Public Domain Tales: Ulysses: Book Two (2024)

Public Domain Tales: Ulysses: Book Two is the one-hundred-and-sixteenth book in the Public Domain Tales series.

— II —

[ 4 ]

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart,liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all heliked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang offaintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, rightingher breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in thekitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made himfeel a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn’t likeher plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle offthe hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat,its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walkedstiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

—Mkgnao!

—O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of thetable, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratchmy head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see:the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of hertail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on hisknees.

—Milk for the puss*ns, he said.

—Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than weunderstand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too.Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonderwhat I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

—Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of thechookchooks. I never saw such a stupid puss*ns as the puss*ns.

—Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintivelyand long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslitsnarrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went tothe dresser, took the jug Hanlon’s milkman had just filled for him,poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.

—Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tippedthree times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them theycan’t mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Orkind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs withthis drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either fora mutton kidney at Buckley’s. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper.Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz’s. While the kettle is boiling. Shelapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues sorough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glancedround him. No.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused bythe bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and buttershe likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.

He said softly in the bare hall:

—I’m going round the corner. Be back in a minute.

And when he had heard his voice say it he added:

—You don’t want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered:

—Mn.

No. She didn’t want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled.Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar.Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave forit. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor’s auction.Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. AtPlevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I’m proud of it. Stillhe had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that wasfarseeing.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoatand his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickybackpictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do.The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto’shigh grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. Whiteslip of paper. Quite safe.

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creakywardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. Hepulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleafdropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All righttill I come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of numberseventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be awarm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Blackconducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go inthat light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often ashe walked in happy warmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays ourdaily but she prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off atdawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him.Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along astrand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old rankertoo, old Tweedy’s big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear.Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves ofcarpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smokinga coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scentedwith fennel, sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two.Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques amongthe pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees,signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watchesme from her doorway. She calls her children home in their darklanguage. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet,colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one ofthose instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass.

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the trackof the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself.What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the lanewaybehind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touchthat: homerule sun rising up in the northwest.

He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up theflabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted outwhiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just theend of the city traffic. For instance M’Auley’s down there: n. g. asposition. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circularfrom the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot.

Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for anad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, mybold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watchingthe aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes himoff to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I’m going totell you? What’s that, Mr O’Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians,they’d only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese.

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poorDignam, Mr O’Rourke.

Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through thedoorway:

—Good day, Mr O’Rourke.

—Good day to you.

—Lovely weather, sir.

—’Tis all that.

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from thecounty Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo andbehold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then thinkof the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublinwithout passing a pub. Save it they can’t. Off the drunks perhaps. Putdown three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribsand drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle withthe town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we’ll split thejob, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrelsof stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed SaintJoseph’s National school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helpsmemory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouveedoubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. Attheir joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom.

He halted before Dlugacz’s window, staring at the hanks of sausages,polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitenedin his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links,packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly thelukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs’ blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. Hestood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too,calling the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And apound and a half of Denny’s sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorouships. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. Newblood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet onthe clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crookedskirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off withblotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm atKinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal wintersanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall roundit, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting:read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the pagerustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, thebeasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, thebreeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping apalm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one, unpeeledswitches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending hissenses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirtswinging, whack by whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her primesausages and made a red grimace.

—Now, my miss, he said.

She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.

—Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,please?

Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she wentslowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in themorning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stoodoutside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. Hesighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crustedtoenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. Thesting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. Foranother: a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles’ Lane. They likethem sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I’m lost in thewood.

—Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers’ pocket and laid themon the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid,disc by disc, into the till.

—Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gazeafter an instant. No: better not: another time.

—Good morning, he said, moving away.

—Good morning, sir.

No sign. Gone. What matter?

He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:planters’ company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkishgovernment and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fueland construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa.You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you witholives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges needartificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Yourname entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay tendown and the balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34,Berlin, W. 15.

Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.

He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowderedolivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed injars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out.Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates.Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin’s parade. AndMastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly inCitron’s basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand,lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet,wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched highprices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasantold times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain,Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quaysideat Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling thembarefoot in soiled dungarees. There’s whatdoyoucallhim out of. How doyou? Doesn’t see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His backis like that Norwegian captain’s. Wonder if I’ll meet him today.Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far.

No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the deadsea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could liftthose waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they calledit raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. Alldead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It borethe oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy’s,clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered faraway over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying,being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more.Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken c*nt of the world.

Desolation.

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket heturned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along hisveins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, Iam here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrongside of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow’s exercises. On thehands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Whyis that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North,MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a soreeye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzlingbutter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slimsandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, agirl with gold hair on the wind.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gatheredthem. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand.Mrs Marion.

—Poldy!

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warmyellow twilight towards her tousled head.

—Who are the letters for?

He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.

—A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. Anda letter for you.

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve ofher knees.

—Do you want the blind up?

Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw herglance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.

—That do? he asked, turning.

She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.

—She got the things, she said.

He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself backslowly with a snug sigh.

—Hurry up with that tea, she said. I’m parched.

—The kettle is boiling, he said.

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiledlinen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:

—Poldy!

—What?

—Scald the teapot.

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scaldedand rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tiltingthe kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he tookoff the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched thelump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the catmewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won’t mouse. Saythey won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fallto her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper.He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup.

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan’sseaside girls.

The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby,smiling. Silly Milly’s birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, wait:four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces offolded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.

 O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling. You are my lookingglass from night to morning. I’d rather have you without a farthing Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.

Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteousold chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. Andthe little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into theparlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All welaughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted theteapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried itupstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set iton the chair by the bedhead.

—What a time you were! she said.

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow onthe pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her largesoft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. Thewarmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragranceof the tea she poured.

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In theact of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

—Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

—O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme.

—What are you singing?

—_Là ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love’s Old Sweet Song_.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leavesnext day. Like foul flowerwater.

—Would you like the window open a little?

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

—What time is the funeral?

—Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper.

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soileddrawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round astocking: rumpled, shiny sole.

—No: that book.

Other stocking. Her petticoat.

—It must have fell down, she said.

He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she pronouncesthat right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stoopedand lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge ofthe orangekeyed chamberpot.

—Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I wanted toask you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and,having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search thetext with the hairpin till she reached the word.

—Met him what? he asked.

—Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail.

—Metempsychosis?

—Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home?

—Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It’s Greek: from the Greek. Thatmeans the transmigration of souls.

—O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes.The first night after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn. He turned over thesmudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. Hello. Illustration.Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on thefloor naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flunghis victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Dopedanimals. Trapeze at Hengler’s. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping.Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families of them. Bone themyoung so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. Thata man’s soul after he dies. Dignam’s soul...

—Did you finish it? he asked.

—Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with thefirst fellow all the time?

—Never read it. Do you want another?

—Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has.

She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways.

Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they’ll write toKearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that’s the word.

—Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another bodyafter death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That weall lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some otherplanet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember theirpast lives.

The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Betterremind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. Anexample?

The _Bath of the Nymph_ over the bed. Given away with the Easter numberof _Photo Bits_: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before youput milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and sixI gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Nakednymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then.

He turned the pages back.

—Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. Theyused to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, forinstance. What they called nymphs, for example.

Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her,inhaling through her arched nostrils.

—There’s a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire?

—The kidney! he cried suddenly.

He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toesagainst the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, steppinghastily down the stairs with a flurried stork’s legs. Pungent smokeshot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong ofthe fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on itsback. Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate andlet the scanty brown gravy trickle over it.

Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. Heshore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put aforkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliantmeat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies ofbread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was thatabout some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at hisside, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread inthe gravy and raising it to his mouth.

Dearest Papli

Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits mesplendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I gotmummy’s lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I amgetting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one ofme and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fairday and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owelon Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love tomummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the pianodownstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday.There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon hiscousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan’s (I was on thepop of writing Blazes Boylan’s) song about those seaside girls. Tellhim silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondestlove

 Your fond daughter Milly

P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.

 M.

Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her firstbirthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning shewas born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jollyold woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knewfrom the first poor little Rudy wouldn’t live. Well, God is good, sir.She knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived.

His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing.Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in theXL Café about the bracelet. Wouldn’t eat her cakes or speak or look.Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate pieceafter piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, shemight do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught ofcooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.

O, well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing hashappened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wildpiece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny.Ripening now. Vain: very.

He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caughther in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic alittle. Was given milk too long. On the _Erin’s King_ that day roundthe Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale bluescarf loose in the wind with her hair.

 All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your head it simply swirls.

Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets,jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says.Pier with lamps, summer evening, band.

 Those girls, those girls, Those lovely seaside girls.

Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling,braiding.

A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Willhappen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can’t move. Girl’s sweet light lips.Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless tomove now. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman’s lips.

Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to passthe time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only twoand six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Orthrough M’Coy.

The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper,nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing.Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let herwait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at herear with her back to the fire too.

He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stoodup, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.

—Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I’m ready.

Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fa*g up the stairs to thelanding.

A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just asI’m.

In the tabledrawer he found an old number of _Titbits_. He folded itunder his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up insoft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.

Listening, he heard her voice:

—Come, come, puss*. Come.

He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listentowards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry.The maid was in the garden. Fine morning.

He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want tomanure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur.All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is thisthat is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good topdressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they arefed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies’ kidgloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas inthat corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Stillgardens have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday.

He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on thepeg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don’t remember that. Hallstandtoo full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters.Drago’s shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brownbrillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonderhave I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the payboxthere got away James Stephens, they say. O’Brien.

Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss.Enthusiast.

He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not toget these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his headunder the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldylimewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down hepeered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in hiscountinghouse. Nobody.

Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages overon his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it abit. Our prize titbit: _Matcham’s Masterstroke_. Written by Mr PhilipBeaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea acolumn has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three poundsthree. Three pounds, thirteen and six.

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yieldingbut resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding,he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, readingstill patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hopeit’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive.One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move ortouch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now.Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neatcertainly. _Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he wonthe laughing witch who now_. Begins and ends morally. _Hand in hand_.Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling hiswater flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it andreceived payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.

Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story forsome proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff whatshe said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving.Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her.9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23.What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I’m swelled after thatcabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot.

Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morningafter the bazaar dance when May’s band played Ponchielli’s dance of thehours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, thennight hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her headdancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money.Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No usehumming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. Themirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollenvest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes.It wouldn’t pan out somehow.

Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black withdaggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, thenblack. Still, true to life also. Day: then the night.

He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulledback the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloominto the air.

In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefullyhis black trousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. Whattime is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.

A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’schurch. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.

 Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho!

Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air. Athird.

Poor Dignam!

[ 5 ]

By lorries along sir John Rogerson’s quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, pastWindmill lane, Leask’s the linseed crusher, the postal telegraphoffice. Could have given that address too. And past the sailors’ home.He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked throughLime street. By Brady’s cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucketof offal linked, smoking a chewed fa*gbutt. A smaller girl with scars ofeczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her batteredcaskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow. O let him! His lifeisn’t such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Comehome to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be many there. He crossed Townsendstreet, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph,Beth. And past Nichols’ the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough.Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O’Neill’s. Singing with hiseyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark.Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloomtooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in awhatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.

In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and OrientalTea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend,finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from TomKernan. Couldn’t ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes stillread blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and senthis right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warmmorning. Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of theleather headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right handcame down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a cardbehind the headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket.

So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow andhair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choiceblend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot itmust be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on,cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it likethat. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in _dolce far niente_,not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Toohot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers ofidleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens.Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sicknessin the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe andcowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, inthe dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open.Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight ofthe water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to theweight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s alaw something like that. Vance in High school cracking hisfingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum.What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet persecond per second. Law of falling bodies: per second per second. Theyall fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of theearth is the weight.

He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with hersausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded_Freeman_ from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in abaton and tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg.Careless air: just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per secondfor every second it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glancethrough the door of the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one.In.

He handed the card through the brass grill.

—Are there any letters for me? he asked.

While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruitingposter with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of hisbaton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answerprobably. Went too far last time.

The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with aletter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.

Henry Flower Esq,c/o P. O. Westland Row,

 City.

Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where’s old Tweedy’s regiment?Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he’s agrenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers.Redcoats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform.Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne’s letter about taking them offO’Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith’spaper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease:overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like.Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King’s own. Never seehim dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes.

He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as ifthat would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefingerfelt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks.Women will pay a lot of heed, I don’t think. His fingers drew forth theletter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Somethingpinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No.

M’Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company whenyou.

—Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?

—Hello, M’Coy. Nowhere in particular.

—How’s the body?

—Fine. How are you?

—Just keeping alive, M’Coy said.

His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:

—Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you’re...

—O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.

—To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?

A photo it isn’t. A badge maybe.

—E...eleven, Mr Bloom answered.

—I must try to get out there, M’Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heardit last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?

—I know.

Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the doorof the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. Shestood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her,searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that rollcollar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Carelessstand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughtycreature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch thespot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. Thehonourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once takethe starch out of her.

—I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what doyou call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway’s we were.

Doran Lyons in Conway’s. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In cameHoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneathhis vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, thebraided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sightperhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side willshe get up?

—And he said: _Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy?_ Isaid. _Poor little Paddy Dignam_, he said.

Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with lacesdangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for?Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Twostrings to her bow.

—_Why?_ I said. _What’s wrong with him?_ I said.

Proud: rich: silk stockings.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He moved a little to the side of M’Coy’s talking head. Getting up in aminute.

—_What’s wrong with him_? He said. _He’s dead_, he said. And, faith, hefilled up. _Is it Paddy Dignam_? I said. I couldn’t believe it when Iheard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was itin the Arch. _Yes,_ he said. _He’s gone. He died on Monday, poorfellow_.

Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!

A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.

Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise andthe peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustacestreet hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend coveringthe display of. _Esprit de corps_. Well, what are you gaping at?

—Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.

—One of the best, M’Coy said.

The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her richgloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of herhat in the sun: flicker, flick.

—Wife well, I suppose? M’Coy’s changed voice said.

—O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.

He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:

 What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss.

—My missus has just got an engagement. At least it’s not settled yet.

Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I’m off that, thanks.

Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.

—My wife too, he said. She’s going to sing at a swagger affair in theUlster Hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.

—That so? M’Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who’s getting it up?

Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating breadand. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens.Dark lady and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip ofenvelope.

 Love’s Old Sweet Song Comes lo-ove’s old...

—It’s a kind of a tour, don’t you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully._Sweeeet song_. There’s a committee formed. Part shares and partprofits.

M’Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.

—O, well, he said. That’s good news.

He moved to go.

—Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

—Tell you what, M’Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral,will you? I’d like to go but I mightn’t be able, you see. There’s adrowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myselfwould have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my nameif I’m not there, will you?

—I’ll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That’ll be all right.

—Right, M’Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I’d go if I possiblycould. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M’Coy will do.

—That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.

Didn’t catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I’dlike my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Cappedcorners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent himhis for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidingsof it from that good day to this.

Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus hasjust got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough inits way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don’t youknow: in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would.Can’t he hear the difference? Think he’s that way inclined a bit.Against my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hopethat smallpox up there doesn’t get worse. Suppose she wouldn’t letherself be vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife.

Wonder is he pimping after me?

Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicolouredhoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane’s Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery’sSummer Sale. No, he’s going on straight. Hello. _Leah_ tonight. MrsBandmann Palmer. Like to see her again in that. _Hamlet_ she playedlast night. Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Opheliacommitted suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman inthat. Outside the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in.Year before I was born that was: sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. Whatis this the right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. Thescene he was always talking about where the old blind Abrahamrecognises the voice and puts his fingers on his face.

Nathan’s voice! His son’s voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who lefthis father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house ofhis father and left the God of his father.

Every word is so deep, Leopold.

Poor papa! Poor man! I’m glad I didn’t go into the room to look at hisface. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best forhim.

Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of thehazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn’t metthat M’Coy fellow.

He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gentlychamping teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amidthe sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damnall they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck innosebags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right andtheir doss. Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limpbetween their haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poorbrutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper hecarried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

He passed the cabman’s shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies.All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own._Voglio e non_. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout afew flying syllables as they pass. He hummed:

 Là ci darem la mano La la lala la la.

He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted inthe lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks.Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotchcourt with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyarda squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb.A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity todisturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her.Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame’sschool. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis’s. And Mr? He opened the letterwithin the newspaper.

A flower. I think it’s a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Notannoyed then? What does she say?

Dear Henry

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorryyou did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I amawfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I calledyou naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell mewhat is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your homeyou poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you.Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of thebeautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of youso often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to aman as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tellme more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know whatI will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long tomeet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience areexhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, Ihave such a bad headache. today. and write _by return_ to your longing

Martha

P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want toknow.

He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smelland placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like itbecause no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Thenwalking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here andthere a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish yourcactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dearroses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’sperfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put itback in his sidepocket.

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder didshe wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family likeme, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary.Thank you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running roundcorners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic.Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course.Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time.

Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roseswithout thorns.

Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two women that night inthe Coombe, linked together in the rain.

 O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers. She didn’t know what to do To keep it up, To keep it up.

It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting allday typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does yourwife use. Now could you make out a thing like that?

 To keep it up.

Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master orfaked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious.Also the two women in the Coombe would listen.

