8. Lestrygonians
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[6981][ 8 ]
[6982]
[6983]Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl
[6984]shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school
[6985]treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His
[6986]Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red
[6987]jujubes white.
[6988]
[6989]A sombre Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
[6990]Graham Lemon’s, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.
[6991]
[6992]Heart to heart talks.
[6993]
[6994]Bloo... Me? No.
[6995]
[6996]Blood of the Lamb.
[6997]
[6998]His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
[6999]washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
[7000]martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
[7001]druids’ altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of
[7002]the church in Zion is coming.
[7003]
[7004] Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
[7005] All heartily welcome.
[7006]Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put
[7007]the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous
[7008]crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the
[7009]wall, hanging. Pepper’s ghost idea. Iron Nails Ran In.
[7010]
[7011]Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
[7012]instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the
[7013]pantry in the kitchen. Don’t like all the smells in it waiting to
[7014]rush out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain.
[7015]Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good
[7016]for the brain.
[7017]
[7018]From Butler’s monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor’s
[7019]walk. Dedalus’ daughter there still outside Dillon’s auctionrooms.
[7020]Must be selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the
[7021]father. Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the
[7022]mother goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That’s
[7023]in their theology or the priest won’t give the poor woman the
[7024]confession, the absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear
[7025]such an idea? Eat you out of house and home. No families themselves to
[7026]feed. Living on the fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I’d
[7027]like to see them do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a
[7028]collation for fear he’d collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of
[7029]those fellows if you could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her.
[7030]Like getting £. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All
[7031]for number one. Watching his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His
[7032]reverence: mum’s the word.
[7033]
[7034]Good Lord, that poor child’s dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
[7035]too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It’s after they feel it.
[7036]Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.
[7037]
[7038]As he set foot on O’Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
[7039]the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it,
[7040]I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the
[7041]brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in
[7042]too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on
[7043]the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking
[7044]that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things.
[7045]
[7046]Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
[7047]quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben
[7048]J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and
[7049]eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It’s the droll way he comes out with the
[7050]things. Knows how to tell a story too.
[7051]
[7052]They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.
[7053]
[7054]He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet
[7055]per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of
[7056]swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the
[7057]day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the
[7058]wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.
[7059]
[7060] The hungry famished gull
[7061] Flaps o’er the waters dull.
[7062]That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has
[7063]no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
[7064]Solemn.
[7065]
[7066] Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit
[7067] Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.
[7068]—Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!
[7069]
[7070]His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians
[7071]they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag
[7072]or a handkerchief.
[7073]
[7074]Wait. Those poor birds.
[7075]
[7076]He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for
[7077]a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into
[7078]the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from
[7079]their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.
[7080]
[7081]Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
[7082]hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they
[7083]have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down
[7084]here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder
[7085]what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.
[7086]
[7087]They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw any more. Penny
[7088]quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
[7089]mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
[7090]like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
[7091]not salty? How is that?
[7092]
[7093]His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
[7094]on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.
[7095]
[7096] Kino’s
[7097] 11/-
[7098] Trousers
[7099]Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
[7100]own water really? It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same,
[7101]which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All
[7102]kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used
[7103]to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly
[7104]confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t cost him a red like Maginni the
[7105]dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick
[7106]them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a
[7107]button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS.
[7108]Some chap with a dose burning him.
[7109]
[7110]If he...?
[7111]
[7112]O!
[7113]
[7114]Eh?
[7115]
[7116]No... No.
[7117]
[7118]No, no. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t surely?
[7119]
[7120]No, no.
[7121]
[7122]Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
[7123]that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.
[7124]Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball’s. Parallax. I
[7125]never exactly understood. There’s a priest. Could ask him. Par it’s
[7126]Greek: parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told
[7127]her about the transmigration. O rocks!
[7128]
[7129]Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She’s
[7130]right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the
[7131]sound. She’s not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was
[7132]thinking. Still, I don’t know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base
[7133]barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you’d think he was
[7134]singing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. They used to call him big
[7135]Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like
[7136]an albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at
[7137]stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.
[7138]
[7139]A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him
[7140]along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like
[7141]that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He
[7142]read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
[7143]Wisdom Hely’s. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under
[7144]his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our
[7145]staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after
[7146]street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are not
[7147]Boyl: no, M’Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any business either.
[7148]I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
[7149]sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I
[7150]bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the
[7151]eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she’s writing. Get twenty of
[7152]them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women
[7153]too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn’t have it of course because he
[7154]didn’t think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with
[7155]a false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree’s
[7156]potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can’t lick
[7157]’em. What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can’t
[7158]stop, Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser
[7159]Kansell, sold by Hely’s Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck
[7160]I am. Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents.
[7161]Tranquilla convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple
[7162]suited her small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love
[7163]by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed
[7164]her at her devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the
[7165]outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount
[7166]Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way
[7167]she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they really
[7168]were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the
[7169]same. No lard for them. My heart’s broke eating dripping. They like
[7170]buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister?
[7171]Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker’s daughter. It was a nun they say invented
[7172]barbed wire.
[7173]
[7174]He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover
[7175]cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil
[7176]Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom’s.
[7177]Got the job in Wisdom Hely’s year we married. Six years. Ten years
[7178]ago: ninetyfour he died yes that’s right the big fire at Arnott’s.
[7179]Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert
[7180]O’Reilly emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob
[7181]lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldn’t hear what the band played.
