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eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened.
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
PREPARATORY TO ANYTHING ELSE MR BLOOM BRUSHED OFF THE GREATER bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion, which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit
unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom, in
view of the hour it was and there being no pumps of Vartry water available
for their ablutions, let alone drinking purposes, hit upon an expedient by
suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was
called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt Bridge, where they might hit
upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how
to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but
inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the
subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly
yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it
occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description
which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e. d. ed,
particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be
found. Accordingly, after a few such preliminaries, as, in spite of his
having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, brushing, they both walked together
along Beaver street, or, more properly, lane, as far as the farrier's and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching
into Amiens Street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But, as he
confidently anticipated, there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire
anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows
inside on the spree, outside the North Star Hotel and there was no symptom
of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a
professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a
whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing commonsense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which
they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullet's and the Signal House,
which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of
Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the
circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the
timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons, though, entering thoroughly
into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So,
as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and
the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation
of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was
waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United
Tramways Company's sandstrewer happening to be returning the elder man
recounted to his companion ю propos of the incident his own truly miraculous
escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course
all traffic was suspended at that late hour, and, passing the back door of
the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree,
more especially at night), ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due
course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station.
Between this point and the high, at present unlit, warehouses of Beresford
Place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's, the
stonecutter's, in his mind somehow in Talbot Place, first turning on the
right, while the other, who was acting as his fidus Achates, inhaled with
internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, situated
quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily
bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable.
Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread?
At Rourke's the baker's, it is said.
En route, to his taciturn, and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion, Mr Bloom, who at all events, was in complete
possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober,
spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and
swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while, though not as a
habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young
fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under
the influence of liquor unless you knew a little juijitsu for every
contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a
nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on
the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious that,
but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour, the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward, or,
failing that, the Bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before
Mr Tobias, or, he being the solicitor, rather old Wall, he meant to say, or
Malony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The
reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he
cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown
and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A Division in
Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never
on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the City, Pembroke Road, for
example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason
being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he
commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any
description, liable to go off at any time, which was tantamount to inciting
them against civilians should by any chance they fall nut over anything. You
frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also
character besides which the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
demimonde ran away with a lot of #. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest
danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed
question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as
both nourishing and blood-making and possessing aperient virtues (notably a
good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a
certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble
all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others
practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen
by all his pubhunting confrхres but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on
the part of his brother medicos under all the circs.
-- And that one was Judas, said Stephen, who up to then had said
nothing whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge when a brazier of
coke burning in front of a sentrybox, or something like one, attracted their
rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special
reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating
from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation
watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this
had happened, or had been mentioned as having happened, before but it cost
him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
quondam friend of his father's Gumley. To avoid a meeting be drew nearer to
the pillars of the railway bridge.
-- Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl, evidently, under the arches
saluted again, calling: Night! Stephen, of course, started rather dizzily
and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom, actuated by motives of
inherent delicacy, inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own
business, moved off but nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a
shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Although unusual in the
Dublin area, he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes
who had next to nothing to live on to be about waylaying and generally
terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders
ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a
moments notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral,
gagged and garotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in any over sober state himself, recognised Corley's
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley, some called him, and
his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of Inspector
Corley of the G Division, lately deceased, who had married a certain
Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather, Patrick
Michael Corley, of New Ross, had married the widow of a publican there whose
maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it, though not
proved, that she descended from the house of the Lords Talbot de Malahide in
whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well
worth seeing, his mother or aunt or some relative had enjoyed the
distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This, therefore, was the
reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now
addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord
John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had
all deserted him. Furthermore, he had a row with Lenehan and called him to
Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of other uncalled-for
expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where
on God's earth he could get something, anything at all to do. No, it was the
daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir
of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way,
both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn't a
complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow, he was ill in.
-- I wouldn't ask you, only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God
knows I'm on the rocks.
-- There'll be a job tomorrow or the next day, Stephen told him, in a
boys' school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garret Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.
-- Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I
was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. Got stuck
twice in the junior at the Christian Brothers.
