-- II -- - PART 13

-- II -- PART 13

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all
too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on
the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the
quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the
voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the
stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and oft
were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy chat
beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy Caffrey and
Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and Jacky
Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with caps to
match and the name H.M.S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy and
Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and spoiled
twins sometimes but for all that darling little fellows with bright merry
faces and endearing ways about them. They were dabbling in the sand with
their spades and buckets, building castles as children do, or playing with
their big coloured ball, happy as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was
rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while that young
gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven months and nine
days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his
first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat
little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin.

--Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.

And baby prattled after her:

--A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children,
so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to
take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and
promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden syrup
on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But to be sure baby Boardman
was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy bib. None of
your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy Caffrey.
A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with a laugh in
her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe red lips, a
girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at the quaint
language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy
and Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception
to this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand
which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go wrong
that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the
Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was
selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman's house
is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose that the
wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle
too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master Tommy drew the
attention of the girl friends.

--Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I catch
you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was
too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables
were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing
over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was
to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening
with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and
shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near
him she wouldn't be far from him, her eyes dancing in admonition.

--Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

--What's your name? Butter and cream?

--Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?

--Nao, tearful Tommy said.

--Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

--Nao, Tommy said.

--I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart. Gerty is
Tommy's sweetheart.

--Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered
to Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the
gentleman couldn't see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in
thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a
specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was
pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she
was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful,
inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of
late had done her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's
female pills and she was much better of those discharges she used to get
and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almost spiritual
in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine Cupid's
bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster
with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments
could make them though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves
in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once
to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers
drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their little tiffs
from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told her not to
let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or she'd never
speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an
innate refinement, a languid queenly HAUTEUR about Gerty which
was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.
Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in
her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education
Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the
land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and
patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs
to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that lent to
her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed meaning,
that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful eyes, a charm
few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of
the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive
brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive. It was
Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of the Princess
Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which gave that
haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders of fashion, and
she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing scientifically cured
and how to be tall increase your height and you have a beautiful face but
your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But
Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown
with a natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account
of the new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of
luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And just
now at Edy's words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest
rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet girlish
shyness that of a surety God's fair land of Ireland did not hold
her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. Inclination
prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent. The pretty lips
pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out into a joyous little
laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May morning. She knew
right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy say that because of him
cooling in his attentions when it was simply a lovers' quarrel. As per
usual somebody's nose was out of joint about the boy that had the bicycle
off the London bridge road always riding up and down in front of her
window. Only now his father kept him in in the evenings studying
hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was on and he was
going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when he left
the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing in the
bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little recked he perhaps
for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes,
piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he might
learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family
and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed
Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an
exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the
shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would know
anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at
the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those
good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size too he and she and
that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because
he didn't go and ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be
out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it
was expected in the LADY'S PICTORIAL that electric blue would be worn)
with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket
(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her
favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a
navy threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful
figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of
wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue
chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday
week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last
she found what she wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it, slightly
shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She
did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then,
smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her!
And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that
would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the
newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very
PETITE but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never
would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over
her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect
proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of
her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and wide
garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty's chief care and who that knows
the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though Gerty would
never see seventeen again) can find it in his heart to blame her? She had
four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery, three garments and
nighties extra, and each set slotted with different coloured ribbons,
rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen, and she aired them herself
and blued them when they came home from the wash and ironed them
and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't trust
those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things.
She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own
colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere
on her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because
his father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition
and because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was
dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out
and that was for luck and lovers' meeting if you put those things on
inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so long
as it wasn't of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give worlds
to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving way to
tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelingsthough not
too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the mirror. You are
lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls upon a face
infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain. Yes, she had
known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage has been
arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T. C. D.
(because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs Wylie) and in
the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was wearing a sumptuous
confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox was not to be. He was
too young to understand. He would not believe in love, a woman's
birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer's (he was still in
short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an arm round her waist
she went white to the very lips. He called her little one in a strangely
husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the first!) but it was only the end
of her nose and then he hastened from the room with a remark about
refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of character had never been Reggy
Wylie's strong point and he who would woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be
a man among men. But waiting, always waiting to be asked and it was leap
year too and would soon be over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to
lay a rare and wondrous love at her feet but rather a manly man with a
strong quiet face who had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly
flecked with grey, and who would understand, take her in his sheltering
arms, strain her to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature
and comfort her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such
a one she yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she
longs to be his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness
in health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his
little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in
the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would
be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature comforts
too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that
feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue and
queen Ann's pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions from
all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge in the
fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same direction, then cream
the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of eggs though she didn't like
the eating part when there were any people that made her shy and often she
wondered why you couldn't eat something poetical like violets or roses and
they would have a beautifully appointed drawingroom with pictures and
engravings and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's lovely dog
Garryowen that almost talked it was so human and chintz covers for the
chairs and that silver toastrack in Clery's summer jumble sales like they
have in rich houses. He would be tall with broad shoulders (she had always
admired tall men for a husband) with glistening white teeth under his
carefully trimmed sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent
for their honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled
down in a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they
would both have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two
selves and before he went out to business he would give his dear little
wifey a good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so
then she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run
off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy
said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the
ball and if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it was
his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if you
please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy
Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off now
with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.

