Joyce's Ulysses Concordance

16. Eumaeus

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[25255][ 16 ]

[25256]

[25257]Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of

[25258]the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up

[25259]generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His

[25260](Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a

[25261]bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr

[25262]Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water

[25263]available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an

[25264]expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman’s

[25265]shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge

[25266]where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and

[25267]soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he

[25268]was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him

[25269]to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means

[25270]during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was

[25271]rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable

[25272]to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their

[25273]then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always

[25274]assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a

[25275]few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten

[25276]to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman

[25277]service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver

[25278]street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and the

[25279]distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of

[25280]Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence

[25281]debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But

[25282]as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for

[25283]hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some

[25284]fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was

[25285]no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was

[25286]anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting

[25287]a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice.

[25288]

[25289]This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently

[25290]there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it

[25291]which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the

[25292]Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the

[25293]direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped

[25294]by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had,

[25295]to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though,

[25296]entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made

[25297]light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed

[25298]for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it

[25299]cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered

[25300]along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or

[25301]a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s

[25302]sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his

[25303]companion à propos of the incident his own truly miraculous escape

[25304]of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great

[25305]Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of

[25306]course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the

[25307]backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say

[25308]gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the

[25309]Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its

[25310]C division police station. Between this point and the high at present

[25311]unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen,

[25312]associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in

[25313]Talbot place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting

[25314]as his fidus Achates inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of

[25315]James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were,

[25316]the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities

[25317]of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of

[25318]life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the

[25319]baker’s it is said.

[25320]

[25321]En route to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not

[25322]yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete

[25323]possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober,

[25324]spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame

[25325]and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not

[25326]as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for

[25327]young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking

[25328]habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu

[25329]for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could

[25330]administer a nasty kick if you didn’t look out. Highly providential

[25331]was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was

[25332]blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the

[25333]eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a

[25334]candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and

[25335]an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the

[25336]solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply

[25337]spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned

[25338]the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked,

[25339]were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr

[25340]Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil

[25341]street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on

[25342]the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for

[25343]example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious

[25344]reason being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing

[25345]he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of

[25346]any description liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to

[25347]inciting them against civilians should by any chance they fall out over

[25348]anything. You frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and

[25349]health and also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing,

[25350]fast women of the demimonde ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into

[25351]the bargain and the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with

[25352]though, touching the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a

[25353]glass of choice old wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking

[25354]and possessing aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was

[25355]a staunch believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he

[25356]invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say

[25357]nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most

[25358]of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his

[25359]pubhunting confrères but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the

[25360]part of his brother medicos under all the circs.

[25361]

[25362]—And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing

[25363]whatsoever of any kind.

[25364]

[25365]Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back

[25366]of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier

[25367]of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted

[25368]their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for

[25369]no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by

[25370]the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker

[25371]figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He

[25372]began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having

[25373]happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered

[25374]that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend of his father’s,

[25375]Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway

[25376]bridge.

[25377]

[25378]—Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.

[25379]

[25380]A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches

[25381]saluted again, calling:

[25382]

[25383]—Night!

[25384]

[25385]Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the

[25386]compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch

[25387]as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but

[25388]nevertheless remained on the qui vive with just a shade of anxiety

[25389]though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he

[25390]knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next

[25391]to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising

[25392]peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some

[25393]secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the

[25394]Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply

[25395]marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell

[25396]swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there

[25397]to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.

[25398]

[25399]Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,

[25400]though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s

[25401]breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him

[25402]and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of

[25403]inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married

[25404]a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His

[25405]grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow

[25406]of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot.

[25407]Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of

[25408]the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably

[25409]fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or

[25410]some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed

[25411]the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore

[25412]was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute

[25413]man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious

[25414]proclivities as Lord John Corley.

[25415]

[25416]Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.

[25417]Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends

[25418]had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called

[25419]him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other

[25420]uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to

[25421]tell him where on God’s earth he could get something, anything at all,

[25422]to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that

[25423]was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected

[25424]through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same

[25425]time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete fabrication from start to

[25426]finish. Anyhow he was all in.

[25427]

[25428]—I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God

[25429]knows I’m on the rocks.

[25430]

[25431]—There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a

[25432]boys’ school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try

[25433]it. You may mention my name.

[25434]

[25435]—Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man.

[25436]I was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got

[25437]stuck twice in the junior at the christian brothers.

[25438]

[25439]—I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.

[25440]

[25441]Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to

[25442]do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody

[25443]tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs

[25444]Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but

[25445]M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head

[25446]over in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person

[25447]addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he

[25448]hadn’t said a word about it.

[25449]

[25450]Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it

[25451]still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he

[25452]knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was

[25453]hardly deserving of much credence. However haud ignarus malorum miseris

[25454]succurrere disco etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck

[25455]would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on

[25456]the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though

[25457]a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke

[25458]was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was living in

[25459]affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas.

[25460]He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food

[25461]there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu

[25462]so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but

[25463]the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash

[25464]missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation.

[25465]He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost

[25466]as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a

[25467]pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too

[25468]fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect.

[25469]About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he

[25470]wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came

[25471]across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however,

[25472]as it turned out.

[25473]

[25474]—Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.

[25475]

[25476]And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him

[25477]one of them.

[25478]

[25479]—Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back

[25480]one time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding

[25481]Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a

[25482]good word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard

[25483]only the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three

[25484]weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for

[25485]the Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job,

[25486]even as a crossing sweeper.

[25487]

[25488]Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six

[25489]he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky

[25490]that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s,

[25491]bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with

[25492]O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow

[25493]he was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and

[25494]disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.

[25495]

[25496]Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the

[25497]cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation

[25498]watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him,

[25499]was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own

[25500]private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same

[25501]time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired

[25502]interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though

[25503]where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the

[25504]remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give points

[25505]to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very

[25506]dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a

[25507]chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the

[25508]matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor

[25509]neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for

[25510]the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock

[25511]himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be

[25512]a very rara avis altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of

[25513]cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning.

[25514]Pretty thick that was certainly.

[25515]

[25516]The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his

[25517]practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the

[25518]blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said,

[25519]laughingly, Stephen, that is:

[25520]

[25521]—He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named

[25522]Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.

[25523]

[25524]At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr

[25525]Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the

[25526]direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,

[25527]moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair,

[25528]whereupon he observed evasively:

[25529]

[25530]—Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it

[25531]his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much

[25532]did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?

[25533]

[25534]—Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep

[25535]somewhere.

[25536]

[25537]—Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at

[25538]the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he

[25539]invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according

[25540]to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with

[25541]a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the

[25542]question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what

[25543]occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I

[25544]don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but

[25545]why did you leave your father’s house?

[25546]

[25547]—To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.

[25548]

[25549]—I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom

[25550]diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on

[25551]yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of

[25552]conversation that he had moved.

[25553]

[25554]—I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.

[25555]Why?

[25556]

[25557]—A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects

[25558]than one and a born raconteur if ever there was one. He takes great

[25559]pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he

[25560]hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row

[25561]terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan,

[25562]that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred

[25563]their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally

[25564]station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion,

[25565]which they did.

[25566]

[25567]There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it

[25568]was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing

[25569]his family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting

[25570]by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad

[25571]shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she

[25572]and he could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday

[25573]herrings they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy,

[25574]Boody and Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of

[25575]eggshells and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper,

[25576]in accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain

[25577]on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or

[25578]something like that.

[25579]

[25580]—No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much

[25581]trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous

[25582]element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in

[25583]your shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all

[25584]probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of

[25585]course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion

[25586]me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic

[25587]was put in your drink for some ulterior object.