 To keep it up.

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you havebeen, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting thesupper: fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold likethe hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time Igo to the trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tellher: more and more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.

Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftlyin shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds flutteredaway, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank.

Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in thesame way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigurecheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to bemade out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to changehis shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. Amillion pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart,eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon ofporter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteenmillions of barrels of porter.

What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all thesame.

An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. Thebungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowingtogether, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazypooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.

He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into theporch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked itagain behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to workM’Coy for a pass to Mullingar.

Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for theconversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious.The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to thetrue religion. Save China’s millions. Wonder how they explain it to theheathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy forthem. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easywith hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce hom*o.Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock.Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking.Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into the choir instead ofthat Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’re taught that.He’s not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him tobaptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing.Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced,listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.

The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet placeto be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slowmusic. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in thebenches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batchknelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring,holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out acommunion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put itneatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Herhat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bentdown to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The nextone. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse.Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. Theydon’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of acorpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one byone, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself inits corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear.We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him hereand there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting forit to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it’s thatsort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makesthem feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it’s called.There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within youfeel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like onefamily party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’msure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bitspreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdescure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blindfaith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this timenext year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel aninstant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the laceaffair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know whatto do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S.Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I havesuffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up witha veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be herewith a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on thesly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on theinvincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communionevery morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver Iam thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and sixchildren at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Thosecrawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always somethingshiftylooking about them. They’re not straight men of business either.O, no, she’s not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear upthat envelope? Yes: under the bridge.

The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregssmartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drankwhat they are used to Guinness’s porter or some temperance beverageWheatley’s Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale(aromatic). Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other.Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they’d have oneold booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queerthe whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is.

Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to makethat instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say hehad in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _StabatMater_ of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ orPilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music they wanted.Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voiceagainst that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, thepeople looking up:

_Quis est hom*o._

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words.Mozart’s twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music,on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for exampletoo. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting,regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse.Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick.What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their ownstrong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feel anything after.Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don’t they? Gluttons,tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it.

He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about andbless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloomglanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Standup at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees againand he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from thealtar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answeredeach other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off acard:

—O God, our refuge and our strength...

Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw themthe bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Gloriousand immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. Moreinteresting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderfulorganisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wantsto. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weaponin their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And Ischschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Lookdown at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears.Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes.Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and HolyMary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvationarmy blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting.How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: theywork the whole show. And don’t they rake in the money too? Bequestsalso: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Massesfor the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in thewitnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors ofthe church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

—Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be oursafeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may Godrestrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenlyhost, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him thoseother wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin ofsouls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The womenremained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plateperhaps. Pay your Easter duty.

He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all thetime? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there’s a(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked.Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don’t. Why didn’t you tell mebefore. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south.He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through themain door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold blackmarble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtivehands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott’sdyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourning myself.He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet.Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time.Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and goldbeaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year ofthe flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the othertrousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair.O well, poor fellow, it’s not his fault. When was it I got it made uplast? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month itmust have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptionsbook.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell heseems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’sstone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargythen. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes yourcharacter. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants.All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. TeVirid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor Whack.He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The firstfellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples.Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turnsblue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleepingdraughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs thepores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you leastexpect it. Clever of nature.

—About a fortnight ago, sir?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, thedusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up tellingyour aches and pains.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and thenorangeflower water...

It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.

—And white wax also, he said.

Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to hereyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in mycuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for theteeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.Skinfood. One of the old queen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had onlyone skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples tomake it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your?_Peau d’Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell thesesoaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner.Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if anice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curiouslonging I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no timefor massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought abottle?

—No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day andI’ll take one of these soaps. How much are they?

—Fourpence, sir.

Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.

—I’ll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when youcome back.

—Good, Mr Bloom said.

He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, thecoolwrappered soap in his left hand.

At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said:

—Hello, Bloom. What’s the best news? Is that today’s? Show us a minute.

Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To lookyounger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.

Bantam Lyons’s yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants awash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.

—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, BantamLyons said. Where the bugger is it?

He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him thepaper and get shut of him.

—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.

—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum thesecond.

—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.

Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.

—What’s that? his sharp voice said.

—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it awaythat moment.

Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspreadsheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms.

—I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.

He sped off towards Conway’s corner. God speed scut.

Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soapin it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of itlately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for largetender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Flemingembezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now.They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.

He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of amosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. Heeyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclistdoubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made itround like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and thehub big: college. Something to catch the eye.

There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands:might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower?How do you do, sir?

Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play ithere. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in theKildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more intheir line. And the skulls we were acracking when M’Carthy took thefloor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, whichin the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all.

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepidstream. This is my body.

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb ofwarmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunkand limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward,lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls ofhis bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp fatherof thousands, a languid floating flower.

[ 6 ]

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creakingcarriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped inafter him, curving his height with care.

—Come on, Simon.

—After you, Mr Bloom said.

Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:

—Yes, yes.

—Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.

Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door toafter him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an armthrough the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindowat the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old womanpeeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars shewas passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Gladto see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them.Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’dwake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Flemingmaking the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never knowwho will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip thenails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the sameafter. Unclean job.

All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I amsitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Bettershift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.

All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer:then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking andswaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds ofthe avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar.At walking pace.

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and werepassing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheelsrattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shookrattling in the doorframes.

—What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.

—Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.

Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.

—That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not diedout.

All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted bypassers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to thesmoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man,clad in mourning, a wide hat.

—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.

—Who is that?

—Your son and heir.

—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadwaybefore the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving backto the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalusfell back, saying:

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_!

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.

—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Gouldingfaction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lumpof dung, the wise child that knows her own father.

Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: thebottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he callsthe firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzingin Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, thelandlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night.Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wifeironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs theyare. About six hundred per cent profit.

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is acontaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinksall over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’llmake it my business to write a letter one of those days to his motheror his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as agate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

He cried above the clatter of the wheels:

—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’sson. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely.

He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power’s mildface and Martin Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisyselfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. Iflittle Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strangefeeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been thatmorning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogsat it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinningup. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give usa touch, Poldy. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins.

Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent.Learn German too.

—Are we late? Mr Power asked.

—Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch.

Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumpingJupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be awoman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too.Life, life.

The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.

—Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.

—He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Doyou follow me?

He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush awaycrustcrumbs from under his thighs.

—What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?

—Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Powersaid.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonlessleather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downwardand said:

—Unless I’m greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?

—It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quiteclean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.

—After all, he said, it’s the most natural thing in the world.

—Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak ofhis beard gently.

—Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He’s behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.

—And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.

—At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.

—I met M’Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he’d try to come.

The carriage halted short.

—What’s wrong?

—We’re stopped.

—Where are we?

Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.

—The grand canal, he said.

Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never gotit. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shamereally. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseedtea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t missthis chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos,Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave.A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’sdogs usually are.

A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of showerspray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through acolander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.

—The weather is changing, he said quietly.

—A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.

—Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There’s the sun again comingout.

Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurleda mute curse at the sky.

—It’s as uncertain as a child’s bottom, he said.

—We’re off again.

The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayedgently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.

—Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard takinghim off to his face.

—O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hearhim, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of _The Croppy Boy_.

—Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simpleballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in thewhole course of my experience._

—Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And theretrospective arrangement.

—Did you read Dan Dawson’s speech? Martin Cunningham asked.

—I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it?

—In the paper this morning.

Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must changefor her.

—No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please.

Mr Bloom’s glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning thedeaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, whatPeake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton,Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper.Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible griefof his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month’s mind:Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy.

 It is now a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him on high.

I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read itin the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henryfled. Before my patience are exhausted.

National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting roundwith a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised theirhats.

A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against atramway standard by Mr Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent somethingautomatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellowwould lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a jobmaking the new invention?

Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with acrape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in lawperhaps.

They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s, under the railwaybridge, past the Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings: EugeneStratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see _Leah_ tonight, Iwonder. I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes OperaCompany. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun onthe Bristol_. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Haveto stand a drink or two. As broad as it’s long.

He’s coming in the afternoon. Her songs.

Plasto’s. Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust. Who was he?

—How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow insalute.

—He doesn’t see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?

—Who? Mr Dedalus asked.

—Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.

Just that moment I was thinking.

Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank thewhite disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed.

Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his righthand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimesfeel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I amjust looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Bodygetting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causesthat? I suppose the skin can’t contract quickly enough when the fleshfalls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders.Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between thecheeks behind.

He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacantglance over their faces.

Mr Power asked:

—How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?

—O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It’s a goodidea, you see...

—Are you going yourself?

—Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to thecounty Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour thechief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.

—Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now.

Have you good artists?

—Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we’ll have alltopnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, infact.

—And _Madame_, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least.

Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness andclasped them. Smith O’Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriagewheeling by Farrell’s statue united noiselessly their unresistingknees.

Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, hismouth opening: oot.

—Four bootlaces for a penny.

Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.Same house as Molly’s namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford.Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too.Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake.O’Callaghan on his last legs.

And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doingher hair, humming: _voglio e non vorrei_. No: _vorrei e non_. Lookingat the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un pocoil_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. Athrostle. There is a word throstle that expresses that.

His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power’s goodlooking face. Greyish overthe ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way.Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about thewoman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was ittold me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get playedout pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing hera pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury’s. Or theMoira, was it?

They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form.

Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.

—Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the cornerof Elvery’s Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on hisspine.

—In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.

Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:

—The devil break the hasp of your back!

Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window asthe carriage passed Gray’s statue.

—We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly.

His eyes met Mr Bloom’s eyes. He caressed his beard, adding:

—Well, nearly all of us.

Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions’ faces.

—That’s an awfully good one that’s going the rounds about Reuben J andthe son.

—About the boatman? Mr Power asked.

—Yes. Isn’t it awfully good?

—What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn’t hear it.

—There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined tosend him to the Isle of Man out of harm’s way but when they wereboth.....

—What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he triedto drown.....

—Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did!

Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.

—No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself.....

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely:

—Reuben J and the son were piking it down the quay next the river ontheir way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly gotloose and over the wall with him into the Liffey.

—For God’s sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead?

—Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fishedhim out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the fatheron the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is.....

—And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin forsaving his son’s life.

A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power’s hand.

—O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin.

—Isn’t it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly.

—One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily.

Mr Power’s choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage.

Nelson’s pillar.

—Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!

—We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Dedalus sighed.

—Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn’t grudge us a laugh.Many a good one he told himself.

—The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with hisfingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him lastand he was in his usual health that I’d be driving after him like this.He’s gone from us.

—As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He wentvery suddenly.

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.

He tapped his chest sadly.

Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spentcolouring it.

Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

—He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said.

—The best death, Mr Bloom said.

Their wide open eyes looked at him.

—No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep.

No-one spoke.

Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,temperance hotel, Falconer’s railway guide, civil service college,Gill’s, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun orwind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of thelate Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.

White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourningcoach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun fora nun.

—Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.

A dwarf’s face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy’s was. Dwarf’sbody, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly societypays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meantnothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. Ifnot from the man. Better luck next time.

—Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It’s well out of it.

The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle hisbones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.

—In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.

—But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his ownlife.

Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back.

—The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added.

—Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. Wemust take a charitable view of it.

—They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said.

—It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham’slarge eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent.Like Shakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercyon that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used todrive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’tbroken already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in theriverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard ofa wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and thenpawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him thelife of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Mondaymorning. Start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must havelooked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk aboutthe place and capering with Martin’s umbrella.

 And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The geisha.

He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones.

That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. Theroom in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlightthrough the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner’s sunlit ears, bigand hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then sawlike yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of thebed. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my sonLeopold.

No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones.

—We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said.

—God grant he doesn’t upset us on the road, Mr Power said.

—I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrowin Germany. The Gordon Bennett.

—Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith.

As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sentover and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Hasanybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The_Mater Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place.Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for thedying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. Theylook terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with thespoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young studentthat was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He’s gone over to thelying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other.

The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.

—What’s wrong now?

A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouchingby on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bonycroups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating theirfear.

—Emigrants, Mr Power said.

—Huuuh! the drover’s voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks.Huuuh! out of that!

Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe soldthem about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef forold England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarterlost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in ayear. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries,soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat offthe train at Clonsilla.

The carriage moved on through the drove.

—I can’t make out why the corporation doesn’t run a tramline from theparkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be takenin trucks down to the boats.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quiteright. They ought to.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to havemunicipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the lineout to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriageand all. Don’t you see what I mean?

—O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloondiningroom.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.

—Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decentthan galloping two abreast?

—Well, there’s something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.

—And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that whenthe hearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road.

—That was terrible, Mr Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fellabout the road. Terrible!

—First round Dunphy’s, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup.

—Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.

Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. PaddyDignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit toolarge for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s upnow. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insidesdecompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also.With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal up all.

—Dunphy’s, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right.

Dunphy’s corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. Apause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull uphere on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation.Elixir of life.

But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him inthe knocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. Depends onwhere. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery.It would be better to bury them in red: a dark red.

In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trottedby, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.

Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.

Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his droppingbarge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock aslacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._

Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated onhis raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds ofreeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar,Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Orcycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day atthe auction but a lady’s. Developing waterways. James M’Cann’s hobby torow me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats.Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will withoutwriting. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock bylock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted hisbrown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam.

They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now.

—I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said.

—Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.

—How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose?

—Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear.

The carriage steered left for Finglas road.

The stonecutter’s yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit ofland silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands,knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence:appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builderand sculptor.

Passed.

On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton’s, an old tramp sat,grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrownyawning boot. After life’s journey.

Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses.

Mr Power pointed.

—That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house.

—So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off.Murdered his brother. Or so they said.

—The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.

—Only circ*mstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That’s the maxim of thelaw. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocentperson to be wrongfully condemned.

They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered,tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfullycondemned. Murder. The murderer’s image in the eye of the murdered.They love reading about it. Man’s head found in a garden. Her clothingconsisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used.Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed.Murder will out.

Cramped in this carriage. She mightn’t like me to come that way withoutletting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once withtheir pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen.

The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars,rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid thetrees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vaingestures on the air.

The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham putout his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open withhis knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.

Change that soap now. Mr Bloom’s hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftlyand transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket.He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other handstill held.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the same.Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death.Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes andfruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead.Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out.

He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hyneswalking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and tookout the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy.

Where is that child’s funeral disappeared to?

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread,dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay agranite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted.

Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round atit with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck,pressing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart outhere every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then MountJerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhereevery minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick.Thousands every hour. Too many in the world.

Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy,hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl’s face stained with dirtand tears, holding the woman’s arm, looking up at her for a sign tocry. Fish’s face, bloodless and livid.

The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. Somuch dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. Firstthe stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boyfollowed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, thebrother-in-law.

All walked after.

Martin Cunningham whispered:

—I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom.

—What? Mr Power whispered. How so?

—His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had theQueen’s hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare.Anniversary.

—O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself?

He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followedtowards the cardinal’s mausoleum. Speaking.

—Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked.

—I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavilymortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane.

—How many children did he leave?

—Five. Ned Lambert says he’ll try to get one of the girls into Todd’s.

—A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children.

—A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added.

—Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed.

Has the laugh at him now.

He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She hadoutlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One mustoutlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in theworld. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you’ll soon followhim. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet whoknows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn ona guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But inthe end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart ofhearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was thesubstance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back,waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground:and lie no more in her warm bed.

—How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven’tseen you for a month of Sundays.

—Never better. How are all in Cork’s own town?

—I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambertsaid. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.

—And how is Dick, the solid man?

—Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.

—By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?

—Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said,pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till theinsurance is cleared up.

—Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front?

—Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife’s brother. John Henry Menton isbehind. He put down his name for a quid.

—I’ll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he oughtto mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.

—How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?

—Many a good man’s fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.

They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stoodbehind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair andat the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Washe there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the lastmoment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owethree shillings to O’Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore thecoffin into the chapel. Which end is his head?

After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screenedlight. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellowcandles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying awreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mournersknelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near thefont and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaperfrom his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his blackhat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.

A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through adoor. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole withone hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad’sbelly. Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his bookwith a fluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Dominenamine._ Bullyabout the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woebetide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burstsideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly onhim like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn:burst sideways.

_—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine._

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiemmass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morningin the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of atoad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled aftercabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be aninfernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: theyget like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in thevaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hundred and fifty they haveto bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burnit. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you’re a goner.

My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That’s better.

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy’sbucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other endand shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. Asyou were before you rested. It’s all written down: he has to do it.

_—Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would bebetter to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course...

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fedup with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal daya fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead inchildbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girlswith little sparrows’ breasts. All the year round he prayed the samething over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignamnow.

_—In paradisum._

Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that overeverybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. CornyKelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted thecoffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. CornyKelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. Allfollowed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloomcame last folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely atthe ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metalwheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of bluntboots followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.

The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn’t lilt here.

—The O’Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.

Mr Power’s soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.

—He’s at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O’. Buthis heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here,Simon!

—Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I’ll soon be stretchedbeside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.

Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a littlein his walk. Mr Power took his arm.

—She’s better where she is, he said kindly.

—I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is inheaven if there is a heaven.

Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners toplod by.

—Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.

Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.

—The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we cando so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.

They covered their heads.

—The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don’t you think?Mr Kernan said with reproof.

Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secreteyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. Weare the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else.

