Joyce J. Ulysses

terrible for her.
Mrs Breen nodded.
-- She was taken bad on the Tuesday...
Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her.
-- Mind! Let this man pass.
A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river, staring with a
rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavy stringed glass. Tight as a
skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, a
stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.
-- Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts.
Watch!
-- Who is he if it's a fair question, Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?
-- His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr
Bloom said, smiling. Watch!
-- He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of
these days.
She broke off suddenly.
-- There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to
Molly, won't you?
-- I will, Mr Bloom said.
He watched her dodge through passers towards the shop-fronts. Denis
Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's
hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old times.
He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust his dull grey
beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke earnestly.
Meshuggah. Off his chump.
Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the
tight skullpiece, the dangling stick, umbrella, dustcoat. Going the two
days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. And
that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have with
him.
U.P.: up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote
it for a lark in the Scotch house, I bet anything. Round to Menton's office.
His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the gods.
He passed the Irish Times. There might be other answers lying there.
Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch
now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there to
simmer. Enough bother wading through forty-four of them. Wanted smart lady
typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty darling
because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the meaning.
Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The
way they spring those questions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My
literary efforts have had the good fortune to meet with the approval of the
eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy
tea with a book of poetry.
Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook
and general, exc cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit
counter. Resp girl (R. C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop.
James Carlisle made that. Six and a half percent dividend. Made a big deal
on Coates's shares. Ca'canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news.
Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the Irish Field now. Lady
Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the
Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable
fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them.
Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No
sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the
death. Strong as a brood mare some of those horsey women. Swagger around
livery stables. Toss off a glass of brandy neat while you'd say knife. That
one at the Grosvenor this morning. Up with her on the car: wishwish.
Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver
did it out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes? Mrs Miriam Dandrade
that sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel.
Divorced Spanish American. Didn't take a feather out of her my handling
them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when
Stubbs the park ranger got me in with Whelan of the Express. Scavenging what
the quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was
custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to be a
bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks.
Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun
and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Eating with a stopwatch,
thirtytwo chews to the minute. Still his muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed
to be well connected. Theodore's cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative
in every family. Hardy annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the
Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one
in a marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast
year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t's are. Dog in the
manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please.
He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval a sixpenny at
Rowe's? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in the
Burton. Better. On my way.
He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot
to tap Tom Kernan.
Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a
vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out! Phew!
Dreadful simply! Child's head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her trying
to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me that would.
Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent something to stop
that. Life with hard labour. Twilightsleep idea: queen Victoria was given
that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman that lived in a shoe she had so
many children. Suppose he was consumptive. Time someone thought about it
instead of gassing about the what was it the pensive bosom of the silver
effulgence. Flapdoodle to feed fools on. They could easily have big
establishments. Whole thing quite painless out of all the taxes give every
child born five quid at compound interest up to twentyone, five per cent is
a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds, multiply by twenty decimal
system, encourage people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit
twentyone years want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum, more than
you think.
Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for
nothing.
Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs
Moisel. Mothers' meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then returns.
How flat they look after all of a sudden! Peaceful eyes. Weight off their
minds. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, she said. The
spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that's nyumyum. Got her
hand crushed by old Tom Wall's son. His first bow to the public. Head like a
prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking them up at all hours. For
God'sake doctor. Wife In her throes. Then keep them waiting months for their
fee. To attendance on your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors,
most of them.
Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of
pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick
the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling from the
air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near Goose green
playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me.
A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian
file. Goose step. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their
truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts.
Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up into groups and scattered,
saluting towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in
pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, marching
irregularly, rounded Trinity railings, making for the station. Bound for
their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive soup.
He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put
him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women.
Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. There is not in this wide
world a vallee. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to the very
last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's wasn't she?
He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack
Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble
being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. Can't
blame them after all with the job they have especially the young hornies.
That horse policeman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity
he got a run for his money. My word he did! His horse's hoofs clattering
after us down Abbey street. Luck I had the presence of mind to dive into
Manning's or I was souped. He did come a wallop, by George. Must have
cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I oughtn't to have got myself swept
along with those medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortar-boards.
Looking for trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that
sting for me in the Mater and now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy.
Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why
he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began.
-- Up the Boers!
-- Three cheers for De Wet!
-- We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree.
Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill.
The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and civil
servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to
whether on the scaffold high.
Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in
his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on the
invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to get in
the know. All the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. Drop him
like a hot potato. Why those plain clothes men are always courting slaveys.