[25588]

[25589]He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile

[25590]allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly

[25591]coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade

[25592]fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as

[25593]a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services

[25594]in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from

[25595]certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first

[25596]aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an

[25597]exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that

[25598]frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be

[25599]at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy,

[25600]pure and simple.

[25601]

[25602]—Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call

[25603]picking your brains, he ventured to throw out.

[25604]

[25605]The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by

[25606]friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression

[25607]of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the

[25608]problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by

[25609]two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw

[25610]through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself

[25611]allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect

[25612]and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he

[25613]possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.

[25614]

[25615]Adjacent to the men’s public urinal they perceived an icecream car

[25616]round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were

[25617]getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a

[25618]particularly animated way, there being some little differences between

[25619]the parties.

[25620]

[25621]—Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!

[25622]

[25623]—Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più...

[25624]

[25625]—Dice lui, però!

[25626]

[25627]—Mezzo.

[25628]

[25629]—Farabutto! Mortacci sui!

[25630]

[25631]—Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più...

[25632]

[25633]Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious

[25634]wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been

[25635]before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few

[25636]hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat

[25637]Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual

[25638]facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few

[25639]moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner

[25640]only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection

[25641]of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus homo

[25642]already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation

[25643]for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity.

[25644]

[25645]—Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest

[25646]to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the

[25647]shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description.

[25648]

[25649]Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order

[25650]these commodities quietly. The hoi polloi of jarvies or stevedores

[25651]or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes

[25652]apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual,

[25653]portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for

[25654]some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the

[25655]floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having

[25656]just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be

[25657]sure, rather in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his protégé in an

[25658]audible tone of voice à propos of the battle royal in the street which

[25659]was still raging fast and furious:

[25660]

[25661]—A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not

[25662]write your poetry in that language? Bella Poetria! It is so melodious

[25663]and full. Belladonna. Voglio.

[25664]

[25665]Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering

[25666]from lassitude generally, replied:

[25667]

[25668]—To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.

[25669]

[25670]—Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the

[25671]inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were

[25672]absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds

[25673]it.

[25674]

[25675]The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this tête-à-tête put a

[25676]boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table

[25677]and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After

[25678]which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have

[25679]a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For which

[25680]reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did

[25681]the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily

[25682]supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him.

[25683]

[25684]—Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little

[25685]time, like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr

[25686]Doyle. Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What’s in a name?

[25687]

[25688]—Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name

[25689]was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.

[25690]

[25691]The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded

[25692]Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely

[25693]by asking:

[25694]

[25695]—And what might your name be?

[25696]

[25697]Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion’s boot but

[25698]Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected

[25699]quarter, answered:

[25700]

[25701]—Dedalus.

[25702]

[25703]The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,

[25704]rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old

[25705]Hollands and water.

[25706]

[25707]—You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.

[25708]

[25709]—I’ve heard of him, Stephen said.

[25710]

[25711]Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently

[25712]eavesdropping too.

[25713]

[25714]—He’s Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the

[25715]same way and nodding. All Irish.

[25716]

[25717]—All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.

[25718]

[25719]As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole business

[25720]and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the sailor

[25721]of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with the

[25722]remark:

[25723]

[25724]—I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his

[25725]shoulder. The lefthand dead shot.

[25726]

[25727]Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his

[25728]gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.

[25729]

[25730]—Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.

[25731]Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.

[25732]

[25733]He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then he

[25734]screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night

[25735]with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.

[25736]

[25737]—Pom! he then shouted once.

[25738]

[25739]The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation, there

[25740]being still a further egg.

[25741]

[25742]—Pom! he shouted twice.

[25743]

[25744]Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding

[25745]bloodthirstily:

[25746]

[25747] —Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,

[25748] Never missed nor he never will.

[25749]A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness’ sake just felt

[25750]like asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the

[25751]Bisley.

[25752]

[25753]—Beg pardon, the sailor said.

[25754]

[25755]—Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.

[25756]

[25757]—Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic

[25758]influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He

[25759]toured the wide world with Hengler’s Royal Circus. I seen him do that

[25760]in Stockholm.

[25761]

[25762]—Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.

[25763]

[25764]—Murphy’s my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe.

[25765]Know where that is?

[25766]

[25767]—Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied.

[25768]

[25769]—That’s right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle.

[25770]That’s where I hails from. I belongs there. That’s where I hails

[25771]from. My little woman’s down there. She’s waiting for me, I know.

[25772]For England, home and beauty. She’s my own true wife I haven’t seen

[25773]for seven years now, sailing about.

[25774]

[25775]Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming

[25776]to the mariner’s roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones,

[25777]a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a

[25778]number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic,

[25779]Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc

[25780]O’Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of

[25781]poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way.

[25782]Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the

[25783]absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he

[25784]finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent

[25785]his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me

[25786]but I’ve come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a

[25787]grasswidow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the

[25788]cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case

[25789]might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating

[25790]rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew

[25791]arrival is on her knee, post mortem child. With a high ro! and a randy

[25792]ro! and my galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin

[25793]and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband W. B.

[25794]Murphy.

[25795]

[25796]The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one

[25797]of the jarvies with the request:

[25798]

[25799]—You don’t happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you?

[25800]

[25801]The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die of

[25802]plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was

[25803]passed from hand to hand.

[25804]

[25805]—Thank you, the sailor said.

[25806]

[25807]He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow

[25808]stammers, proceeded:

[25809]

[25810]—We come up this morning eleven o’clock. The threemaster Rosevean

[25811]from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this

[25812]afternoon. There’s my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S.

[25813]

[25814]In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket

[25815]and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document.

[25816]

[25817]—You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,

[25818]leaning on the counter.

[25819]

[25820]—Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I’ve

[25821]circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea.

[25822]I was in China and North America and South America. We was chased by

[25823]pirates one voyage. I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm

[25824]and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody

[25825]man that ever scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. Gospodi pomilyou. That’s

[25826]how the Russians prays.

[25827]

[25828]—You seen queer sights, don’t be talking, put in a jarvey.

[25829]

[25830]—Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen

[25831]queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an

[25832]anchor same as I chew that quid.

[25833]

[25834]He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his

[25835]teeth, bit ferociously:

[25836]

[25837]—Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and

[25838]the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent

[25839]me.

[25840]

[25841]He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to

[25842]be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The

[25843]printed matter on it stated: Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia.

[25844]

[25845]All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage

[25846]women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning,

[25847]sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of

[25848]them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.

[25849]

[25850]—Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like

[25851]breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can’t bear no more

[25852]children.

[25853]

[25854]See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse’s liver

[25855]raw.

[25856]

[25857]His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for

[25858]several minutes if not more.

[25859]

[25860]—Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally.

[25861]

[25862]Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying:

[25863]

[25864]—Glass. That boggles ’em. Glass.

[25865]

[25866]Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the

[25867]card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran

[25868]as follows: Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago,

[25869]Chile. There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice.

[25870]Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the

[25871]eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the

[25872]Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in Maritana on which

[25873]occasion the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat) having

[25874]detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person

[25875]he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours

[25876]after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and

[25877]the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some

[25878]suspicions of our friend’s bona fides nevertheless it reminded him in

[25879]a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday

[25880]or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had

[25881]ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a

[25882]born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained

[25883]a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest.

[25884]Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but

[25885]some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that

[25886]the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking

[25887]down the needful and breaking Boyd’s heart it was not so dear,

[25888]purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to

[25889]Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back.

[25890]The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in

[25891]every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was

[25892]out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth,

[25893]Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of

[25894]the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon

[25895]where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey,

[25896]wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just

[25897]struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around

[25898]on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert

[25899]tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts,

[25900]Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne,

[25901]Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel

[25902]islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative.