--You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her
finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and
Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.

--Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played here's
the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread carriage
and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin. But Edy
got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way like that from
everyone always petting him.

--I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't say.

--On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her
life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was sure
the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared Ciss.

--Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of her
nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at him.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her
sometimes. For instance when she asked you would you have some more
Chinese tea and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's
faces on her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she
wanted to go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to
the Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget
her the evening she dressed up in her father's suit and hat and the burned
cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette.
There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was sincerity itself,
one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever made, not one of your
twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted
by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and
benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered
together without distinction of social class (and a most edifying
spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,
after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of
the immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto,
beseeching her to intercede for them, the old familiar words,
holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty's ears!
Had her father only avoided the clutches of the demon drink, by
taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit cured in Pearson's
Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, second to none. Over and
over had she told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown
study without the lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing
out of the window dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty
bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths
and homes had cist its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even
witnessed in the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and
had seen her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget
himself completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty
knew it was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of
kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard her
companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman off
Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like
himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him
any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a
father because he was too old or something or on account of his face (it
was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the pimples
on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor father!
With all his faults she loved him still when he sang TELL ME, MARY, HOW TO
WOO THEE or MY LOVE AND COTTAGE NEAR ROCHELLE and they had stewed cockles
and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for supper and when he sang THE
MOON HATH RAISED with Mr Dignam that died suddenly and was buried, God
have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her mother's birthday that was and
Charley was home on his holidays and Tom and Mr Dignam and Mrs and
Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have had a group taken.
No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now he was laid to rest.
And her mother said to him to let that be a warning to him for the rest of
his days and he couldn't even go to the funeral on account of the gout and
she had to go into town to bring him the letters and samples from his
office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, standard designs, fit for a
palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the house,
a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in gold.
And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was it
rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't like
her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single thing
they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the world of her
for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at the main every
night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that place where she
never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr Tunney the grocer's
christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days where a young gentleman in
the costume they used to wear then with a threecornered hat was offering a
bunch of flowers to his ladylove with oldtime chivalry through her lattice
window. You could see there was a story behind it. The colours were done
something lovely. She was in a soft clinging white in a studied attitude
and the gentleman was in chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat.
She often looked at them dreamily when she went there for a certain
purpose and felt her own arms that were white and soft just like hers with
the sleeves back and thought about those times because she had found out
in Walker's pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap
about the halcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till at
last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no getting
behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he could down
towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was not slow to
voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was sitting there
by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted the ball. Our two
champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and to avoid trouble
Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to her please. The
gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw it up the strand
towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and stopped right under
Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The twins clamoured again
for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and let them fight for it so
Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their stupid ball hadn't come
rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy
laughed.

--If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted her
skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a jolly
good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down towards
the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw attention
on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the warm flush, a
danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and flaming into her
cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of the most casual but
now under the brim of her new hat she ventured a look at him and the face
that met her gaze there in the twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed
to her the saddest she had ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted and
with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of
original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray for
us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And careworn
hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many who had erred
and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all that bright with
hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told them what the great
saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary, the most pious Virgin's
intercessory power that it was not recorded in any age that those who
implored her powerful protection were ever abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with
baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep
she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy
gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word,
didn't the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa.

--Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of health,
a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out to be
something great, they said.

--Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to sit
up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried out,
holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half blanket
the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

--Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all no
use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave him
in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was
quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out of
that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little brats
of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the paintings
that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured chalks and such
a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the evening and the
clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to hear the music like
that and the perfume of those incense they burned in the church like a
kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart went pitapat. Yes, it was her
he was looking at, and there was meaning in his look. His eyes burned into
her as though they would search her through and through, read her very
soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly expressive, but could you trust
them? People were so queer. She could see at once by his dark eyes and his
pale intellectual face that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she
had of Martin Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she
preferred because she wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that
wanted they two to always dress the same on account of a play but she
could not see whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly RETROUSSE from
where he was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the
story of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given
worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still, and
he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles
of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the toes down.
She was glad that something told her to put on the transparent stockings
thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was far away. Here was that of
which she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy
on her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he
was like no-one else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her
dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him. If he had
suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even, even, if he had been
himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant
or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly loved her. There
were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman
not like other flighty girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists
showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to know all, to
forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, make him forget
the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a
real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie,
for herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. ORA PRO NOBIS. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy can
never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge for the
afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her own heart.
Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the stained glass
windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue banners of the
blessed Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping Canon O'Hanlon at
the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes cast down. He looked
almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet and clean and dark and
his hands were just like white wax and if ever she became a Dominican nun
in their white habit perhaps he might come to the convent for the novena
of Saint Dominic. He told her that time when she told him about that in
confession, crimsoning up to the roots of her hair for fear he could see,
not to be troubled because that was only the voice of nature and we were
all subject to nature's laws, he said, in this life and that that was no
sin because that came from the nature of woman instituted by God, he said,
and that Our Blessed Lady herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done
unto me according to Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often
she thought and thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered
floral design for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she
noticed on the mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out
of a little house to tell the time the day she went there about the
flowers for the forty hours' adoration because it was hard to know what
sort of a present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of
Dublin or some place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them
a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of
them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they
were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.

--Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and she
ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had a good
enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the thingamerry
she was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow long because it
wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at it. She ran
with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up her skirt at
the side that was too tight on her because there was a lot of the tomboy
about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever she thought
she had a good opportunity to show and just because she was a good runner
she ran like that so that he could see all the end of her petticoat
running and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. It would have
served her just right if she had tripped up over something accidentally
on purpose with her high crooked French heels on her to make her look
tall and got a fine tumble. TABLEAU! That would have been a very charming
expose for a gentleman like that to witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed
the thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the
Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was
itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't because
she thought he might be watching but she never made a bigger mistake in
all her life because Gerty could see without looking that he never
took his eyes off of her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the thurible
back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the Blessed Sacrament
and the choir began to sing the TANTUM ERGO and she just swung her foot
in and out in time as the music rose and fell to the TANTUMER GOSA
CRAMEN TUM. Three and eleven she paid for those stockings in Sparrow's
of George's street on the Tuesday, no the Monday before Easter and there
wasn't a brack on them and that was what he was looking at, transparent,
and not at her insignificant ones that had neither shape nor form
(the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his head to see the difference
for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a streel
tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only a
fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her petticoat hanging
like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to settle her
hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was never seen on
a girl's shoulders--a radiant little vision, in sooth, almost maddening in
its sweetness. You would have to travel many a long mile before you found
a head of hair the like of that. She could almost see the swift answering
flash of admiration in his eyes that set her tingling in every nerve.
She put on her hat so that she could see from underneath the brim and
swung her buckled shoe faster for her breath caught as she caught the
expression in his eyes. He was eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her
woman's instinct told her that she had raised the devil in him and at the
thought a burning scarlet swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour
of her face became a glorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,
half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the
baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why
no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of
hers. And she said to Gerty:

--A penny for your thoughts.

--What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth.
I was only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and their
babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just gave a
gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy asked her the
time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half past kissing
time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because they were told to
be in early.

--Wait, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the time
by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his
hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his
watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was
Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he
had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the
next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed
in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the
right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it
and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his
watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the sun
was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in
measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones.
Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said
his waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the TANTUM ERGO and Canon
O'Hanlon got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and
he told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire
to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she
could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and
she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he
could see and he was looking all the time that he was winding the watch or
whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands back
into his pockets. She felt a kind of a sensation rushing all over her and
she knew by the feel of her scalp and that irritation against her stays
that that thing must be coming on because the last time too was when she
clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves
on her again drinking in her every contour, literally worshipping at her
shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a man's passionate
gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man's face. It is for you,
Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty
noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect because
it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place to push up
the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied their hair to
make herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood up with his
cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the card to read
off and he read out PANEM DE COELO PRAESTITISTI EIS and Edy and Cissy were
talking about the time all the time and asking her but Gerty could pay
them back in their own coin and she just answered with scathing politeness
when Edy asked her was she heartbroken about her best boy throwing her
over. Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that
spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt--O yes, it cut deep because
Edy had her own quiet way of saying things like that she knew would wound
like the confounded little cat she was. Gerty's lips parted swiftly to
frame the word but she fought back the sob that rose to her throat,
so slim, so flawless, so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist
might have dreamed of. She had loved him better than he knew.
Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex he would never
understand what he had meant to her and for an instant there was
in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes were
probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in
sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see.