Mr Kernan added:

—The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, moreimpressive I must say.

Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.

Mr Kernan said with solemnity:

—_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man’s inmostheart.

—It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by twowith his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of bloodevery day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots ofthem lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damnthe thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead youare dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves.Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Lastday! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights andthe rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning.Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troymeasure.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

—Everything went off A1, he said. What?

He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman’s shoulders. Withyour tooraloom tooraloom.

—As it should be, Mr Kernan said.

—What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.

Mr Kernan assured him.

—Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. Iknow his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

—Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, thesoprano. She’s his wife.

—O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for sometime. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteenseventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown. And a goodarmful she was.

He looked behind through the others.

—What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationeryline? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

—Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely’s. A traveller for blottingpaper.

—In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon likethat for? She had plenty of game in her then.

—Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.

John Henry Menton’s large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among thegrasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.

—John O’Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.

Mr O’Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:

—I am come to pay you another visit.

—My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don’t wantyour custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at MartinCunningham’s side puzzling two long keys at his back.

—Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?

—I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. Thecaretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spokein a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

—They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggyevening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked forMulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. Aftertraipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of thedrunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk wasblinking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. Heresumed:

—And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit likethe man_, says he. _That’s not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher,accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them ashe walked.

—That’s all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes.

—I know, Hynes said. I know that.

—To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It’s puregoodheartedness: damn the thing else.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be ongood terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort.Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passoutchecks. _Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral.Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when shedisturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the deadletter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’sthe first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross.Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had thegumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard.Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death.Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. Theshadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must bea descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedyman great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive atall. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed tomake her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was apitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’dkiss all right if properly keyed up. whor*s in Turkish graveyards.Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here.Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. Inthe midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for thepoor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing theirvitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window.Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him fieldafter field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing.Sitting or kneeling you couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up someday above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombedthe ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trimgrass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, soit is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giantpoppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The BotanicGardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in the earth givesnew life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy.Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure,invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of WilliamWilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three poundsthirteen and six. With thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh,nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rotquick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of atallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozingout of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whateverthey are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically.Nothing to feed on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simplyswirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty littleseaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense ofpower seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks atlife. Cracking his jokes too: warms the co*ckles of his heart. The oneabout the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves themen anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what’sin fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keepout the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way.Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the humanheart. Daren’t joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuisnil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral.Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you livelonger. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.

—How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.

—Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased totrundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole,stepping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffinand set its nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

Burying him. We come to bury Cæsar. His ides of March or June. Hedoesn’t know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galootover there in the macintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know? Now I’dgive a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you neverdreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, hecould. Still he’d have to get someone to sod him after he died thoughhe could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too.First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe wastrue to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries aThursday if you come to look at it.

 O, poor Robinson Crusoe! How could you possibly do so?

Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think ofthem all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They couldinvent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down thatway. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow’s.They’re so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from theholy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the onecoffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possibleeven in the earth. The Irishman’s house is his coffin. Embalming incatacombs, mummies the same idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.Twelve. I’m thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen.Death’s number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in thechapel, that I’ll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I hadone like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow hewas once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that greysuit of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It’s dyed. His wife I forgot he’snot married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads forhim.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on thegravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.

Pause.

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, theysay. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. Theboy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly inthe black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindlycaretaker. Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see whichwill go next. Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It’s the momentyou feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can’t believe it at first. Mistakemust be: someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. Ihaven’t yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whisperingaround you. Would you like to see a priest? Then rambling andwandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. Hissleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nosepointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull thepillow away and finish it off on the floor since he’s doomed. Devil inthat picture of sinner’s death showing him a woman. Dying to embraceher in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee_?Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you.Don’t forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. EvenParnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole, oneafter the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you’re well andnot in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into thefire of purgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you dowhen you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy’s warning.Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma,poor mamma, and little Rudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay inon the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive allthe time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, ofcourse. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have somelaw to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or atelephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag ofdistress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as wellto get shut of them as soon as you are sure there’s no.

The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.

The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough ofit. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselveswithout show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure makeits way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground,he traversed the dismal fields.

Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But heknows them all. No: coming to me.

—I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is yourchristian name? I’m not sure.

—L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M’Coy’s name too. Heasked me to.

—Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the _Freeman_ once.

So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Goodidea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. Hedied of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads.Charley, you’re my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, doesno harm. I saw to that, M’Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leavehim under an obligation: costs nothing.

—And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow wasover there in the...

He looked around.

—Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?

—M’Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don’t know who he is. Is that hisname?

He moved away, looking about him.

—No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

Didn’t hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of allthe. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. GoodLord, what became of him?

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.

—O, excuse me!

He stepped aside nimbly.

Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers restedtheir spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy proppedhis wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. Thegravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towardsthe barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. Onebent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving hismates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing.Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord.The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand.Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. Foryourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, stayingat whiles to read a name on a tomb.

—Let us go round by the chief’s grave, Hynes said. We have time.

—Let us, Mr Power said.

They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe MrPower’s blank voice spoke:

—Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filledwith stones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

—Parnell will never come again, he said. He’s there, all that wasmortal of him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes,old Ireland’s hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money onsome charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Doesanybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down acoalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls’ day.Twentyseventh I’ll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. Hekeeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with hisshears clipping. Near death’s door. Who passed away. Who departed thislife. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all ofthem. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you whatthey were. So and So, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paidfive shillings in the pound. Or a woman’s with her saucepan. I cookedgood Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be thatpoem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into restthe protestants put it. Old Dr Murren’s. The great physician called himhome. Well it’s God’s acre for them. Nice country residence. Newlyplastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the_Church Times._ Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreathshung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money.Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome,never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like thewedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him.Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal evensadder. Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchenmatchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.

The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to besideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland wasdedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why thisinfliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basketof fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of theboy. Apollo that was.

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.As you are now so once were we.

Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, thevoice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it inthe house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather.Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagainhellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photographreminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn’t remember the face afterfifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow thatdied when I was in Wisdom Hely’s.

Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop!

He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There hegoes.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving thepebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The greyalive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it.Good hidingplace for treasure.

Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet wasburied here by torchlight, wasn’t he? Making his rounds.

Tail gone now.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bonesclean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meatgone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that_Voyages in China_ that the Chinese say a white man smells like acorpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for theother firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of theplague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes toashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten bybirds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. Seeyour whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can’tbury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the newsgo about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.We learned that from them. Wouldn’t be surprised. Regular square feedfor them. Flies come before he’s well dead. Got wind of Dignam. Theywouldn’t care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush ofcorpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips.

The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time Iwas here was Mrs Sinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills.And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case Iread of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with runninggravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you afterdeath. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you afterdeath. There is another world after death named hell. I do not likethat other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear andfeel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in theirmaggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds:warm fullblooded life.

Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.

Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor,commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office.Mat Dillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl,cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Gothis rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed insidehim. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike tome. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under thelilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women areby.

Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.

—Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.

They stopped.

—Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing.

John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.

—There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.

John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothedthe nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his headagain.

—It’s all right now, Martin Cunningham said.

John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.

—Thank you, he said shortly.

They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind afew paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martincould wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without hisseeing it.

Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.Get the pull over him that way.

Thank you. How grand we are this morning!

[ 7 ]

IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS

Before Nelson’s pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, startedfor Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines,Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold’s Cross. The hoarse Dublin UnitedTramway Company’s timekeeper bawled them off:

—Rathgar and Terenure!

—Come on, Sandymount Green!

Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and asingledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glidedparallel.

—Start, Palmerston Park!

THE WEARER OF THE CROWN

Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called andpolished. Parked in North Prince’s street His Majesty’s vermilionmailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., receivedloudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insuredand paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.

GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince’s storesand bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumpeddullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince’sstores.

—There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.

—Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I’ll take it round tothe _Telegraph_ office.

The door of Ruttledge’s office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute ina large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed outwith a roll of papers under his cape, a king’s courier.

Red Murray’s long shears sliced out the advertisem*nt from thenewspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.

—I’ll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cutsquare.

—Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behindhis ear, we can do him one.

—Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I’ll rub that in.

We.

WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS, SANDYMOUNT

Red Murray touched Mr Bloom’s arm with the shears and whispered:

—Brayden.

Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as astately figure entered between the newsboards of the _Weekly Freemanand National Press_ and the _Freeman’s Journal and National Press_.Dullthudding Guinness’s barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase,steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth backascended each step: back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck,Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck,fat, neck, fat, neck.

—Don’t you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.

The door of Ruttledge’s office whispered: ee: cree. They always buildone door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.

Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha.Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.

—Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.

—Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of OurSaviour.

Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on hisheart. In _Martha._

 Co-ome thou lost one, Co-ome thou dear one!