[25903]Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies

[25904]on the job, witness Mrs C P M’Coy type lend me your valise and I’ll

[25905]post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste,

[25906]the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal consort

[25907]as leading lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and

[25908]Moody-Manners, perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of

[25909]success, providing puffs in the local papers could be managed by some

[25910]fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and

[25911]thus combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub.

[25912]

[25913]Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was

[25914]to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with

[25915]the times apropos of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted,

[25916]was once more on the tapis in the circumlocution departments with the

[25917]usual quantity of red tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and

[25918]dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for push

[25919]and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the

[25920]average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co.

[25921]

[25922]It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no

[25923]small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the

[25924]system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry

[25925]pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead

[25926]of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me

[25927]for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum

[25928]months of it and merited a radical change of venue after the grind

[25929]of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her

[25930]spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life.

[25931]There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home

[25932]island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora

[25933]of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around

[25934]Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there was

[25935]a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow,

[25936]rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly

[25937]wheelmen so long as it didn’t come down, and in the wilds of Donegal

[25938]where if report spoke true the coup d’œil was exceedingly grand

[25939]though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the

[25940]influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the

[25941]signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic

[25942]associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O’Malley, George IV,

[25943]rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt

[25944]with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young

[25945]men’s fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the

[25946]cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left

[25947]leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour’s run from the

[25948]pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely

[25949]in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be

[25950]desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of

[25951]curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created

[25952]the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the

[25953]other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen.

[25954]

[25955]—I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had

[25956]little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and

[25957]every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house,

[25958]another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added,

[25959]the chinks does.

[25960]

[25961]Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the

[25962]globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures.

[25963]

[25964]—And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his

[25965]back. Knife like that.

[25966]

[25967]Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in

[25968]keeping with his character and held it in the striking position.

[25969]

[25970]—In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers.

[25971]Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. Prepare to meet

[25972]your God, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt.

[25973]

[25974]His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further

[25975]questions even should they by any chance want to.

[25976]

[25977]—That’s a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable

[25978]stiletto.

[25979]

[25980]After which harrowing dénouement sufficient to appal the stoutest he

[25981]snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in

[25982]his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.

[25983]

[25984]—They’re great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite

[25985]in the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought

[25986]the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of

[25987]them using knives.

[25988]

[25989]At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of where ignorance

[25990]is bliss Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both

[25991]instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the

[25992]strictly entre nous variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, alias

[25993]the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his

[25994]boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a

[25995]perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impression

[25996]that he didn’t understand one jot of what was going on. Funny, very!

[25997]

[25998]There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and

[25999]starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the

[26000]natives choza de, another the seaman’s discharge. Mr Bloom, so far

[26001]as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He

[26002]vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well

[26003]as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the

[26004]land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively

[26005]speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was

[26006]just turned fifteen.

[26007]

[26008]—Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers.

[26009]

[26010]The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape.

[26011]

[26012]—Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired.

[26013]

[26014]The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or

[26015]no.

[26016]

[26017]—Ah, you’ve touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking

[26018]he had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences

[26019]but he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the

[26020]sawdust, and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.

[26021]

[26022]—What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the

[26023]boats?

[26024]

[26025]Our soi-disant sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering:

[26026]

[26027]—I’m tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and

[26028]ships. Salt junk all the time.

[26029]

[26030]Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not

[26031]likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer,

[26032]fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the

[26033]globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed,

[26034]it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly

[26035]what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen

[26036]at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a

[26037]superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the

[26038]not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at

[26039]it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone

[26040]somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to

[26041]find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes

[26042]and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under,

[26043]tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no

[26044]secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of

[26045]the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all

[26046]its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to

[26047]sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to

[26048]show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the

[26049]other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were

[26050]run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no

[26051]other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the

[26052]public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case

[26053]might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its

[26054]gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had

[26055]to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the

[26056]season when duty called Ireland expects that every man and so on and

[26057]sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the

[26058]Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding

[26059]which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy,

[26060]not to say stormy, weather.

[26061]

[26062]—There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog,

[26063]himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as

[26064]gentleman’s valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I’ve

[26065]on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I’m game for that

[26066]job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There’s my son now,

[26067]Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper’s in

[26068]Cork where he could be drawing easy money.

[26069]

[26070]—What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the

[26071]side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away

[26072]from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy

[26073]getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage.

[26074]

[26075]—Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son,

[26076]Danny? He’d be about eighteen now, way I figure it.

[26077]

[26078]The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow

[26079]shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to

[26080]be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an

[26081]anchor.

[26082]

[26083]—There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts.

[26084]I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It’s them black lads I objects

[26085]to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does.

[26086]

[26087]Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged

[26088]his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the

[26089]mariner’s hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a

[26090]young man’s sideface looking frowningly rather.

[26091]

[26092]—Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying

[26093]becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the

[26094]name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek.

[26095]

[26096]—Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor.

[26097]

[26098]That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the.

[26099]Someway in his. Squeezing or.

[26100]

[26101]—See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And

[26102]there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his

[26103]fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn.

[26104]

[26105]And in point of fact the young man named Antonio’s livid face did

[26106]actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the

[26107]unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this

[26108]time stretched over.

[26109]

[26110]—Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He’s

[26111]gone too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay.

[26112]

[26113]He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression

[26114]of before.

[26115]

[26116]—Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said.

[26117]

[26118]—And what’s the number for? loafer number two queried.

[26119]

[26120]—Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor.

[26121]

[26122]—Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this

[26123]time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the

[26124]direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was.

[26125]

[26126]And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged

[26127]end:

[26128]

[26129] —As bad as old Antonio,

[26130] For he left me on my ownio.

[26131]The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat

[26132]peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on

[26133]her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr

[26134]Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment

[26135]flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink

[26136]sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had

[26137]laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though

[26138]why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment

[26139]round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that

[26140]afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the

[26141]lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.)

[26142]and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed

[26143]rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to

[26144]admit he had washed his wife’s undergarments when soiled in Holles

[26145]street and women would and did too a man’s similar garments initialled

[26146]with Bewley and Draper’s marking ink (hers were, that is) if they

[26147]really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still

[26148]just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female’s room more

[26149]than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her

[26150]a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph

[26151]he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door

[26152]with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all

[26153]there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper

[26154]Murphy’s nautical chest and then there was no more of her.

[26155]

[26156]—The gunboat, the keeper said.

[26157]

[26158]—It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking,

[26159]how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with

[26160]disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober

[26161]senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of

[26162]course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition.

[26163]Still no matter what the cause is from...

[26164]

[26165]Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely

[26166]remarking:

[26167]

[26168]—In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a

[26169]roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to

[26170]buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.

[26171]

[26172]The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude,

[26173]said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a

[26174]stop to instanter to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from any

[26175]oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not

[26176]licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, he

[26177]could truthfully state, he, as a paterfamilias, was a stalwart advocate

[26178]of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort,

[26179]he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting

[26180]boon on everybody concerned.

[26181]

[26182]—You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul,

[26183]believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as

[26184]such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that

[26185]cup. I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent

[26186]men as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never

[26187]have such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you?

[26188]

[26189]Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try

[26190]and concentrate and remember before he could say:

[26191]

[26192]—They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and

[26193]therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the

[26194]possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I

[26195]can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other

[26196]practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being

[26197]excluded by court etiquette.

[26198]

[26199]Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the

[26200]mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still

[26201]he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly

[26202]rejoining:

[26203]

[26204]—Simple? I shouldn’t think that is the proper word. Of course, I

[26205]grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in

[26206]a blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for

[26207]instance to invent those rays Röntgen did or the telescope like Edison,

[26208]though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean,

[26209]and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural

[26210]phenomenon such as electricity but it’s a horse of quite another

[26211]colour to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God.

