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Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole one after the
other.
We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire
of purgatory.
Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near
you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma poor mamma,
and little Rudy.
The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time?
Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of course. Of
course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the
heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and
some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to
keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are
sure there's no.
The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.
The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way
deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he traversed
the dismal fields.
Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.
-- I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is
your christian name? I'm not sure.
-- L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too.
He asked me to.
Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman once.
So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died
of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley,
you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw
to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him under an
obligation: costs nothing.
-- And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the.
He looked around.
-- Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?
-- M'Intosh, Hynes said, scribbling, I don't know who he is. Is that
his name?
He moved away, looking about him.
-- No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!
Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord,
what became of him?
A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.
-- O, excuse me!
He stepped aside nimbly.
Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath
against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on
their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked
the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a
long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered
weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the
coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed
something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble.
Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just.
The mourners moved away slowly, without aim, by devious paths, staying
awhile to read a name on a tomb.
-- Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.
-- Let us, Mr Power said.
They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:
-- Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.
Hynes shook his head.
-- Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.
Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old
Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity
for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?
Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them
together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave.
Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself.
Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed
away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the
shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you
what they were. So and so, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid
five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good
Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose
is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put
it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's
acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal
spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they
never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil.
Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The
other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.
A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu! Not a budge out of him. Knows
there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder.
Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a
daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.
The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve.
Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart.
Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased.
Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the
basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the
boy. Apollo that was.
How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.
Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the
voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the
house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeragain
hellohello amarawf kopthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died
when I was in Wisdom Hely's.
Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop.
He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he
goes.
An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive
crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good
hidingplace for treasure.
Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was
buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds.
Tail gone now.
One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones
clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone
bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China
that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better.
Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and
Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime fever pits to eat them.
Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower
of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the
pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life
no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the
news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.
We learned that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for
them. Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't
care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste
like raw white turnips.
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.
Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was
here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even
scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to
get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give
you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see
my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another
world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No
more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near
you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this
innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.
Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.
Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton. John Henry, solicitor,
commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be In his office. Mat
Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the
Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that
evening on the bowling green because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of
mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first
sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow
always like that, mortified if women are by.
Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.
-- Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.
They stopped.
-- Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said, pointing.
John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.
-- There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.
John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed
the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again.
-- It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said.
John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.
-- Thank you, he said shortly.
They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a
few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could
wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger without his seeing it.
Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.
Get the pull over him that way.
Thank you. How grand we are this morning.
In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis
BEFORE NELSON'S PILLAR TRAILS SLOWED, SHUNTED, CHANGED TROLLEY, started
for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,
Palmerston park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend
and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway
Company's timekeeper bawled them off:
-- Rathgar and Terenure!
-- Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a
singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.
-- Start, Palmerston park!
The Wearer of the Crown
Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and
polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars,
bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung
sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for
local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.
Gentlemen of the Press
Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores
and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped
dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.
-- There it is Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.
-- Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to
the Telegraph office.
The-door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in
a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a
roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier.
Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the
newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.
-- I'll go through the printing works, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut
square.
-- Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen
behind his ear, we can do him one.
-- Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. We.
William Brayden, Esquire, of Oaklands, Sandymount
Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered:
-- Brayden.
Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a
stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and
National Press and the Freeman's Journal and National Press. Dullthudding
Guinness's barrels. It passed stately up the staircase steered by an
umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step:
back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts
of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
-- Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.
The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build
one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk Mary, Martha.
Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.
-- Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.
-- Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our
Saviour.
Jesus Mario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his
heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one.
The Crozier and the Pen
-- His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.
They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and
stepped off posthaste with a word.
-- Freeman!
Mr Bloom said slowly:
-- Well, he is one of our saviours also.
A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed
in through the sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along
the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping,
thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards
Nannetti's reading closet.
With Unfeigned Regret it is we announce the of a most respected Dublin
Burgess
Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping thump. This
morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to
atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are
pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away,
tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.
How a Great Daily Organ is turned out
Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy
crown.
Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for
College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth.
It's the ads ad side features sell a weekly not the stale news in the
official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one
thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of
Tinnachinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing
return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes.
Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle' Toby's page for
tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure
for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The
personal note M.A. P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand.
World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two
bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More
Irish than the Irish.