-- I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley, at the first go-off, was inclined to suspect it was something
to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart
off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's,
but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told
him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street
(which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for
a bob. He was starving too though he hadn't said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew
that Corley's brandnew rigmarole, on a par with the others, was hardly
deserving of much credence. However, haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere
disco, etcetera, as the Latin poet remarks, especially as luck would have it
he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which
was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the
wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get
it Out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing
to do but hand out the needful - whereas. He put his hand in a pocket
anyhow, not with the idea of finding any food there, but thinking he might
lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at
all events and get sufficient to eat. But the result was in the negative
for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were
all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for
the moment whether he had lost, as well he might have, or left, because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse, in
fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though
he tried to recollect about biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly
gave them, or where was, or did he buy? However, in another pocket he came
across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously, however, as
it turned out.
-- Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen lent him one of
them.
-- Thanks, Corley answered. You're a gentleman. I'll pay you back some
time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in
Camden street with Boylan the billsticker. You might put in a good word for
us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the
office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've to
book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a shite
anyway so long as I get a job even as a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently, being not quite so down in the mouth after the
two-and-six he got, he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags
Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's
bookkeeper there, that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara
and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow, he was lagged
the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and
refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman's
sentrybox, who, evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a
quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account
while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at
Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen
that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to
truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded
individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd
observation, he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy
wearing apparel generally, testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Probably
he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a
question of one preying on his next door neighbour all round, in every deep,
so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the
street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude, with or without
the option of a fine, would be a very rara avis altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour
of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom, who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,
laughingly, Stephen, that is:
-- He's down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucket dredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse Quay and quite possibly Out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:
-- Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention
it his face was familiar to me. But leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
-- Half-a-crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.
-- Needs, Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably
does. Everyone according to his needs and everyone according to his deeds.
But talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you
sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is Out of the question and, even
supposing you did, you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row
station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don't mean to presume to
dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's
house?
-- To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer.
-- I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned. Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
-- I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?
-- A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride,
quite legitimately, Out of you. You could go back, perhaps, he hazarded,
still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it
was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that
English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion,
were patently trying, as if the whole bally station belonged to them, to
give Stephen the slip in the confusion.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion, however, such as
it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it, with his sister, Dilly, sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa
that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink
it with the oatmeal water for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten
at two a penny, with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat
meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish
heads and bones on a square of brown paper in accordance with the third
precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being
quarter tense or, if not, ember days or something like that.
-- No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr
Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes. He
knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never
realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn't notice
as much as I did but it wouldn't occasion me the least surprise to learn
that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some
ulterior object.
He understood, however, from all he heard, that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade
fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony
medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to
which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by
artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide
was it? was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he
could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to
fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down
to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
-- Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call
picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude, half curiosity, augmented by
friendliness, which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact, on the problem
as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled, to judge by two or
three low spirited remarks he let drop, or, the other way about, saw through
the affair, and, for some reason or other best known to himself, allowed
matters to more or less... Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more
than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he
experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.
Adjacent to the men's public urinal he perceived an icecream car round
which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid
of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly
animated way, there being some little differences between the parties.
-- Putana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!
-- Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piы
-- Dice lui, pero.
-- Farabutto! Mortacci sui!
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before;
the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the
keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the
invincible, though he wouldn't vouch for the actual facts, which quite
possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our
two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner, only to be greeted by
stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and
other nondescript specimens of the genus homo, already there engaged in
eating and drinking, diversified by conversation, for whom they seemingly
formed an object of marked curiosity.
-- Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape
of solid food, say a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order
these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores, or
whatever they were, after a cursory examination, turned their eyes,
apparently dissatisfied, away, though one redbearded bibulous individual, a
portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor, probably, still stared for some
appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just
a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute though, to be sure,
rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his protиgи in an audible tone
of voice, apropos of the battle royal in the street which was still raging
fast and furious:
-- Beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? Bella Poetria! it is so melodious and
full. Belladonna voglio.