[26212]

[26213]—O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several

[26214]of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial

[26215]evidence.

[26216]

[26217]On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they

[26218]were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in

[26219]their respective ages, clashed.

[26220]

[26221]—Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his

[26222]original point with a smile of unbelief. I’m not so sure about that.

[26223]That’s a matter for everyman’s opinion and, without dragging in the

[26224]sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you in toto there.

[26225]My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine

[26226]forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it’s the big

[26227]question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them like

[26228]Hamlet and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better

[26229]than I, of course I needn’t tell you. Can’t you drink that coffee,

[26230]by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It’s like

[26231]one of our skipper’s bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what he

[26232]hasn’t got. Try a bit.

[26233]

[26234]—Couldn’t, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the

[26235]moment refusing to dictate further.

[26236]

[26237]Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir

[26238]or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something

[26239]approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and

[26240]lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or

[26241]nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in

[26242]run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings

[26243]and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower

[26244]orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection

[26245]they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently

[26246]associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for

[26247]her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was

[26248]to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak

[26249]of. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something in some dried peas he

[26250]remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn’t

[26251]remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection,

[26252]of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary which possibly

[26253]accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble’s Vi-Cocoa on account of the

[26254]medical analysis involved.

[26255]

[26256]—Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being

[26257]stirred.

[26258]

[26259]Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug

[26260]from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and

[26261]took a sip of the offending beverage.

[26262]

[26263]—Still it’s solid food, his good genius urged, I’m a stickler for

[26264]solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least

[26265]but regular meals as the sine qua non for any kind of proper work,

[26266]mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a

[26267]different man.

[26268]

[26269]—Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away

[26270]that knife. I can’t look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman

[26271]history.

[26272]

[26273]Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article,

[26274]a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman or

[26275]antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least

[26276]conspicuous point about it.

[26277]

[26278]—Our mutual friend’s stories are like himself, Mr Bloom apropos

[26279]of knives remarked to his confidante sotto voce. Do you think they are

[26280]genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and

[26281]lie like old boots. Look at him.

[26282]

[26283]Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was

[26284]full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it

[26285]was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an

[26286]entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent

[26287]probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly

[26288]accurate gospel.

[26289]

[26290]He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and

[26291]Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a

[26292]wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness,

[26293]there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail

[26294]delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate

[26295]such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He

[26296]might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told,

[26297]as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself

[26298]and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say

[26299]nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage

[26300]of identical name who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who

[26301]expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above described. On the

[26302]other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because

[26303]meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting

[26304]news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean

[26305]seas to draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera.

[26306]And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself

[26307]couldn’t probably hold a proverbial candle to the wholesale whoppers

[26308]other fellows coined about him.

[26309]

[26310]—Mind you, I’m not saying that it’s all a pure invention, he

[26311]resumed. Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with.

[26312]Giants, though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella

[26313]the midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw

[26314]some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn’t

[26315]straighten their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you

[26316]see, he proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the

[26317]sinews or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were

[26318]utterly powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored

[26319]as gods. There’s an example again of simple souls.

[26320]

[26321]However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who

[26322]reminded him a bit of Ludwig, alias Ledwidge, when he occupied

[26323]the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the

[26324]management in the Flying Dutchman, a stupendous success, and his host

[26325]of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him

[26326]though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually

[26327]fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically

[26328]incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the

[26329]back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he

[26330]was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish

[26331]way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little

[26332]Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows

[26333]except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary

[26334]animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good

[26335]old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur off him or her next day on

[26336]the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.

[26337]

[26338]—Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like

[26339]that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own

[26340]hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they

[26341]carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally.

[26342]My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could

[26343]actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in

[26344](technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite

[26345]dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate

[26346]accounts for character. That’s why I asked you if you wrote your

[26347]poetry in Italian.

[26348]

[26349]—The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very

[26350]passionate about ten shillings. Roberto ruba roba sua.

[26351]

[26352]—Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed.

[26353]

[26354]—Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown

[26355]listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles

[26356]triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san

[26357]Tommaso Mastino.

[26358]

[26359]—It’s in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in

[26360]the blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare

[26361]street museum today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it,

[26362]and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid

[26363]proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don’t knock against those kind

[26364]of women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a

[26365]way you find but what I’m talking about is the female form. Besides

[26366]they have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly enhances

[26367]a woman’s natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled stockings,

[26368]it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it’s a thing I

[26369]simply hate to see.

[26370]

[26371]Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the

[26372]others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog,

[26373]collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course

[26374]had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and

[26375]weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all

[26376]those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him

[26377]or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.

[26378]

[26379]So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt’s rock,

[26380]wreck of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name

[26381]for the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry

[26382]Campbell remembered it Palme on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of

[26383]the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original

[26384]verse of distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish Times), breakers

[26385]running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion

[26386]petrified with horror. Then someone said something about the case of

[26387]the s. s. Lady Cairns of Swansea run into by the Mona which was on an

[26388]opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on

[26389]deck. No aid was given. Her master, the Mona’s, said he was afraid his

[26390]collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it appears, in her

[26391]hold.

[26392]

[26393]At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him

[26394]to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat.

[26395]

[26396]—Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just

[26397]gently dropping off into a peaceful doze.

[26398]

[26399]He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door,

[26400]stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore

[26401]due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who

[26402]noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship’s

[26403]rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his

[26404]burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and,

[26405]applying its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of

[26406]it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a

[26407]shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manœuvre after the

[26408]counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared

[26409]to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when

[26410]duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and

[26411]girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all

[26412]radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person

[26413]or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the

[26414]cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief

[26415]space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently

[26416]giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his

[26417]bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where

[26418]it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for

[26419]new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his

[26420]sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation

[26421]stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other

[26422]in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the

[26423]parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human

[26424]probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about

[26425]and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms

[26426]of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent

[26427]form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent

[26428]home comforts all his life who came in for a cool £ 100 a year at one

[26429]time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general

[26430]ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether after

[26431]having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver.

[26432]He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a moral

[26433]when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if—a big if,

[26434]however—he had contrived to cure himself of his particular partiality.

[26435]

[26436]All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping,

[26437]coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same

[26438]thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin,

[26439]the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no

[26440]ships ever called.

[26441]

[26442]There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently au

[26443]fait.

[26444]

[26445]What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only

[26446]rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr

[26447]Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised

[26448]them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day’s

[26449]work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line.

[26450]

[26451]—Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after

[26452]his private potation and the rest of his exertions.

[26453]

[26454]That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words

[26455]growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other

[26456]in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom’s sharp ears heard him then expectorate

[26457]the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the

[26458]time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs

[26459]and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in

[26460]he rolled after his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an

[26461]atmosphere of drink into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like a

[26462]veritable son of a seacook:

[26463]

[26464] —The biscuits was as hard as brass

[26465] And the beef as salt as Lot’s wife’s arse.

[26466] O, Johnny Lever!

[26467] Johnny Lever, O!

[26468]After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene

[26469]and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form

[26470]provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to

[26471]grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent

[26472]the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he

[26473]described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on

[26474]the face of God’s earth, far and away superior to England, with coal

[26475]in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every

[26476]year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained

[26477]out of it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through

[26478]the nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot

[26479]more surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly

[26480]became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow

[26481]any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel

[26482]Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find

[26483]anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated

[26484]crescendo with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the

[26485]conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf

[26486]on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall

[26487]in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little

[26488]lookin, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem

[26489]England was toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her

[26490]Achilles heel, which he explained to them about the vulnerable point

[26491]of Achilles, the Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he

[26492]completely gripped their attention by showing the tendon referred to

[26493]on his boot. His advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your

[26494]birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said,

[26495]could not spare a single one of her sons.

