvy.) A spy. Don’t attract attention. I hatestupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bullstory.

BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. But youmust never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason.

MRS BREEN: (All agog.) O, not for worlds.

BLOOM: Let’s walk on. Shall us?

MRS BREEN: Let’s.

(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The terrierfollows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)

THE BAWD: Jewman’s melt!

BLOOM: (In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, tonybuff shirt, shepherd’s plaid Saint Andrew’s cross scarftie, white spats, fawndustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a greybillycock hat.) Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, justafter Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together toFairyhouse races, was it?

MRS BREEN: (In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spiderveil.) Leopardstown.

BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three year oldnamed Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old fiveseatershanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you had on thatnew hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised youto buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and anold rag of velveteen, and I’ll lay you what you like she did it on purpose...

MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don’t tell me! Nice adviser!

BLOOM: Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky littletammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on you and youhonestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to kill it, youcruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of afullstop.

MRS BREEN: (Squeezes his arm, simpers.) Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: (Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.) And Molly was eating asandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket. Frankly, thoughshe had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style. She was...

MRS BREEN: Too...

BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly weremimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the teamerchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name,and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or reador knew or came across...

MRS BREEN: (Eagerly.) Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on towardshellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart,pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a talewhich their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An armless pairof them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.)

THE GAFFER: (Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.) And when Cairnscame down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it intoonly into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings forDerwan’s plasterers.

THE LOITERERS: (Guffaw with cleft palates.) O jays!

(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodgesthey frisk limblessly about him.)

BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight.Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.

THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men’sporter.

(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, callfrom lanes, doors, corners.)

THE WHORES:

Are you going far, queer fellow?
How’s your middle leg?
Got a match on you?
Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From abulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In theshadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)

THE NAVVY: (Belching.) Where’s the bloody house?

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. Respectablewoman.

THE NAVVY: (Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.) Comeon, you British army!

PRIVATE CARR: (Behind his back.) He aint half balmy.

PRIVATE COMPTON: (Laughs.) What ho!

PRIVATE CARR: (To the navvy.) Portobello barracks canteen. You ask forCarr. Just Carr.

THE NAVVY: (Shouts.)

We are the boys. Of Wexford.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor?

PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He’s my pal. I love old Bennett.

THE NAVVY: (Shouts.)

The galling chain.
And free our native land.

(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. The dogapproaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)

BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they are gone.Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland row. Thenjump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. Train with engine behind.Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding for the night or collision. Seconddrink does it. Once is a dose. What am I following him for? Still, he’s thebest of that lot. If I hadn’t heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn’t havegone and wouldn’t have met. Kismet. He’ll lose that cash. Relieving officehere. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone.Might have lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernautonly for presence of mind. Can’t always save you, though. If I had passedTruelock’s window that day two minutes later would have been shot. Absence ofbody. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, fivehundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper.

(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend Wet Dreamand a phallic design.) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane atKingstown. What’s that like? (Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways,in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweetweed floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths.)

THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.

BLOOM: My spine’s a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get allpigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much. (Theretriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging histail.) Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak tohim first. Like women they like rencontres. Stinks like a polecat.Chacun son goût. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain in his movements.Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! (The wolfdog sprawls on his back,wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.)Influence of his surroundings. Give and have done with it. Provided nobody.(Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher’s tread,dogged by the setter into a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel andgoes to dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)Sizeable for threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for moreeffort. Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.

(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiffmauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching thebones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. They murmurtogether.)

THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.

(Each lays hand on Bloom’s shoulder.)

FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.

BLOOM: (Stammers.) I am doing good to others.

(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime withBanbury cakes in their beaks.)

THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake.

BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness.

(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over themunching spaniel.)

BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.

(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig’s knuckle betweenhis molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran falls silentlyinto an area.)

SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals.

BLOOM: (Enthusiastically.) A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver onHarold’s cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. BadFrench I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All talesof circus life are highly demoralising.

(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer’s costume with diamond studs inhis shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curlingcarriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging boarhound.)

SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile.) Ladies and gentlemen, myeducated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patentspiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong. Blocktackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter howfractious, even Leo ferox there, the Libyan maneater. A redhot crowbarand some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, thethinking hyena. (He glares.) I possess the Indian sign. The glint of myeye does it with these breastsparklers. (With a bewitching smile.) I nowintroduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.

FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address.

BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! (He takes off his highgrade hat, saluting.) Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard ofvon Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. Donnerwetter! Owns half Austria.Egypt. Cousin.