--O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head
flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the
ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young
voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with.
As for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just
chuck him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she
cast as much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard
into a dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she
could give him one look of measured scorn that would make him
shrivel up on the spot. Miss puny little Edy's countenance fell to
no slight extent and Gerty could see by her looking as black as
thunder that she was simply in a towering rage though she hid it, the
little kinnatt, because that shaft had struck home for her petty jealousy
and they both knew that she was something aloof, apart, in another sphere,
that she was not of them and never would be and there was somebody else
too that knew it and saw it so they could put that in their pipe
and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy
tucked in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too
because the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And
Cissy told him too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go
deedaw and baby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful
eyes, and Cissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and
baby, without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all
and sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

--O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight CONTRETEMPS claimed her attention but in two twos she set
that little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and
Edy asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was
flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed it
off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction because
just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet seashore
because Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that Father
Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the Blessed
Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse of
Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time a bat
flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, thither, with a
tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of the lighthouses so
picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of paints because it was
easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter would be going his
rounds past the presbyterian church grounds and along by shady
Tritonville avenue where the couples walked and lighting the lamp near her
window where Reggy Wylie used to turn his freewheel like she read in that
book THE LAMPLIGHTER by Miss Cummins, author of MABEL VAUGHAN and
other tales. For Gerty had her dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to
read poetry and when she got a keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely
confession album with the coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she
laid it in the drawer of her toilettable which, though it did not err
on the side of luxury, was scrupulously neat and clean. It was there
she kept her girlish treasure trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her
child of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the eyebrowleine, her
alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change when her things came
home from the wash and there were some beautiful thoughts written
in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame Street for
she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only express
herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that she had
copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the potherbs. ART
THOU REAL, MY IDEAL? it was called by Louis J Walsh, Magherafelt, and
after there was something about TWILIGHT, WILT THOU EVER? and ofttimes
the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient loveliness, had misted
her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the years were slipping
by for her, one by one, and but for that one shortcoming she knew she
need fear no competition and that was an accident coming down Dalkey
hill and she always tried to conceal it. But it must end, she felt.
If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there would be no holding
back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would make the great
sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his thoughts. Dearer than
the whole world would she be to him and gild his days with happiness.
There was the allimportant question and she was dying to know was he a
married man or a widower who had lost his wife or some tragedy like the
nobleman with the foreign name from the land of song had to have her put
into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But even if--what then? Would it
make a very great difference? From everything in the least indelicate her
finebred nature instinctively recoiled. She loathed that sort of person,
the fallen women off the accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went
with the soldiers and coarse men with no respect for a girl's honour,
degrading the sex and being taken up to the police station. No, no: not
that. They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister
without all that other in spite of the conventions of Society with a big
ess. Perhaps it was an old flame he was in mourning for from the days
beyond recall. She thought she understood. She would try to understand
him because men were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting
with little white hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart
of mine! She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart
that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world
for her for love was the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what
might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.

Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle
and genuflected and the choir sang LAUDATE DOMINUM OMNES GENTES and
then he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and
Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't
she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:

--O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over
the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

--It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the
church, helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and
Cissy holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running.

--Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and
call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could
see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set
her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance,
and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion
silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were left
alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he
could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of
inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working
and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where
the fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not
to fall back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and
her when she revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that,
supply soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting
of his heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion
of men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead
secret and made her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was
staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures
cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he
used to do something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in
the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing like that
because there was all the difference because she could almost feel
him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of his
handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn't
do the other thing before being married and there ought to be
women priests that would understand without your telling out and
Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look
in her eyes so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad
about actors' photographs and besides it was on account of that other
thing coming on the way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back
and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and they
all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was and she leaned
back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was flying
through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And she saw a long Roman
candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush,
they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher
and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high,
high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine,
an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other
things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin,
better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven,
on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then
it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in
every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full view
high up above her knee where no-one ever not even on the swing or wading
and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way
like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment
half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen
looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him
chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his
lips laid on her white brow, the cry of a young girl's love, a little
strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages.
And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman
candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in
raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and
they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden,
O so lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She
glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of
piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl
He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he)
stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a
brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him
and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been!
He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes,
for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and
wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their
secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to
know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through the evening
to and fro and little bats don't tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to show
what a great person she was: and then she cried:

--Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into
her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of course
without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too far to.
She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet again,
there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her dream of
yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls met in a
last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full of a
strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She half
smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged on
tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to
Cissy, to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was
darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and slippy
seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic of her but
with care and very slowly because--because Gerty MacDowell was ...