[26496]

[26497]Silence all round marked the termination of his finale. The impervious

[26498]navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed.

[26499]

[26500]—Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a

[26501]bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism.

[26502]

[26503]To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper

[26504]concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.

[26505]

[26506]—Who’s the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately

[26507]interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and

[26508]generals we’ve got? Tell me that.

[26509]

[26510]—The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial

[26511]blemishes apart.

[26512]

[26513]—That’s right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic

[26514]peasant. He’s the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins?

[26515]

[26516]While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added

[26517]he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman

[26518]worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few

[26519]irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing

[26520]to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long

[26521]as they didn’t indulge in recriminations and come to blows.

[26522]

[26523]From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was

[26524]rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for,

[26525]pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was

[26526]fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel,

[26527]unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather

[26528]concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with

[26529]the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years

[26530]the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as

[26531]time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could

[26532]personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies,

[26533]equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly

[26534]advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even

[26535]though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of

[26536]whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish

[26537]soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in

[26538]fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee

[26539]of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous

[26540]invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as

[26541]being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was

[26542]prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything,

[26543]the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper,

[26544]who probably wasn’t the other person at all, he (B.) couldn’t help

[26545]feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the

[26546]goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have

[26547]anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their

[26548]felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming

[26549]forward and turning queen’s evidence or king’s now like Denis or

[26550]Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he

[26551]disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though

[26552]such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any

[26553]shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly

[26554]remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who

[26555]had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his

[26556]political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to

[26557]any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south,

[26558]have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words

[26559]passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky

[26560]mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on his

[26561]adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging

[26562]his knife into her, until it just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed

[26563]Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the

[26564]outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to

[26565]the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal luminary

[26566]saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and

[26567]as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently

[26568]outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on

[26569]the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last

[26570]performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault of course,

[26571]temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping

[26572]at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion

[26573]that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some £. s. d. in the course of his

[26574]perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere of the Old

[26575]Ireland tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he

[26576]had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen

[26577]how he simply but effectually silenced the offender.

[26578]

[26579]—He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the

[26580]whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and

[26581]in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts

[26582]in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his

[26583]family like me though in reality I’m not. That was one for him. A

[26584]soft answer turns away wrath. He hadn’t a word to say for himself as

[26585]everyone saw. Am I not right?

[26586]

[26587]He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride

[26588]at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to

[26589]glean in a kind of a way that it wasn’t all exactly.

[26590]

[26591]—Ex quibus, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or

[26592]four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name is or after all any

[26593]other, secundum carnem.

[26594]

[26595]—Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides

[26596]of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to

[26597]right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is

[26598]though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the

[26599]government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It’s all

[26600]very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality.

[26601]I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never

[26602]reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due

[26603]instalments plan. It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate

[26604]people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular,

[26605]in the next house so to speak.

[26606]

[26607]—Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes’ war, Stephen

[26608]assented, between Skinner’s alley and Ormond market.

[26609]

[26610]Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that

[26611]was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of

[26612]thing.

[26613]

[26614]—You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of

[26615]conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn’t remotely...

[26616]

[26617]All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up

[26618]bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind,

[26619]erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were

[26620]very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of

[26621]everything, greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop.

[26622]

[26623]—They accuse, remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others, who

[26624]probably… and spoke nearer to, so as the others… in case they…

[26625]

[26626]—Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen’s ear, are accused

[26627]of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History,

[26628]would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed

[26629]when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when

[26630]Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to

[26631]answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper

[26632]spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don’t want to

[26633]indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and

[26634]then orthodox as you are. But in the economic, not touching religion,

[26635]domain the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war,

[26636]compared with goahead America. Turks. It’s in the dogma. Because

[26637]if they didn’t believe they’d go straight to heaven when they die

[26638]they’d try to live better, at least so I think. That’s the juggle on

[26639]which the p.p.’s raise the wind on false pretences. I’m, he resumed

[26640]with dramatic force, as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you

[26641]about at the outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all

[26642]creeds and classes pro rata having a comfortable tidysized income, in

[26643]no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood of £ 300 per

[26644]annum. That’s the vital issue at stake and it’s feasible and would

[26645]be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least

[26646]that’s my idea for what it’s worth. I call that patriotism. Ubi

[26647]patria, as we learned a smattering of in our classical days in Alma

[26648]Mater, vita bene. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you work.

[26649]

[26650]Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this

[26651]synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular.

[26652]He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those

[26653]crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours

[26654]of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere

[26655]beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or

[26656]didn’t say the words the voice he heard said, if you work.

[26657]

[26658]—Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work.

[26659]

[26660]The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person

[26661]who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all

[26662]must work, have to, together.

[26663]

[26664]—I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest

[26665]possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of

[26666]the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel

[26667]nowadays. That’s work too. Important work. After all, from the little

[26668]I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are

[26669]entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit

[26670]as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the

[26671]peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn.

[26672]Each is equally important.

[26673]

[26674]—You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I

[26675]may be important because I belong to the faubourg Saint Patrice called

[26676]Ireland for short.

[26677]

[26678]—I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.

[26679]

[26680]—But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important

[26681]because it belongs to me.

[26682]

[26683]—What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under

[26684]some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the

[26685]latter portion. What was it you...?

[26686]

[26687]Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of

[26688]coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding:

[26689]

[26690]—We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject.

[26691]

[26692]At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked

[26693]down but in a quandary, as he couldn’t tell exactly what construction

[26694]to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some

[26695]kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of

[26696]his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way

[26697]foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached

[26698]the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn’t

[26699]been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear

[26700]for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air

[26701]of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris,

[26702]the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister,

[26703]failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind

[26704]instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in the

[26705]bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance

[26706]there was the case of O’Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist,

[26707]respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries

[26708]among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance

[26709]to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting

[26710]in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual dénouement

[26711]after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got landed into hot water

[26712]and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint to a

[26713]blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to be made

[26714]amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, certain

[26715]names of those subpœnaed being handed in but not divulged for reasons

[26716]which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, putting two

[26717]and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to,

[26718]Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was

[26719]all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house of lords

[26720]because early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir apparent,

[26721]the other members of the upper ten and other high personages simply

[26722]following in the footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected about

[26723]the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to morality

[26724]such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under their veneer in

[26725]a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy, as the law

[26726]stands, was terribly down on though not for the reason they thought

[26727]they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were always

[26728]fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of

[26729]dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing

[26730]should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider

[26731]between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of

[26732]impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her,

[26733]mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety

[26734]degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the

[26735]original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way

[26736]to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer

[26737]force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir.

[26738]

[26739]For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even

[26740]to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could

[26741]not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the

[26742]bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the

[26743]acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food

[26744]for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation,

[26745]as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind.

[26746]Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row,

[26747]old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the

[26748]whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the

[26749]world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz.

[26750]coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the microscope

[26751]lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet

[26752]with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken

[26753]down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common

[26754]groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea per

[26755]column. My Experiences, let us say, in a Cabman’s Shelter.

[26756]

[26757]The pink edition extra sporting of the Telegraph tell a graphic lie

[26758]lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling

[26759]again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the

[26760]preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was

[26761]addressed A. Boudin find the captain’s age, his eyes went aimlessly

[26762]over the respective captions which came under his special province the

[26763]allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a

[26764]start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H.

[26765]du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle,

[26766]Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, £ 200 damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration

[26767]Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William ?. Ascot meeting, the Gold

[26768]Cup. Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of ’92 when Capt.

[26769]Marshall’s dark horse Sir Hugo captured the blue ribband at long odds.

[26770]New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the

[26771]late Mr Patrick Dignam.

