-- II -- - PART 8

-- II -- PART 8 [Novel: Ulysses - Author: James Joyce]

Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat.
Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His Majesty
the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red jujubes white.

A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet
fumes of Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.

Heart to heart talks.

Bloo ... Me? No.

Blood of the Lamb.

His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druids' altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of the
church in Zion is coming.

IS COMING! IS COMING!! IS COMING!!!

ALL HEARTILY WELCOME.

Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will
put the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the
luminous crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him
on the wall, hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in.

Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the
pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush
out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before
Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the
brain.

From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's
walk. Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be
selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father.
Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother
goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their
theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the
absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat you
out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the fat
of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do the
black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear he'd
collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you could
pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting l.s.d. out of
him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching his water.
Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence: mum's the word.

Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it.
Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.

As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up
from the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours
it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the
brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in
too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on
the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking
that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things.

Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down?
Reuben J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and
eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the
things. Knows how to tell a story too.

They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.

He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo
feet per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of
swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the
day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the
wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.

THE HUNGRY FAMISHED GULL

FLAPS O'ER THE WATERS DULL.

That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has
no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
Solemn.

HAMLET, I AM THY FATHER'S SPIRIT

DOOMED FOR A CERTAIN TIME TO WALK THE EARTH.

--Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!

His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand.
Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up
with a rag or a handkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury
cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down
into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from
their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh
they have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim
down here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes.
Wonder what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.

They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more.
Penny quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot
and mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?

His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

KINO'S

11/-

TROUSERS

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can
you own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same,
which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds
of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be
stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential.
Dr Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self
advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for
that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight. Just
the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose
burning him.

If he ...?

O!

Eh?

No ... No.

No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.
Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never
exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek:
parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her about
the transmigration. O rocks!

Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's
right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the
sound. She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was
thinking. Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base
barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing
into a barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not
half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross.
Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number
one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards
him along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like
that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He
read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his
foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our staple
food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after street.
Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not Boyl:
no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either. I suggested
to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls sitting
inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I bet that
would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the eye at once.
Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of them round you
if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women too. Curiosity.
Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he didn't think
of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a false stain
of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted under
the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What? Our
envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson,
I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser KANSELL,
sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am.
Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla
convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her
small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes.
Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her
devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world.
Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name
too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had
married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of
money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for them.
My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves in and
out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker's
daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.

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

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red
wallpaper. Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night.
American soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny
she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's
daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was
always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in
Citron's saint Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is
getting. Pen ...? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably.
Well, if he couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day.

Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home
after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her that
song WINDS THAT BLOW FROM THE SOUTH.

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

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from
her. Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two
taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy.
That was the night ...

--O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?

--O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?

--No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for ages.

--In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in
Mullingar, you know.

--Go away! Isn't that grand for her?

--Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are
all your charges?

--All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said.

How many has she? No other in sight.

--You're in black, I see. You have no ...

--No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.

Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did
he die of? Turn up like a bad penny.

--O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation.

May as well get her sympathy.

--Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly,
poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.

YOUR FUNERAL'S TOMORROW

WHILE YOU'RE COMING THROUGH THE RYE.

DIDDLEDIDDLE DUMDUM

DIDDLEDIDDLE ...

--Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily.

Now that's quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.

--And your lord and master?

Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow.

--O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's in
there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me
heartscalded. Wait till I show you.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly
poured out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr
Bloom's gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara
sugar, or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot
arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of
hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork
chained to the table.

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

--There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you
know what he did last night?

Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide
in alarm, yet smiling.

--What? Mr Bloom asked.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

--Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.

Indiges.

--Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.

--The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.

She took a folded postcard from her handbag.

--Read that, she said. He got it this morning.

--What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?

--U.P.: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great shame
for them whoever he is.

--Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.

She took back the card, sighing.

--And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an
action for ten thousand pounds, he says.

She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.

Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen
its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old
grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a tasty
dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than Molly.

See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.

He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.
Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry
on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek.
Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell that
was. In Luke Doyle's long ago. Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U.P.: up.

Change the subject.

--Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked.

--Mina Purefoy? she said.

Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' Club. Matcham often
thinks of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.

--Yes.

--I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the lying-in
hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three days bad now.

--O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that.

--Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very stiff
birth, the nurse told me.

---O, Mr Bloom said.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in
compassion. Dth! Dth!