The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thurap. Now if he
got paralysed there and no one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on
the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole
thing. Want a cool head.
-- Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him they say.
The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the
dirty glass screen.
-- Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.
Mr Bloom stood in his way.
-- If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,
pointing backward with his thumb.
-- Did you? Hynes asked.
-- Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him.
-- Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too.
He hurried on eagerly towards the Freeman's Journal.
Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint.
We see the Canvasser at work
Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.
-- Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you
remember.
Mr Nannetti considered the cutting a while and nodded.
-- He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.
He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.
The foreman moved his pencil towards it.
-- But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He
wants two keys at the top.
Hell of a racket they make. Maybe he understands what I.
The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began
to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.
-- Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.
Let him take that in first.
Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of
it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various
uses, thousand and one things.
Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew
swiftly on the scarred-woodwork.
House of Key(e)s
-- Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name
Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.
Better not teach him his own business.
-- You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the
top in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea?
The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched
there quietly.
-- The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,
the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the
isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?
I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then if
he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not.
-- We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?
-- I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a
house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and
just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. High class licensed
premises. Longfelt want. So on.
The foreman thought for an instant.
-- We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal.
A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the
silent typesetters at their cases.
Orthographical
Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot
to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the
unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed
pedlar while gauging au the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.
Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on account of the symmetry.
I could have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to
have said something about an old hat or something. No, I could have said.
Looks as good as new now. See his phizthen.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forwards its
flyboard with slit the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human
the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. That door
too slit creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its own way.
Sllt.
Noted Churchman an Occasional Contributor
The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:
-- Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the
Telegraph. Where's what's his name?
He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.
-- Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.
-- Ay. Where's Monks?
-- Monks!
Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.
-- Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a
good place I know.
-- Monks!
-- Yes, sir.
Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it
anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists
over for the show.
A Dayfather
He walked on through the caseroom, passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must
have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads,
speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now.
Sober serious man with a bit in the savings-bank I'd say. Wife a good cook
and washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn
nonsense.
And it was the Feast of the Passover
He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice
that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards
with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All
that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the
other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then the lamb and the cat
and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher and then the angel
of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat.
Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but
it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. How
quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his
fingers.
Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to
the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him
out perhaps? Better phone him up first. Number? Same as Citron's house.
Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.
Only once more that soap
He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over these
walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell
there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door when I was
there.
He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap
I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he
took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned into the hip pocket of his
trousers.
What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something
I forgot. Just to see before dressing. No. Here. No.
A sudden screech of laughter came from the Evening Telegraph office.
Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it is.
He entered softly.
Erin, Green Gem of the Silver Sea
-- The ghost walks, professor Macllugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to
the dusty windowpane.
Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing
face, asked of it sourly:
-- Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse?
Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:
-- Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, fanned by gentlest zephyrs tho' quarrelling with the stony
obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune's blue domain, mid mossy banks,
played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast o'er its
pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest. What
about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his newspaper. How's that for
high?
-- Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.
Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:
-- The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage. O boys! O boys!
-- And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on
the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.
-- That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want
to hear any more of the stuff.
He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.
High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.
Rather upsets a man's day a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old
Chatterton, the vice-chancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle.
Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death written this long time
perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for
your uncle. The right honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes
him an odd shaky cheque or two on gale days. Windfall when he kicks out.
Alleluia.
-- Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.
-- What is it? Mr Bloom asked.
-- A recently discovered fragment of Cicero's, professor MacHugh
answered with pomp of tone. Our lovely land.
Short but to the Point
-- Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.
-- Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With
an accent on the whose.
-- Dan Dawson's land, Mr Dedalus said.
-- Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.
Ned Lambert nodded.
-- But listen to this, he said.
The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was
pushed in.
-- Excuse me, J.J. O'Molloy said, entering.
Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.
-- I beg yours, he said.
-- Good day, Jack.
-- Come in. Come in.
-- Good day.
-- How are you, Dedalus?
-- Well. And yourself?
J.J. O'Molloy shook his head.
Sad
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's in
the wind, I wonder. Money worry.
-- Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks.
-- You're looking extra.
-- Is the editor to be seen? J.J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the
inner door.
-- Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in
his sanctum with Lenehan.
J.J. O'Molloy strolled Jo the sloping desk and began to turn back the
pink pages of the file.
Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of
honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T.
Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show their grey matter. Brains on their sleeve
like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the
Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on the
Independent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind
of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn't
know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one
another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hailfellow well
met the next moment.
-- Ah, listen to this for God's sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if
we but climb the serried mountain peaks...
-- Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!
-- Peaks, Ned Lambert went on, towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were...
-- Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he
taking anything for it?
-- As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio,
unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize
regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and luscious
pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of
our mild mysterious Irish twilight...
His Native Doric
-- The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.
-- That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shines forth to irradiate her silver effulgence.
-- O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan, shite and
onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short.
He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy
moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.
Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An
instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's
unshaven black-spectacled face.
-- Doughy Daw! he cried.
What Wetherup said
All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too wasn't he? Why they call him
Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in
the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments
open house. Big blow out. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by
the stomach.
The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested
by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:
-- What is it?
-- And here comes the sham squire himself, professor MacHugh said
grandly.
-- Getououthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in
recognition.
-- Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.
-- Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.
-- Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.
Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile.
-- Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.
Memorable Battles Recalled
-- North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece.
We won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!
-- Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.
-- In Ohio! the editor shouted.
-- So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.
Passing out, he whispered to J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Incipient jigs. Sad case.
-- Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet
face. My Ohio!
-- A Perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.
O, Harp Eolian
He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant unwashed
teeth.
-- Bingbang, bangbang.
Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.
-- Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an
ad.
He went in.
-- What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.
-- That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you
fret. Hello, Jack. That's all right.
-- Good day, Myles. J.J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?
The telephone whirred inside.
-- Twenty eight... No, twenty... Double four . Yes.
Spot the Winner
Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sports tissues.
-- Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.
He tossed the tissues on to the table.
Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.
-- Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.
Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps.
The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue
scrawls and under the table came to earth.
-- It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.
-- Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a
hurricane blowing.
Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.
-- Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrel shoved me, sir.
He pointed to two faces peering in round the door-frame.
-- Him, sir.
-- Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.
He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.
J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:
-- Continued on page six, column four.
-- Yes... Evening Telegraph here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner
office. Is the boss... ? Yes, Telegraph... To where?... Aha! Which auction
rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him.
A Collision ensues
The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.
-- Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.
-- My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a
hurry.
-- Knee, Lenehan said.
He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee.
-- The accumulation of the anno Domini.
-- Sorry, Mr Bloom said.
He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J.J. O'Molloy slapped
the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed
in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps:
We are the boys of Wexford
Who fought with heart and hand.
Exit Bloom
-- I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in Dillon's.
He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand suddenly
stretched forth an arm amply.
-- Begone! he said. The world is before you.
-- Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.
J.J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.
-- He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through
his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.
-- Show! Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.
A Street Cortege
Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail
of white bowknots.
-- Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk.
Small nines. Steal upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J.J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.
-- What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other
two gone?
-- Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for
a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.
-- Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air
and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.
-- He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voIce.
-- Seems to be, J.J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarette case in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most
matches?
The Calumet of Peace
He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J.
O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it.
-- Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself.
The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:
'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
'Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his long lips.
-- Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:
-- Silence for my brandnew riddle!
-- Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.
-- That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the
fire. We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell.
The Grandeur that was Rome
-- Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:
-- What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloac&Aelig;:
sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet
to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman
who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his
foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed
about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a
watercloset.
-- Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial to
the running stream.
-- They were nature's gentlemen, J.J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.
-- And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.
-- Do you know that story about chief Baron Palles? J.J. O'Molloy
asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going
swimmingly.
-- First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?
Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.
-- Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried.
-- I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led
by Experience visits Notoriety.
-- How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone.
? ? ?
Lenehan said to all:
-- Silence! What opera resembles a railway line? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.
-- Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
-- Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said:
-- That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken.
On swift sail flaming
>From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
-- Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned... ?
Bullockbefriending bard.
Shindy in wellknown Restaurant
-- Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter is not mine.
Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to...
-- O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's face in
the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.
-- Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
-- Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the
ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, graf von
Tirconnel in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian
fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes,
every time. Don't you forget that!
-- The moot point is did he forget it? J.J. O'Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
-- And if not? he said.
-- I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. Hungarian it was one
day...
Lost Causes Noble Marquess mentioned
We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us
is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to
the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak
the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim: time is
money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord
Jesus! Lord Salisbury. A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek!
