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Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. It wouldn't pan out somehow.
Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with daggers
and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still
true to life also. Day, then the night.
He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back
the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the
air.
In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully
his black trousers, the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time
is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.
A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third.
Poor Dignam!
BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON'S QUAY MR BLOOM WALKED soberly, past
Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher's, the postal telegraph office.
Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned
from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By
Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked,
smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her
forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he
smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses! Waiting
outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be
many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel.
El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker's. At
eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged that job for
O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. Corney. Met her once in the park. In
the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with
my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a
whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.
In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental
Tea Company and read the legends of lead-papered packets: choice blend,
finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan.
Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he
took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with
slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped
lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high
grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His
fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his
waistcoat pocket.
So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over again: choice
blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must
be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses,
flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those
Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a
hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel.
Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most.
Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals
too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine
trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture
somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a
parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the
weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the
weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It's a law
something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints,
teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really
when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of
falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The
earth. It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.
He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her
sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from
his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it
at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in
to see. Per second, per second. Per second for every second it means. From
the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice.
Too late box. Post here. No-one. In.
He handed the card through the brass grill.
-- Are there any letters for me? he asked.
While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting
poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton
against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably.
Went too far last time.
The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a
letter. He thanked and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.
Henry Flower, Esq.
c/o P. O. Westland Row,
City.
Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,
reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment?
Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a grenadier.
Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy.
That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and
drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night:
disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an
army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half
baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed:
ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A
mason, yes.
He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if
that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt
its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will
pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter and
crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on: photo perhaps.
Hair? No.
M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when
you.
-- Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?
-- Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular.
-- How's the body?
-- Fine. How are you?
-- Just keeping alive, M'Coy said.
His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:
-- Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're...
-- O no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.
-- To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?
A photo it isn't. A badge maybe.
-- E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered.
-- I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard
it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?
-- I know.
Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door
of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood
still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his
pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a
day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands
in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women
all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does.
Reserved about to yield. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man.
Possess her once take the starch out of her.
-- I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what
do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were.
Doran, Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came
Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath his
veiled eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided
drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps.
Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will she get up?
-- And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I
said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said.
Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces
dangling. Well turned foot. What is he fostering over that change for? Sees
me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to
her bow.
-- Why? I said. What's wrong with him? I said.
Proud: rich: silk stockings.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a
minute.
-- What's wrong with him? he said. He's dead, he said. And, faith, he
filled up. Is it Paddy Dignam? I said. I couldn't believe it when I heard
it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch.
Yes, he said. He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow.
Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!
A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.
Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and
the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace
street hallway. Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the
display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at?
-- Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.
-- One of the best, M'Coy said.
The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich
gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her hat in
the sun: flicker, flick.
-- Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said.
-- O yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.
He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
-- My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet.
Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks.
Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.
-- My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the
Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
-- That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it
up?
Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread
and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark
lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old...
-- It's a kind of a tour, don't you see? Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.
Sweet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits.
M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.
-- O well, he said. That's good news.
He moved to go.
-- Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking
around.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
-- Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the
funeral, will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a
drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would
have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I'm not
there, will you?
-- I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all
right.
-- Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly
could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do.
-- That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.
Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd
like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners,
riveted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the
Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that
good day to this.
Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has
just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its
way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know? In the
same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't he hear the
difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow.
Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn't
get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife
and my wife.
Wonder is he pimping after me?
Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured
hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's summer
sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight: Mrs Bandman Palmer.
Like to see her in that again. Hamlet she played last night. Male
impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide? Poor
papa! How he used to talk about Kate Bateman in that! Outside the Adelphi in
London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was:
sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By
Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about
where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his
face.
-- Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left
his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his
father and left the God of his father.
Every word is so deep, Leopold.
Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his
face. That day! O dear! O dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was the best for him.
Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the
hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met that
M'Coy fellow.
He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently
champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the
sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they
know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too
full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded
too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might
be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their
neigh can be very irritating.
He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.
He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies,
all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e
non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying
syllables as they pass. He hummed:
La ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.
He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in
the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins
and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its
forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at
marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking
sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a
piece out of his mantel not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles
when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's.
And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.
A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?
Dear Henry,
I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am
awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you
naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is
the real meaning of that word. Are you not happy in your home you poor
little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. Please tell me
what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have.
Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I
have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about.
Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I
will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if
you do not write. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my
request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye
now, naughty darling. I have such a bad headache today and write by return
to your longing
MARTHA.
P.S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to
know.
He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell
and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because
no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then, walking
slowly forward, he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word.
Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't
please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon
anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. Having read it
all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket.
Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did
she write it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me,
respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you:
not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a
row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time.
Naughty boy: punish: afraid of-words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it
anyhow. A bit at a time.
Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.
Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:
pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without
thorns.
Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in
the Coombe, linked together in the rain.
O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers.
She didn't know what to do
To keep it up
To keep it up.
It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all
day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife
use? Now could you make out a thing like that?
To keep it up.
Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or
faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the
two sluts in the Coombe would listen.
To keep it up.
Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:
quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been,
strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper:
fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of the well stonecold like the hole in
the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the
trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and
more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.
Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly
in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away,
sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank.
Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the
same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque
for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of
porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four
times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a
moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter,
no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen
about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter.
What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the
same.
An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.
Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The
bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together,
winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of
liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.
He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the
porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again
behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy for a
pass to Mullingar.
Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.
on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save China's millions. Wonder
how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium.
Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone
they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same.
Convert Dr. William J. Walsh D. D. to the true religion. Buddha their god
lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.
Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever
idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows
him: distinguished looking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into
the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't.
They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat
rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their
fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips,
entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.
The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,
pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.
Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place
to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music.
That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with
crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altar
rails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his
hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are
they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head
sank. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it
into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes
and open your mouth. What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin.
Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it;
only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals
cotton to it.
He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by
one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its
corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought
to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with
heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their
stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened
shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It
does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind
of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a
lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the
same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity.
Then come out a big spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe
in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues
bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confession box. Hence those snores.
Blind faith. Safe in the arms of Kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this
time next year.
He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an
instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair
he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to.
Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I. N. R. I.? No: I. H. S. Molly told
me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And
the other one? Iron nails ran in.
Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with
a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with
a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly.
Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles
he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning.
This very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis
Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plotting
that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that's a good name for
them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. They're not
straight men of business either. O no she's not here: the flower: no, no. By
the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.
The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs
smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what
they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley's
Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn't
give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud
but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old booser worse than another
coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite
right. Perfectly right that is.
Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.
Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that
instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in
Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of
Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ,
but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped.
Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I
could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:
Quis est homo!
Some of that old sacred music is splendid. Mercadante: seven last
words. Mozart's twelfth mass: the Gloria in that. Those old popes were keen
on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for
example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too chanting,
regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still,
having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of
voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses.
Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a placid.
No worry. Fall into flesh don't they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows?
Eunuch. One way out of it.
He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and
bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced
about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the
gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back
quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing
out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Then the
priest knelt down and began to read off a card:
-- O God, our refuge and our strength.
Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them
the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloria and
immaculate virgin. Joseph her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if
you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes
like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all.
Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon In their hands. More than doctor or
solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you
chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse.
Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's
little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at
an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide
her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will
address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be
in Rome: they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too?
Bequests also: to the P. P. for the time being in his absolute discretion.
Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in the Fermanagh will case in the
witness box. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the
church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.
The priest prayed:
-- Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be
our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God
restrain him, we humbly pray): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other
wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women
remained behind: thanksgiving.
Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.
He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the
time. Women enjoy it. Annoyed if you don't. Why-didn't you tell me before.
Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff.
Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Still like
you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He passed, discreetly
buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He
stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and
behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water.
Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because
I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past.
Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the
last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and
gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of
the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.
He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other
trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O
well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up last?
Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been
or the second. O he can look it up in the prescriptions book.
The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone.
The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why?
Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living
all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster
lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost
cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor whack. He ought to physic
himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb
to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough
stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform.
Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup
bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy
where you least expect it. Clever of nature.
-- About a fortnight ago, sir?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He waited by the counter, inhaling the keen reek of drugs, the dusty
dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches
and pains.
-- Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then
orangeflower water...
It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.
-- And white wax also, he said.
Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her
eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs.
Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles
and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the
old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold yes.
Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a
perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d'Espagne. That orangeflower. Pure
curd soap. Water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Time to get a
bath round the corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your
navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the
bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure.
Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all day. Funeral be rather glum.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought
a bottle?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day
and I'll take one of those soaps. How much are they?
-- Fourpence, sir.
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
-- I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.
-- Good, Mr Bloom said.
He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
-- Hello, Bloom, what's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a
minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons' yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap?
Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
-- I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper
and get shut of him.
-- You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
-- Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.
-- I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
-- What's that? his sharp voice said.
-- I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it
away that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
-- I'Il risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender
turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to
gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come
back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed
the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like
a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel.
Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something
to catch the eye.
There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do
you do, sir?
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here.
Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare
street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line.
And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave.
Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life
we trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and
limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his
navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating,
floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid
floating flower.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM, FIRST, POKED HIS SILKHATTED HEAD INTO the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after
him, curving his height with care.
-- Come on, Simon.
-- After you, Mr Bloom said.
Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:
-- Yes, yes.
-- Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.
Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it tight till it shut tight. He passed an arm through
the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the
lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose
whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over.
Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give
them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners.
Slop about in slipper-slappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready.
Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your
side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and
shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an
envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job.
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it
out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front turning: then nearer:
then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the
avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking
pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled
rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in
the doorframes.
-- What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
-- Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
-- That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother
road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in
mourning, a wide hat.
-- There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
-- Who is that?
-- Your son and heir.
-- Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to
the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell
back, saying:
-- Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
-- Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little cost-drawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of
dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the
bottleworks. Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in
Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two
hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on
him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll
cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent
profit.
-- He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all
over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'Il make it my
business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or
whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I `Il tickle his
catastrophe, believe you me.
He cried above the clatter of the wheels.
-- I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counter-jumper's
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely.
He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild
face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking
beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it
would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond
terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of
the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown
on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying
for it. How life begins.
Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn
German too.
-- Are we late? Mr Power asked.
-- Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch
Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life.
Life.
The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.
-- Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.
-- He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him.
Do you follow me?
He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.
-- What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?
-- Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr
Power said.
All raised their thighs, eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and
said:
-- Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?
-- It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.
Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.
-- After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world.
-- Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak
of his beard gently.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.
-- And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.
-- At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.
-- I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come.
The carriage halted short.
-- What's wrong?
-- We're stopped.
-- Where are we?
Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.
-- The grand canal, he said.
Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illness compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea.
Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss this
chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is
Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then black with daggers
and eyemasks. Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black. Still
true to life also. Day, then the night.
He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled back
the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom into the
air.
In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully
his black trousers, the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time
is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.
A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third.
Poor Dignam!
BY LORRIES ALONG SIR JOHN ROGERSON'S QUAY MR BLOOM WALKED soberly, past
Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher's, the postal telegraph office.
Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned
from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. By
Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal linked,
smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema on her
forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell him if he
smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of roses! Waiting
outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. Slack hour: won't be
many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed the frowning face of Bethel.
El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past Nichols' the undertaker's. At
eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged that job for
O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. Corney. Met her once in the park. In
the dark. What a lark. Police tout. Her name and address she then told with
my tooraloom tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a
whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.
In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental
Tea Company and read the legends of lead-papered packets: choice blend,
finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom Kernan.
Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read blandly he
took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his right hand with
slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. Under their dropped
lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather headband inside his high
grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down into the bowl of his hat. His
fingers found quickly a card behind the headband and transferred it to his
waistcoat pocket.
So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over again: choice
blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it must
be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, cactuses,
flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like that. Those
Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun, in dolce far niente. Not doing a
hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel.
Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The air feeds most.
Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals
too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine
trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture
somewhere? Ah, in the dead sea, floating on his back, reading a book with a
parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the
weight of the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the
weight of the. Or is it the volume is equal of the weight? It's a law
something like that. Vance in High school cracking his fingerjoints,
teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum. What is weight really
when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per second, per second. Law of
falling bodies: per second, per second. They all fall to the ground. The
earth. It's the force of gravity of the earth is the weight.
He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her
sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded Freeman from
his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and tapped it
at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: just drop in
to see. Per second, per second. Per second for every second it means. From
the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of the postoffice.
Too late box. Post here. No-one. In.
He handed the card through the brass grill.
-- Are there any letters for me? he asked.
While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting
poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his baton
against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer probably.
Went too far last time.
The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a
letter. He thanked and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.
Henry Flower, Esq.
c/o P. O. Westland Row,
City.
Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,
reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment?
Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a grenadier.
Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. Too showy.
That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and
drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night:
disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an
army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half
baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed:
ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A
mason, yes.
He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if
that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger felt
its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. Women will
pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the letter and
crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something pinned on: photo perhaps.
Hair? No.
M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when
you.
-- Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?
-- Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular.
-- How's the body?
-- Fine. How are you?
-- Just keeping alive, M'Coy said.
His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:
-- Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're...
-- O no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.
-- To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?
A photo it isn't. A badge maybe.
-- E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered.
-- I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard
it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?
-- I know.
Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door
of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She stood
still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, searched his
pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll collar, warm for a
day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless stand of her with her hands
in those patch pockets. Like that haughty creature at the polo match. Women
all for caste till you touch the spot. Handsome is and handsome does.
Reserved about to yield. The honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man.
Possess her once take the starch out of her.
-- I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what
do you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were.
Doran, Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came
Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath his
veiled eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the braided
drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight perhaps.
Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will she get up?
-- And he said: Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy? I
said. Poor little Paddy Dignam, he said.
Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces
dangling. Well turned foot. What is he fostering over that change for? Sees
me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two strings to
her bow.
-- Why? I said. What's wrong with him? I said.
Proud: rich: silk stockings.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a
minute.
-- What's wrong with him? he said. He's dead, he said. And, faith, he
filled up. Is it Paddy Dignam? I said. I couldn't believe it when I heard
it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in the Arch.
Yes, he said. He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow.
Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!
A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.
Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and
the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace
street hallway. Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering the
display of. Esprit de corps. Well, what are you gaping at?
-- Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.
-- One of the best, M'Coy said.
The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich
gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her hat in
the sun: flicker, flick.
-- Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said.
-- O yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.
He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:
What is home without
Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
-- My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet.
Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks.
Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.
-- My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the
Ulster hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.
-- That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it
up?
Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread
and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark
lady and fair man. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope.
Love's
Old
Sweet
Song
Comes lo-ve's old...
-- It's a kind of a tour, don't you see? Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.
Sweet song. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part profits.
M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.
-- O well, he said. That's good news.
He moved to go.
-- Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking
around.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
-- Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the
funeral, will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a
drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself would
have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if I'm not
there, will you?
-- I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all
right.
-- Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly
could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do.
-- That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.
Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd
like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped corners,
riveted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him his for the
Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of it from that
good day to this.
Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has
just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its
way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know? In the
same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't he hear the
difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against my grain somehow.
Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that smallpox up there doesn't
get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be vaccinated again. Your wife
and my wife.
Wonder is he pimping after me?
Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured
hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's summer
sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. Leah tonight: Mrs Bandman Palmer.
Like to see her in that again. Hamlet she played last night. Male
impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed suicide? Poor
papa! How he used to talk about Kate Bateman in that! Outside the Adelphi in
London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before I was born that was:
sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the right name is? By
Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was always talking about
where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his
face.
-- Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left
his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his
father and left the God of his father.
Every word is so deep, Leopold.
Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his
face. That day! O dear! O dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was the best for him.
Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the
hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met that
M'Coy fellow.
He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently
champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the
sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they
know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. Too
full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. Gelded
too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their haunches. Might
be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they look. Still their
neigh can be very irritating.
He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.
He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies,
all weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. Voglio e
non. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying
syllables as they pass. He hummed:
La ci darem la mano
La la lala la la.
He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in
the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins
and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with its
forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted child at
marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise tabby, a blinking
sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb them. Mohammed cut a
piece out of his mantel not to wake her. Open it. And once I played marbles
when I went to that old dame's school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's.
And Mr? He opened the letter within the newspaper.
A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?
Dear Henry,
I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am
awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called you
naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is
the real meaning of that word. Are you not happy in your home you poor
little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. Please tell me
what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful name you have.
Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often you have no idea. I
have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as you. I feel so bad about.
Please write me a long letter and tell me more. Remember if you do not I
will punish you. So now you know what I will do to you, you naughty boy, if
you do not write. O how I long to meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my
request before my patience are exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye
now, naughty darling. I have such a bad headache today and write by return
to your longing
MARTHA.
P.S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to
know.
He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell
and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it because
no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then, walking
slowly forward, he read the letter again, murmuring here and there a word.
Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus if you don't
please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses when we soon
anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. Having read it
all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his sidepocket.
Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did
she write it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me,
respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank you:
not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. Bad as a
row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go further next time.
Naughty boy: punish: afraid of-words, of course. Brutal, why not? Try it
anyhow. A bit at a time.
Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.
Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:
pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses without
thorns.
Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in
the Coombe, linked together in the rain.
O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers.
She didn't know what to do
To keep it up
To keep it up.
It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all
day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife
use? Now could you make out a thing like that?
To keep it up.
Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or
faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also the
two sluts in the Coombe would listen.
To keep it up.
Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:
quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been,
strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper:
fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of the well stonecold like the hole in
the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the
trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and
more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.
Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly
in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away,
sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank.
Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the
same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque
for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of
porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four
times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a
moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter,
no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen
about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter.
What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the
same.
An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.
Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The
bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together,
winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of
liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.
He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the
porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again
behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy for a
pass to Mullingar.
Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.
on saint Peter Claver and the African mission. Save China's millions. Wonder
how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium.
Celestials. Rank heresy for them. Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone
they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants the same.
Convert Dr. William J. Walsh D. D. to the true religion. Buddha their god
lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.
Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever
idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows
him: distinguished looking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into
the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't.
They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat
rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their
fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips,
entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.
The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,
pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.
Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place
to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music.
That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with
crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altar
rails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his
hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are
they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head
sank. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it
into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes
and open your mouth. What? Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin.
Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it;
only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse why the cannibals
cotton to it.
He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by
one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in its
corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. We ought
to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here and there, with
heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for it to melt in their
stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that sort of bread: unleavened
shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes them feel happy. Lollipop. It
does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. There's a big idea behind it, kind
of kingdom of God is within you feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a
lump. Then feel all like one family party, same in the theatre, all in the
same swim. They do. I'm sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity.
Then come out a big spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe
in it. Lourdes cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues
bleeding. Old fellow asleep near that confession box. Hence those snores.
Blind faith. Safe in the arms of Kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this
time next year.
He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an
instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace affair
he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what to do to.
Bald spot behind. Letters on his back I. N. R. I.? No: I. H. S. Molly told
me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have suffered, it is. And
the other one? Iron nails ran in.
Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with
a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here with
a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the sly.
Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the invincibles
he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion every morning.
This very church. Peter Carey. No, Peter Claver I am thinking of. Denis
Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children at home. And plotting
that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, now that's a good name for
them, there's always something shiftylooking about them. They're not
straight men of business either. O no she's not here: the flower: no, no. By
the way did I tear up that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.
The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs
smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what
they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage Wheatley's
Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale (aromatic). Doesn't
give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. Cold comfort. Pious fraud
but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old booser worse than another
coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the whole atmosphere of the. Quite
right. Perfectly right that is.
Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.
Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that
instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in
Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the Stabat Mater of
Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? Christ,
but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. Footdrill stopped.
Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice against that corner. I
could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the people looking up:
Quis est homo!
Some of that old sacred music is splendid. Mercadante: seven last
words. Mozart's twelfth mass: the Gloria in that. Those old popes were keen
on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for
example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too chanting,
regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still,
having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of
voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses.
Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a placid.
No worry. Fall into flesh don't they? Gluttons, tall, long legs. Who knows?
Eunuch. One way out of it.
He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and
bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom glanced
about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand up at the
gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again and he sat back
quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the altar, holding the thing
out from him, and he and the massboy answered each other in Latin. Then the
priest knelt down and began to read off a card:
-- O God, our refuge and our strength.
Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them
the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloria and
immaculate virgin. Joseph her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if
you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes
like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to. Then I will tell you all.
Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon In their hands. More than doctor or
solicitor. Woman dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you
chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse.
Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's
little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at
an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide
her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will
address the meeting. How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be
in Rome: they work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too?
Bequests also: to the P. P. for the time being in his absolute discretion.
Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in the Fermanagh will case in the
witness box. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the
church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.
The priest prayed:
-- Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be
our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God
restrain him, we humbly pray): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those other
wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women
remained behind: thanksgiving.
Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.
He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the
time. Women enjoy it. Annoyed if you don't. Why-didn't you tell me before.
Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a (whh!) just a (whh!) fluff.
Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. Glimpses of the moon. Still like
you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. He passed, discreetly
buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main door into the light. He
stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble bowl while before him and
behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in the low tide of holy water.
Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because
I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past.
Time enough yet. Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the
last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and
gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of
the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.
He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other
trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. O
well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up last?
Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must have been
or the second. O he can look it up in the prescriptions book.
The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone.
The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why?
Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. Living
all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his alabaster
lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. Smell almost
cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor whack. He ought to physic
himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow that picked an herb
to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to be careful. Enough
stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue litmus paper red. Chloroform.
Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup
bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy
where you least expect it. Clever of nature.
-- About a fortnight ago, sir?
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said.
He waited by the counter, inhaling the keen reek of drugs, the dusty
dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling your aches
and pains.
-- Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then
orangeflower water...
It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.
-- And white wax also, he said.
Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her
eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my cuffs.
Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles
and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. Skinfood. One of the
old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only one skin. Leopold yes.
Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to make it worse. But you want a
perfume too. What perfume does your? Peau d'Espagne. That orangeflower. Pure
curd soap. Water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps have. Time to get a
bath round the corner. Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your
navel. Nicer if a nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the
bath. Curious longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure.
Pity no time for massage. Feel fresh then all day. Funeral be rather glum.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought
a bottle?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day
and I'll take one of those soaps. How much are they?
-- Fourpence, sir.
Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.
-- I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.
-- Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.
-- Good, Mr Bloom said.
He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.
At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said:
-- Hello, Bloom, what's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a
minute.
Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.
Bantam Lyons' yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' soap?
Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.
-- I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?
He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the paper
and get shut of him.
-- You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.
-- Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.
-- I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.
Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.
-- What's that? his sharp voice said.
-- I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it
away that moment.
Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms.
-- I'Il risk it, he said. Here, thanks.
He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut.
Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender
turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to
gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come
back. Fleshpots of Egypt.
He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He eyed
the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled up like
a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round like a wheel.
Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: college. Something
to catch the eye.
There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How do
you do, sir?
Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it here.
Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Buller broke a window in the Kildare
street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in their line.
And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the floor. Heatwave.
Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which in the stream of life
we trace is dearer than them all.
Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.
He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and
limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his
navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating,
floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid
floating flower.
MARTIN CUNNINGHAM, FIRST, POKED HIS SILKHATTED HEAD INTO the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after
him, curving his height with care.
-- Come on, Simon.
-- After you, Mr Bloom said.
Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:
-- Yes, yes.
-- Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.
Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it tight till it shut tight. He passed an arm through
the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriage window at the
lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Nose
whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she was passed over.
Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad to see us go we give
them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners.
Slop about in slipper-slappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready.
Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your
side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and
shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an
envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job.
All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it
out of that. Wait for an opportunity.
All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front turning: then nearer:
then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the
avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking
pace.
They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels rattled
rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook rattling in
the doorframes.
-- What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.
-- Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.
Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.
-- That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.
All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother
road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in
mourning, a wide hat.
-- There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.
-- Who is that?
-- Your son and heir.
-- Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.
The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back to
the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus fell
back, saying:
-- Was that Mulligan cad with him? His fidus Achates?
-- No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.
-- Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little cost-drawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of
dung, the wise child that knows her own father.
Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros the
bottleworks. Dodder bridge.
Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing in
Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the landlady's two
hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. Beginning to tell on
him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing his back. Thinks he'll
cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. About six hundred per cent
profit.
-- He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all
over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'Il make it my
business to write a letter one of those days to his mother or his aunt or
whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. I `Il tickle his
catastrophe, believe you me.
He cried above the clatter of the wheels.
-- I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counter-jumper's
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely.
He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild
face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking
beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it
would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning in Raymond
terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of
the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown
on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying
for it. How life begins.
Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn
German too.
-- Are we late? Mr Power asked.
-- Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch
Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life.
Life.
The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.
-- Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.
-- He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him.
Do you follow me?
He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.
-- What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?
-- Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr
Power said.
All raised their thighs, eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward and
said:
-- Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?
-- It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.
Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.
Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.
-- After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world.
-- Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak
of his beard gently.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.
-- And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.
-- At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.
-- I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come.
The carriage halted short.
-- What's wrong?
-- We're stopped.
-- Where are we?
Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.
-- The grand canal, he said.
Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illness compared. Only measles. Flaxseed tea.
Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss this
chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, Leopold, is