[7182]For what we have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a
[7183]kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs.
[7184]Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. She didn’t like it because I
[7185]sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf.
[7186]As if that. Old Goodwin’s tall hat done up with some sticky stuff.
[7187]Flies’ picnic too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her
[7188]like a glove, shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well.
[7189]Rabbitpie we had that day. People looking after her.
[7190]
[7191]Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper.
[7192]Dockrell’s, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly’s tubbing night.
[7193]American soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny
[7194]she looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa’s
[7195]daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.
[7196]
[7197]He walked along the curbstone.
[7198]
[7199]Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always
[7200]squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron’s
[7201]saint Kevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting.
[7202]Pen ...? Of course it’s years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well,
[7203]if he couldn’t remember the dayfather’s name that he sees every day.
[7204]
[7205]Bartell d’Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home
[7206]after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her
[7207]that song Winds that blow from the south.
[7208]
[7209]Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on
[7210]about those lottery tickets after Goodwin’s concert in the supperroom
[7211]or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music
[7212]blew out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didn’t.
[7213]Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin
[7214]linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell
[7215]concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and
[7216]may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar
[7217]up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her
[7218]skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed
[7219]in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up
[7220]those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she
[7221]liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth
[7222]unclamping the busk of her stays: white.
[7223]
[7224]Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her.
[7225]Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two
[7226]taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy.
[7227]That was the night...
[7228]
[7229]—O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?
[7230]
[7231]—O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?
[7232]
[7233]—No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven’t seen her for
[7234]ages.
[7235]
[7236]—In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in
[7237]Mullingar, you know.
[7238]
[7239]—Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?
[7240]
[7241]—Yes. In a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire.
[7242]How are all your charges?
[7243]
[7244]—All on the baker’s list, Mrs Breen said.
[7245]
[7246]How many has she? No other in sight.
[7247]
[7248]—You’re in black, I see. You have no...
[7249]
[7250]—No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
[7251]
[7252]Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did he
[7253]die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
[7254]
[7255]—O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn’t any near relation.
[7256]
[7257]May as well get her sympathy.
[7258]
[7259]—Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly,
[7260]poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.
[7261]
[7262] Your funeral’s tomorrow
[7263] While you’re coming through the rye.
[7264] Diddlediddle dumdum
[7265] Diddlediddle...
[7266]—Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said
[7267]melancholily.
[7268]
[7269]Now that’s quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.
[7270]
[7271]—And your lord and master?
[7272]
[7273]Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.
[7274]
[7275]—O, don’t be talking! she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes.
[7276]He’s in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He
[7277]has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you.
[7278]
[7279]Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out
[7280]from Harrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s
[7281]gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or
[7282]they’d taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab
[7283]stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of
[7284]hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork
[7285]chained to the table.
[7286]
[7287]Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on
[7288]those things. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open.
[7289]Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain.
[7290]Husband barging. Where’s the ten shillings I gave you on Monday?
[7291]Are you feeding your little brother’s family? Soiled handkerchief:
[7292]medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?...
[7293]
[7294]—There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do
[7295]you know what he did last night?
[7296]
[7297]Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in
[7298]alarm, yet smiling.
[7299]
[7300]—What? Mr Bloom asked.
[7301]
[7302]Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.
[7303]
[7304]—Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.
[7305]
[7306]Indiges.
[7307]
[7308]—Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.
[7309]
[7310]—The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.
[7311]
[7312]She took a folded postcard from her handbag.
[7313]
[7314]—Read that, she said. He got it this morning.
[7315]
[7316]—What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U. P.?
[7317]
[7318]—U. p: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great
[7319]shame for them whoever he is.
[7320]
[7321]—Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.
[7322]
[7323]She took back the card, sighing.
[7324]
[7325]—And now he’s going round to Mr Menton’s office. He’s going to
[7326]take an action for ten thousand pounds, he says.
[7327]
[7328]She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.
[7329]
[7330]Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its
[7331]best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old
[7332]grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a
[7333]tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than
[7334]Molly.
[7335]
[7336]See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.
[7337]
[7338]He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.
[7339]Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of
[7340]pastry on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her
[7341]cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie
[7342]Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’s long ago. Dolphin’s Barn, the
[7343]charades. U. p: up.
[7344]
[7345]Change the subject.
[7346]
[7347]—Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked.
[7348]
[7349]—Mina Purefoy? she said.
[7350]
[7351]Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ Club. Matcham often thinks
[7352]of the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.
[7353]
[7354]—Yes.
[7355]
[7356]—I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She’s in the
[7357]lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She’s three
[7358]days bad now.
[7359]
[7360]—O, Mr Bloom said. I’m sorry to hear that.
[7361]
[7362]—Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It’s a very
[7363]stiff birth, the nurse told me.
[7364]
[7365]—O, Mr Bloom said.
[7366]
[7367]His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in
[7368]compassion. Dth! Dth!
[7369]
[7370]—I’m sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That’s
[7371]terrible for her.
[7372]
[7373]Mrs Breen nodded.
[7374]
[7375]—She was taken bad on the Tuesday...
[7376]
[7377]Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her:
[7378]
[7379]—Mind! Let this man pass.
[7380]
[7381]A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a
[7382]rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a
[7383]skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat,
[7384]a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.
[7385]
[7386]—Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts.
[7387]Watch!
[7388]
[7389]—Who is he if it’s a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?