Kyrie Eleison!
A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.
-- The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought
to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker
and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects
of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the
empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian
fleets at &Aelig;gospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an
oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a
lost cause.
He strode away from them towards the window.
-- They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.
-- Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received
in the latter half of the matinиe. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen's ear:
Lenehan's Limerick
There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?
In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.
Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.
-- That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be
all right.
Lenehan extended his hands in protest.
-- But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railway line?
-- Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled.
Lenehan announced gladly:
-- The Rose of Castille. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
-- Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.
The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties.
-- Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.
-- Like fellows who had blown up the bastille, J.J. O'Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between
you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.
Omnium Gatherum
-- We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.
-- All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics.
-- The turf, Lenehan put in.
-- Literature, the press.
other.
We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire
of purgatory.
Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near
you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma poor mamma,
and little Rudy.
The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned his face. And if he was alive all the time?
Whew! By Jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of course. Of
course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some law to pierce the
heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the coffin and
some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days. Rather long to
keep them in summer. Just as well to get shut of them as soon as you are
sure there's no.
The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.
The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its way
deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he traversed
the dismal fields.
Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.
-- I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is
your christian name? I'm not sure.
-- L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too.
He asked me to.
Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the Freeman once.
So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He died
of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. Charley,
you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does no harm. I saw
to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him under an
obligation: costs nothing.
-- And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the.
He looked around.
-- Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?
-- M'Intosh, Hynes said, scribbling, I don't know who he is. Is that
his name?
He moved away, looking about him.
-- No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!
Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good Lord,
what became of him?
A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.
-- O, excuse me!
He stepped aside nimbly.
Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped his wreath
against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The gravediggers put on
their caps and carried their earthy spades towards the barrow. Then knocked
the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent to pluck from the haft a
long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with shouldered
weapon, its blade blueglancing. Silently at the gravehead another coiled the
coffinband. His navelcord. The brother-in-law, turning away, placed
something in his free hand. Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble.
Headshake. I know that. For yourselves just.
The mourners moved away slowly, without aim, by devious paths, staying
awhile to read a name on a tomb.
-- Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.
-- Let us, Mr Power said.
They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:
-- Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.
Hynes shook his head.
-- Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.
Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old
Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity
for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?
Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them
together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave.
Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself.
Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed
away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the
shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you
what they were. So and so, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid
five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good
Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose
is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put
it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's
acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal
spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Marriage ads they
never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil.
Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more poetical. The
other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.
A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu! Not a budge out of him. Knows
there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder.
Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a
daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.
The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve.
Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart.
Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased.
Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the
basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the
boy. Apollo that was.
How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.
Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the
voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the
house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeragain
hellohello amarawf kopthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died
when I was in Wisdom Hely's.
Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop.
He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he
goes.
An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive
crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. Good
hidingplace for treasure.
Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was
buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds.
Tail gone now.
One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones
clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone
bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that Voyages in China
that the Chinese say a white man smells like a corpse. Cremation better.
Priests dead against it. Devilling for the other firm. Wholesale burners and
Dutch oven dealers. Time of the plague. Quicklime fever pits to eat them.
Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower
of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the
pleasantest. See your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life
no. Can't bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the
news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.
We learned that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for
them. Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't
care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste
like raw white turnips.
The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.
Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I was
here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. And even
scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I read of to
get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running gravesores. Give
you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after death. You will see
my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after death. There is another
world after death named hell. I do not like that other world she wrote. No
more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near
you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this
innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life.
Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.
Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton. John Henry, solicitor,
commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be In his office. Mat
Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the
Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that
evening on the bowling green because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of
mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first
sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow
always like that, mortified if women are by.
Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.
-- Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.
They stopped.
-- Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said, pointing.
John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.
-- There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.
John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed
the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again.
-- It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said.
John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.
-- Thank you, he said shortly.
They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a
few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin could
wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger without his seeing it.
Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.
Get the pull over him that way.
Thank you. How grand we are this morning.
In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis
BEFORE NELSON'S PILLAR TRAILS SLOWED, SHUNTED, CHANGED TROLLEY, started
for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,
Palmerston park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, Ringsend
and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway
Company's timekeeper bawled them off:
-- Rathgar and Terenure!