Easily twig a man used to uniform. Square-pushing up against a backdoor.
Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And who is the gentleman
does be visiting there? Was the young master saying anything? Peeping Tom
through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young student fooling round her
fat arms ironing.
-- Are those yours, Mary?
-- I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out
half the night.
-- There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.
-- Ah, get along with your great times coming. Barmaids too. Tobacco
shopgirls.
James Stephens' idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that
a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out you
get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in, the firing squad. Turnkey's daughter
got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the Buckingham Palace
hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi.
You must have a certain fascination: Parnell, Arthur Griffith is a
squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Want to gas about
our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom.
Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government. That
the language question should take precedence of the economic question. Have
your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them up with meat and
drink. Michaelmas goose. Here's a good lump of thyme seasoning under the
apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease before it gets too cold.
Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with the band. No grace for the
carver. The thought that the other chap pays best sauce in the world. Make
themselves thoroughly at home. Shove us over those apricots, meaning
peaches. The not far distant day. Home Rule sun rising up in the northwest.
His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly,
shadowing Trinity's surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing,
outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same; day after day: squads
of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies mooching
about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a bed groaning to
have a child tugged out of her. One born every second somewhere. Other dying
every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. Three hundred kicked the
bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the blood off, all are washed in
the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa.
Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other
coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements,
piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. Landlord never
dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets his notice to quit.
They buy the place up with gold and still they have all the gold. Swindle in
it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age after age. Pyramids in sand.
Built on bread and onions. Slaves. Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left.
Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt, Kerwan's mushroom
houses, built of breeze. Shelter for the night.
No one is anything.
This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate
this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.
Provost's house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in
there. Wouldn't live in it if they paid me. Hope they have liver and bacon
today. Nature abhors a vacuum.
The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silver
ware in Walter Sexton's window opposite by which John Howard Parnell passed,
unseeing.
There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's a
coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don't meet
him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a
corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal's
uniform since he got the job. Charley Boulger used to come out on his high
horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the woebegone walk
of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a pain. Great man's
brother: his brother's brother. He'd look nice on the city charger. Drop
into the D. B. C. probably for his coffee, play chess there. His brother
used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to pass a remark on him.
Freeze them up with that eye of his. That's the fascination: the name. All a
bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with
scarlet harness. Bolt upright like surgeon M'Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat
him for south Meath. Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public
life. The patriot's banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus
said when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the
grave and lead him out of the House of Commons by the arm.
Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which the
ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with a
Scotch accent. The tentacles...
They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and
bicycle. Young woman.
And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence: second-time.
Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the eminent
poet Mr Geo Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. E.: what does
that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed
El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world with a Scotch accent.
Tentacles: octopus. Something occult: symbolism. Holding forth. She's taking
it all in. Not saying a word. To aid gentleman in literary work.
His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a
listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only weggebobbles
and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of that cow will pursue
you through all eternity. They say it's healthier. Wind and watery though.
Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night.
Why do they call that thing they gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians.
To give you the idea you are eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook
in soda. Keep you sitting by the tap all night.
Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless,
Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic.
Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that kind of food you
see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. For example one of
those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts; you couldn't squeeze
a line of poetry out of him. Don't know what poetry is even. Must be in a
certain mood.
The dreamy cloudy gull
Waves o'er the waters dull.
He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of
Yeates and Son, pricing the field glasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's
and have a chat with young Sinclair? Well-mannered fellow. Probably at his
lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Grz lenses, six
guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to capture
trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost property
office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in trains and cloak
rooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. Incredible. Last year
travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's daughter's bag and hand it
to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed money too. There's a little watch up
there on the roof of the bank to test those glasses by.
His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can't see it. If
you imagine it's there you can almost see it. Can't see it.
He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right
hand at arm's length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes:
completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. Must be
the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses. Interesting. There
was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we were in Lombard street west.
Terrific explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year:
autumn some time.
Now that I come to think of it, that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's
the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there some
first Saturday of the month. If I could get art introduction to professor
Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to: man always
feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman proud to be
descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it on with a
trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt out what you
know you're not to: what's parallax? Show this gentleman the door.
Ah.
His hand fell again to his side.
Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,
crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas, then solid,
then world, then cold, then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock like
that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon, she said. I believe there
is.
He went on by la Maison Claire.
Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly
there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon.
She was humming: The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side of
her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch. Fingers.
Asking. Answer. Yes.
Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.
Mr Bloom, quick breathing, slowlier walking, passed Adam court.