[7390]
[7391]—His name is Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr
[7392]Bloom said smiling. Watch!
[7393]
[7394]—He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these
[7395]days.
[7396]
[7397]She broke off suddenly.
[7398]
[7399]—There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to
[7400]Molly, won’t you?
[7401]
[7402]—I will, Mr Bloom said.
[7403]
[7404]He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen
[7405]in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison’s
[7406]hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old
[7407]times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust
[7408]his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke
[7409]earnestly.
[7410]
[7411]Meshuggah. Off his chump.
[7412]
[7413]Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the
[7414]tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two
[7415]days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world.
[7416]And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have
[7417]with him.
[7418]
[7419]U. p: up. I’ll take my oath that’s Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding.
[7420]Wrote it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to
[7421]Menton’s office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast
[7422]for the gods.
[7423]
[7424]He passed the Irish Times. There might be other answers lying there.
[7425]Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch
[7426]now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn’t know me. O, leave them there
[7427]to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart
[7428]lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty
[7429]darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is
[7430]the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who
[7431]made the world. The way they spring those questions on you. And the
[7432]other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good fortune to
[7433]meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo. Russell). No
[7434]time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of poetry.
[7435]
[7436]Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook
[7437]and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit
[7438]counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop.
[7439]James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big
[7440]deal on Coates’s shares. Ca’ canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All
[7441]the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the Irish
[7442]Field now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement
[7443]and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday
[7444]at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make
[7445]it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man.
[7446]Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe.
[7447]First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood mare some of
[7448]those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss off a glass
[7449]of brandy neat while you’d say knife. That one at the Grosvenor this
[7450]morning. Up with her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or fivebarred gate
[7451]put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who
[7452]is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that sold me her old
[7453]wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel. Divorced Spanish
[7454]American. Didn’t take a feather out of her my handling them. As if
[7455]I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when Stubbs the
[7456]park ranger got me in with Whelan of the Express. Scavenging what the
[7457]quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was
[7458]custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to
[7459]be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks.
[7460]
[7461]Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun
[7462]and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating
[7463]with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his
[7464]muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore’s
[7465]cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy
[7466]annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers
[7467]marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a
[7468]marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast
[7469]year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t’s are. Dog
[7470]in the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please.
[7471]
[7472]He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at
[7473]Rowe’s? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in
[7474]the Burton. Better. On my way.
[7475]
[7476]He walked on past Bolton’s Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot
[7477]to tap Tom Kernan.
[7478]
[7479]Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a
[7480]vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew!
[7481]Dreadful simply! Child’s head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her
[7482]trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me
[7483]that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent
[7484]something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea:
[7485]queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old
[7486]woman that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was
[7487]consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the
[7488]what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to
[7489]feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing
[7490]quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at
[7491]compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings
[7492]and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage
[7493]people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years
[7494]want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think.
[7495]
[7496]Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for
[7497]nothing.
[7498]
[7499]Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs
[7500]Moisel. Mothers’ meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then
[7501]returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes. Weight
[7502]off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies,
[7503]she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that’s
[7504]nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall’s son. His first bow to
[7505]the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking
[7506]them up at all hours. For God’ sake, doctor. Wife in her throes. Then
[7507]keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on your wife. No
[7508]gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them.
[7509]
[7510]Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of
[7511]pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on?
[7512]I pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here’s good luck. Must be
[7513]thrilling from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees
[7514]near Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me.
[7515]
[7516]A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian
[7517]file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their
[7518]truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their
[7519]belts. Policeman’s lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and
[7520]scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment
[7521]to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others,
[7522]marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station.
[7523]Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive
[7524]soup.
[7525]
[7526]He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger. They did right to put
[7527]him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for
[7528]women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. There is not in
[7529]this wide world a vallee. Great song of Julia Morkan’s. Kept her voice
[7530]up to the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe’s, wasn’t she?
[7531]
[7532]He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack
[7533]Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble
[7534]being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell.
[7535]Can’t blame them after all with the job they have especially the
[7536]young hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was given
[7537]his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did! His
[7538]horse’s hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had the
[7539]presence of mind to dive into Manning’s or I was souped. He did come
[7540]a wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I
[7541]oughtn’t to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the
[7542]Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to
[7543]know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now
[7544]he’s in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police
[7545]whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why he fixed on me. Give me in
[7546]charge. Right here it began.
[7547]
[7548]—Up the Boers!
[7549]
[7550]—Three cheers for De Wet!
[7551]
[7552]—We’ll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree.
[7553]
[7554]Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill.
[7555]The Butter exchange band. Few years’ time half of them magistrates and
[7556]civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows
[7557]used to. Whether on the scaffold high.
[7558]
[7559]Never know who you’re talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in
[7560]his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on
[7561]the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to
[7562]get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the castle.
[7563]Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are always
[7564]courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. Squarepushing up
[7565]against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And
[7566]who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was the young master saying
[7567]anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young
[7568]student fooling round her fat arms ironing.
[7569]
[7570]—Are those yours, Mary?
[7571]
[7572]—I don’t wear such things... Stop or I’ll tell the missus on you.
[7573]Out half the night.
[7574]
[7575]—There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.
[7576]
[7577]—Ah, gelong with your great times coming.
[7578]
[7579]Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls.
[7580]
[7581]James Stephens’ idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so
[7582]that a fellow couldn’t round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein.