-- Come on, Sandymount Green!
Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a
singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.
-- Start, Palmerston park!
The Wearer of the Crown
Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and
polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion mailcars,
bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received loudly flung
sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for
local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.
Gentlemen of the Press
Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores
and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped
dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.
-- There it is Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.
-- Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to
the Telegraph office.
The-door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in
a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a
roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier.
Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the
newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.
-- I'll go through the printing works, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut
square.
-- Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen
behind his ear, we can do him one.
-- Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. We.
William Brayden, Esquire, of Oaklands, Sandymount
Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered:
-- Brayden.
Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a
stately figure entered between the newsboards of the Weekly Freeman and
National Press and the Freeman's Journal and National Press. Dullthudding
Guinness's barrels. It passed stately up the staircase steered by an
umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back ascended each step:
back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, Simon Dedalus says. Welts
of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck.
-- Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.
The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build
one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.
Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk Mary, Martha.
Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.
-- Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.
-- Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our
Saviour.
Jesus Mario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his
heart. In Martha.
Co-ome thou lost one,
Co-ome thou dear one.
The Crozier and the Pen
-- His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.
They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.
A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and
stepped off posthaste with a word.
-- Freeman!
Mr Bloom said slowly:
-- Well, he is one of our saviours also.
A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed
in through the sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along
the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? Thumping,
thumping.
He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards
Nannetti's reading closet.
With Unfeigned Regret it is we announce the of a most respected Dublin
Burgess
Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping thump. This
morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man to
atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries are
pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working away,
tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in.
How a Great Daily Organ is turned out
Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy
crown.
Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for
College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth.
It's the ads ad side features sell a weekly not the stale news in the
official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year one
thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony of
Tinnachinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing
return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. Nature notes.
Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle' Toby's page for
tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure
for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The
personal note M.A. P. Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand.
World's biggest balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two
bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More
Irish than the Irish.
The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thurap. Now if he
got paralysed there and no one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and on
the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the whole
thing. Want a cool head.
-- Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.
Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him they say.
The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the
dirty glass screen.
-- Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.
Mr Bloom stood in his way.
-- If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,
pointing backward with his thumb.
-- Did you? Hynes asked.
-- Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him.
-- Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too.
He hurried on eagerly towards the Freeman's Journal.
Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint.
We see the Canvasser at work
Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk.
-- Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you
remember.
Mr Nannetti considered the cutting a while and nodded.
-- He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.
He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.
The foreman moved his pencil towards it.
-- But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He
wants two keys at the top.
Hell of a racket they make. Maybe he understands what I.
The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began
to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.
-- Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.
Let him take that in first.
Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles of
it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: various
uses, thousand and one things.
Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew
swiftly on the scarred-woodwork.
House of Key(e)s
-- Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name
Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.
Better not teach him his own business.
-- You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the
top in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea?
The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched
there quietly.
-- The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,
the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the
isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?
I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that voglio. But then if
he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not.
-- We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?
-- I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a
house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that and
just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. High class licensed
premises. Longfelt want. So on.
The foreman thought for an instant.
-- We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal.
A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching the
silent typesetters at their cases.
Orthographical
Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot
to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view the
unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed
pedlar while gauging au the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.
Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on account of the symmetry.
I could have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to
have said something about an old hat or something. No, I could have said.
Looks as good as new now. See his phizthen.
Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forwards its
flyboard with slit the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost human
the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. That door
too slit creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its own way.
Sllt.
Noted Churchman an Occasional Contributor
The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:
-- Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the
Telegraph. Where's what's his name?
He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.
-- Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.
-- Ay. Where's Monks?
-- Monks!
Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.
-- Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a
good place I know.
-- Monks!
-- Yes, sir.
Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it
anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists
over for the show.
A Dayfather
He walked on through the caseroom, passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must
have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads,
speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now.
Sober serious man with a bit in the savings-bank I'd say. Wife a good cook
and washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn
nonsense.
And it was the Feast of the Passover
He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice
that. mangiD. kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards
with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All
that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu. No, that's the
other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then the lamb and the cat
and the dog and the stick and the water and the butcher and then the angel
of death kills the butcher and he kills the ox and the dog kills the cat.
Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Justice it means but
it's everybody eating everyone else. That's what life is after all. How
quickly he does that job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his
fingers.
Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to
the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch him
out perhaps? Better phone him up first. Number? Same as Citron's house.
Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.
Only once more that soap
He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over these
walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy smell
there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door when I was
there.
He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap
I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief he
took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned into the hip pocket of his
trousers.
What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something
I forgot. Just to see before dressing. No. Here. No.
A sudden screech of laughter came from the Evening Telegraph office.
Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it is.
He entered softly.
Erin, Green Gem of the Silver Sea
-- The ghost walks, professor Macllugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to
the dusty windowpane.
Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing
face, asked of it sourly:
-- Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse?
Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:
-- Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, fanned by gentlest zephyrs tho' quarrelling with the stony
obstacles, to the tumbling waters of Neptune's blue domain, mid mossy banks,
played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast o'er its
pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the forest. What
about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his newspaper. How's that for
high?
-- Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.
Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:
-- The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage. O boys! O boys!
-- And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on
the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.
-- That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want
to hear any more of the stuff.
He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.
High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.
Rather upsets a man's day a funeral does. He has influence they say. Old
Chatterton, the vice-chancellor, is his granduncle or his greatgranduncle.
Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death written this long time
perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first himself. Johnny, make room for
your uncle. The right honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes
him an odd shaky cheque or two on gale days. Windfall when he kicks out.
Alleluia.
-- Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.
-- What is it? Mr Bloom asked.
-- A recently discovered fragment of Cicero's, professor MacHugh
answered with pomp of tone. Our lovely land.
Short but to the Point
-- Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.
-- Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With
an accent on the whose.
-- Dan Dawson's land, Mr Dedalus said.
-- Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.
Ned Lambert nodded.
-- But listen to this, he said.
The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was
pushed in.
-- Excuse me, J.J. O'Molloy said, entering.
Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.
-- I beg yours, he said.
-- Good day, Jack.
-- Come in. Come in.
-- Good day.
-- How are you, Dedalus?
-- Well. And yourself?
J.J. O'Molloy shook his head.
Sad
Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's in
the wind, I wonder. Money worry.
-- Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks.
-- You're looking extra.
-- Is the editor to be seen? J.J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the
inner door.
-- Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in
his sanctum with Lenehan.
J.J. O'Molloy strolled Jo the sloping desk and began to turn back the
pink pages of the file.
Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of
honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T.
Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show their grey matter. Brains on their sleeve
like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the
Express with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began on the
Independent. Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when they get wind
of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn't
know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one
another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hailfellow well
met the next moment.
-- Ah, listen to this for God's sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Or again if
we but climb the serried mountain peaks...
-- Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!
-- Peaks, Ned Lambert went on, towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were...
-- Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he
taking anything for it?
-- As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio,
unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize
regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and luscious
pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent translucent glow of
our mild mysterious Irish twilight...
His Native Doric
-- The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.
-- That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shines forth to irradiate her silver effulgence.
-- O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan, shite and
onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short.
He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy
moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.
Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An
instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's
unshaven black-spectacled face.
-- Doughy Daw! he cried.
What Wetherup said
All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too wasn't he? Why they call him
Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in
the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments
open house. Big blow out. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of them by
the stomach.
The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested
by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:
-- What is it?
-- And here comes the sham squire himself, professor MacHugh said
grandly.
-- Getououthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in
recognition.
-- Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.
-- Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.
-- Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.
Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile.
-- Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.
Memorable Battles Recalled
-- North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece.
We won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!
-- Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.
-- In Ohio! the editor shouted.
-- So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.
Passing out, he whispered to J.J. O'Molloy:
-- Incipient jigs. Sad case.
-- Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet
face. My Ohio!
-- A Perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.
O, Harp Eolian
He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant unwashed
teeth.
-- Bingbang, bangbang.
Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.
-- Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an
ad.
He went in.
-- What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.
-- That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you
fret. Hello, Jack. That's all right.
-- Good day, Myles. J.J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?
The telephone whirred inside.
-- Twenty eight... No, twenty... Double four . Yes.
Spot the Winner
Lenehan came out of the inner office with Sports tissues.
-- Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.
He tossed the tissues on to the table.
Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.
-- Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.
Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the steps.
The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air blue
scrawls and under the table came to earth.
-- It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.
-- Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a
hurricane blowing.
Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.
-- Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrel shoved me, sir.