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn, if he could, suffering
from dead lassitude generally, replied:
-- To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
-- Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at
the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this tйte-ю-tйte put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and
a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed, after which he
beat a retreat to his counter. Mr Bloom determining to have a good square
look at him later on so as not to appear to... for which reason he
encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by
surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be
called coffee gradually nearer him.
-- Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little
time. Like names, Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody, Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name?
-- Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our
name was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor, who had his weather eye on the newcomers,
boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular,
squarely by asking:
-- And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure, from an unexpected
quarter, answered:
-- Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old Hollands
and water.
-- You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
-- I've heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.
-- He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.
-- All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the
sailor, of his own accord, turned to the other Occupants of the shelter with
the remark: I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over
his shoulder. The left hand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
-- Bottle Out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely, then
he screwed his features up some way sideways and glared out into the night
with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
-- Pom, he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.
-- Pom, he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:
Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,
Never missed nor he never will.
A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like
asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley.
-- Beg pardon, the sailor said.
-- Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.
-- Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the
magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years.
He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in
Stockholm.
-- Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.
-- Murphy's my name, the sailor continued, W. B. Murphy, of Carrigaloe.
Know where that is?
-- Queenstown Harbour, Stephen replied.
-- That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's
where I hails from. My little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I
know. For England, home and beauty. She's my own true wife I haven't seen
for seven years now, sailing about.
Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene - the homecoming
to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones - a rainy
night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a number of
stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and
Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a
favourite and most trying declamation piece, by the way, of poor John Casey
and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way? Never about the runaway
wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the
window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and
the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his
affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and make a fresh
start. There she sits, a grass widow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me
dead. Rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or
Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in
shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Boo! The
wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, post mortem child. With a high
ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy O! Bow to the inevitable.
Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband, W. B.
Murphy.
The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one
of the jarvies with the request:
-- You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you, do
you?
The jarvey addressed, as it happened, had not but the keeper took a die
of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was
passed from hand to hand.
-- Thank you, the sailor said.
He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing, and with some slow
stammers, proceeded:
-- We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster Rosevean
from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon.
There's my discharge. See? W. B. Murphy, A. B. S.
In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket
and handed to his neighbours a not very clean looking folded document.
-- You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,
leaning on the counter.
-- Why, the sailor answered, upon reflection upon it, I've
circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was
The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in
white sheepskin overcoats and black goat-fell cloaks arise and appear to
many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner in athletes
singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap
and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In
wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies
lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. laughing witches
in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster
plasters blisters. It rains dragon's teeth. Armed heroes spring up from
furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and
fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith
O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin
M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond John O'Leary
against liar O'Johnny, lord Edward Fitzgerald against lord Gerald
Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The Donoghue.
On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the field altar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. >From the
high barbicans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies
naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi
O'Flynn, in a long petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back
to the front, celebrates camp mash. The Reverend Mr Hugh C. Haines love MA.
in a plain cassock and mortar board, his head and collar back to the front,
holds over the celebrants head an open umbrella.)
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN Introibo ad altare diaboli.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.
FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN (Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus Meum.
THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE (Raises high behind the celebrant's
petticoats, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is
stuck.) My body.
THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rot,
Aiulella!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Dooooooooooog!
THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!
(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)
ADONAI Goooooooooood!
(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of mange and Green factions
sing Kick the Pope and Daily, daily sing to Mary.)
PRIVATE CARR (With ferocious articulation.) I'll do him in, so help me
fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking
windpipe!
OLD GUMMY GRANNY (Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand.) Remove him,
acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. (She
prays.) O good God, take him!
BLOOM (Runs to Lynch.) Can't you get him away?
LYNCH He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! (To Bloom.)
Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. (He drags Kitty away.)
STEPHEN (Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit.
BLOOM (Runs to Stephen.) Come along with me now before worse happens.
Here's your stick.
STEPHEN Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.
CISSY CAFFREY (Pulling Private Carr.) Come on, you're boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. (Shouting in his ear.) I forgive him for
insulting me.
BLOOM (Over Stephen's shoulder.) Yes, go. You see he's incapable.
PRIVATE CARR (Breaks loose.) I'll insult him.