[7583]Back out you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad.
[7584]Turnkey’s daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up
[7585]in the Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi.
[7586]
[7587]You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a
[7588]squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about
[7589]our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company’s tearoom.
[7590]Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government.
[7591]That the language question should take precedence of the economic
[7592]question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them
[7593]up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here’s a good lump of thyme
[7594]seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease
[7595]before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with
[7596]the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap pays
[7597]best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show us
[7598]over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule
[7599]sun rising up in the northwest.
[7600]
[7601]His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly,
[7602]shadowing Trinity’s surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing,
[7603]outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day:
[7604]squads of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies
[7605]mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a
[7606]bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second
[7607]somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes.
[7608]Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the
[7609]blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa.
[7610]
[7611]Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other
[7612]coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of
[7613]pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that.
[7614]Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets
[7615]his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have
[7616]all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age
[7617]after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese
[7618]wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling
[7619]suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of breeze.
[7620]Shelter, for the night.
[7621]
[7622]No-one is anything.
[7623]
[7624]This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate
[7625]this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.
[7626]
[7627]Provost’s house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned
[7628]in there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn’t live in it if they paid me.
[7629]Hope they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum.
[7630]
[7631]The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverware
[7632]opposite in Walter Sexton’s window by which John Howard Parnell
[7633]passed, unseeing.
[7634]
[7635]There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that’s a
[7636]coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don’t
[7637]meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a
[7638]corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s
[7639]uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on
[7640]his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the
[7641]woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a
[7642]pain. Great man’s brother: his brother’s brother. He’d look nice
[7643]on the city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play
[7644]chess there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot.
[7645]Afraid to pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his.
[7646]That’s the fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and
[7647]his other sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt
[7648]upright like surgeon M’Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south
[7649]Meath. Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The
[7650]patriot’s banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said
[7651]when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the
[7652]grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm.
[7653]
[7654]—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which
[7655]the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with
[7656]a Scotch accent. The tentacles...
[7657]
[7658]They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle.
[7659]Young woman.
[7660]
[7661]And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: second time.
[7662]Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the
[7663]eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A.
[7664]E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund,
[7665]Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world
[7666]with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult: symbolism.
[7667]Holding forth. She’s taking it all in. Not saying a word. To aid
[7668]gentleman in literary work.
[7669]
[7670]His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle,
[7671]a listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only
[7672]weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes
[7673]of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s
[7674]healthier. Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day.
[7675]Bad as a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they
[7676]gave me nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are
[7677]eating rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting
[7678]by the tap all night.
[7679]
[7680]Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless.
[7681]Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy,
[7682]symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that
[7683]kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical.
[7684]For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts
[7685]you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don’t know what
[7686]poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood.
[7687]
[7688] The dreamy cloudy gull
[7689] Waves o’er the waters dull.
[7690]He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of Yeates
[7691]and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris’s
[7692]and have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at
[7693]his lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz lenses
[7694]six guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to
[7695]capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost
[7696]property office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in
[7697]trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too.
[7698]Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer’s
[7699]daughter’s bag and hand it to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed
[7700]money too. There’s a little watch up there on the roof of the bank to
[7701]test those glasses by.
[7702]
[7703]His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can’t see it. If
[7704]you imagine it’s there you can almost see it. Can’t see it.
[7705]
[7706]He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right
[7707]hand at arm’s length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes:
[7708]completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun’s
[7709]disk. Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses.
[7710]Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we
[7711]were in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific
[7712]explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn
[7713]some time.
[7714]
[7715]Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It’s
[7716]the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there
[7717]some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to
[7718]professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to:
[7719]man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman
[7720]proud to be descended from some king’s mistress. His foremother. Lay
[7721]it on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and
[7722]blurt out what you know you’re not to: what’s parallax? Show this
[7723]gentleman the door.
[7724]
[7725]Ah.
[7726]
[7727]His hand fell to his side again.
[7728]
[7729]Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,
[7730]crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid:
[7731]then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock,
[7732]like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she said. I
[7733]believe there is.
[7734]
[7735]He went on by la maison Claire.
[7736]
[7737]Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there
[7738]is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon.
[7739]She was humming. The young May moon she’s beaming, love. He other side
[7740]of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm’s la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch.
[7741]Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.
[7742]
[7743]Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.
[7744]
[7745]Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court.
[7746]
[7747]With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here
[7748]middle of the day of Bob Doran’s bottle shoulders. On his annual bend,
[7749]M’Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or cherchez
[7750]la femme. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the
[7751]rest of the year sober as a judge.
[7752]
[7753]Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him
[7754]good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the
[7755]Queen’s. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon
[7756]face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies,
[7757]eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking,
[7758]laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat.
[7759]Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white
[7760]hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp
[7761]that once did starve us all.
[7762]
[7763]I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She
[7764]twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could
[7765]never like it again after Rudy. Can’t bring back time. Like holding
[7766]water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then.
[7767]Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy?
[7768]Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library.
[7769]
[7770]Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,
[7771]silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the
[7772]baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope
[7773]the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to
[7774]the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of
[7775]plumb.
[7776]
[7777]He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades
[7778]of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a
[7779]flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that
[7780]here. La causa è santa! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must
[7781]be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.
[7782]
[7783]Pincushions. I’m a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all
[7784]over the place. Needles in window curtains.
[7785]
[7786]He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today
[7787]anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.