FIRST WATCH: Proof.

(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom’s hat.)

BLOOM: (In red fez, cadi’s dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a falsebadge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and offers it.)Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: Messrs John HenryMenton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk.

FIRST WATCH: (Reads.) Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watchingand besetting.

SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned.

BLOOM: (Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.) This isthe flower in question. It was given me by a man I don’t know his name.(Plausibly.) You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The changeof name. Virag. (He murmurs privately and confidentially.) We areengaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. (Heshoulders the second watch gently.) Dash it all. It’s a way we gallantshave in the navy. Uniform that does it. (He turns gravely to the firstwatch.) Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in someevening and have a glass of old Burgundy. (To the second watch gaily.)I’ll introduce you, inspector. She’s game. Do it in the shake of a lamb’s tail.

(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)

THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of thearmy.

MARTHA: (Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of theIrish Times in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.) Henry! Leopold!Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.

FIRST WATCH: (Sternly.) Come to the station.

BLOOM: (Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart andlifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard offellowcraft.) No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity.The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide case.We medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused.Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

MARTHA: (Sobbing behind her veil.) Breach of promise. My real name isPeggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I’ll tell my brother, theBective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.

BLOOM: (Behind his hand.) She’s drunk. The woman is inebriated. (Hemurmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.) Shitbroleeth.

SECOND WATCH: (Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.) You ought to be thoroughlywell ashamed of yourself.

BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare’s nest. I am a manmisunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable married man,without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. My wife, I am thedaughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant upstanding gentleman,what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain’s fighting menwho helped to win our battles. Got his majority for the heroic defence ofRorke’s Drift.

FIRST WATCH: Regiment.

BLOOM: (Turns to the gallery.) The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of theearth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms up thereamong you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police, guardians of ourhomes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as physique, in theservice of our sovereign.

A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?

BLOOM: (His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.) My old dad too wasa J. P. I’m as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the coloursfor king and country in the absentminded war under general Gough in the parkand was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches. Idid all a white man could. (With quiet feeling.) Jim Bludso. Hold hernozzle again the bank.

FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade.

BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact we arejust bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the inventor,something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected with the Britishand Irish press. If you ring up...

(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His scarletbeak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a hank of Spanishonions in one hand and holds with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle tohis ear.)

MYLES CRAWFORD: (His cock’s wattles wagging.) Hello, seventyseveneightfour. Hello. Freeman’s Urinal and Weekly Arsewipe here.Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?

(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate morningdress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavendertrousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio labelled Matcham’sMasterstrokes.)

BEAUFOY: (Drawls.) No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it. Idon’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most rudimentarypromptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct.One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak masquerading as aliterateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he hascribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, thelove passages in which are beneath suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love andgreat possessions, with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are ahousehold word throughout the kingdom.

BLOOM: (Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.) That bit about the laughingwitch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may...

BEAUFOY: (His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.) Youfunny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words! I don’t think youneed over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. My literary agentMr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, we shall receive theusual witnesses’ fees, shan’t we? We are considerably out of pocket over thisbally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to auniversity.

BLOOM: (Indistinctly.) University of life. Bad art.

BEAUFOY: (Shouts.) It’s a damnably foul lie, showing the moralrottenness of the man! (He extends his portfolio.) We have here damningevidence, the corpus delicti, my lord, a specimen of my maturer workdisfigured by the hallmark of the beast.

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY:

Moses, Moses, king of the jews,
Wiped his arse in the Daily News.

BLOOM: (Bravely.) Overdrawn.

BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you rotter!(To the court.) Why, look at the man’s private life! Leading a quadrupleexistence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be mentioned in mixedsociety! The archconspirator of the age!

BLOOM: (To the court.) And he, a bachelor, how...

FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.

THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!

(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket on thecrook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)

SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?

MARY DRISCOLL: (Indignantly.) I’m not a bad one. I bear a respectablecharacter and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, sixpounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave owing to hiscarryings on.

FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself aspoor as I am.

BLOOM: (In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless slippers,unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly.) I treated you white. I gave youmementos, smart emerald garters far above your station. Incautiously I tookyour part when you were accused of pilfering. There’s a medium in all things.Play cricket.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Excitedly.) As God is looking down on me this night ifever I laid a hand to them oylsters!

FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen?

MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour, whenthe missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety pin. Heheld me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he interferedtwict with my clothing.

BLOOM: She counterassaulted.

MARY DRISCOLL: (Scornfully.) I had more respect for the scouringbrush,so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it quiet.