With a keep quiet relief, his eyes took note: this is street here
middle of the day Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, M'Coy
said. They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Up in
the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the rest of the year as
sober as a judge.
Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him
good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the
Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon face
in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies eh? Showing
long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, laughed
spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat. Coarse red:
fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white hat. His parboiled
eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp that once did starve us
all.
I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twenty-eight I was.
She twentythree when we left Lombard street west something changed. Could
never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding water in
your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. Would you? Are
you not happy in your home, you poor little naughty boy? Wants to sew on
buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library.
Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,
silk, dames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the
baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope the
rain mucks them up on her. Country bred chawbacon. All the beef to the heels
were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of plumb.
He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.
Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth
a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that
here. La causa х santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Tara. Must be washed
in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.
Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Stick them all
over the place. Needles in window curtains.
He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today
anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.
Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't like
it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.
Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk
stockings.
Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.
High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home
and houses, silk webs, silver, rich fruits, spicy from Jaffa. Agendath
Netaim. Wealth of the world.
A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded.
Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he
mutely craved to adore.
Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.
He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling hoofthuds.
Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: In deep summer fields,
tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas,
creaking beds.
-- Jack, love!
-- Darling!
-- Kiss me, Reggy!
-- My boy!
-- Love!
His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink
gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slop of greens. See the
animals feed.
Men, men, men.
Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables
calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food,
their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man
polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of
microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round him
shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate:
halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the
grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten off more than he
can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us. Hungry man is an
angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone! That last pagan king of
Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the
Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick
converted him to Christianity. Couldn't swallow it all however.
-- Roast beef and cabbage.
-- One stew.
Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish
cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale of
ferment.
Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork, to eat
all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing
the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on
that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the
plate, man! Get out of this.
He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of
his nose.
-- Two stouts here.
-- One corned and cabbage.
That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended
on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his three
hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a silver
knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means born rich.
Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.
An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the bailiff,
standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well up: it
splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, elbows on
table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift across his
stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something with his mouth
full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk
un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?
Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said.
-- Not here. Don't see him.
Out. I hate dirty eaters.
He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap.
Keep me going. Had a good breakfast.
-- Roast and mashed here.
-- Pint of stout.
Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.
He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street.
Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill!
Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down
with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street.
John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother's son don't
talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children, cabmen,
priests, parsons, fieldmarshals, archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde
road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord ma in his gingerbread
coach, old queen in a bathchair. My plate's empty. After you with our
incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the
microbes with your handkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his.
Father O'Flynn would make hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for
number one. Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a soup pot
as big as the Phoenix Park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it.
Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel table d'hтte she called it. Soup,
joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then who'd wash
up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids that time.
Teeth getting worse and worse.
After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from
the earth garlic, of course, it stinks Italian organgrinders crisp of
onions, mushrooms truffles. Pain to animal too. Pluck and draw fowl.
Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split
their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble
and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobble lights. Give us that brisket off the
hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their
haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and
lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, young one.
Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed.
Insidious. Lick it up, smoking hot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.
Ah, I'm hungry.
He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now
and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.
What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?
-- Hellow, Bloom! Nosey Flynn said from his nook.
-- Hello, Flynn.
-- How's things?
-- Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me
see.
Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham
and his descendants mustered and bred there. Potted meats. What is home
without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the
obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree Dignam's potted meat.
Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like
pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be
tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. There was a
right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the reverend
Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls
mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher.
No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur
fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow's
digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents.
Eat, drink and be merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged.
Cheese digests all but itself. Mighty cheese.
-- Have you a cheese sandwich?
-- Yes, sir.
Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of
burgundy; take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber. Tom
Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served me that
cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made food, the
devil the cooks. Devilled crab.
-- Wife well?
-- Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?
-- Yes, sir.
Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.
-- Doing any singing those times?
Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.
Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. Does no
harm. Free ad.
-- She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard
perhaps.
-- No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?
The curate served.
-- How much is that?
-- Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.
Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrier. Easier than
the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of their
lives.
-- Mustard, sir?
-- Thank you.
He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have
it. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.
-- Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see.
Part shares and part profits.
-- Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket
to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan mixed
up in it?
A warm shock of air heat of mustard hauched on Mr Bloom's heart. He
raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock five
minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.
His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,
longingly.
Wine.
He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to
speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.
-- Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact.
No fear. No brains.
Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.
-- He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that
boxing match Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello barracks.
By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he was telling
me...
Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up.
-- For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God
till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a
hairy chap.
Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves,
cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose smile
upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat on the
parsnips.
-- And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give
us a good one for the Gold cup?
-- I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on
a horse.
-- You're right there, Nosey Flynn said.
Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of
disgust, pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his wine
soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather with the
chill off.
Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like
the way it curves there.
-- I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It
ruined many a man the same horses.
Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits
for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.
-- True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's
no straight sport now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving Sceptre
today. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won at Epsom.
Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one against Saint
Amant a fortnight before.
-- That so? Davy Byrne said...
He went towards the window and, taking up the petty cash book, scanned
its pages.
-- I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said snuffling. That was a rare bit of
horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm,
Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow cap.
Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it. Ay.
He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the
flutes.
-- Ay, he said, sighing.
Mr Bloom, champing standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numskull. Will
I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him forget. Go
and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. Cold nose he'd
have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly beards they like. Dog's
cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the
City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her lap. O the big
doggy-bowwowsywowsy!
Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish
cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath of
course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. Six,
six. Time will be gone then. She...
Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off
colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins, sardines, gaudy lobsters'
claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells,
periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat,
out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand
years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous
berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you
off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by
the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct.
Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes
but what about oysters? Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells.
Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on.
Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red
bank this morning. Was he oyster old fish at table. Perhaps he young flesh
in bed. No. June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like tainted
game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years
old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless
might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it?
No. Yes, or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat
the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course, aristocrats.
Then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw
pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea
to keep up the price. Cheap. No one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock
in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The
иlite. Crхme de la crхme. They want special dishes to pretend they're.
Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me
come eat with me. Royal sturgeon. High sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right
to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow.
Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef
like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage ю la duchesse de Parme. Just
as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten
too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards'
desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive: Do
ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips,
evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted
lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I
expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney I remember. Du, de la, French.
Still it's the same fish, perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped
the guts out of making money, hand over fist, finger in fishes' gills, can't
write his name on a cheque, think he was painting the landscape with his
mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha. Ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth
fifty thousand pounds.
Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.
Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the
winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch
telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild
ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple
by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of
undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat
she had her hair, earwigs In the heather scrub my hand under her nape,
you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me,
caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full
lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the
seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour
with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting.
Soft, warm, sticky grumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing
eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth
rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened
under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her; eyes,
her lips, her stretched neck, beating, woman s breasts full in her blouse of
nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was
kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.
Me. And me now.
Stuck, the flies buzzed.
His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab.
Beauty: it curves, curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves
the world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall,
naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don't care what man looks. All to
see. Never speaking, I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she did
Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in your
proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods, golden dishes, all
ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and
turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar, imagine it drinking electricity: gods'
food. Lovely forms of woman sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we
stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth,
food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. Never looked.
I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something fall see if she.
Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do
there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and walked, to
men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men lovers, a youth
enjoyed her, to the yard.
When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book:
-- What is this he is? Isn't he in the insurance line?
-- He's out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for
the Freeman.
-- I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble?
-- Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why?
-- I noticed he was in mourning.
-- Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all
at home. You're right, by God. So he was.
-- I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a
gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their minds.
-- It's not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before
yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife
has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home to his
better half. She's well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast.
-- And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said.
Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.
-- He doesn't buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of
that.
-- How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.
Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He
winked.
-- He's in the craft, he said.
-- Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.
-- Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order.
Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg up. I was told that by a,
well, I won't say who.
-- Is that a fact?
-- O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when
you're down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it, but they're as close
as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.
Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:
-- Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!
-- There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to
find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and
swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the Saint Legers of
Doneraile.
Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes:
-- And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here
and I never once saw him, you know, over the line.
-- God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips
off when the fun gets too hot. Didn't you see him look at his watch? Ah, you
weren't there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does he outs
with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he does.
-- There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He's a safe man, I'd say.
-- He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He has been
known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O,
Bloom has his good points. But there's one thing he'll never do.
His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.
-- I know, Davy Byrne said.
-- Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said.
Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came In. Tom Rochford followed, a
plaining hand on his claret waistcoat.
-- Day, Mr Byrne.
-- Day, gentlemen.
They paused at the counter.
-- Who's standing? Paddy Leonard asked.
-- I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered.
-- Well, what'll it be? Paddy Leonard asked.
-- I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said.
-- How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God's sake? What's
yours, Tom?
-- How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping.
For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and
hiccupped.
-- Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said.
-- Certainly, sir.
Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates.
-- Lord love a duck, he said, look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold
water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. He
has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip.
-- Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked.
Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set