(He rushes towards Stephen, fists outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls stunned. He lies prone, his face to
the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)
MAJOR TWEEDY (Loudly.) Carbine in bucket! cease fire! Salute!
THE RETRIEVER (Barking furiously.) Ute ute ute ute ute ute uteute.
THE CROWD Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! He's
fainted!
(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)
What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the
influence? Let them go and fight the Boers!
THE BAWD Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with
his girl? He gave him the coward's blow.
(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit.)
THE RETRIEVER (Barking.) Wow wow wow.
BLOOM (Shoves them back, loudly.) Get back, stand back!
PRIVATE COMPTON (Tugging his comrade.) Here bugger off, Harry. There's
the cops!
(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group)
FIRST WATCH What's wrong here?
PRIVATE COMPTON We were with this lady and he insulted us and assaulted
my chum. (The retriever barks.) Who owns the bleeding tyke?
CISSY CAFFREY (With expectation.) Is he bleeding?
A MAN (Rising from his knees.) No. Gone off. He'll come to all right.
BLOOM (Glances sharply at the man.) Leave him to me. I can easily...
SECOND WATCH Who are you? Do you know him?
PRIVATE CARR (Lurches towards the watch.) He insulted my lady friend.
BLOOM (Angrily.) You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.
SECOND WATCH I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty. PRIVATE COMPTON (Pulling his comrade.) Here, bugger off, Harry. Or
Bennett'll have you in the lockup.
PRIVATE CARR (Staggering as he is pulled away.) God fuck old Bennett!
He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.
FIRST WATCH (Taking out his notebook.) What's his name?
BLOOM (Peering over the crowd.) I just see a car there. If you give me
a hand a second, sergeant.
FIRST WATCH Name and address.
(Corny Kelleher weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)
BLOOM (Quickly.) O, the very man! (He whispers.) Simon Dedalus' son. A
bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.
SECOND WATCH Night, Mr Kelleher.
CORNY KELLEHER (To the watch, with drawling eye.) That's all right. I
know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. (He laughs.) Twenty
to one. Do you follow me?
FIRST WATCH (Turns to the crowd.) Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.
(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)
CORNY KELLEHER Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. (He
laughs, shaking his head.) We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse.
What? Eh, what?
FIRST WATCH (Laughs.) I suppose so.
CORNY KELLEHER (Nudges the second watch.) Come and wipe your name off
the slate. (He lilts, wagging his head.) With my tooraloom tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?
SECOND WATCH (Genially.) Ah, sure we were too.
CORNY KELLEHER (Winking.) Boys will be boys. I've a car round there.
SECOND WATCH All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.
CORNY KELLEHER I'll see to that.
BLOOM (Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.) Thank you very
much gentlemen, thank you. (He mumbles confidentially.) We don't want any
scandal, you understand. Father is a well known, highly respected citizen.
Just a little wild oats, you understand.
FIRST WATCH O, I understand, sir.
SECOND WATCH That's all right, Sir.
FIRST WATCH It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have had to
report it at the station.
BLOOM (Nods rapidly.) Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty.
SECOND WATCH It's our duty.
CORNY KELLEHER Good night, men.
THE WATCH (Saluting together.) Night, gentlemen. (They move off with
slow heavy tread.)
BLOOM (Blows.) Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?.
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.) Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on
the race. Drowning his grief and were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I
landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown.
BLOOM I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...
CORNY KELLEHER (Laughs.) Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots.
No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. (He laughs
again and leers with lacklustre eye.) Thanks be to God we have it in the
house what, eh, do you follow me? Hah! hah! hah!
BLOOM (Tries to laugh.) He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor fellow
he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just
making my way home...
(The horse neighs.)
THE HORSE Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!
CORNY KELLEHER Sure it was Behan, our jarvey there, that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and got
off to see. (He laughs.) Sober hearsedrivers a specialty. Will I give him a
lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what?
BLOOM No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.
(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher asquint, drawls
at the horse. Bloom in gloom, looms down.)
CORNY KELLEHER (Scratches his nape.) Sandycove! (He bends down and
calls to Stephen.) Eh! (He calls again.) Eh! He's covered with shavings
anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him.
BLOOM No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.