[7788]Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she
[7789]mightn’t like it. Women won’t pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.
[7790]
[7791]Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk
[7792]stockings.
[7793]
[7794]Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.
[7795]
[7796]High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home and
[7797]houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim.
[7798]Wealth of the world.
[7799]
[7800]A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded.
[7801]Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he
[7802]mutely craved to adore.
[7803]
[7804]Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.
[7805]
[7806]He turned Combridge’s corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds.
[7807]Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields,
[7808]tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas,
[7809]creaking beds.
[7810]
[7811]—Jack, love!
[7812]
[7813]—Darling!
[7814]
[7815]—Kiss me, Reggy!
[7816]
[7817]—My boy!
[7818]
[7819]—Love!
[7820]
[7821]His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink
[7822]gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See
[7823]the animals feed.
[7824]
[7825]Men, men, men.
[7826]
[7827]Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables
[7828]calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy
[7829]food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced
[7830]young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin.
[7831]New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked
[7832]round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back
[7833]on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew it.
[7834]Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s eyes.
[7835]Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as
[7836]others see us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw.
[7837]Don’t! O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the
[7838]schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what
[7839]he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to
[7840]Christianity. Couldn’t swallow it all however.
[7841]
[7842]—Roast beef and cabbage.
[7843]
[7844]—One stew.
[7845]
[7846]Smells of men. Spat-on sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarettesmoke, reek of
[7847]plug, spilt beer, men’s beery piss, the stale of ferment.
[7848]
[7849]His gorge rose.
[7850]
[7851]Couldn’t eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to
[7852]eat all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full,
[7853]chewing the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this
[7854]picture then on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of
[7855]bread. Lick it off the plate, man! Get out of this.
[7856]
[7857]He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of
[7858]his nose.
[7859]
[7860]—Two stouts here.
[7861]
[7862]—One corned and cabbage.
[7863]
[7864]That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended
[7865]on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his
[7866]three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a
[7867]silver knife in his mouth. That’s witty, I think. Or no. Silver means
[7868]born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.
[7869]
[7870]An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head
[7871]bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well
[7872]up: it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright,
[7873]elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift
[7874]across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something
[7875]with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un
[7876]thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?
[7877]
[7878]Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said:
[7879]
[7880]—Not here. Don’t see him.
[7881]
[7882]Out. I hate dirty eaters.
[7883]
[7884]He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne’s.
[7885]Stopgap. Keep me going. Had a good breakfast.
[7886]
[7887]—Roast and mashed here.
[7888]
[7889]—Pint of stout.
[7890]
[7891]Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.
[7892]
[7893]He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat
[7894]or be eaten. Kill! Kill!
[7895]
[7896]Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down
[7897]with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the
[7898]street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every
[7899]mother’s son don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity
[7900]women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops.
[7901]From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans’ dwellings, north Dublin
[7902]union, lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My
[7903]plate’s empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like
[7904]sir Philip Crampton’s fountain. Rub off the microbes with your
[7905]handkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O’Flynn
[7906]would make hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number
[7907]one. Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as
[7908]big as the Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it.
[7909]Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel table d’hôte she called
[7910]it. Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you’re chewing.
[7911]Then who’d wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on
[7912]tabloids that time. Teeth getting worse and worse.
[7913]
[7914]After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from
[7915]the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp
[7916]of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw
[7917]fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe
[7918]to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering
[7919]bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers’ buckets wobbly lights. Give us that
[7920]brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed
[7921]sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling
[7922]nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don’t maul them pieces,
[7923]young one.
[7924]
[7925]Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed.
[7926]Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.
[7927]
[7928]Ah, I’m hungry.
[7929]
[7930]He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink
[7931]now and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.
[7932]
[7933]What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?
[7934]
[7935]—Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook.
[7936]
[7937]—Hello, Flynn.
[7938]
[7939]—How’s things?
[7940]
[7941]—Tiptop... Let me see. I’ll take a glass of burgundy and... let me
[7942]see.
[7943]
[7944]Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham
[7945]and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home
[7946]without Plumtree’s potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under
[7947]the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s potted
[7948]meat. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty.
[7949]Like pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought
[7950]to be tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. There
[7951]was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of
[7952]the reverend Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what
[7953]concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle
[7954]find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what
[7955]they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war
[7956]depend on some fellow’s digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and
[7957]geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards
[7958]full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese.
[7959]
[7960]—Have you a cheese sandwich?
[7961]
[7962]—Yes, sir.
[7963]
[7964]Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of
[7965]burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber,
[7966]Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served
[7967]me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made
[7968]food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.
[7969]
[7970]—Wife well?
[7971]
[7972]—Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?
[7973]
[7974]—Yes, sir.
[7975]
[7976]Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.
[7977]
[7978]—Doing any singing those times?
[7979]
[7980]Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.
[7981]Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him.
[7982]Does no harm. Free ad.
[7983]
[7984]—She’s engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard
[7985]perhaps.
[7986]
[7987]—No. O, that’s the style. Who’s getting it up?
[7988]
[7989]The curate served.
[7990]
[7991]—How much is that?
[7992]
[7993]—Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.
[7994]
[7995]Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. Mr MacTrigger. Easier
[7996]than the dreamy creamy stuff. His five hundred wives. Had the time of
[7997]their lives.
[7998]
[7999]—Mustard, sir?
[8000]
[8001]—Thank you.