THE CROZIER AND THE PEN

—His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.

They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.

A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter andstepped off posthaste with a word:

_—Freeman!_

Mr Bloom said slowly:

—Well, he is one of our saviours also.

A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passedin through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, alongthe now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation?Thumping. Thumping.

He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewnpacking paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towardsNannetti’s reading closet.

WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOSTRESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS

Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. Thismorning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash aman to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. Hismachineries are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand:fermenting. Working away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearingto get in.

HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT

Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman’s spare body, admiring a glossycrown.

Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member forCollege green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it wasworth. It’s the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale newsin the official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority inthe year one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland ofRosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedulepursuant to statute showing return of number of mules and jennetsexported from Ballina. Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake’s weekly Patand Bull story. Uncle Toby’s page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin’squeries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? I’d likethat part. Learn a lot teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P.Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand. World’s biggestballoon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegroomslaughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish thanthe Irish.

The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if hegot paralysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they’d clank onand on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodlethe whole thing. Want a cool head.

—Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.

Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say.

The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of thesheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silentlyover the dirty glass screen.

—Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.

Mr Bloom stood in his way.

—If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,pointing backward with his thumb.

—Did you? Hynes asked.

—Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you’ll catch him.

—Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I’ll tap him too.

He hurried on eagerly towards the _Freeman’s Journal_.

Three bob I lent him in Meagher’s. Three weeks. Third hint.

WE SEE THE CANVASSER AT WORK

Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti’s desk.

—Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember?

Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded.

—He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.

The foreman moved his pencil towards it.

—But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wantstwo keys at the top.

Hell of a racket they make. He doesn’t hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.Maybe he understands what I.

The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, beganto scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.

—Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.

Let him take that in first.

Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw theforeman’s sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond theobedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Milesof it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels:various uses, thousand and one things.

Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drewswiftly on the scarred woodwork.

HOUSE OF KEY(E)S

—Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name.Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.

Better not teach him his own business.

—You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the topin leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that’s a good idea?

The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratchedthere quietly.

—The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, fromthe isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?

I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that _voglio._ But thenif he didn’t know only make it awkward for him. Better not.

—We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?

—I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has ahouse there too. I’ll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do thatand just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. Highclasslicensed premises. Longfelt want. So on.

The foreman thought for an instant.

—We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months’ renewal.

A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check itsilently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks,watching the silent typesetters at their cases.

ORTHOGRAPHICAL

Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgotto give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing toview the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment ofa harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry with a y of a peeledpear under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn’t it? Cemetery put in of courseon account of the symmetry.

I should have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought tohave said something about an old hat or something. No. I could havesaid. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then.

Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward itsflyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almosthuman the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak.That door too sllt creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks inits own way. Sllt.

NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR

The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:

—Wait. Where’s the archbishop’s letter? It’s to be repeated in the_Telegraph._ Where’s what’s his name?

He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.

—Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.

—Ay. Where’s Monks?

—Monks!

Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.

—Then I’ll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you’ll give it agood place I know.

—Monks!

—Yes, sir.

Three months’ renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try itanyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge.Tourists over for the show.

A DAYFATHER

He walked on through the caseroom passing an old man, bowed,spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff hemust have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs’ads, speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of histether now. Sober serious man with a bit in the savingsbank I’d say.Wife a good cook and washer. Daughter working the machine in theparlour. Plain Jane, no damn nonsense.

AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER

He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require somepractice that. mangiD kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, readingbackwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear,O dear! All that long business about that brought us out of the land ofEgypt and into the house of bondage _alleluia. Shema Israel AdonaiElohenu_. No, that’s the other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob’s sons.And then the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the waterand the butcher. And then the angel of death kills the butcher and hekills the ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly till youcome to look into it well. Justice it means but it’s everybody eatingeveryone else. That’s what life is after all. How quickly he does thatjob. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers.

Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on tothe landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catchhim out perhaps. Better phone him up first. Number? Yes. Same asCitron’s house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.

ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP

He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over thosewalls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasysmell there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom’s next doorwhen I was there.

He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soapI put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchiefhe took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned, into the hip pocketof his trousers.

What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: somethingI forgot. Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No.

A sudden screech of laughter came from the _Evening Telegraph_ office.Know who that is. What’s up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert itis.

He entered softly.

ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA

—The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully tothe dusty windowpane.

Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert’s quizzingface, asked of it sourly:

—Agonising Christ, wouldn’t it give you a heartburn on your arse?

Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:

—_Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles onits way, tho’ quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumblingwaters of Neptune’s blue domain, ’mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlestzephyrs, played on by the glorious sunlight or ’neath the shadows casto’er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafa*ge of the giants of theforest_. What about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of hisnewspaper. How’s that for high?

—Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.

Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:

—_The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafa*ge_. O boys! O boys!

—And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again onthe fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.

—That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don’t want tohear any more of the stuff.

He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.

High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.Rather upsets a man’s day, a funeral does. He has influence they say.Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or hisgreatgranduncle. Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his deathwritten this long time perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go firsthimself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The right honourable HedgesEyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque or two ongale days. Windfall when he kicks out. Alleluia.

—Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.

—What is it? Mr Bloom asked.

—A recently discovered fragment of Cicero, professor MacHugh answeredwith pomp of tone. _Our lovely land_.

SHORT BUT TO THE POINT

—Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.

—Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With anaccent on the whose.

—Dan Dawson’s land Mr Dedalus said.

—Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.

Ned Lambert nodded.

—But listen to this, he said.

The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door waspushed in.

—Excuse me, J. J. O’Molloy said, entering.

Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.

—I beg yours, he said.

—Good day, Jack.

—Come in. Come in.

—Good day.

—How are you, Dedalus?

—Well. And yourself?

J. J. O’Molloy shook his head.

SAD

Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline, poor chap.That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What’sin the wind, I wonder. Money worry.

—_Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks._

—You’re looking extra.

—Is the editor to be seen? J. J. O’Molloy asked, looking towards theinner door.

—Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He’s inhis sanctum with Lenehan.

J. J. O’Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back thepink pages of the file.

Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts ofhonour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. andT. Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on theirsleeve like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary workfor the _Express_ with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawfordbegan on the _Independent._ Funny the way those newspaper men veerabout when they get wind of a new opening. Weatherco*cks. Hot and coldin the same breath. Wouldn’t know which to believe. One story good tillyou hear the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and thenall blows over. Hail fellow well met the next moment.

—Ah, listen to this for God’ sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. _Or again if webut climb the serried mountain peaks..._

—Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflatedwindbag!

—_Peaks_, Ned Lambert went on, _towering high on high, to bathe oursouls, as it were..._

—Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is hetaking anything for it?

_—As ’twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland’s portfolio,unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prizeregions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain andluscious pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendenttranslucent glow of our mild mysterious Irish twilight..._

HIS NATIVE DORIC

—The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.

_—That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb ofthe moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence..._

—O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. sh*te andonions! That’ll do, Ned. Life is too short.

He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushymoustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.

Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. Aninstant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh’sunshaven blackspectacled face.

—Doughy Daw! he cried.

WHAT WETHERUP SAID

All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hotcake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn’t he? Why theycall him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engagedto that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked thatnicely. Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always saidthat. Get a grip of them by the stomach.

The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crestedby a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes staredabout them and the harsh voice asked:

—What is it?

—And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh saidgrandly.

—Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition.

—Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drinkafter that.

—Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.

—Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.

Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor’s blue eyes rovedtowards Mr Bloom’s face, shadowed by a smile.

—Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED

—North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. Wewon every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!

—Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance athis toecaps.

—In Ohio! the editor shouted.

—So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.

Passing out he whispered to J. J. O’Molloy:

—Incipient jigs. Sad case.

—Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face.My Ohio!

—A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.

O, HARP EOLIAN!

He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breakingoff a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonantunwashed teeth.

—Bingbang, bangbang.

Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.

—Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad.

He went in.

—What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, comingto the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

—That’ll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret.Hello, Jack. That’s all right.

—Good day, Myles, J. J. O’Molloy said, letting the pages he held sliplimply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?

The telephone whirred inside.

—Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes.

SPOT THE WINNER

Lenehan came out of the inner office with _Sport_’s tissues.

—Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.Madden up.

He tossed the tissues on to the table.

Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door wasflung open.

—Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.

Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchinby the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down thesteps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the airblue scrawls and under the table came to earth.

—It wasn’t me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.

—Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There’s a hurricaneblowing.

Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as hestooped twice.

—Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was PatFarrell shoved me, sir.

He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe.

—Him, sir.

—Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.

He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.

J. J. O’Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:

—Continued on page six, column four.

—Yes, _Evening Telegraph_ here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office.Is the boss...? Yes, _Telegraph_... To where? Aha! Which auctionrooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I’ll catch him.