[26772]

[26773]So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he

[26774]reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address

[26775]anyway.

[26776]

[26777]—This morning (Hynes put it in of course) the remains of the late Mr

[26778]Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue,

[26779]Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a

[26780]most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a

[26781]brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom

[26782]he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the

[26783]deceased were present, were carried out (certainly Hynes wrote it with

[26784]a nudge from Corny) by Messrs H. J. O’Neill and Son, 164 North Strand

[26785]Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan

[26786](brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John

[26787]Power, eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora (must be where he called

[26788]Monks the dayfather about Keyes’s ad) Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus,

[26789]Stephen Dedalus B. A., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph

[26790]M’C Hynes, L. Boom, C P M’Coy,—M’Intosh and several others.

[26791]

[26792]Nettled not a little by L. Boom (as it incorrectly stated) and the line

[26793]of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M’Coy and

[26794]Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their

[26795]total absence (to say nothing of M’Intosh) L. Boom pointed it out to

[26796]his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness,

[26797]not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints.

[26798]

[26799]—Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom

[26800]jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.

[26801]

[26802]—It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to

[26803]the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could

[26804]be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit

[26805]flabbergasted at Myles Crawford’s after all managing to. There.

[26806]

[26807]While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the

[26808]nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits

[26809]and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three,

[26810]his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For

[26811]entire colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander’s Throwaway, b. h. by

[26812]Rightaway-Thrale, 5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1. Lord Howard de

[26813]Walden’s Zinfandel (M. Cannon) 2. Mr W. Bass’s Sceptre 3. Betting 5

[26814]to 4 on Zinfandel, 20 to 1 Throwaway (off). Sceptre a shade heavier. It

[26815]was anybody’s race then the rank outsider drew to the fore, got long

[26816]lead, beating Lord Howard de Walden’s chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass’s

[26817]bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. Winner trained by Braime so

[26818]that Lenehan’s version of the business was all pure buncombe. Secured

[26819]the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with 3000 in specie. Also

[26820]ran: J de Bremond’s (French horse Bantam Lyons was anxiously inquiring

[26821]after not in yet but expected any minute) Maximum II. Different ways of

[26822]bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons

[26823]ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get left. Of course gambling

[26824]eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned

[26825]out the poor fool hadn’t much reason to congratulate himself on his

[26826]pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself to eventually.

[26827]

[26828]—There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom,

[26829]said.

[26830]

[26831]—Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.

[26832]

[26833]One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read:

[26834]Return of Parnell. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was in

[26835]that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was

[26836]killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a

[26837]time after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with

[26838]no-one to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone

[26839]down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his

[26840]senses. Dead he wasn’t. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they

[26841]brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer

[26842]general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on.

[26843]

[26844]All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their

[26845]memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and

[26846]not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it

[26847]was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow

[26848]of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly

[26849]inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in

[26850]his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when

[26851]his various different political arrangements were nearing completion

[26852]or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to

[26853]change his boots and clothes after a wetting when a cold resulted and

[26854]failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he

[26855]eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at

[26856]an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken

[26857]out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements

[26858]even before there was absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which

[26859]were decidedly of the Alice, where art thou order even prior to his

[26860]starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart so the

[26861]remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of

[26862]possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader

[26863]of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure, a sixfooter

[26864]or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas

[26865]Messrs So and So who, though they weren’t even a patch on the former

[26866]man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and

[26867]far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay,

[26868]and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual

[26869]mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come

[26870]back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in

[26871]the title rôle how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion when

[26872]they broke up the type in the Insuppressible or was it United Ireland,

[26873]a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed him his

[26874]silk hat when it was knocked off and he said Thank you, excited as he

[26875]undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding the little

[26876]misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip: what’s bred in the

[26877]bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if they didn’t

[26878]set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally

[26879]usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number

[26880]one, you came up against the man in possession and had to produce your

[26881]credentials like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles

[26882]Tichborne, Bella was the boat’s name to the best of his recollection

[26883]he, the heir, went down in as the evidence went to show and there was

[26884]a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew was it, as he might very

[26885]easily have picked up the details from some pal on board ship and then,

[26886]when got up to tally with the description given, introduce himself with:

[26887]Excuse me, my name is So and So or some such commonplace remark. A more

[26888]prudent course, as Bloom said to the not over effusive, in fact like the

[26889]distinguished personage under discussion beside him, would have been to

[26890]sound the lie of the land first.

[26891]

[26892]—That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor

[26893]commented. She put the first nail in his coffin.

[26894]

[26895]—Fine lump of a woman all the same, the soi-disant townclerk Henry

[26896]Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man’s

[26897]thighs. I seen her picture in a barber’s. The husband was a captain or

[26898]an officer.

[26899]

[26900]—Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one.

[26901]

[26902]This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair

[26903]amount of laughter among his entourage. As regards Bloom he, without the

[26904]faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door

[26905]and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary

[26906]interest at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made

[26907]public with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them full

[26908]of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened

[26909]and an attachment sprang up between them till bit by bit matters came to

[26910]a climax and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering

[26911]blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed, however,

[26912]who were resolved upon encompassing his downfall though the thing was

[26913]public property all along though not to anything like the sensational

[26914]extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Since their names were

[26915]coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, where was the

[26916]particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file from the

[26917]housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared her bedroom which came

[26918]out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the packed

[26919]court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses

[26920]swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in

[26921]the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance

[26922]of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same

[26923]fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply

[26924]coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was

[26925]it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with

[26926]nothing in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man

[26927]arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim

[26928]to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask

[26929]in the loved one’s smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial,

[26930]needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to

[26931]be another chap in the case, exist between married folk? Poser.

[26932]Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with

[26933]affection, carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of

[26934]manhood he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a high order, as

[26935]compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the

[26936]usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of an individual in

[26937]the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable

[26938]doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own

[26939]peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly

[26940]likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the

[26941]priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch

[26942]adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman

[26943]service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on

[26944]their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations,

[26945]very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals

[26946]of fire on his head much in the same way as the fabled ass’s kick.

[26947]Looking back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a

[26948]kind of dream. And then coming back was the worst thing you ever did

[26949]because it went without saying you would feel out of place as things

[26950]always moved with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a

[26951]locality he had not been in for quite a number of years looked different

[26952]somehow since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side.

[26953]North or south, however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion,

[26954]pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore

[26955]out the very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so,

[26956]types that wouldn’t do things by halves, passionate abandon of the

[26957]south, casting every shred of decency to the winds.

[26958]

[26959]—Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to

[26960]Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don’t greatly mistake she

[26961]was Spanish too.

[26962]

[26963]—The king of Spain’s daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or

[26964]other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and

[26965]the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and

[26966]so many.

[26967]

[26968]—Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any

[26969]means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it

[26970]was as she lived there. So, Spain.

[26971]

[26972]Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket Sweets of, which reminded him

[26973]by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his

[26974]pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly

[26975]finally he.

[26976]

[26977]—Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded

[26978]photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type?

[26979]

[26980]Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large

[26981]sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she

[26982]was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously

[26983]low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than

[26984]vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing

[26985]near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was In Old

[26986]Madrid, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her

[26987](the lady’s) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile

[26988]about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street,

[26989]Dublin’s premier photographic artist, being responsible for the

[26990]esthetic execution.

[26991]

[26992]—Mrs Bloom, my wife the prima donna Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom

[26993]indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like

[26994]her then.

[26995]

[26996]Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his

[26997]legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major

[26998]Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a

[26999]singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered

[27000]barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in

[27001]expression but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a

[27002]lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage

[27003]in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for the

[27004]ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt, being

[27005]a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in general

[27006]developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that afternoon

[27007]he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as works of art,

[27008]in the National Museum. Marble could give the original, shoulders, back,

[27009]all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, puritanisme, it does though, Saint

[27010]Joseph’s sovereign thievery alors (Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no

[27011]photo could because it simply wasn’t art in a word.