[8002]
[8003]He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. Their lives. I have it.
[8004]It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.
[8005]
[8006]—Getting it up? he said. Well, it’s like a company idea, you see.
[8007]Part shares and part profits.
[8008]
[8009]—Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket
[8010]to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn’t Blazes Boylan
[8011]mixed up in it?
[8012]
[8013]A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom’s heart. He
[8014]raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock
[8015]five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.
[8016]
[8017]His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,
[8018]longingly.
[8019]
[8020]Wine.
[8021]
[8022]He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to
[8023]speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.
[8024]
[8025]—Yes, he said. He’s the organiser in point of fact.
[8026]
[8027]No fear: no brains.
[8028]
[8029]Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.
[8030]
[8031]—He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over
[8032]that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello
[8033]barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he
[8034]was telling me...
[8035]
[8036]Hope that dewdrop doesn’t come down into his glass. No, snuffled it
[8037]up.
[8038]
[8039]—For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God
[8040]till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a
[8041]hairy chap.
[8042]
[8043]Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves,
[8044]cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring’s blush. Whose
[8045]smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat
[8046]on the parsnips.
[8047]
[8048]—And here’s himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you
[8049]give us a good one for the Gold cup?
[8050]
[8051]—I’m off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything
[8052]on a horse.
[8053]
[8054]—You’re right there, Nosey Flynn said.
[8055]
[8056]Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of
[8057]disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his
[8058]wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather
[8059]with the chill off.
[8060]
[8061]Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like
[8062]the way it curves there.
[8063]
[8064]—I wouldn’t do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It
[8065]ruined many a man, the same horses.
[8066]
[8067]Vintners’ sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits
[8068]for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.
[8069]
[8070]—True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you’re in the know.
[8071]There’s no straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones.
[8072]He’s giving Sceptre today. Zinfandel’s the favourite, Lord Howard de
[8073]Walden’s, won at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got
[8074]seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before.
[8075]
[8076]—That so? Davy Byrne said...
[8077]
[8078]He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned
[8079]its pages.
[8080]
[8081]—I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit
[8082]of horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm,
[8083]Rothschild’s filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow
[8084]cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O’Gaunt. He put me off
[8085]it. Ay.
[8086]
[8087]He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the
[8088]flutes.
[8089]
[8090]—Ay, he said, sighing.
[8091]
[8092]Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull.
[8093]Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him
[8094]forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again.
[8095]Cold nose he’d have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly
[8096]beards they like. Dogs’ cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling
[8097]stomach’s Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in
[8098]her lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy!
[8099]
[8100]Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish
[8101]cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I’m not thirsty. Bath
[8102]of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o’clock I can.
[8103]Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She...
[8104]
[8105]Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so
[8106]off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy
[8107]lobsters’ claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of
[8108]shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the
[8109]French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing
[8110]in a thousand years. If you didn’t know risky putting anything into
[8111]your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think
[8112]good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try
[8113]it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit.
[8114]Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial
[8115]irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like
[8116]a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them
[8117]out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect
[8118]on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he
[8119]oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has
[8120]no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game.
[8121]Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old,
[8122]blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might
[8123]mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no
[8124]yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the
[8125]scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats,
[8126]then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour.
[8127]Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in
[8128]the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the
[8129]grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom
[8130]pearls. The élite. Crème de la crème. They want special dishes to
[8131]pretend they’re. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings
[8132]of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff,
[8133]Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send
[8134]him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the
[8135]Rolls’ kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck.
[8136]Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the
[8137]bill of fare so you can know what you’ve eaten. Too many drugs spoil
[8138]the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards’ desiccated soup.
[8139]Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some
[8140]ptarmigan. Wouldn’t mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips,
[8141]evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more
[8142]filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad.
[8143]Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I
[8144]remember. Du de la is French. Still it’s the same fish perhaps old
[8145]Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of making money hand
[8146]over fist finger in fishes’ gills can’t write his name on a cheque
[8147]think he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A
[8148]Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.
[8149]
[8150]Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.
[8151]
[8152]Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress
[8153]grapes of Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling
[8154]me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild
[8155]ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay
[8156]purple by the Lion’s head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards
[8157]Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried
[8158]cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather
[8159]scrub my hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft
[8160]with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not
[8161]turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her
[8162]mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed.
[8163]Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate
[8164]it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky
[8165]gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles
[8166]fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a
[8167]nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns
[8168]she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips,
[8169]her stretched neck beating, woman’s breasts full in her blouse of
[8170]nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me.
[8171]I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me.
[8172]
[8173]Me. And me now.
[8174]
[8175]Stuck, the flies buzzed.
[8176]
[8177]His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab. Beauty:
[8178]it curves: curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the
[8179]world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall,
[8180]naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don’t care what man looks.
[8181]All to see. Never speaking. I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose
[8182]she did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you
[8183]in your proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes,
[8184]all ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots
[8185]and turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity:
[8186]gods’ food. Lovely forms of women sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely.
[8187]And we stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood,
[8188]dung, earth, food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have
[8189]no. Never looked. I’ll look today. Keeper won’t see. Bend down let
[8190]something fall see if she.
[8191]
[8192]Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to
[8193]do there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and
[8194]walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men
[8195]lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard.
[8196]
[8197]When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book:
[8198]
[8199]—What is this he is? Isn’t he in the insurance line?