(General laughter.)

GEORGE FOTTRELL: (Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.) Order incourt! The accused will now make a bogus statement.

(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a longunintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his stirringaddress to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though branded as a blacksheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of thepast in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal.A sevenmonths’ child, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an agedbedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an erring father but hewanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of thewhipping post, to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated bythe affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. Anacclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of anengine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained fromfalling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households inDublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the betterland with Dockrell’s wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocentBritishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholarsgrappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte oranon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelogwhile in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolledwhat times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound withfour acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargainever....

(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that theycannot hear.)

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: (Without looking up from their notebooks.)Loosen his boots.

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: (From the presstable, coughs and calls.) Cough it up,man. Get it out in bits.

(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A largebucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad.A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadlyagony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He didnot look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A Titbitsback number.)

(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash,dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across hisnose, talks inaudibly.)

J. J. O’MOLLOY: (In barrister’s grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with avoice of pained protest.) This is no place for indecent levity at theexpense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a beargarden norat an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My client is an infant, apoor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying toturn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentaryaberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as thealleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client’s native place,the land of the Pharaoh. Prima facie, I put it to you that there was noattempt at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complainedof by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would dealin especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulismin my client’s family. If the accused could speak he could a taleunfold—one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between thecovers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler’s weakchest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction and irresponsiblefor his actions. Not all there, in fact.

BLOOM: (Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar’s vest and trousers, apologetictoes turned in, opens his tiny mole’s eyes and looks about him dazedly, passinga slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion andwith a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court, pointing one thumbheavenward.) Him makee velly muchee fine night. (He begins to liltsimply.)

Li li poo lil chile
Blingee pigfoot evly night
Payee two shilly...

(He is howled down.)

J. J. O’MOLLOY: (Hotly to the populace.) This is a lonehand fight. ByHades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashionby a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has superseded the lawof the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically, without wishing for onemoment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not accessory before the actand prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The young person was treated bydefendant as if she were his very own daughter. (Bloom takes J. J.O’Molloy’s hand and raises it to his lips.) I shall call rebutting evidenceto prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at its old game. When indoubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the lastman in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty couldobject to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when somedastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her.He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down onhis luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property atAgendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be shown.(To Bloom.) I suggest that you will do the handsome thing.

BLOOM: A penny in the pound.

(The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silverhaze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in bluedungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an orange citron anda pork kidney.)

DLUGACZ: (Hoarsely.) Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.

(J. J. O’Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his coatwith solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken eyes,the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor. He applieshis handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepinkblood.)

J. J. O’MOLLOY: (Almost voicelessly.) Excuse me. I am suffering from asevere chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. (Heassumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of SeymourBushe.) When the angel’s book comes to be opened if aught that the pensivebosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves tolive I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the doubt.

(A paper with something written on it is handed into court.)

BLOOM: (In court dress.) Can give best references. Messrs Callan,Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon, ex lordmayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest... Queens ofDublin society. (Carelessly.) I was just chatting this afternoon at theviceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal, atthe levee. Sir Bob, I said...

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivorygloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of brilliants andpanache of osprey in her hair.) Arrest him, constable. He wrote me ananonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the North Ridingof Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He said that hehad seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the TheatreRoyal at a command performance of La Cigale. I deeply inflamed him,he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half pastfour p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send methrough the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled TheGirl with the Three Pairs of Stays.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the nose, stepsout of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which shetakes from inside her huge opossum muff.) Also to me. Yes, I believe it isthe same objectionable person. Because he closed my carriage door outside sirThornley Stoker’s one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythreewhen even the grid of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern werefrozen. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, ashe said, in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited theinformation that it was a blossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined froma forcingcase of the model farm.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward.)

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: (Screaming.) Stop thief! Hurrah there,Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

SECOND WATCH: (Produces handcuffs.) Here are the darbies.

MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsomecompliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostboundcoachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of hisearflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my person,when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings ofthe Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck’s head couped or. He laudedalmost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hosedrawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures inpriceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (Stating thathe felt it his mission in life to urge me.) to defile the marriage bed, tocommit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (In amazon costume, hard hat, jackbootscockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums,long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her weltconstantly.) Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the Phoenixpark at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes, I know,shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings winthe final chukkar on his darling cob Centaur. This plebeian Don Juanobserved me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes anobscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insultingto any lady. I have it still. It represents a partially nude señorita, frailand lovely (his wife, as he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature),practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard.He urged me to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison.He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him ashe richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicioushorsewhipping.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too.