[27012]

[27013]The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar’s

[27014]good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to

[27015]speak for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the

[27016]beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself

[27017]which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely

[27018]professional etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night

[27019]now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after

[27020]storm. And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like

[27021]a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion.

[27022]Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased

[27023]by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away

[27024]thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the other’s

[27025]possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint.

[27026]In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like the case of

[27027]linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact with the starch

[27028]out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp which she told

[27029]me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because he

[27030]then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about

[27031]Ruby with met him pike hoses (sic) in it which must have fell down

[27032]sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies

[27033]to Lindley Murray.

[27034]

[27035]The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,

[27036]distingué and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of

[27037]the bunch though you wouldn’t think he had it in him yet you would.

[27038]Besides he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it

[27039]was though at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An

[27040]awful lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a

[27041]lifelong slur with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same

[27042]old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or

[27043]the newest stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about

[27044]the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang

[27045]up between the two so that their names were coupled in the public

[27046]eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and

[27047]compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly

[27048]cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and

[27049]relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course

[27050]intimate. Then the decree nisi and the King’s proctor tries to show

[27051]cause why and, he failing to quash it, nisi was made absolute. But as

[27052]for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one

[27053]another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till

[27054]the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for

[27055]the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being

[27056]close to Erin’s uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on

[27057]the historic fracas when the fallen leader’s, who notoriously stuck to

[27058]his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery,

[27059](leader’s) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or

[27060]possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the

[27061]Insuppressible or no it was United Ireland (a by no means by the by

[27062]appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or

[27063]something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from

[27064]the facile pens of the O’Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging

[27065]occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune’s private morals.

[27066]Though palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure

[27067]though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose

[27068]which went a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to

[27069]their vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing

[27070]him upon a pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive.

[27071]As those were particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom

[27072]sustained a minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap’s elbow in the

[27073]crowd that of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the

[27074]stomach, fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell’s)

[27075]a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict

[27076]history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after

[27077]witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to

[27078]him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose

[27079]thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being

[27080]a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact,

[27081]having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything

[27082]else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his

[27083]mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at

[27084]once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect

[27085]aplomb, saying: Thank you, sir, though in a very different tone of voice

[27086]from the ornament of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set

[27087]to rights earlier in the course of the day, history repeating itself

[27088]with a difference, after the burial of a mutual friend when they had

[27089]left him alone in his glory after the grim task of having committed his

[27090]remains to the grave.

[27091]

[27092]On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant

[27093]jokes of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing

[27094]immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the

[27095]wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case

[27096]for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate

[27097]husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from

[27098]the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial

[27099]moment in a loving position locked in one another’s arms, drawing

[27100]attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic

[27101]rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and

[27102]master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not

[27103]receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook

[27104]the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though

[27105]possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite

[27106]possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical

[27107]bias, believed and didn’t make the smallest bones about saying so

[27108]either that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the

[27109]waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the

[27110]world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument,

[27111]when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life

[27112]and was on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their

[27113]attentions on her with improper intent, the upshot being that her

[27114]affections centred on another, the cause of many liaisons between still

[27115]attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men,

[27116]no doubt as several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to

[27117]the hilt.

[27118]

[27119]It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of

[27120]brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time

[27121]with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him

[27122]his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take

[27123]unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim

[27124]ladies’ society was a conditio sine qua non though he had the gravest

[27125]possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen

[27126]about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who

[27127]brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he

[27128]would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea

[27129]and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or

[27130]triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and

[27131]walking out leading up to fond lovers’ ways and flowers and chocs. To

[27132]think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any

[27133]stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things

[27134]he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years

[27135]the other’s senior or like his father but something substantial

[27136]he certainly ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on

[27137]unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty

[27138]Dumpty boiled.

[27139]

[27140]—At what o’clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and

[27141]tired though unwrinkled face.

[27142]

[27143]—Some time yesterday, Stephen said.

[27144]

[27145]—Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow

[27146]Friday. Ah, you mean it’s after twelve!

[27147]

[27148]—The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself.

[27149]

[27150]Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected.

[27151]Though they didn’t see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy

[27152]there somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak,

[27153]in the one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics

[27154]roughly some score of years previously when he had been a quasi aspirant

[27155]to parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected

[27156]in retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he

[27157]had a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the

[27158]evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely

[27159]in people’s mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a

[27160]copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which

[27161]wouldn’t exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all

[27162]events was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the

[27163]trend of modern opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his

[27164]mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted

[27165]with going a step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he

[27166]at one time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he

[27167]strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by

[27168]our friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan’s so that

[27169]he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of

[27170]mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give

[27171]him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics

[27172]themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties

[27173]invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity

[27174]and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on

[27175]fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word.

[27176]

[27177]Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it

[27178]was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it

[27179]was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue

[27180](somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash

[27181]altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed

[27182]unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or

[27183]the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he

[27184]very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the

[27185]other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount

[27186]or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of

[27187]the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him

[27188]to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered.

[27189]His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over

[27190]effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn’t what

[27191]you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him

[27192]was he didn’t know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing

[27193]he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great

[27194]personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his

[27195]way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up

[27196]by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of

[27197]Epps’s cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or

[27198]two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe

[27199]hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very

[27200]vast amount of harm in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any

[27201]sort was kicked up. A move had to be made because that merry old soul,

[27202]the grasswidower in question who appeared to be glued to the spot,

[27203]didn’t appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his

[27204]dearly beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger’s

[27205]bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no bar off Sheriff street

[27206]lower would be the best clue to that equivocal character’s whereabouts

[27207]for a few days to come, alternately racking their feelings (the

[27208]mermaids’) with sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical

[27209]calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody’s bones and mauling their

[27210]largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the

[27211]accompaniment of large potations of potheen and the usual blarney about

[27212]himself for as to who he in reality was let x equal my right name and

[27213]address, as Mr Algebra remarks passim. At the same time he inwardly

[27214]chuckled over his gentle repartee to the blood and ouns champion about

[27215]his god being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but

[27216]what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable

[27217]point too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they

[27218]appeared to imagine he came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts

[27219]in the county Sligo.

[27220]

[27221]—I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection

[27222]while prudently pocketing her photo, as it’s rather stuffy here you

[27223]just come home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close

[27224]in the vicinity. You can’t drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait.

[27225]I’ll just pay this lot.

[27226]

[27227]The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain

[27228]sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper

[27229]of the shanty who didn’t seem to.

[27230]

[27231]—Yes, that’s the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of

[27232]that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less.

[27233]

[27234]All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B’s) busy brain,

[27235]education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits,

[27236]up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed

[27237]with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian

[27238]with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other

[27239]things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the

[27240]housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted.

[27241]Because he more than suspected he had his father’s voice to bank his

[27242]hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as

[27243]well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of

[27244]that particular red herring just to.

[27245]

[27246]The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former

[27247]viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers’ association

[27248]dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this

[27249]thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared

[27250]to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell

[27251]had left Euston for the chief secretary’s lodge or words to that

[27252]effect. To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why.

[27253]

[27254]—Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner

[27255]put in, manifesting some natural impatience.

[27256]

[27257]—And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.

[27258]

[27259]The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles

[27260]which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears.

[27261]

[27262]—Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk

[27263]queried.

[27264]

[27265]—Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was

[27266]a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen

[27267]portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading.

[27268]Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark,

[27269]manner of speaking. The Arabian Nights Entertainment was my favourite

[27270]and Red as a Rose is She.