[8200]
[8201]—He’s out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for
[8202]the Freeman.
[8203]
[8204]—I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble?
[8205]
[8206]—Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why?
[8207]
[8208]—I noticed he was in mourning.
[8209]
[8210]—Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all
[8211]at home. You’re right, by God. So he was.
[8212]
[8213]—I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a
[8214]gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their
[8215]minds.
[8216]
[8217]—It’s not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day
[8218]before yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse
[8219]Nolan’s wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand
[8220]taking it home to his better half. She’s well nourished, I tell you.
[8221]Plovers on toast.
[8222]
[8223]—And is he doing for the Freeman? Davy Byrne said.
[8224]
[8225]Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.
[8226]
[8227]—He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of
[8228]that.
[8229]
[8230]—How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.
[8231]
[8232]Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He
[8233]winked.
[8234]
[8235]—He’s in the craft, he said.
[8236]
[8237]—Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.
[8238]
[8239]—Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order.
[8240]He’s an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him
[8241]a leg up. I was told that by a—well, I won’t say who.
[8242]
[8243]—Is that a fact?
[8244]
[8245]—O, it’s a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when
[8246]you’re down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they’re
[8247]as close as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.
[8248]
[8249]Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:
[8250]
[8251]—Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!
[8252]
[8253]—There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to
[8254]find out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out
[8255]and swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint
[8256]Legers of Doneraile.
[8257]
[8258]Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes:
[8259]
[8260]—And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here
[8261]and I never once saw him—you know, over the line.
[8262]
[8263]—God Almighty couldn’t make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly.
[8264]Slips off when the fun gets too hot. Didn’t you see him look at his
[8265]watch? Ah, you weren’t there. If you ask him to have a drink first
[8266]thing he does he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe.
[8267]Declare to God he does.
[8268]
[8269]—There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He’s a safe man, I’d
[8270]say.
[8271]
[8272]—He’s not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He’s been
[8273]known to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due.
[8274]O, Bloom has his good points. But there’s one thing he’ll never do.
[8275]
[8276]His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.
[8277]
[8278]—I know, Davy Byrne said.
[8279]
[8280]—Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said.
[8281]
[8282]Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning,
[8283]a plaining hand on his claret waistcoat.
[8284]
[8285]—Day, Mr Byrne.
[8286]
[8287]—Day, gentlemen.
[8288]
[8289]They paused at the counter.
[8290]
[8291]—Who’s standing? Paddy Leonard asked.
[8292]
[8293]—I’m sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered.
[8294]
[8295]—Well, what’ll it be? Paddy Leonard asked.
[8296]
[8297]—I’ll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said.
[8298]
[8299]—How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God’ sake? What’s
[8300]yours, Tom?
[8301]
[8302]—How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping.
[8303]
[8304]For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and
[8305]hiccupped.
[8306]
[8307]—Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said.
[8308]
[8309]—Certainly, sir.
[8310]
[8311]Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates.
[8312]
[8313]—Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I’m standing drinks to!
[8314]Cold water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore
[8315]leg. He has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead
[8316]snip.
[8317]
[8318]—Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked.
[8319]
[8320]Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set before
[8321]him.
[8322]
[8323]—That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking.
[8324]
[8325]—Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.
[8326]
[8327]Tom Rochford nodded and drank.
[8328]
[8329]—Is it Zinfandel?
[8330]
[8331]—Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I’m going to plunge five bob on
[8332]my own.
[8333]
[8334]—Tell us if you’re worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy
[8335]Leonard said. Who gave it to you?
[8336]
[8337]Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting.
[8338]
[8339]—So long! Nosey Flynn said.
[8340]
[8341]The others turned.
[8342]
[8343]—That’s the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered.
[8344]
[8345]—Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we’ll take
[8346]two of your small Jamesons after that and a...
[8347]
[8348]—Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly.
[8349]
[8350]—Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby.
[8351]
[8352]Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth
[8353]smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with
[8354]those Röntgen rays searchlight you could.
[8355]
[8356]At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the
[8357]cobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks
[8358]having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom
[8359]coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move.
[8360]Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of his?
[8361]Wasting time explaining it to Flynn’s mouth. Lean people long mouths.
[8362]Ought to be a hall or a place where inventors could go in and invent
[8363]free. Course then you’d have all the cranks pestering.
[8364]
[8365]He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars:
[8366]
[8367] Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
[8368] M’invitasti.
[8369]Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some
[8370]chap in the blues. Dutch courage. That Kilkenny People in the national
[8371]library now I must.
[8372]
[8373]Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber,
[8374]turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way down,
[8375]swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the
[8376]body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of
[8377]intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the
[8378]time with his insides entrails on show. Science.
[8379]
[8380]—A cenar teco.
[8381]
[8382]What does that teco mean? Tonight perhaps.
[8383]
[8384] Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited
[8385] To come to supper tonight,
[8386] The rum the rumdum.
[8387]Doesn’t go properly.
[8388]
[8389]Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That’ll be two pounds ten
[8390]about two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott’s
[8391]dyeworks van over there. If I get Billy Prescott’s ad: two fifteen.
[8392]Five guineas about. On the pig’s back.
[8393]
[8394]Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new
[8395]garters.
[8396]
[8397]Today. Today. Not think.
[8398]
[8399]Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton,
[8400]Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely
[8401]seaside girls. Against John Long’s a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy
[8402]thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages.
[8403]Will eat anything.