Tight boots? No. She's lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's left
on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong by
the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman.
But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show. Hot
little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a
negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. Near her
monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such a bad headache
today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All kinds of crazy
longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent that nun told
me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I suppose.
Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. Something
in the air. That's the moon. But then why don't all women menstruate
at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends on the time
they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out of step.
Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of that.
Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning over her silly
I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning.
That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife
engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small
mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves.
Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices.
Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O.
Pity they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was
that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping
Tom. Willy's hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot
those girls or is it all a fake? LINGERIE does it. Felt for the
curves inside her DESHABILLE. Excites them also when they're. I'm all
clean come and dirty me. And they like dressing one another for the
sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly's new blouse. At first.
Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her the violet
garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turnedup trousers.
He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we met. His lovely
shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a charm with
every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy lost the pin of her.
Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just
changes when you're on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary,
Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry
either. Always off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an
appointment. Out on spec probably. They believe in chance because like
themselves. And the others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends
at school, arms round each other's necks or with ten fingers locked,
kissing and whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns
with whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down,
vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write
to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till
Mr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon. TABLEAU! O, look
who it is for the love of God! How are you at all? What have you been
doing with yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking
holes in each other's appearance. You're looking splendid. Sister souls.
Showing their teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn't lend
each other a pinch of salt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.
Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of
my foot. O that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest
once in a way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way.
Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I
read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's a
flirt. All are. Daresay she felt 1. When you feel like that you often meet
what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a fellow
courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same and stags.
Same time might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? Suppose I
when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark
and never tell. Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am
than some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his
dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my
appearance my age. Didn't let her see me in profile. Still, you
never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and the
beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her hat to show
her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face, meeting someone might
know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair
strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on
the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money.
Why not? All a prejudice. She's worth ten, fifteen, more, a pound. What? I
think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion. Did I forget to
write address on that letter like the postcard I sent to Flynn? And the
day I went to Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle with Molly it was put
me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he's another. Weighs on his mind.
Funny my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark liver oil they use
to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that little
limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant.
Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented
perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers with the
kiddies. Well, aren't they? See her as she is spoil all. Must have the
stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. AMOURS
of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. Curtain up.
Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive bosom. Little
sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel. The strength it gives a man.
That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind the wall coming
out of Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't have. Makes you want
to sing after. LACAUS ESANT TARATARA. Suppose I spoke to her. What about?
Bad plan however if you don't know how to end the conversation. Ask them a
question they ask you another. Good idea if you're stuck. Gain time. But
then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and
you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the
Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in
Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of
course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one who. Aho! If you
don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they harden.
And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings. Parrots. Press
the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn't called me sir. O, her
mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a single girl! That's what
they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman. Or even hear of it.
Different with me. Glad to get away from other chap's wife. Eating off his
cold plate. Chap in the Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle.
French letter still in my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble. But might
happen sometime, I don't think. Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What?
Worst is beginning. How they change the venue when it's not what they
like. Ask you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman
who. Or ask you what someone was going to say when he changed his
mind and stopped. Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I want to, something
like that. Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to
want something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must
have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she
came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. The
propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by
their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till their
dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the Moorish wall
beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts were developed.
Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when we drove home.
Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor had his eye
on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks.
Up like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,
waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in
mother's clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And
the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could
whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass whore in
Jammet's wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling
me the right time? I'll tell you the right time up a dark lane. Say prunes
and prisms forty times every morning, cure for fat lips. Caressing the
little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game. Of course they understand
birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that
satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine
eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so much
the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond a dog's
jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school drawing a
picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that innocence?
Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see them sit
on a bench marked WET PAINT. Eyes all over them. Look under the bed
for what's not there. Longing to get the fright of their lives.
Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at the corner
of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like, twigged at
once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that? Typist
going up Roger Greene's stairs two at a time to show her understandings.
Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean. Bred in the
bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the mirror to
save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a
mirror. And when I sent her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's
by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her stocking!
Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carries parcels
too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it,
to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you learn that from?
Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don't they know! Three years
old she was in front of Molly's dressingtable, just before we left Lombard
street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the
world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway not like the other.
Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell of her calf.
Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump
today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White. Wow!
Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads
and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see
and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the
rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion.
Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For
this relief much thanks. In HAMLET, that is. Lord! It was all things
combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of my
tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a worse
fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I will tell
you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It couldn't be? No,
Gerty they called her. Might be false name however like my name and the
address Dolphin's barn a blind.