He pointed to two faces peering in round the door-frame.
-- Him, sir.
-- Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.
He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.
J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:
-- Continued on page six, column four.
-- Yes... Evening Telegraph here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner
office. Is the boss... ? Yes, Telegraph... To where?... Aha! Which auction
rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him.
A Collision ensues
The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.
-- Pardon, monsieur, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.
-- My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a
hurry.
-- Knee, Lenehan said.
He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee.
-- The accumulation of the anno Domini.
-- Sorry, Mr Bloom said.
He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J.J. O'Molloy slapped
the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed
in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps:
We are the boys of Wexford
Who fought with heart and hand.
Exit Bloom
-- I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in Dillon's.
He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand suddenly
stretched forth an arm amply.
-- Begone! he said. The world is before you.
-- Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.
J.J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.
-- He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through
his blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.
-- Show! Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.
A Street Cortege
Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a tail
of white bowknots.
-- Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the walk.
Small nines. Steal upon larks.
He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J.J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.
-- What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other
two gone?
-- Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for
a drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.
-- Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat?
He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the air
and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.
-- He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voIce.
-- Seems to be, J.J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarette case in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most
matches?
The Calumet of Peace
He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J.
O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it.
-- Thanky vous, Lenehan said, helping himself.
The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:
'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
'Twas empire charmed thy heart.
The professor grinned, locking his long lips.
-- Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.
He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:
-- Silence for my brandnew riddle!
-- Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.
Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.
-- That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the
fire. We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell.
The Grandeur that was Rome
-- Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.
He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:
-- What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloac&Aelig;:
sewers. The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: It is meet
to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah. The Roman, like the Englishman
who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on which he set his
foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal obsession. He gazed
about him in his toga and he said: It is meet to be here. Let us construct a
watercloset.
-- Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial to
the running stream.
-- They were nature's gentlemen, J.J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.
-- And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.
-- Do you know that story about chief Baron Palles? J.J. O'Molloy
asked. It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going
swimmingly.
-- First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?
Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.
-- Entrez, mes enfants! Lenehan cried.
-- I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led
by Experience visits Notoriety.
-- How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone.
? ? ?
Lenehan said to all:
-- Silence! What opera resembles a railway line? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.
Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.
-- Who? the editor asked.
Bit torn off.
-- Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said:
-- That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken.
On swift sail flaming
>From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.
-- Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned... ?
Bullockbefriending bard.
Shindy in wellknown Restaurant
-- Good day, sir, Stephen answered, blushing. The letter is not mine.
Mr Garrett Deasy asked me to...
-- O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth
disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's face in
the Star and Garter. Oho!
A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.
-- Is he a widower? Stephen asked.
-- Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on the
ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, graf von
Tirconnel in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian
fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild geese. O yes,
every time. Don't you forget that!
-- The moot point is did he forget it? J.J. O'Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.
Professor MacHugh turned on him.
-- And if not? he said.
-- I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. Hungarian it was one
day...
Lost Causes Noble Marquess mentioned
We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us
is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never loyal to
the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin language. I speak
the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is the maxim: time is
money. Material domination. Dominus! Lord! Where is the spirituality? Lord
Jesus! Lord Salisbury. A sofa in a westend club. But the Greek!
Kyrie Eleison!
A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.
-- The Greek! he said again. Kyrios! Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. Kyrie! The radiance of the intellect. I ought
to profess Greek, the language of the mind. Kyrie eleison! The closetmaker
and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We are liege subjects
of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the
empire of the spirit, not an imperium, that went under with the Athenian
fleets at &Aelig;gospotami. Yes, yes. They went under. Pyrrhus, misled by an
oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a
lost cause.
He strode away from them towards the window.
-- They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.
-- Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received
in the latter half of the matinиe. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!
He whispered then near Stephen's ear:
Lenehan's Limerick
There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?
In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.
Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.
-- That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be
all right.
Lenehan extended his hands in protest.
-- But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railway line?
-- Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled.
Lenehan announced gladly:
-- The Rose of Castille. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!
He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.
-- Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.
Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.
The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties.
-- Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.
-- Like fellows who had blown up the bastille, J.J. O'Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between
you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff.
Omnium Gatherum
-- We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.
-- All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics.
-- The turf, Lenehan put in.
-- Literature, the press.