(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters receivedfrom Bloom.)

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Stamps her jingling spurs in a suddenparoxysm of fury.) I will, by the God above me. I’ll scourge thepigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him alive.

BLOOM: (His eyes closing, quails expectantly.) Here? (Hesquirms.) Again! (He pants cringing.) I love the danger.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I’ll make it hot for you. I’llmake you dance Jack Latten for that.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and stripeson it!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There’s no excuse for him! A married man!

BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling glowwithout effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Laughs derisively.) O, did you, myfine fellow? Well, by the living God, you’ll get the surprise of your life now,believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. You havelashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury.

MRS BELLINGHAM: (Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an inchof his life. The cat-o’-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.

BLOOM: (Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien.) Ocold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let meoff this once. (He offers the other cheek.)

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: (Severely.) Don’t do so on any account, MrsTalboys! He should be soundly trounced!

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: (Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.)I’ll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! To dareaddress me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I’ll dig myspurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. (She swishes herhuntingcrop savagely in the air.) Take down his trousers without loss oftime. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready?

BLOOM: (Trembling, beginning to obey.) The weather has been so warm.

(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)

DAVY STEPHENS: Messenger of the Sacred Heart and EveningTelegraph with Saint Patrick’s Day supplement. Containing the new addressesof all the cuckolds in Dublin.

(The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and exposesa marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J.bend low.)

THE TIMEPIECE: (Unportalling.)

Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.

(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)

THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag.

(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox thefaces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, TomKernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard,Nosey Flynn, M’Coy and the featureless face of a Nameless One.)

THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised her.

THE JURORS: (All their heads turned to his voice.) Really?

THE NAMELESS ONE: (Snarls.) Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.

THE JURORS: (All their heads lowered in assent.) Most of us thought asmuch.

FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl’s plait cut. Wanted: Jack theRipper. A thousand pounds reward.

SECOND WATCH: (Awed, whispers.) And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.

THE CRIER: (Loudly.) Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is awellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public nuisanceto the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes the mosthonourable...

(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb ofgrey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his arms an umbrellasceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.)

THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin ofthis odious pest. Scandalous! (He dons the black cap.) Let him be taken,Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody inMountjoy prison during His Majesty’s pleasure and there be hanged by the neckuntil he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercyon your soul. Remove him. (A black skullcap descends upon his head.)

(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent HenryClay.)

LONG JOHN FANNING: (Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?

(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner’s apron, arope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life preserver and anailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his grappling hands,knobbed with knuckledusters.)

RUMBOLD: (To the recorder with sinister familiarity.) Hanging Harry,your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing.

(The bells of George’s church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)

THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho!

BLOOM: (Desperately.) Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence.Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. (Breathlessly.) Pelvicbasin. Her artless blush unmanned me. (Overcome with emotion.) I leftthe precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may Ispeak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want alittle more...

HYNES: (Coldly.) You are a perfect stranger.

SECOND WATCH: (Points to the corner.) The bomb is here.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

BLOOM: No, no. Pig’s feet. I was at a funeral.

FIRST WATCH: (Draws his truncheon.) Liar!

(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of PaddyDignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows tohuman size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. Hisgreen eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all the nose and both thumbs areghouleaten.)

PADDY DIGNAM: (In a hollow voice.) It is true. It was my funeral. DoctorFinucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from naturalcauses.

(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)

BLOOM: (In triumph.) You hear?

PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list!

BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau.

SECOND WATCH: (Blesses himself.) How is that possible?

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.

PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks.

A VOICE: O rocks.

PADDY DIGNAM: (Earnestly.) Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton,solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor’s Walk. Now Iam defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife wasawfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of sherry.(He looks round him.) A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. Thatbuttermilk didn’t agree with me.

(The portly figure of John O’Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding abunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain,toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily astaff of twisted poppies.)

FATHER COFFEY: (Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.) Namine. Jacobs.Vobiscuits. Amen.

JOHN O’CONNELL: (Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.) Dignam,Patrick T, deceased.

PADDY DIGNAM: (With pricked up ears, winces.) Overtones. (He wrigglesforward and places an ear to the ground.) My master’s voice!

JOHN O’CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. Fieldseventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.

(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail stiffpointed,his ears cocked.)

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether overrattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtlepaws under a grey carapace. Dignam’s voice, muffled, is heard baying underground: Dignam’s dead and gone below. Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, incap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned machine.)