--I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's 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 heavystringed 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 shopfronts. 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 stickumbrelladustcoat. 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 Iying there.
Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch
now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there to
simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart
lady typist 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 per cent 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: wishswish. 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. Y. M. C. A.
Eating with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And 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. Twilight sleep idea: queen Victoria
was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman that lived in a shoe
she had so many children. Suppose he 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 all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes.
Weight off their mind. 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 nyumnyum. 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. Goosestep. 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 in 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 horsepoliceman 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. Lucky 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
mortarboards. 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 plainclothes men are always
courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. Squarepushing 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, gelong with your great times coming.

Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls.

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. Or 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. Show us over
those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule 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. Like a mortuary chapel. 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 silverware
opposite in Walter Sexton's window by which John Howard Parnell passed,
unseeing.

There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's 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 Kavanagh 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 lik
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.
Windandwatery 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 fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's
and have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his
lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz 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 cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. Incredible.
Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's daughter's ba
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. Looking up from the back garden. 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 an 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 to his side again.

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 out, she
said. I believe there is.

He went on by la maison Claire.

Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly
there is 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, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court.

With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here
middle of the day of 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 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? Twentyeight 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, silkdames 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. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef
to the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of
plumb.

He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.
Cascades 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 E SANTA! Tara Tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara.
Must be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.

Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking 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, silkwebs, 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, slush 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: gums: 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. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarette smoke, reek of
plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale of ferment.

His gorge rose.

Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat
all 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 head
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 mayor 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 souppot as big as the Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches
and hindquarters out of it. Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel
TABLE D'HOTE 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 after Italian organgrinders crisp of
onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the 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 wobbly lights. Give us that brisket off the
hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from
their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust.
Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, young one.

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

Ah, I'm hungry.

He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a
drink now 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?

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

--Hello, Flynn.

--How's things?

--Tiptop ... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and ... let
me see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich?
Ham and his descendants musterred 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. Mity 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 MACTRIGGER. 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 hanched 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
boxingmatch 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 going 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 pettycash 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
numbskull. 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. Dogs' 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 doggybowwowsywowsy!

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment
mawkish cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty.
Bath of course 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 oysters
old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no ar no
oysters. But there are people like things high. 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 ELITE. CREME DE LA CREME. 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 A 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 sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her
lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her
eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. 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 women 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 drop
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. He's
an excellent brother. 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's 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 frowning, 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' 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 before
him.

--That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking.

--Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.

Tom Rochford nodded and drank.

--Is it Zinfandel?

--Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I'm going to plunge five bob on my
own.

--Tell us if you're worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonard
said. Who gave it to you?

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

--So long! Nosey Flynn said.

The others turned.

--That's the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered.

--Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we'll take two of
your small Jamesons after that and a ...

--Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly.

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

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

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

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

DON GIOVANNI, A CENAR TECO

M'INVITASTI.

Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap in
the blues. Dutch courage. That KILKENNY PEOPLE in the national library
now I must.

Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber,
turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way down,
swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the
body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of
intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the
time with his insides entrails on show. Science.

--A CENAR TECO.

What does that TECO mean? Tonight perhaps.

DON GIOVANNI, THOU HAST ME INVITED

TO COME TO SUPPER TONIGHT,

THE RUM THE RUMDUM.

Doesn't go properly.

Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten about
two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott's dyeworks
van over there. If I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. Five guineas
about. On the pig's back.

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

Today. Today. Not think.

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

Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of unbought tarts and
passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH
OF ROME? BIRDS' NEST. Women run him. They say they used to give pauper
children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato blight.
Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same
bait. Why we left the church of Rome.

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

--Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.

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

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

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

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

--Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.

--Come, Mr Bloom said.

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

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

--The rain kept off.

No answer.

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

--Thanks, sir.

Knows I'm a man. Voice.

--Right now? First turn to the left.

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

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

Penrose! That was that chap's name.

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

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

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

Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two
shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer's just here
too. Wait. Think over it.

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

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

He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My heart!

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

Look for something I.

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

Busy looking.

He thrust back quick Agendath.

Afternoon she said.

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

Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart.

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

Safe!

______
Content of II -- PART 8 [Novel: Ulysses - Author: James Joyce]

Read next: -- II --#PART 9

Read previous: -- II --#PART 7

Table of content of Ulysses



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book