CORNY KELLEHER Ah well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll
shove along. (He laughs.) I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the
dead. Safe home!
THE HORSE (Neighs.) Hohohohohome.
BLOOM Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few...
(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)
CORNY KELLEHER (From the car, standing.) Night.
BLOOM Night.
(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car
and horse back slowly, awkwardly and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat
sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Blooms plight. The jarvey
joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom
shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher
reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what
else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is
exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of
the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom
with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The
tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their
tooralooloolooloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephens hat festooned
with shavings and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and
shakes him by the shoulder.)
BLOOM Eh! Ho! (There is no answer he bends again.) Mr Dedalus! (There
is no answer.) The name if you call. Somnambulist. (He bends again and,
hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.) Stephen!
(There is no answer. He calls again.) Stephen!
STEPHEN (Groans.) Who? Black panther vampire. (He sighs and stretches
himself then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.) Who... drive... Fergus
now. And pierce... wood's woven shade?...
(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)
BLOOM Poetry. Well educated. Pity. (He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen's waistcoat.) To breathe. (He brushes the wood shavings
from Stephen's clothes with light hands and fingers.) One pound seven. Not
hurt anyhow. (He listens.) What!
(Murmurs.)
... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim...
(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom
holding his hat and ashplant stands erect. A dog barks in the distance.
Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on
Stephen's face and form.)
BLOOM (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In
the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl.
Some girl. Best thing could happen him... (He murmurs.)... swear that I will
always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts...
(He murmurs.) in the rough sands of the sea. a cabletow's length from the
shore... where the tide ebbs ... and flows...
(Silent, thoughtful, alert, he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears
slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton
suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his
hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)
BLOOM (Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.) Rudy!
RUDY (Gazes unseeing into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing,
smiling. He has a delicate mauveface. On his suit he has diamond and ruby
buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet
howknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)
PREPARATORY TO ANYTHING ELSE MR BLOOM BRUSHED OFF THE GREATER bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion, which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit
unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom, in
view of the hour it was and there being no pumps of Vartry water available
for their ablutions, let alone drinking purposes, hit upon an expedient by
suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's shelter, as it was
called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt Bridge, where they might hit
upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how
to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but
inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the
subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly
yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it
occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description
which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e. d. ed,
particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be
found. Accordingly, after a few such preliminaries, as, in spite of his
having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, brushing, they both walked together
along Beaver street, or, more properly, lane, as far as the farrier's and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching
into Amiens Street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But, as he
confidently anticipated, there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire
anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows
inside on the spree, outside the North Star Hotel and there was no symptom
of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a
professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a
whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing commonsense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which
they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullet's and the Signal House,
which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of
Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the
circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the
timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons, though, entering thoroughly
into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So,
as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and
the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation
of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was
waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United
Tramways Company's sandstrewer happening to be returning the elder man
recounted to his companion ю propos of the incident his own truly miraculous
escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course
all traffic was suspended at that late hour, and, passing the back door of
the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree,
more especially at night), ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due
course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station.
Between this point and the high, at present unlit, warehouses of Beresford
Place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's, the
stonecutter's, in his mind somehow in Talbot Place, first turning on the
right, while the other, who was acting as his fidus Achates, inhaled with
internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, situated
quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily
bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable.
Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread?
At Rourke's the baker's, it is said.
En route, to his taciturn, and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion, Mr Bloom, who at all events, was in complete
possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober,
spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and
swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while, though not as a
habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young
fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under
the influence of liquor unless you knew a little juijitsu for every
contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a
nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on
the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious that,
but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour, the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward, or,
failing that, the Bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before
Mr Tobias, or, he being the solicitor, rather old Wall, he meant to say, or
Malony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The
reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he
cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown
and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A Division in
Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never
on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the City, Pembroke Road, for
example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason
being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he
commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any
description, liable to go off at any time, which was tantamount to inciting
them against civilians should by any chance they fall nut over anything. You
frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also
character besides which the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
demimonde ran away with a lot of #. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest
danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed
question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as
both nourishing and blood-making and possessing aperient virtues (notably a
good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a
certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble
all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others
practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen
by all his pubhunting confrхres but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on
the part of his brother medicos under all the circs.