TOM ROCHFORD: (A hand to his breastbone, bows.) Reuben J. A florin Ifind him. (He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.) My turn now on.Follow me up to Carlow.

(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in thecoalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloomplodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog. Apiano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The kisses, wingingfrom their bowers, fly about him, twittering, warbling, cooing.)

THE KISSES: (Warbling.) Leo! (Twittering.) Icky licky mickysticky for Leo! (Cooing.) Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom!(Warbling.) Big comebig! Pirouette! Leopopold! (Twittering.)Leeolee! (Warbling.) O Leo!

(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks,silvery sequins.)

BLOOM: A man’s touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.

(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronzebuckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips down thesteps and accosts him.)

ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He’s inside with his friend.

BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack’s?

ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s. You might go farther and fare worse. MotherSlipperslapper. (Familiarly.) She’s on the job herself tonight with thevet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford.Working overtime but her luck’s turned today. (Suspiciously.) You’re nothis father, are you?

BLOOM: Not I!

ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his leftthigh.)

ZOE: How’s the nuts?

BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose. One in amillion my tailor, Mesias, says.

ZOE: (In sudden alarm.) You’ve a hard chancre.

BLOOM: Not likely.

ZOE: I feel it.

(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard blackshrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.)

BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom.

ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?

(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, cuddling himwith supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note, oriental music isplayed. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed with kohol. His smilesoftens.)

ZOE: You’ll know me the next time.

BLOOM: (Forlornly.) I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to...

(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round theirshores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth ofresin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight ofeagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. Afountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarletwinegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)

ZOE: (Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously smearedwith salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoithHierushaloim.

BLOOM: (Fascinated.) I thought you were of good stock by your accent.

ZOE: And you know what thought did?

(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on him acloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre ofthe gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)

BLOOM: (Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat awkwardhand.) Are you a Dublin girl?

ZOE: (Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.) No bloodyfear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot?

BLOOM: (As before.) Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childishdevice. (Lewdly.) The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinderof rank weed.

ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.

BLOOM: (In workman’s corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tieand apache cap.) Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought fromthe new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence byabsorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will,understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison a hundred years beforeanother person whose name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies. All ourhabits. Why, look at our public life!

(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)

THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin!

BLOOM: (In alderman’s gown and chain.) Electors of Arran Quay, InnsQuay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, from thecattlemarket to the river. That’s the music of the future. That’s my programme.Cui bono? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship offinance...

AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate!

(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)

THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray!

(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city shakehands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice LordMayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk tie,confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. They nodvigorously in agreement.)

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: (In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chainand large white silk scarf.) That alderman sir Leo Bloom’s speech beprinted at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which he was bornbe ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare hithertoknown as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom.

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously.

BLOOM: (Impassionedly.) These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as theyrecline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines istheir cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses, supplanters,bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous hobgoblins producedby a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. The poor manstarves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasantsand phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign isrover for rever and ever and ev...

(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up. Astreamer bearing the legends Cead Mile Failte and Mah Ttob MelekIsrael spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers,chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers,the King’s own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron Highlanders and the WelshFusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High schoolare perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters,chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The pillar of thecloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the KolNidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners andwaving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high,surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession appearsheaded by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard tabard, theAthlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are followed by the RightHonourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Dublin, his lordship the lord mayorof Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford,twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahsbearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapterof the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishopof Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh,primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander,archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterianmoderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapelsand the honorary secretary of the society of friends. After them march theguilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers,millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners,trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers,farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers,undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors offire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters,heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket andarchery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers,plumbing contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod,Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, theearl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen’siron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet.Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloomappears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearingSaint Edward’s staff, the orb and sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He isseated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned,with golden headstall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their balconies throwdown rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom’s boysrun amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)

BLOOM’S BOYS:

The wren, the wren,
The king of all birds,
Saint Stephen’s his day
Was caught in the furze.

A BLACKSMITH: (Murmurs.) For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? Hescarcely looks thirtyone.

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s greatestreformer. Hats off!

(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)

A MILLIONAIRESS: (Richly.) Isn’t he simply wonderful?

A NOBLEWOMAN: (Nobly.) All that man has seen!

A FEMINIST: (Masculinely.) And done!

A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.

(Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted emperor-presidentand king-chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of thisrealm. God save Leopold the First!

ALL: God save Leopold the First!

BLOOM: (In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor,with dignity.) Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (In purple stock and shovel hat.) Willyou to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments inIreland and territories thereunto belonging?