HER MAIDEN NAME WAS JEMINA BROWN

AND SHE LIVED WITH HER MOTHER IN IRISHTOWN.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush
Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if it
understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw
anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however because
it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping and papa's
pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for the baby when they hold
him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them out of harm's
way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam. Children's hands
always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even closed at first,
sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds. Oughtn't to have given
that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind. Mrs Beaufoy,
Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan there still.
She used to look over some nights when Molly was in the Coffee Palace.
That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen
and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst of all at night
Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of
pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in the dark,
whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning: was I drunk last
night? Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come
home to roost. They stick by one another like glue. Maybe the
women's fault also. That's where Molly can knock spots off them. It's the
blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the
opulent. Just compare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home,
skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out
some kind of a nondescript, wouldn't know what to call her. Always see a
fellow's weak point in his wife. Still there's destiny in it, falling in
love. Have their own secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs
if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then little chits of girls,
height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he
matched them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes
one. Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and
repent in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin
is not back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and
the short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.
Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic
influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I
suppose, at once. Cat's away, the mice will play. I remember looking in
Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. Earth
for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. And
time, well that's the time the movement takes. Then if one thing stopped
the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it's all arranged.
Magnetic needle tells you what's going on in the sun, the stars. Little
piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman
and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest
and let you see and see more and defy you if you're a man to see that and,
like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you have any guts in you.
Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before
third person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her
underjaw stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and
spurs at the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street
west. Fine voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did.
Like flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in
the paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped
her slipper on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't
kick the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general
all round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I
leave you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it?
Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that
kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her,
with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the
dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She was
wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good
conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. For
instance if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing too.
Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself, slow
but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains blown across.
Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this morning, smell
them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine fine veil or web
they have all over the skin, fine like what do you call it gossamer, and
they're always spinning it out of them, fine as anything, like rainbow
colours without knowing it. Clings to everything she takes off. Vamp of
her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little kick, taking them off.
Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on
the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of
strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits
or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners.
Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. Muskrat.
Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs at
each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm.
Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that way.
We're the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have their
period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on. Like
what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long
John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives
that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests
that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies
round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree
of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to.
That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life.
And it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his
waistcoat. Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that's the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind.
Never went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that
hag this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could
mention Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph.
Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do
I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving
credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run up
a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into
somewhere else.

Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went
as far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had
a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk
a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk
after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you
learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't
mock what matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he now.
THE MYSTERY MAN ON THE BEACH, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom.
Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow today at the
graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet however. Healthy
perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some
somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old
Betty's joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about
ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal
reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or
they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the
dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash
better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you.
Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through the
small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against.
Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in the
shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv
Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
A star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet. Two. When three it's night. Were
those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No.
Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting
sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land,
goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white
fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way
up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on
the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the position.
Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't know how nice
you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green apples. Grab at all
that offer. Suppose it's the only time we cross legs, seated. Also the
library today: those girl graduates. Happy chairs under them. But it's
the evening influence. They feel all that. Open like flowers, know
their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms, chandeliers,
avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat Dillon's garden where I kissed
her shoulder. Wish I had a full length oilpainting of her then. June
that was too I wooed. The year returns. History repeats itself.
Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. Life, love, voyage round
your own little world. And now? Sad about her lame of course but must
be on your guard not to feel too much pity. They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the
plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change:
that's all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out
of me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it
comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the
same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing new
under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's Barn. Are you not happy in your?
Naughty darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. Mat
Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, Hetty.
Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the old major,
partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I an only
child. So it returns. Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest
way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she. Circus horse
walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip: tear in Henny Doyle's
overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle: cockles and periwinkles. Then
I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the sideboard watching.
Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. All changed.
Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a tree,
so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could be
changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes.
Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely.
Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I
suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray for us.
And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same
thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there's the light
in the priest's house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the mistake
in the valuation when I was in Thom's. Twentyeight it is. Two houses
they have. Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder why
they come out at night like mice. They're a mixed breed. Birds are
like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit still.
All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of a
jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with tiny
hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white.
Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example
like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to
stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the
staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with three
colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the CITY ARMS
with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth
a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his
name with the burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be
tourists' matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind
and light. Or broken bottles in the furze act as a burning glass in the
sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory's not so bad.

Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last week
got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be the
one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what they say.
Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they have to fly over
the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph wires.
Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of oceangoing steamers
floundering along in the dark, lowing out like seacows. FAUGH A BALLAGH!
Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in vessels, bit of a handkerchief
sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when the stormy winds do blow.
Married too. Sometimes away for years at the ends of the earth somewhere.
No ends really because it's round. Wife in every port they say. She has a
good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he
does. Smelling the tail end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they
do. The anchor's weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal
on him for luck. Well. And the tephilim no what's this they call it poor
papa's father had on his door to touch. That brought us out of the land
of Egypt and into the house of bondage. Something in all those
superstitions because when you go out never know what dangers. Hanging
on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life, lifebelt round him,
gulping salt water, and that's the last of his nibs till the sharks
catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,
crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker, moon looking down so
peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search
of funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of
violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The shepherd's
hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to house, giving his
everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock postman, the
glowworm's lamp at his belt gleaming here and there through the laurel
hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted lintstock lit the lamp at
Leahy's terrace. By screens of lighted windows, by equal gardens a shrill
voice went crying, wailing: EVENING TELEGRAPH, STOP PRESS EDITION! RESULT
OF THE GOLD CUP RACE! and from the door of Dignam's house a boy ran out
and called. Twittering the bat flew here, flew there. Far out over the
sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of
long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night
breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye
unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on
Kish bank the anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and breeches
buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in the Erin's
King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. Filthy trip.
Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard to feed the
herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. Milly,
no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what death
is at that age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they fear.
When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! Mamma!
Babes in the wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them up
in the air to catch them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun?
Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at
each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire
and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better
asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What do they love?
Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with the umbrella.
Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little hand
it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you
touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I
remember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one
is more sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding
themselves out if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling,
wakening me. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first.
Poor child! Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood.
Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. O'Hara's tower. The seabirds
screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown,
gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she
told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I'd
marry a lord or a rich gentleman coming with a private yacht. BUENAS
NOCHES, SENORITA. EL HOMBRE AMA LA MUCHACHA HERMOSA. Why me? Because
you were so foreign from the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you
dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for LEAH,
LILY OF KILLARNEY. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see.
Hope she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the bath, funeral, house of
Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Then that bawler in
Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what I said about
his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and
laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be
alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round.
Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel.
Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked about, three fangs in her
mouth. Same style of beauty. Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea.
The sister of the wife of the wild man of Borneo has just come to town.
Imagine that in the early morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as
Morris said when he kissed the cow. But Dignam's put the boots on it.
Houses of mourning so depressing because you never know. Anyhow she
wants the money. Must call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange
name. Takes it for granted we're going to pop off first. That widow
on Monday was it outside Cramer's that looked at me. Buried the poor
husband but progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow's mite.
Well? What do you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along.
Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O'Connor wife and five
children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good
matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter
face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings
a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.
Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we
die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the
trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed.
Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She
had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does? Would
I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti's gone. Mailboat.
Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes's. Work Hynes and
Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in them. What's
that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He
brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read. Better go.
Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and
pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with
story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children
always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters.
What's this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come
here tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back.
Murderers do. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write
a message for her. Might remain. What?

I.

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide comes
here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark mirror,
breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and letters. O,
those transparent! Besides they don't know. What is the meaning of that
other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like.

AM. A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.
Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.
Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by
design.

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck.
Now if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance.
We'll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me
feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long
gone.. Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast.
I won't go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a
moment. Won't sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat
again. No harm in him. Just a few.

O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me
do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met
him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave
under embon SENORITA young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle
red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end
Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in
her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr
Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed.
Just for a few

CUCKOO

CUCKOO

CUCKOO.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed where Canon
O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were
taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup
and talking about

CUCKOO

CUCKOO

CUCKOO.

Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to
tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there because
she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty MacDowell,
and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on
the rocks looking was

CUCKOO

CUCKOO

CUCKOO.

-- II -- PART 13 [Novel: Ulysses - Author: James Joyce]

Read next: -- III --#PART 14

Read previous: -- II --#PART 12

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