-- And that one was Judas, said Stephen, who up to then had said
nothing whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge when a brazier of
coke burning in front of a sentrybox, or something like one, attracted their
rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special
reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating
from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation
watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this
had happened, or had been mentioned as having happened, before but it cost
him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
quondam friend of his father's Gumley. To avoid a meeting be drew nearer to
the pillars of the railway bridge.
-- Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl, evidently, under the arches
saluted again, calling: Night! Stephen, of course, started rather dizzily
and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom, actuated by motives of
inherent delicacy, inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own
business, moved off but nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a
shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Although unusual in the
Dublin area, he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes
who had next to nothing to live on to be about waylaying and generally
terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders
ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a
moments notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral,
gagged and garotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in any over sober state himself, recognised Corley's
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley, some called him, and
his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of Inspector
Corley of the G Division, lately deceased, who had married a certain
Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather, Patrick
Michael Corley, of New Ross, had married the widow of a publican there whose
maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it, though not
proved, that she descended from the house of the Lords Talbot de Malahide in
whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well
worth seeing, his mother or aunt or some relative had enjoyed the
distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This, therefore, was the
reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now
addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord
John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends had
all deserted him. Furthermore, he had a row with Lenehan and called him to
Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of other uncalled-for
expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where
on God's earth he could get something, anything at all to do. No, it was the
daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir
of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way,
both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn't a
complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow, he was ill in.
-- I wouldn't ask you, only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God
knows I'm on the rocks.
-- There'll be a job tomorrow or the next day, Stephen told him, in a
boys' school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garret Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.
-- Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I
was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. Got stuck
twice in the junior at the Christian Brothers.
-- I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley, at the first go-off, was inclined to suspect it was something
to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart
off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney's,
but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M'Conachie told
him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street
(which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for
a bob. He was starving too though he hadn't said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew
that Corley's brandnew rigmarole, on a par with the others, was hardly
deserving of much credence. However, haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere
disco, etcetera, as the Latin poet remarks, especially as luck would have it
he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which
was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the
wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get
it Out of Corley's head that he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing
to do but hand out the needful - whereas. He put his hand in a pocket
anyhow, not with the idea of finding any food there, but thinking he might
lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at
all events and get sufficient to eat. But the result was in the negative
for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were
all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for
the moment whether he had lost, as well he might have, or left, because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse, in
fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though
he tried to recollect about biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly
gave them, or where was, or did he buy? However, in another pocket he came
across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously, however, as
it turned out.
-- Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen lent him one of
them.
-- Thanks, Corley answered. You're a gentleman. I'll pay you back some
time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in
Camden street with Boylan the billsticker. You might put in a good word for
us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the
office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you've to
book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don't give a shite
anyway so long as I get a job even as a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently, being not quite so down in the mouth after the
two-and-six he got, he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags
Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's
bookkeeper there, that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara
and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow, he was lagged
the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and
refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman's
sentrybox, who, evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a
quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account
while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at
Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen
that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to
truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded
individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd
observation, he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy
wearing apparel generally, testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Probably
he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a
question of one preying on his next door neighbour all round, in every deep,
so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the
street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude, with or without
the option of a fine, would be a very rara avis altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour
of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom, who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,
laughingly, Stephen, that is:
-- He's down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucket dredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse Quay and quite possibly Out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:
-- Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention
it his face was familiar to me. But leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
-- Half-a-crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.
-- Needs, Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably
does. Everyone according to his needs and everyone according to his deeds.
But talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you
sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is Out of the question and, even
supposing you did, you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row
station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don't mean to presume to
dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's
house?
-- To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer.
-- I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned. Today, in fact, or, to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
-- I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?
-- A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great pride,
quite legitimately, Out of you. You could go back, perhaps, he hazarded,
still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it
was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that
English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion,
were patently trying, as if the whole bally station belonged to them, to
give Stephen the slip in the confusion.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion, however, such as
it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it, with his sister, Dilly, sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa
that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink
it with the oatmeal water for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten
at two a penny, with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat
meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish
heads and bones on a square of brown paper in accordance with the third
precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being
quarter tense or, if not, ember days or something like that.