A COLLISION ENSUES

The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumpedagainst Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.

—_Pardon, monsieur_, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant andmaking a grimace.

—My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I’m in ahurry.

—Knee, Lenehan said.

He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee:

—The accumulation of the _anno Domini_.

—Sorry, Mr Bloom said.

He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O’Molloyslapped the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, amouthorgan, echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted onthe doorsteps:

 We are the boys of Wexford Who fought with heart and hand.

EXIT BLOOM

—I’m just running round to Bachelor’s walk, Mr Bloom said, about thisad of Keyes’s. Want to fix it up. They tell me he’s round there inDillon’s.

He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand,suddenly stretched forth an arm amply.

—Begone! he said. The world is before you.

—Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.

J. J. O’Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan’s hand and read them,blowing them apart gently, without comment.

—He’ll get that advertisem*nt, the professor said, staring through hisblackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scampsafter him.

—Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.

A STREET CORTÈGE

Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in MrBloom’s wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, atail of white bowknots.

—Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,and you’ll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and thewalk. Small nines. Steal upon larks.

He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on slidingfeet past the fireplace to J. J. O’Molloy who placed the tissues in hisreceiving hands.

—What’s that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other twogone?

—Who? the professor said, turning. They’re gone round to the Oval for adrink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.

—Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where’s my hat?

He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of hisjacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in theair and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.

—He’s pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice.

—Seems to be, J. J. O’Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase inmurmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has themost matches?

THE CALUMET OF PEACE

He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehanpromptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.J. O’Molloy opened his case again and offered it.

—_Thanky vous_, Lenehan said, helping himself.

The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. Hedeclaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:

 ’Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, ’Twas empire charmed thy heart.

The professor grinned, locking his long lips.

—Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.

He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for himwith quick grace, said:

—Silence for my brandnew riddle!

—_Imperium romanum_, J. J. O’Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler thanBritish or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.

Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.

—That’s it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire.We haven’t got the chance of a snowball in hell.

THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME

—Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. Wemustn’t be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,imperial, imperious, imperative.

He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:

—What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers.The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: _It is meet tobe here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah_. The Roman, like theEnglishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore onwhich he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacalobsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet tobe here. Let us construct a watercloset._

—Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancientancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness’s, were partialto the running stream.

—They were nature’s gentlemen, J. J. O’Molloy murmured. But we havealso Roman law.

—And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.

—Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O’Molloy asked.It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly...

—First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?

Mr O’Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in fromthe hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.

—_Entrez, mes enfants!_ Lenehan cried.

—I escort a suppliant, Mr O’Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led byExperience visits Notoriety.

—How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Yourgovernor is just gone.

???

Lenehan said to all:

—Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder,excogitate, reply.

Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title andsignature.

—Who? the editor asked.

Bit torn off.

—Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said.

—That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken?

 On swift sail flaming From storm and south He comes, pale vampire, Mouth to my mouth.

—Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over theirshoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...?

Bullockbefriending bard.

SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT

—Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. MrGarrett Deasy asked me to...

—O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. Thebloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot andmouth disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in thewaiter’s face in the Star and Garter. Oho!

A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife ofMenelaus, ten years the Greeks. O’Rourke, prince of Breffni.

—Is he a widower? Stephen asked.

—Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down thetypescript. Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life onthe ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell,graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king anAustrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wildgeese. O yes, every time. Don’t you forget that!

—The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O’Molloy said quietly,turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.

Professor MacHugh turned on him.

—And if not? he said.

—I’ll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was oneday...

LOST CAUSES NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED

—We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success forus is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were neverloyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latinlanguage. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality isthe maxim: time is money. Material domination. _Dominus!_ Lord! Whereis the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westendclub. But the Greek!

KYRIE ELEISON!

A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his longlips.

—The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios!_ Shining word! The vowels theSemite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie!_ The radiance of the intellect.I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison!_The closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit.We are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that founderedat Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ thatwent under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They wentunder. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrievethe fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause.

He strode away from them towards the window.

—They went forth to battle, Mr O’Madden Burke said greyly, but theyalways fell.

—Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received inthe latter half of the _matinée_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!

He whispered then near Stephen’s ear:

LENEHAN’S LIMERICK

—_There’s a ponderous pundit MacHughWho wears goggles of ebony hue.As he mostly sees doubleTo wear them why trouble?I can’t see the Joe Miller. Can you?_

In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.

Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.

—That’ll be all right, he said. I’ll read the rest after. That’ll beall right.

Lenehan extended his hands in protest.

—But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline?

—Opera? Mr O’Madden Burke’s sphinx face reriddled.

Lenehan announced gladly:

—_The Rose of Castile_. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!

He poked Mr O’Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O’Madden Burke fellback with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.

—Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.

Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustlingtissues.

The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand acrossStephen’s and Mr O’Madden Burke’s loose ties.

—Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.

—Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O’Molloy said inquiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finlandbetween you? You look as though you had done the deed. GeneralBobrikoff.

OMNIUM GATHERUM

—We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.

—All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics...

—The turf, Lenehan put in.

—Literature, the press.

—If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art ofadvertisem*nt.

—And Madam Bloom, Mr O’Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin’sprime favourite.

Lenehan gave a loud cough.

—Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught acold in the park. The gate was open.

“YOU CAN DO IT!”

The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen’s shoulder.

—I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bitein it. You can do it. I see it in your face. _In the lexicon ofyouth_...

See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.

—Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Greatnationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing thepublic! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damnits soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M’Carthy.

—We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.

—He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O’Molloy said.

THE GREAT GALLAHER

—You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand inemphasis. Wait a minute. We’ll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaherused to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in theClarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. Youknow how he made his mark? I’ll tell you. That was the smartest pieceof journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time ofthe invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, Isuppose. I’ll show you.

He pushed past them to the files.

—Look at here, he said turning. The _New York World_ cabled for aspecial. Remember that time?

Professor MacHugh nodded.

—_New York World_, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his strawhat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady andthe rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see?

—Skin-the-Goat, Mr O’Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has thatcabman’s shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me.You know Holohan?

—Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.

—And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones forthe corporation. A night watchman.

Stephen turned in surprise.

—Gumley? he said. You don’t say so? A friend of my father’s, is it?

—Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind thestones, see they don’t run away. Look at here. What did IgnatiusGallaher do? I’ll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away.Have you _Weekly Freeman_ of 17 March? Right. Have you got that?

He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point.

—Take page four, advertisem*nt for Bransome’s coffee, let us say. Haveyou got that? Right.

The telephone whirred.

A DISTANT VOICE

—I’ll answer it, the professor said, going.

—B is parkgate. Good.

His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating.

—T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroongate.

The loose flesh of his neck shook like a co*ck’s wattles. An illstarcheddicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into hiswaistcoat.

—Hello? _Evening Telegraph_ here... Hello?... Who’s there?... Yes...Yes... Yes.

—F to P is the route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi,Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F.A.B.P.Got that? X is Davy’s publichouse in upper Leeson street.

The professor came to the inner door.

—Bloom is at the telephone, he said.

—Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Davy’spublichouse, see?

CLEVER, VERY

—Clever, Lenehan said. Very.

—Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloodyhistory.

Nightmare from which you will never awake.

—I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, thebesthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, andmyself.

Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing:

—Madam, I’m Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba.

—History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince’s street wasthere first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out ofan advertisem*nt. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him theleg up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the _Star._Now he’s got in with Blumenfeld. That’s press. That’s talent. Pyatt! Hewas all their daddies!

—The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and thebrother-in-law of Chris Callinan.

—Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he’s here still. Come acrossyourself.

—Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried.

He flung the pages down.

—Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O’Madden Burke.

—Very smart, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

Professor MacHugh came from the inner office.

—Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some hawkerswere up before the recorder...

—O yes, J. J. O’Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking homethrough the park to see all the trees that were blown down by thatcyclone last year and thought she’d buy a view of Dublin. And it turnedout to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One orSkin-the-Goat. Right outside the viceregal lodge, imagine!

—They’re only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said.Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like thosefellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O’Hagan.Eh? Ah, bloody nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place.

His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain.

Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did youwrite it then?

RHYMES AND REASONS

Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must besome. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed thesame, looking the same, two by two.

 ........................ la tua pace .................. che parlar ti piace Mentre che il vento, come fa, si tace.

He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, inrusset, entwining, _per l’aer perso_, in mauve, in purple, _quellapacifica oriafiamma_, gold of oriflamme, _di rimirar fè più ardenti._But I old men, penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouthsouth: tomb womb.

—Speak up for yourself, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY...