[27271]

[27272]Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what,

[27273]found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a

[27274]hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which

[27275]time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied

[27276]loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched

[27277]him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were

[27278]sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions,

[27279]that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial

[27280]remark.

[27281]

[27282]To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first

[27283]to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first

[27284]and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for

[27285]the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine

[27286]host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were

[27287]not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a

[27288]grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in

[27289]four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously

[27290]spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him

[27291]in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well

[27292]worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark.

[27293]

[27294]—Come, he counselled to close the séance.

[27295]

[27296]Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the

[27297]shelter or shanty together and the élite society of oilskin and company

[27298]whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their dolce far

[27299]niente. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out,

[27300]paused at the, for a moment, the door.

[27301]

[27302]—One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur

[27303]of the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean

[27304]chairs upside down, on the tables in cafés. To which impromptu the

[27305]neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment’s hesitation, saying

[27306]straight off:

[27307]

[27308]—To sweep the floor in the morning.

[27309]

[27310]So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same

[27311]time apologetic to get on his companion’s right, a habit of his, by

[27312]the bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles.

[27313]The night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a

[27314]bit weak on his pins.

[27315]

[27316]—It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in

[27317]a moment. The only thing is to walk then you’ll feel a different man.

[27318]Come. It’s not far. Lean on me.

[27319]

[27320]Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen’s right and led him on

[27321]accordingly.

[27322]

[27323]—Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange

[27324]kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and

[27325]all that.

[27326]

[27327]Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where

[27328]the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and

[27329]purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming

[27330]of fresh fields and pastures new. And apropos of coffin of stones the

[27331]analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the

[27332]part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the

[27333]time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the

[27334]selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings.

[27335]

[27336]So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which

[27337]Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made

[27338]tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though

[27339]confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to

[27340]follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante’s Huguenots,

[27341]Meyerbeer’s Seven Last Words on the Cross and Mozart’s Twelfth Mass

[27342]he simply revelled in, the Gloria in that being, to his mind, the acme

[27343]of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into

[27344]a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic

[27345]church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such

[27346]as those Moody and Sankey hymns or Bid me to live and I will live

[27347]thy protestant to be. He also yielded to none in his admiration of

[27348]Rossini’s Stabat Mater, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers,

[27349]in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable

[27350]sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels and

[27351]putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers’ church

[27352]in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors

[27353]to hear her with virtuosos, or virtuosi rather. There was the unanimous

[27354]opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it to say in

[27355]a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was a generally

[27356]voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring preferably

[27357]light opera of the Don Giovanni description and Martha, a gem in its

[27358]line, he had a penchant, though with only a surface knowledge, for the

[27359]severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking

[27360]it for granted he knew all about the old favourites, he mentioned

[27361]par excellence Lionel’s air in Martha, M’appari, which, curiously

[27362]enough, he had heard or overheard, to be more accurate, on yesterday, a

[27363]privilege he keenly appreciated, from the lips of Stephen’s respected

[27364]father, sung to perfection, a study of the number, in fact, which made

[27365]all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a politely

[27366]put query, said he didn’t sing it but launched out into praises of

[27367]Shakespeare’s songs, at least of in or about that period, the lutenist

[27368]Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who anno

[27369]ludendo hausi, Doulandus, an instrument he was contemplating purchasing

[27370]from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite recall though the name

[27371]certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son

[27372]with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd (William) who played the

[27373]virginals, he said, in the Queen’s chapel or anywhere else he found

[27374]them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull.

[27375]

[27376]On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond

[27377]the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground,

[27378]brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not

[27379]perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive

[27380]guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political

[27381]celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a

[27382]striking coincidence.

[27383]

[27384]By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom,

[27385]who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other’s sleeve

[27386]gently, jocosely remarking:

[27387]

[27388]—Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.

[27389]

[27390]They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth

[27391]anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite

[27392]near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh

[27393]because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a

[27394]taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the

[27395]lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such

[27396]a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn’t a lump of sugar but, as he

[27397]wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency

[27398]that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a

[27399]horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected,

[27400]take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan’s, of the same size, would be a

[27401]holy horror to face. But it was no animal’s fault in particular if he

[27402]was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes

[27403]into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or

[27404]trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a

[27405]harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the

[27406]joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely

[27407]reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat

[27408]distracted from Stephen’s words while the ship of the street was

[27409]manœuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old.

[27410]

[27411]—What’s this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging

[27412]in medias res, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your

[27413]acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.

[27414]

[27415]He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,

[27416]image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome

[27417]blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as

[27418]he was perhaps not that way built.

[27419]

[27420]Still, supposing he had his father’s gift as he more than suspected,

[27421]it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall’s Irish

[27422]industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general.

[27423]

[27424]Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air Youth here has End

[27425]by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come

[27426]from. Even more he liked an old German song of Johannes Jeep about

[27427]the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which

[27428]boggled Bloom a bit:

[27429]

[27430] Von der Sirenen Listigkeit

[27431] Tun die Poeten dichten.

[27432]These opening bars he sang and translated extempore. Bloom, nodding,

[27433]said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which

[27434]he did.

[27435]

[27436]A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,

[27437]which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily,

[27438]if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production

[27439]such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain,

[27440]command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for

[27441]its fortunate possessor in the near future an entrée into fashionable

[27442]houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large

[27443]way of business and titled people where with his university degree of

[27444]B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more

[27445]influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct

[27446]success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the

[27447]purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended

[27448]to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a

[27449]youthful tyro in society’s sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a

[27450]little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a

[27451]matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in

[27452]their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the

[27453]Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes

[27454]of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation,

[27455]cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record—in fact,

[27456]without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared

[27457]to, could easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary

[27458]emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his

[27459]tuition fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre

[27460]he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for

[27461]any lengthy space of time. But a step in the required direction it

[27462]was beyond yea or nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained

[27463]no reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often turned in

[27464]uncommonly handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every

[27465]little helped. Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a

[27466]degree, original music like that, different from the conventional rut,

[27467]would rapidly have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for

[27468]Dublin’s musical world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor

[27469]solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St

[27470]Just and their genus omne. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with

[27471]all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name

[27472]for himself and win a high place in the city’s esteem where he could

[27473]command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for

[27474]the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were

[27475]forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big if, however,

[27476]with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable

[27477]procrastination which often tripped up a too much fêted prince of good

[27478]fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being

[27479]his own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in

[27480]his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with

[27481]his vocal career or containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was

[27482]a matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and

[27483]that was the very reason why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp

[27484]nose for smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all.

[27485]

[27486]The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he

[27487]purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs

[27488]on the fools step in where angels principle, advising him to sever his

[27489]connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was

[27490]prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious

[27491]pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it

[27492]which in Bloom’s humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side

[27493]of a person’s character, no pun intended.

[27494]

[27495]The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and,

[27496]rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on

[27497]the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking

[27498]globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full

[27499]crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had

[27500]ended, patient in his scythed car.

[27501]

[27502]Side by side Bloom, profiting by the contretemps, with Stephen passed

[27503]through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping

[27504]over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower,

[27505]Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad.

[27506]

[27507] Und alle Schiffe brücken.

[27508]The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely

[27509]watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, one

[27510]full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, to be married by Father

[27511]Maher. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again continuing

[27512]their tête à tête (which, of course, he was utterly out of) about

[27513]sirens, enemies of man’s reason, mingled with a number of other topics

[27514]of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the

[27515]man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper

[27516]car who in any case couldn’t possibly hear because they were too far

[27517]simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street and looked

[27518]after their lowbacked car.

[27519]

[27520]

[27521]

[27522]

[27523]

[27524]

Joyce's Ulysses Concordance

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16. Eumaeus