-- No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr
Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher, and friend, if I were in your shoes. He
knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never
realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn't notice
as much as I did but it wouldn't occasion me the least surprise to learn
that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some
ulterior object.
He understood, however, from all he heard, that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade
fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony
medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to
which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by
artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide
was it? was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he
could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to
fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down
to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple.
-- Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call
picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude, half curiosity, augmented by
friendliness, which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact, on the problem
as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled, to judge by two or
three low spirited remarks he let drop, or, the other way about, saw through
the affair, and, for some reason or other best known to himself, allowed
matters to more or less... Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more
than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he
experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.
Adjacent to the men's public urinal he perceived an icecream car round
which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid
of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly
animated way, there being some little differences between the parties.
-- Putana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!
-- Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piы
-- Dice lui, pero.
-- Farabutto! Mortacci sui!
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before;
the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the
keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the
invincible, though he wouldn't vouch for the actual facts, which quite
possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our
two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner, only to be greeted by
stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and
other nondescript specimens of the genus homo, already there engaged in
eating and drinking, diversified by conversation, for whom they seemingly
formed an object of marked curiosity.
-- Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape
of solid food, say a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order
these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores, or
whatever they were, after a cursory examination, turned their eyes,
apparently dissatisfied, away, though one redbearded bibulous individual, a
portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor, probably, still stared for some
appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor.
Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just
a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute though, to be sure,
rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his protиgи in an audible tone
of voice, apropos of the battle royal in the street which was still raging
fast and furious:
-- Beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? Bella Poetria! it is so melodious and
full. Belladonna voglio.
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn, if he could, suffering
from dead lassitude generally, replied:
-- To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
-- Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at
the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this tйte-ю-tйte put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and
a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed, after which he
beat a retreat to his counter. Mr Bloom determining to have a good square
look at him later on so as not to appear to... for which reason he
encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by
surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be
called coffee gradually nearer him.
-- Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little
time. Like names, Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody, Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name?
-- Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our
name was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor, who had his weather eye on the newcomers,
boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular,
squarely by asking:
-- And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure, from an unexpected
quarter, answered:
-- Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old Hollands
and water.
-- You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
-- I've heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.
-- He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.
-- All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the
sailor, of his own accord, turned to the other Occupants of the shelter with
the remark: I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over
his shoulder. The left hand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
-- Bottle Out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely, then
he screwed his features up some way sideways and glared out into the night
with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
-- Pom, he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.
-- Pom, he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:
Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,
Never missed nor he never will.
A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like
asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley.
-- Beg pardon, the sailor said.
-- Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.
-- Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the
magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years.
He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in
Stockholm.
-- Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.
-- Murphy's my name, the sailor continued, W. B. Murphy, of Carrigaloe.
Know where that is?
-- Queenstown Harbour, Stephen replied.
-- That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's
where I hails from. My little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I
know. For England, home and beauty. She's my own true wife I haven't seen
for seven years now, sailing about.
Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene - the homecoming
to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones - a rainy
night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a number of
stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and
Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a
favourite and most trying declamation piece, by the way, of poor John Casey
and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way? Never about the runaway
wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the
window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and
the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his
affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and make a fresh
start. There she sits, a grass widow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me
dead. Rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or
Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in
shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Boo! The
wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, post mortem child. With a high
ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy O! Bow to the inevitable.
Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband, W. B.
Murphy.
The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one
of the jarvies with the request:
-- You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you, do
you?
The jarvey addressed, as it happened, had not but the keeper took a die
of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was
passed from hand to hand.
-- Thank you, the sailor said.
He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing, and with some slow
stammers, proceeded:
-- We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster Rosevean
from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon.
There's my discharge. See? W. B. Murphy, A. B. S.
In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket
and handed to his neighbours a not very clean looking folded document.
-- You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,
leaning on the counter.
-- Why, the sailor answered, upon reflection upon it, I've
circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was