J. J. O’Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.

—My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a falseconstruction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, forthe third profession _qua_ profession but your Cork legs are runningaway with you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenesand Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizodboss, Harmsworth of the farthing press, and his American cousin of theBowery guttersheet not to mention _Paddy Kelly’s Budget_, _Pue’sOccurrences_ and our watchful friend _The Skibbereen Eagle_. Why bringin a master of forensic eloquence like Whiteside? Sufficient for theday is the newspaper thereof.

LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF YORE

—Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in hisface. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas.Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha!

—Well, J. J. O’Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example.

—Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes: Bushe, yes. He has a strain of itin his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe.

—He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only for.... But no matter.

J. J. O’Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly:

—One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my lifefell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide,the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him.

 _And in the porches of mine ear did pour._

By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the otherstory, beast with two backs?

—What was that? the professor asked.

ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM

—He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O’Molloy said, of Roman justiceas contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the _lex talionis_. And hecited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican.

—Ha.

—A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence!

Pause. J. J. O’Molloy took out his cigarettecase.

False lull. Something quite ordinary.

Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar.

I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time thatit was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match,that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.

A POLISHED PERIOD

J. J. O’Molloy resumed, moulding his words:

—He said of it: _that stony effigy in frozen music, horned andterrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom andof prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand ofsculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and ofsoultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live._

His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall.

—Fine! Myles Crawford said at once.

—The divine afflatus, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

—You like it? J. J. O’Molloy asked Stephen.

Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. Hetook a cigarette from the case. J. J. O’Molloy offered his case toMyles Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took histrophy, saying:

—Muchibus thankibus.

A MAN OF HIGH MORALE

—Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O’Molloy saidto Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opalhush poets: A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it.She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankeeinterviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning toask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must havebeen pulling A. E.’s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale,Magennis.

Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he sayabout me? Don’t ask.

—No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarettecase aside.Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory Iever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historicalsociety. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, hadspoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days),advocating the revival of the Irish tongue.

He turned towards Myles Crawford and said:

—You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of hisdiscourse.

—He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O’Molloy said, rumour has it, onthe Trinity college estates commission.

—He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child’sfrock. Go on. Well?

—It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator,full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I willnot say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man’s contumelyupon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak,therefore worthless.

He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised anoutspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb andringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a newfocus.

IMPROMPTU

In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O’Molloy:

—Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he hadprepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even oneshorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggybeard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether helooked (though he was not) a dying man.

His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O’Molloy’s towardsStephen’s face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. Hisunglazed linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by hiswithering hair. Still seeking, he said:

—When Fitzgibbon’s speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply.Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these.

He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more.Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet.

He began:

_—Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration inlistening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a momentsince by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transportedinto a country far away from this country, into an age remote from thisage, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to thespeech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthfulMoses._

His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokesascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. _And let ourcrooked smokes._ Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your handat it yourself?

_—And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptianhighpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heardhis words and their meaning was revealed to me._

FROM THE FATHERS

It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet arecorrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless theywere good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That’s saint Augustine.

_—Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and ourlanguage? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people.You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity andour galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandisefurrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged fromprimitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelonghistory and a polity._

Nile.

Child, man, effigy.

By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supplein combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.

_—You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic andmysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra.Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel isweak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are herarms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles atour name._

A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above itboldly:

_—But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to andaccepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his willand bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would neverhave brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, norfollowed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spokenwith the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever havecome down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance andbearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language ofthe outlaw._

He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence.

OMINOUS—FOR HIM!

J. J. O’Molloy said not without regret:

—And yet he died without having entered the land of promise.

—A—sudden—at—the—moment—though—from—lingering—illness—often—previously—expectorated—demise, Lenehan added. And with a great future behind him.

The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway andpattering up the staircase.

—That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted.

Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Milesof ears of porches. The tribune’s words, howled and scattered to thefour winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasicrecords of all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: meno more.

I have money.

—Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may Isuggest that the house do now adjourn?

—You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? MrO’Madden Burke asked. ’Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug,metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.

—That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favoursay ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. Towhich particular boosing shed...? My casting vote is: Mooney’s!

He led the way, admonishing:

—We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not? Yes,we will not. By no manner of means.

Mr O’Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally’s lunge of hisumbrella:

—Lay on, Macduff!

—Chip of the old block! the editor cried, clapping Stephen on theshoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys?

He fumbled in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets.

—Foot and mouth. I know. That’ll be all right. That’ll go in. Where arethey? That’s all right.

He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office.

LET US HOPE

J. J. O’Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen:

—I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment.

He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him.

—Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn’t it? Ithas the prophetic vision. _Fuit Ilium!_ The sack of windy Troy.Kingdoms of this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheentoday.

The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels andrushed out into the street, yelling:

—Racing special!

Dublin. I have much, much to learn.

They turned to the left along Abbey street.

—I have a vision too, Stephen said.

—Yes? the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford willfollow.

Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran:

—Racing special!

DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN

Dubliners.

—Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fiftyand fiftythree years in Fumbally’s lane.

—Where is that? the professor asked.

—Off Blackpitts, Stephen said.

Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glisteringtallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records.Quicker, darlint!

On now. Dare it. Let there be life.

—They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson’s pillar.They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. Theyshake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennieswith the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven incoppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take theirumbrellas for fear it may come on to rain.

—Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.

LIFE ON THE RAW

—They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf atthe north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss KateCollins, proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums froma girl at the foot of Nelson’s pillar to take off the thirst of thebrawn. They give two threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstileand begin to waddle slowly up the winding staircase, grunting,encouraging each other, afraid of the dark, panting, one asking theother have you the brawn, praising God and the Blessed Virgin,threatening to come down, peeping at the airslits. Glory be to God.They had no idea it was that high.

Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has thelumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady whogot a bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes acrubeen and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday.

—Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I cansee them. What’s keeping our friend?

He turned.

A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in alldirections, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after themMyles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarletface, talking with J. J. O’Molloy.

—Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm.

He set off again to walk by Stephen’s side.

RETURN OF BLOOM

—Yes, he said. I see them.

Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near theoffices of the _Irish Catholic_ and _Dublin Penny Journal_, called:

—Mr Crawford! A moment!

—_Telegraph_! Racing special!

—What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace.

A newsboy cried in Mr Bloom’s face:

—Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows!

INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR

—Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps,puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyesjust now. He’ll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he’llsee. But he wants a par to call attention in the _Telegraph_ too, theSaturday pink. And he wants it copied if it’s not too late I toldcouncillor Nannetti from the _Kilkenny People_. I can have access to itin the national library. House of keys, don’t you see? His name isKeyes. It’s a play on the name. But he practically promised he’d givethe renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell him, MrCrawford?

K.M.A.

—Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwingout his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable.

A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm.Lenehan’s yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder isthat young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on himtoday. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking inmuck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown?

—Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design Isuppose it’s worth a short par. He’d give the ad, I think. I’ll tellhim...

K.M.R.I.A.

—He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over hisshoulder. Any time he likes, tell him.

While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode onjerkily.

RAISING THE WIND

—_Nulla bona_, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I’m up tohere. I’ve been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow toback a bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must takethe will for the deed. With a heart and a half if I could raise thewind anyhow.

J. J. O’Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caughtup on the others and walked abreast.

—When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twentyfingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to therailings.

—Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two oldDublin women on the top of Nelson’s pillar.

SOME COLUMN!—THAT’S WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID

—That’s new, Myles Crawford said. That’s copy. Out for the waxies’Dargle. Two old trickies, what?

—But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They seethe roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines’blue dome, Adam and Eve’s, saint Laurence O’Toole’s. But it makes themgiddy to look so they pull up their skirts...

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES

—Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We’re in thearchdiocese here.

—And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statueof the onehandled adulterer.

—Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see theidea. I see what you mean.

DAMES DONATE DUBLIN’S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, BELIEF

—It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are tootired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums betweenthem and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off withtheir handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths andspitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings.

He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O’MaddenBurke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney’s.

—Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse.

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASHMOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP.

—You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple ofGorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he werebitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a nobleand a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm ofbeauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.

Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.

They made ready to cross O’Connell street.

HELLO THERE, CENTRAL!

At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionlesstrolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines,Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green,Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and UpperRathmines, all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs,delivery waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral waterfloats with rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn,rapidly.

WHAT?—AND LIKEWISE—WHERE?

—But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get theplums?

VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPhom*oRE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES.

—Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide toreflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: _deus nobis hæc otia fecit._

—No, Stephen said. I call it _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_ or _TheParable of The Plums._

—I see, the professor said.

He laughed richly.

—I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land.We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O’Molloy.

HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY

J. J. O’Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and heldhis peace.

—I see, the professor said.

He halted on sir John Gray’s pavement island and peered aloft at Nelsonthrough the meshes of his wry smile.

DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNEWIMBLES, FLO WANGLES—YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM?

—Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I mustsay.

—Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty’struth was known.