[8404]
[8405]Mr Bloom turned at Gray’s confectioner’s window of unbought tarts
[8406]and passed the reverend Thomas Connellan’s bookstore. Why I left the
[8407]church of Rome? Birds’ Nest. Women run him. They say they used to give
[8408]pauper children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato
[8409]blight. Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor
[8410]jews. Same bait. Why we left the church of Rome.
[8411]
[8412]A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No
[8413]tram in sight. Wants to cross.
[8414]
[8415]—Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.
[8416]
[8417]The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He
[8418]moved his head uncertainly.
[8419]
[8420]—You’re in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is
[8421]opposite. Do you want to cross? There’s nothing in the way.
[8422]
[8423]The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom’s eye followed its
[8424]line and saw again the dyeworks’ van drawn up before Drago’s. Where
[8425]I saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in
[8426]John Long’s. Slaking his drouth.
[8427]
[8428]—There’s a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it’s not moving. I’ll
[8429]see you across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street?
[8430]
[8431]—Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.
[8432]
[8433]—Come, Mr Bloom said.
[8434]
[8435]He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to
[8436]guide it forward.
[8437]
[8438]Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust
[8439]what you tell them. Pass a common remark.
[8440]
[8441]—The rain kept off.
[8442]
[8443]No answer.
[8444]
[8445]Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different
[8446]for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child’s hand, his hand.
[8447]Like Milly’s was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand.
[8448]Wonder if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse’s legs:
[8449]tired drudge get his doze. That’s right. Clear. Behind a bull: in
[8450]front of a horse.
[8451]
[8452]—Thanks, sir.
[8453]
[8454]Knows I’m a man. Voice.
[8455]
[8456]—Right now? First turn to the left.
[8457]
[8458]The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing
[8459]his cane back, feeling again.
[8460]
[8461]Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone
[8462]tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there?
[8463]Must have felt it. See things in their forehead perhaps: kind of sense
[8464]of volume. Weight or size of it, something blacker than the dark. Wonder
[8465]would he feel it if something was removed. Feel a gap. Queer idea of
[8466]Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he
[8467]walk in a beeline if he hadn’t that cane? Bloodless pious face like a
[8468]fellow going in to be a priest.
[8469]
[8470]Penrose! That was that chap’s name.
[8471]
[8472]Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers.
[8473]Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a
[8474]deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say.
[8475]Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People
[8476]ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly’s birthday. Hates
[8477]sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men they call them.
[8478]
[8479]Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched
[8480]together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring,
[8481]the summer: smells. Tastes? They say you can’t taste wines with your
[8482]eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no
[8483]pleasure.
[8484]
[8485]And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl
[8486]passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have
[8487]them all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his
[8488]mind’s eye. The voice, temperatures: when he touches her with his
[8489]fingers must almost see the lines, the curves. His hands on her hair,
[8490]for instance. Say it was black, for instance. Good. We call it black.
[8491]Then passing over her white skin. Different feel perhaps. Feeling of
[8492]white.
[8493]
[8494]Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two
[8495]shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer’s just
[8496]here too. Wait. Think over it.
[8497]
[8498]With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above
[8499]his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt
[8500]the skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough.
[8501]The belly is the smoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick
[8502]street. Perhaps to Levenston’s dancing academy piano. Might be
[8503]settling my braces.
[8504]
[8505]Walking by Doran’s publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat
[8506]and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of
[8507]his belly. But I know it’s whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to
[8508]see.
[8509]
[8510]He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to.
[8511]
[8512]Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would
[8513]he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being
[8514]born that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned
[8515]and drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration
[8516]for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses.
[8517]Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course: but somehow you can’t cotton on to
[8518]them someway.
[8519]
[8520]Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons’ hall. Solemn as
[8521]Troy. After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies
[8522]cracking a magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the
[8523]bluecoat school. I sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he’d turn up
[8524]his nose at that stuff I drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked
[8525]on a dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice in the recorder’s
[8526]court. Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get
[8527]their percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout. The
[8528]devil on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J a great strawcalling. Now he’s
[8529]really what they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old
[8530]topers in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on
[8531]your soul.
[8532]
[8533]Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant.
[8534]Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer’s hospital. The
[8535]Messiah was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out
[8536]there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a
[8537]leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate.
[8538]
[8539]Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library.
[8540]
[8541]Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is.
[8542]
[8543]His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to
[8544]the right.
[8545]
[8546]Is it? Almost certain. Won’t look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too
[8547]heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Get on.
[8548]
[8549]Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes.
[8550]Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me?
[8551]
[8552]Didn’t see me perhaps. Light in his eyes.
[8553]
[8554]The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold
[8555]statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute.
[8556]
[8557]No. Didn’t see me. After two. Just at the gate.
[8558]
[8559]My heart!
[8560]
[8561]His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir Thomas
[8562]Deane was the Greek architecture.
[8563]
[8564]Look for something I.
[8565]
[8566]His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded
[8567]Agendath Netaim. Where did I?
[8568]
[8569]Busy looking.
[8570]
[8571]He thrust back quick Agendath.
[8572]
[8573]Afternoon she said.
[8574]
[8575]I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. Freeman.
[8576]Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where?
[8577]
[8578]Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart.
[8579]
[8580]His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap
[8581]lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate.
[8582]
[8583]Safe!
[8584]
[8585]
[8586]
[8587]
[8588]
[8589]