BLOOM: (Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.) So may theCreator deal with me. All this I promise to do.

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: (Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s head.)Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem. Leopold, Patrick,Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!

(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He ascendsand stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on at the sametime their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick’s,George’s and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from all sides withsymbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do homage, one by one,approaching and genuflecting.)

THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly worship.

(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Hispalfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental and interplanetarytransmitters are set for reception of message.)

BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felixhereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated ourformer spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, thesplendour of night.

(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the BlackMaria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her head,descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of cheering.)

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: (Raises the royal standard.) Illustrious Bloom!Successor to my famous brother!

BLOOM: (Embraces John Howard Parnell.) We thank you from our heart,John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of ourcommon ancestors.

(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The keysof Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all that heis wearing green socks.)

TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour.

BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy atLadysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with tellingeffect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we yield? No! Wedrive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our light horse sweptacross the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry BonafideSabaoth, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear!

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There’s the man that got away James Stephens.

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo!

AN OLD RESIDENT: You’re a credit to your country, sir, that’s what you are.

AN APPLEWOMAN: He’s a man like Ireland wants.

BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell youverily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere longenter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the NovaHibernia of the future.

(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland,under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. It isa colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a huge pork kidney,containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension severalbuildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are temporarilytransferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the ground. Theinhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red with theletters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls ofDublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)

THE SIGHTSEERS: (Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)

(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points anelongated finger at Bloom.)

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don’t you believe a word he says. That man is LeopoldM’Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.

BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M’Intosh!

(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his sceptrestrikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies,graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are reported.Bloom’s bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration medals, loaves andfishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup,rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch,pineapple rock, billets doux in the form of cocked hats, readymadesuits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes’ Fluid, purchasestamps, 40 days’ indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatrepasses, season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal andprivileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of theWorld’s Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby(infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic),Expel that Pain (medic), Infant’s Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let’sAll Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser’s Vade Mecum (journalic), Loveletters ofMother Assistant (erotic), Who’s Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached OurHeart (melodic), Pennywise’s Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush andscramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe. The ladyGwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses himon both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph istaken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)

THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father!

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS:

Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.

(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)

BABY BOARDMAN: (Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.) Hajajaja.

BLOOM: (Shaking hands with a blind stripling.) My more than Brother!(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.) Dear oldfriends! (He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.) Peep!Bopeep! (He wheels twins in a perambulator.) Ticktacktwowouldyousetashoe? (He performs juggler’s tricks, draws red, orange, yellow,green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.) Roygbiv.32 feet per second. (He consoles a widow.) Absence makes the heart growyounger. (He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics.) Leg it,ye devils! (He kisses the bedsores of a palsied veteran.) Honourablewounds! (He trips up a fat policeman.) U. p: up. U. p: up. (Hewhispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly.) Ah, naughty,naughty! (He eats a raw turnip offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.)Fine! Splendid! (He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by JosephHynes, journalist.) My dear fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to abeggar.) Please accept. (He takes part in a stomach race with elderlymale and female cripples.) Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!

THE CITIZEN: (Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emeraldmuffler.) May the good God bless him!

(The rams’ horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)

BLOOM: (Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and readssolemnly.) Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom KippurHanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith.

(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)

JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic Majestywill now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice, solutionof doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this our loyalcity of Dublin in the year 1 of the Paradisiacal Era.

PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes?

BLOOM: Pay them, my friend.

PADDY LEONARD: Thank you.

NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

BLOOM: (Obdurately.) Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you arebound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five pounds.

J. J. O’MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O’Brien!

NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds?

PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble?

BLOOM:

Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil., 20 minims
Tinct. nux vom., 5 minims
Extr. taraxel. lig., 30 minims.
Aq. dis. ter in die.

CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran?

BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. 11.

JOE HYNES: Why aren’t you in uniform?

BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austriandespot in a dank prison where was yours?

BEN DOLLARD: Pansies?

BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.

BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive?

BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.

LARRY O’ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember me, sirLeo, when you were in number seven. I’m sending around a dozen of stout for themissus.

BLOOM: (Coldly.) You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts nopresents.

CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity.

BLOOM: (Solemnly.) You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys?

BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain tencommandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Threeacres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. Compulsorymanual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and night. Electricdishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. Generalamnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto theuniversal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism ofbarspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and afree lay church in a free lay state.

O’MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost.

DAVY BYRNE: (Yawning.) Iiiiiiiiiaa