I.

I. Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don’t know. What is the meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not like. AM. A. No room. Let it go. Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here. Except Guinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by design. He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance. We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made me feel so young. Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone. Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I won’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a moment. Won’t sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat again. No harm in him. Just a few. O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave under embon _señorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in her next her next. A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just for a few Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where Canon O’Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup and talking about Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was sitting on the rocks looking was Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo. [ 14 ] Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined? It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured. Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, their greatest doctors, the O’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, the O’Lees, have sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work which in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted (whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest) whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was provided. To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt! Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in that one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were now done and by wise foresight set: but to this no less of what drugs there is need and surgical implements which are pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of all very distracting spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct females is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term up. Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night’s oncoming. Of Israel’s folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house. Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale so God’s angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve moons thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding wariest ward. In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens in eyeblink Ireland’s westward welkin. Full she drad that God the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. Christ’s rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in Horne’s house. Loth to irk in Horne’s hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes his word winning. As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O’Hare Doctor tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O’Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God’s rightwiseness to withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men’s oil to his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death the dead man was died and the nun answered him and said that he was died in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. So stood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowing one with other. Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother’s womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came. The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she had seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that woman’s birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew the man that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to her words for he felt with wonder women’s woe in the travail that they have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair face for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless. And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in divers lands and sometime venery. And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that he blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead. And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle with them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God. This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than any of the tother and for that they both were knights virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their both’s health for he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight of the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering. Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable’s with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at head of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and beside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised to have come and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for that his languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave. For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne’s house that now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And they said farther she should live because in the beginning, they said, the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were of this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for he had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young Lynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the whole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words following: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire. But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi’s praise of that beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other all this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu secuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother foldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons. But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sir Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and murdered his goods with whores. About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed parcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song which he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these as followeth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but her name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem_, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other, our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin. But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was but creature of her creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with Joseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages, _parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cette fichue position c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_ transubstantiality _oder_ consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will we withstand, withsay. Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack: _The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign. To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he had not cided to take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in the womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is in their _Maid’s Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers: _To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres, pro memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell’s gates visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon of life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity is their most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness. Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he loudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majestic longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all in applepie order, a penny for him who finds the pea. Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack See the malt stored in many a refluent sack, In the proud cirque of Jackjohn’s bivouac. A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne’s hall. He drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it thundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of doom and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side, spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon. But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s words? No, for he had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard? Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw that he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though he must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named Two-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else but notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first, Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spill their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth. So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won’t sprout, fields athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought but dry flag and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world saying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that did havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness. But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon’s door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman’s gentleman that had but come from Mr Moore’s the writer’s (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M’s brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne’s being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne’s. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford’s journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy’s, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he having dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put to it and can’t deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they say, but God give her soon issue. ’Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off her last chick’s nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king’s bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi’s almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out of the Hindustanish for his farmer’s gazette) to have three things in all but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with their queerities no telling how. With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the letter was in that night’s gazette and he made a show to find it about him (for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but on Stephen’s persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit near by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman that went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul’s men, runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues of the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at nights till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook’s and if he had but gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother’s son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank (that was his name), ’tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with their bully beef, a pox on it. There’s as good fish in this tin as ever came out of it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that stood by which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place which was indeed the chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. _Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in the French language that had been indentured to a brandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a gentleman too. From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire’s heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids’ linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he saw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce believe ’tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low’s yard in Prussia street. I question with you there, says he. More like ’tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a little moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he had dispatches from the emperor’s chief tailtickler thanking him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take the bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He’ll find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a bull that’s Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them all, with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross the table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and a portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing, and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his word: And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat with a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full of the best hay in the market so that he could doss and dung to his heart’s content. By this time the father of the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavy that he could scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full he would rear up on his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of him in bulls’ language and they all after him. Ay, says another, and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in all the land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to his mind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the island with a printed notice, saying: By the Lord Harry, Green is the grass that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he’d run amok over half the countryside rooting up with his horns whatever was planted and all by lord Harry’s orders. There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle in his matters, says he. I’ll make that animal smell hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the first rule of the course was that the others were to row with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry he found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous champion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin for boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his head into a cow’s drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls’ language to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it upon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty: _—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed. A man’s a man for a’ that._ Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a project of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell’s bearing a legend printed in fair italics: _Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. Lambay Island_. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. ’Tis as cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon his design, told his hearers that he had been led into this thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which he concluded due to a suppression of latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he had resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to set up there a national fertilising farm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. For his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by the rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be observed by Mr Mulligan’s smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourably entertained by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of Mary’s excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as it dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of his contention: _Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, ut matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt_, while for those of ruder wit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more suitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, the farmyard drake and duck. Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper man of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics while the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had advanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a passage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for whom were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professional assistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very heartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he was come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne’s house, that was in an interesting condition, poor body, from woman’s woe (and here he fetched a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon, to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whether his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due, as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though ’tis pity she’s a trollop): There’s a belly that never bore a bastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the antechamber. Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was ever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. _Mais bien sûr_, noble stranger, said he cheerily, _et mille compliments_. That you may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to crown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in my wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would accept of them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give thanks to the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver of good things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he said, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting instant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her feastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of so melting a tenderness, ’pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the hands of such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was never so touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days! Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me, he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and, thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, Monsieur Poyntz, from whom I can have for a _livre_ as snug a cloak of the French fashion as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fécondateur, tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller (I have just cracked a half bottle _avec lui_ in a circle of the best wits of the town), is my authority that in Cape Horn, _ventre biche_, they have a rain that will wet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sans blague_, has sent more than one luckless fellow in good earnest posthaste to another world. Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would starve in such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing piquantly and whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words but giddy butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it in our hearts and it has become a household word that _il y a deux choses_ for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a breach of the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The first, said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my ear), the first is a bath... But at this point a bell tinkling in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment of our store of knowledge. Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and, having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with a profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled. A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I’ll be sworn she has rendezvoused you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad’s bud, immensely so, said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O’Gargle chuck the nuns there under the chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless me, I’m all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you’re as bad as dear little Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a lady what’s got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young surgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady who was _enceinte_ which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the by and repaired to the door. A murmur of approval arose from all and some were for ejecting the low soaker without more ado, a design which would have been effected nor would he have received more than his bare deserts had he not abridged his transgression by affirming with a horrid imprecation (for he swore a round hand) that he was as good a son of the true fold as ever drew breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was always the sentiments of honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most particular to honour thy father and thy mother that had the best hand to a rolypoly or a hasty pudding as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart. To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of some impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits of that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity. The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies as overgrown children: the words of their tumultuary discussions were difficultly understood and not often nice: their testiness and outrageous _mots_ were such that his intellects resiled from: nor were they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund of strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of Mr Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the world, which the dint of the surgeon’s pliers in his skull lent indeed a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link of creation’s chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had passed through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a wary ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined his heart to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting them with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast that plenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and all find tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create themselves wits at the cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which he never did hold with) to them he would concede neither to bear the name nor to herit the tradition of a proper breeding: while for such that, having lost all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the sharp antidote of experience to cause their insolency to beat a precipitate and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel with mettlesome youth which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlings of the severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer expresses it) for eating of the tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanity upon any condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her lawful occasions. To conclude, while from the sister’s words he had reckoned upon a speedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little alleviated by the intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such duress now testified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty of the Supreme Being. Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers. The dressy young blade said it was her husband’s that put her in that expectation or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her. I bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event would burst anon. ’Slife, I’ll be round with you. I cannot but extol the virile potency of the old bucko that could still knock another child out of her. All fell to praising of it, each after his own fashion, though the same young blade held with his former view that another than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, a clerk in orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for I have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together. But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a tenant at will while he trembled for the security of his four per cents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is it that from being a deluder of others he has become at last his own dupe as he is, if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer? Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman, she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy’s scouringbrush not been her tutelary angel, it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe’s hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore to health a generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consist better with the doctrines that now engross him. His marital breast is the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its native orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant, acid and inoperative. The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial usage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the junior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the delegation that an heir had been born. When he had betaken himself to the women’s apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the afterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domestic affairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimous exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length and solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence would palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union among tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the rights of primogeniture and king’s bounty touching twins and triplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac _foetus in foetu_ and aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the medial line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other spoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation of labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the vein, the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers _Sturzgeburt,_ the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro’s inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a _prima facie_ and natural hypothetical explanation of those swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. The hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for, envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic development at some stage antecedent to the human. An outlandish delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat as almost carried conviction, the theory of copulation between women and the males of brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of fables such as that of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet has handed down to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression made by his words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has joined. But Malachias’ tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up the scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the other a phial marked _Poison._ Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. I anticipated some such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am the murderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has no terrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what way would I be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping Dublin this while back with my share of songs and himself after me the like of a soulth or a bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland’s, is in this life. It is what I tried to obliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting, the Erse language (he recited some), laudanum (he raised the phial to his lips), camping out. In vain! His spectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope... Ah! Destruction! The black panther! With a cry he suddenly vanished and the panel slid back. An instant later his head appeared in the door opposite and said: Meet me at Westland Row station at ten past eleven. He was gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host. The seer raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: The vendetta of Mananaun! The sage repeated: _Lex talionis_. The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased. The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the third brother. His real name was Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father. He drank drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. The lonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. The spider pitches her web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers from his hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. Murderer’s ground. What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother’s thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but, more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob’s pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever remember the night: first night, the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant (_fiat!_) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath ’twas done but—hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold. Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was taken from thee—and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph. The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim shapely haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull. They fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home of screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more. And on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder of rebellion, the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea, _Lacus Mortis_. Ominous revengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, the giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun. Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven’s own magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign upon the forehead of Taurus. Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at school together in Conmee’s time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the past and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them into life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to my call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending bard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his mother an orphan. The young man’s face grew dark. All could see how hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He would have withdrawn from the feast had not the noise of voices allayed the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the rider’s name: Lenehan as much more. He told them of the race. The flag fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran out freshly with O. Madden up. She was leading the field. All hearts were beating. Even Phyllis could not contain herself. She waved her scarf and cried: Huzzah! Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run home when all were in close order the dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All was lost now. Phyllis was silent: her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I am undone. But her lover consoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which lay some oval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell: one only. A whacking fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and three today. What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear it as was the ancient wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh. She is not the filly that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold such another. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish you could have seen my queen today, Vincent said. How young she was and radiant (Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, I do not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us were in bloom: the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen floating by us. In the sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in his booth near the bridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the arm with which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when I pressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the couch, but today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. She is more taking then. Her posies too! Mad romp that she is, she had pulled her fill as we reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you will not think who met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet creature turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a slight disorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the very trees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely echo in that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going by he had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had poor luck with Bass’s mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and withheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos told me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptian priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of the moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha of the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the second constellation. However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above was going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of animation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody that conjectured the contrary would have found themselves pretty speedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereabouts he had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottled by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situated amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which was certainly calculated to attract anyone’s remark on account of its scarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently transpired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite an altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the moment before’s observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting two or three private transactions of his own which the other two were as mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other was endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily determined to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the neck of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the same time, however, a considerable degree of attentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer that was in it about the place. The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on the loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne’s house had never beheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the old rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there at the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowing from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite to him, was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of early depravity and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place assigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in stolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair of the resident indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in explorer’s kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while to right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come. It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) contentions would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he can. There may be, it is true, some questions which science cannot answer—at present—such as the first problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to opine, such as Culpepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti, a mixture of both? This would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature’s favourite devices) between the _nisus formativus_ of the nemasperm on the one hand and on the other a happily chosen position, _succubitus felix_, of the passive element. The other problem raised by the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. It is interesting because, as he pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitary conditions in which our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by inhaling the bacteria which lurk in dust. These factors, he alleged, and the revolting spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicity posters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas—these, he said, were accountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes some of these demises to abdominal trauma in the case of women workers subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital discipline in the home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or official, culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal abortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former (we are thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he cites of nurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity is too rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonder is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do, all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which often baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is that thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidal movements, lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general, everything, in fine, in nature’s vast workshop from the extinction of some remote sun to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers which beautify our public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. Still the plain straightforward question why a child of normally healthy parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly looked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though other children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet’s words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at an increasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement which, though productive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), is nevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the race in general in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) that an omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous females emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not to speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency above alluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately acquainted with the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this morbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali prides himself on being, it should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons’ hall of the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthete’s allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous of all nature’s processes—the act of sexual congress) she must let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none the less effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it was delivered. Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a happy _accouchement._ It had been a weary weary while both for patient and doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave woman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and now she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone before, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching scene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with the motherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a pretty sight it is to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the Universal Husband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only one blessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy, to lay in his arms that mite of God’s clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces. He is older now (you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in the shoulders yet in the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the conscientious second accountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O Doady, loved one of old, faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that faroff time of the roses! With the old shake of her pretty head she recalls those days. God! How beautiful now across the mist of years! But their children are grouped in her imagination about the bedside, hers and his, Charley, Mary Alice, Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy (Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy (called after our famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs of Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a Purefoy if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful will be christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of Mr Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer’s office, Dublin Castle. And so time wags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the light whereby you read in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and so with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in His own good time. You too have fought the good fight and played loyally your man’s part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithful servant! There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful. The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an unhealthiness, a _flair,_ for the cruder things of life. A scene disengages itself in the observer’s memory, evoked, it would seem, by a word of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really present there (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space of lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the game but with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forward over the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a brief alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth when ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the urn secured by that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little just as this young man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where his mother watches from the _piazzetta_ giving upon the flowerclose with a faint shadow of remoteness or of reproach (_alles Vergängliche_) in her glad look. Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their faces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of custody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long ago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of the thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the word. Burke’s! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor, punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear, ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and what not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if a milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out, tumultuously, off for a minute’s race, all bravely legging it, Burke’s of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them sharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward of watching in Horne’s house has told its tale in that washedout pallor. Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers close in going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny _coelum._ God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’s bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and never—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? _Deine Kuh Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters_. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’s milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! _Per deam Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum!_ All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides. Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil’s sawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o’ me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward to the ribbon counter. Where’s Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! _Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius_. A make, mister. The Denzille lane boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. _En avant, mes enfants!_ Fire away number one on the gun. Burke’s! Burke’s! Thence they advanced five parasangs. Slattery’s mounted foot. Where’s that bleeding awfur? Parson Steve, apostates’ creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What’s on you? _Ma mère m’a mariée._ British Beatitudes! _Retamplatan digidi boumboum_. Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. _Silentium!_ Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes!) parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most amazingly sorry! Query. Who’s astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the _Übermensch._ Dittoh. Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby’s caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy? _Caramba!_ Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular’s got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don’t mention it. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don’t wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine! Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you’ll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity sagaciating O K? How’s the squaws and papooses? Womanbody after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There’s hair. Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer’s wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. Jesified, orchidised, polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine’s writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw Hielentman’s your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil! My tipple. _Merci._ Here’s to us. How’s that? Leg before wicket. Don’t stain my brandnew sitinems. Give’s a shake of peppe, you there. Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. _Les petites femmes_. Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all together. _Ex!_ Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He’ve got the chink _ad lib_. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won’t wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We’re nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you. ’Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. Gum, I’m jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he’d like? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam’s flowers. Gemini. He’s going to holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden’s a maddening back. O lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S’elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I had. There’s a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord, Amen. You move a motion? Steve boy, you’re going it some. More bluggy drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation? Give’s a breather. Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. _Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria_. Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo’s papli, by all that’s gorgeous. Play low, pardner. Slide. _Bonsoir la compagnie_. And snares of the poxfiend. Where’s the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e’en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I’m about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot’s plood and prandypalls, none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through the world. Health all! _À la vôtre_! Golly, whatten tunket’s yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep at his wearables. By mighty! What’s he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by James. Wants it real bad. D’ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o’ yourn passed in his checks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou’ll no be telling me thot, Pold veg! Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like since I was born. _Tiens, tiens_, but it is well sad, that, my faith, yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There’s eleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah the Excellent One your soul this night ever tremendously conserve. Your attention! We’re nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook. Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap! Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto, any old time. _Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis_. You coming long? Whisper, who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world by fire. Pflaap! _Ut implerentur scripturae_. Strike up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. Christicle, who’s this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on you winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that’s my name, that’s yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He’s on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He’s the grandest thing yet and don’t you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You’ll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He’s got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket. Just you try it on. [ 15 ] _(The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green will-o’-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti’s halted ice gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer.)_ THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you. THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable. _(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus’ dance. A chain of children ’s hands imprisons him.)_ THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute! THE IDIOT: _(Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.)_ Grhahute! THE CHILDREN: Where’s the great light? THE IDIOT: _(Gobbling.)_ Ghaghahest. _(They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch in shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate crashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey’s voice, still young, sings shrill from a lane.)_ CISSY CAFFREY: I gave it to Molly Because she was jolly, The leg of the duck, The leg of the duck. _(Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago retorts.)_ THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl. CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. _(She sings.)_ I gave it to Nelly To stick in her belly, The leg of the duck, The leg of the duck. _(Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the redcoats.)_ PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Jerks his finger.)_ Way for the parson. PRIVATE CARR: _(Turns and calls.)_ What ho, parson! CISSY CAFFREY: _(Her voice soaring higher.)_ She has it, she got it, Wherever she put it, The leg of the duck. _(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy the_ introit _for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, attends him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)_ STEPHEN: _Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia_. _(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a doorway.)_ THE BAWD: _(Her voice whispering huskily.)_ Sst! Come here till I tell you. Maidenhead inside. Sst! STEPHEN: _(Altius aliquantulum.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista_. THE BAWD: _(Spits in their trail her jet of venom.)_ Trinity medicals. Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence. _(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl across her nostrils.)_ EDY BOARDMAN: _(Bickering.)_ And says the one: I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That’s not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant. STEPHEN: _(Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti sunt._ _(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)_ LYNCH: So that? STEPHEN: (_Looks behind_.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street! STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. LYNCH: Ba! STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar. Hold my stick. LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going? STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, to _la belle dame sans merci,_ Georgina Johnson, _ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam._ _(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left being higher.)_ LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk. _(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring cresset._ _Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther side under the railway bridge Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson’s image. A concave mirror at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. He passes, struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy._ _At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)_ BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah! _(He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig’s crubeen, the other a cold sheep’s trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans.)_ BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run? _(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset siding. The glow leaps again.)_ BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight. _(He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)_ BLOOM: _Aurora borealis_ or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s bush. We’re safe. _(He hums cheerfully.)_ London’s burning, London’s burning! On fire, on fire! (_He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street._) I’ll miss him. Run. Quick. Better cross here. _(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)_ THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister! (_Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling._) THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall. BLOOM: _(Halts erect, stung by a spasm.)_ Ow! _(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The motorman bangs his footgong.)_ THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. _(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over chains and keys.)_ THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick? _(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)_ BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. _(He feels his trouser pocket.)_ Poor mamma’s panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He closes his eyes an instant.)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow! _(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall, a visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)_ BLOOM: _Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?_ THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm._) Password. _Sraid Mabbot._ BLOOM: Haha. _Merci._ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters.)_ Gaelic league spy, sent by that fireeater. _(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps left, ragsackman left.)_ BLOOM: I beg. (_He leaps right, sackragman right._) BLOOM: I beg. (_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on._) BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right. Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer makes for. Wash off his sins of the world. _(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against Bloom.)_ BLOOM: O. _(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoke, sweets of sin, potato soap.)_ BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch your purse. _(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are on the drawn face.)_ RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with drunken goy ever. So you catch no money. BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi._ RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(With feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom.)_ Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob? BLOOM: _(With precaution.)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that’s left of him. RUDOLPH: _(Severely.)_ One night they bring you home drunk as dog after spend your good money. What you call them running chaps? BLOOM: _(In youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent’s sterling silver waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one side of him coated with stiffening mud.)_ Harriers, father. Only that once. RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps. BLOOM: _(Weakly.)_ They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I slipped. RUDOLPH: _(With contempt.) Goim nachez!_ Nice spectacles for your poor mother! BLOOM: Mamma! ELLEN BLOOM: _(In pantomime dame’s stringed mobcap, widow Twankey’s crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, and cries out in shrill alarm.)_ O blessed Redeemer, what have they done to him! My smelling salts! _(She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.)_ Sacred Heart of Mary, where were you at all at all? _(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)_ A VOICE: _(Sharply.)_ Poldy! BLOOM: Who? _(He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.)_ At your service. _(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free only her large dark eyes and raven hair.)_ BLOOM: Molly! MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to me. _(Satirically.)_ Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long? BLOOM: _(Shifts from foot to foot.)_ No, no. Not the least little bit. _(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)_ MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum! _(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit, offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops his back for leapfrog.)_ BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs Marion... if you... MARION: So you notice some change? _(Her hands passing slowly over her trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes.)_ O Poldy, Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the wide world. BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the morning. _(He pats divers pockets.)_ This moving kidney. Ah! _(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)_ THE SOAP: We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the earth. I polish the sky. _(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the soapsun.)_ SWENY: Three and a penny, please. BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe. MARION: _(Softly.)_ Poldy! BLOOM: Yes, ma’am? MARION: _Ti trema un poco il cuore?_ _(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon, humming the duet from_ Don Giovanni.) BLOOM: Are you sure about that _Voglio_? I mean the pronunciati... _(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)_ THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. Fifteen. There’s no-one in it only her old father that’s dead drunk. _(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie Kelly stands.)_ BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind? _(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)_ THE BAWD: _(Her wolfeyes shining.)_ He’s getting his pleasure. You won’t get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don’t be all night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch. _(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)_ GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. _(She murmurs.)_ You did that. I hate you. BLOOM: I? When? You’re dreaming. I never saw you. THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. GERTY: _(To Bloom.)_ When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer. _(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.)_ Dirty married man! I love you for doing that to me. _(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man’s frieze overcoat with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)_ MRS BREEN: Mr... BLOOM: _(Coughs gravely.)_ Madam, when we last had this pleasure by letter dated the sixteenth instant... MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you nicely! Scamp! BLOOM: _(Hurriedly.)_ Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me? Don’t give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It’s ages since I. You’re looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary... MRS BREEN: _(Holds up a finger.)_ Now, don’t tell a big fib! I know somebody won’t like that. O just wait till I see Molly! _(Slily.)_ Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! BLOOM: _(Looks behind.)_ She often said she’d like to visit. Slumming. The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter. _(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks, upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes, leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)_ TOM AND SAM: There’s someone in the house with Dina There’s someone in the house, I know, There’s someone in the house with Dina Playing on the old banjo. _(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling, chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)_ BLOOM: _(With a sour tenderish smile.)_ A little frivol, shall we, if you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a second? MRS BREEN: _(Screams gaily.)_ O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself! BLOOM: For old sake’ sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft corner for you. _(Gloomily.)_ ’Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear gazelle. MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. _(She puts out her hand inquisitively.)_ What are you hiding behind your back? Tell us, there’s a dear. BLOOM: _(Seizes her wrist with his free hand.)_ Josie Powell that was, prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina Simpson’s housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this snuffbox? MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the ladies. BLOOM: _(Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.)_ Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song. BLOOM: _(Meaningfully dropping his voice.)_ I confess I’m teapot with curiosity to find out whether some person’s something is a little teapot at present. MRS BREEN: _(Gushingly.)_ Tremendously teapot! London’s teapot and I’m simply teapot all over me! _(She rubs sides with him.)_ After the parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company. BLOOM: _(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which she surrenders gently.)_ The witching hour of night. I took the splinter out of this hand, carefully, slowly. _(Tenderly, as he slips on her finger a ruby ring.) Là ci darem la mano._ MRS BREEN: _(In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a tinsel sylph’s diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.) Voglio e non._ You’re hot! You’re scalding! The left hand nearest the heart. BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and the beast. I can never forgive you for that. _(His clenched fist at his brow.)_ Think what it means. All you meant to me then. _(Hoarsely.)_ Woman, it’s breaking me! _(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards, shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)_ ALF BERGAN: _(Points jeering at the sandwichboards.)_ U. p: up. MRS BREEN: _(To Bloom.)_ High jinks below stairs. _(She gives him the glad eye.)_ Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to. BLOOM: _(Shocked.)_ Molly’s best friend! Could you? MRS BREEN: _(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)_ Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there? BLOOM: _(Offhandedly.)_ Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without potted meat is incomplete. I was at _Leah_, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet. Feel. _(Richie Goulding, three ladies’ hats pinned on his head, appears weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and tightpacked pills.)_ RICHIE: Best value in Dub. _(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his napkin, waiting to wait.)_ PAT: _(Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.)_ Steak and kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait. RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall... _(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by, gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)_ RICHIE: _(With a cry of pain, his hand to his back.)_ Ah! Bright’s! Lights! BLOOM: _(Points to the navvy.)_ A spy. Don’t attract attention. I hate stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament. MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and bull story. BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular reason. MRS BREEN: _(All agog.)_ O, not for worlds. BLOOM: Let’s walk on. Shall us? MRS BREEN: Let’s. _(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)_ THE BAWD: Jewman’s melt! BLOOM: _(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, tony buff shirt, shepherd’s plaid Saint Andrew’s cross scarftie, white spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in bandolier and a grey billycock hat.)_ Do you remember a long long time, years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it? MRS BREEN: _(In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider veil.)_ Leopardstown. BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I’ll lay you what you like she did it on purpose... MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don’t tell me! Nice adviser! BLOOM: Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with a heart the size of a fullstop. MRS BREEN: _(Squeezes his arm, simpers.)_ Naughty cruel I was! BLOOM: _(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)_ And Molly was eating a sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket. Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her style. She was... MRS BREEN: Too... BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across... MRS BREEN: _(Eagerly.)_ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. _(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed sodden playfight.)_ THE GAFFER: _(Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.)_ And when Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers. THE LOITERERS: _(Guffaw with cleft palates.)_ O jays! _(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)_ BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman. THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the men’s porter. _(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, call from lanes, doors, corners.)_ THE WHORES: Are you going far, queer fellow? How’s your middle leg? Got a match on you? Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. _(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two redcoats.)_ THE NAVVY: _(Belching.)_ Where’s the bloody house? THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. Respectable woman. THE NAVVY: _(Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.)_ Come on, you British army! PRIVATE CARR: _(Behind his back.)_ He aint half balmy. PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Laughs.)_ What ho! PRIVATE CARR: _(To the navvy.)_ Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for Carr. Just Carr. THE NAVVY: _(Shouts.)_ We are the boys. Of Wexford. PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor? PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He’s my pal. I love old Bennett. THE NAVVY: _(Shouts.)_ The galling chain. And free our native land. _(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)_ BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What am I following him for? Still, he’s the best of that lot. If I hadn’t heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn’t have gone and wouldn’t have met. Kismet. He’ll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only for presence of mind. Can’t always save you, though. If I had passed Truelock’s window that day two minutes later would have been shot. Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. God help his gamekeeper. _(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend_ Wet Dream _and a phallic design._) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane at Kingstown. What’s that like? _(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow round ovalling wreaths.)_ THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin. BLOOM: My spine’s a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too much. _(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, wagging his tail.)_ Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. Better speak to him first. Like women they like _rencontres._ Stinks like a polecat. _Chacun son goût_. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! _(The wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.)_ Influence of his surroundings. Give and have done with it. Provided nobody. _(Calling encouraging words he shambles back with a furtive poacher’s tread, dogged by the setter into a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)_ Sizeable for threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six. _(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. They murmur together.)_ THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom. _(Each lays hand on Bloom’s shoulder.)_ FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance. BLOOM: _(Stammers.)_ I am doing good to others. _(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with Banbury cakes in their beaks.)_ THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake. BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness. _(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the munching spaniel.)_ BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw. _(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig’s knuckle between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran falls silently into an area.)_ SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals. BLOOM: _(Enthusiastically.)_ A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on Harold’s cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. _(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer’s costume with diamond studs in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curling carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging boarhound.)_ SIGNOR MAFFEI: _(With a sinister smile.)_ Ladies and gentlemen, my educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even _Leo ferox_ there, the Libyan maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. _(He glares.)_ I possess the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. _(With a bewitching smile.)_ I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring. FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address. BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! _(He takes off his high grade hat, saluting.)_ Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. _Donnerwetter!_ Owns half Austria. Egypt. Cousin. FIRST WATCH: Proof. _(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom’s hat.)_ BLOOM: _(In red fez, cadi’s dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and offers it.)_ Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk. FIRST WATCH: _(Reads.)_ Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watching and besetting. SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned. BLOOM: _(Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.)_ This is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don’t know his name. _(Plausibly.)_ You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The change of name. Virag. _(He murmurs privately and confidentially.)_ We are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. _(He shoulders the second watch gently.)_ Dash it all. It’s a way we gallants have in the navy. Uniform that does it. _(He turns gravely to the first watch.)_ Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. _(To the second watch gaily.)_ I’ll introduce you, inspector. She’s game. Do it in the shake of a lamb’s tail. _(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)_ THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of the army. MARTHA: _(Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the_ Irish Times _in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.)_ Henry! Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name. FIRST WATCH: _(Sternly.)_ Come to the station. BLOOM: _(Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and dueguard of fellowcraft.)_ No, no, worshipful master, light of love. Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than ninetynine wrongfully condemned. MARTHA: _(Sobbing behind her veil.)_ Breach of promise. My real name is Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I’ll tell my brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt. BLOOM: _(Behind his hand.)_ She’s drunk. The woman is inebriated. _(He murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.)_ Shitbroleeth. SECOND WATCH: _(Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.)_ You ought to be thoroughly well ashamed of yourself. BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare’s nest. I am a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, one of Britain’s fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his majority for the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift. FIRST WATCH: Regiment. BLOOM: _(Turns to the gallery.)_ The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police, guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, as physique, in the service of our sovereign. A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain? BLOOM: _(His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.)_ My old dad too was a J. P. I’m as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. _(With quiet feeling.)_ Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank. FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade. BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected with the British and Irish press. If you ring up... _(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)_ MYLES CRAWFORD: _(His cock’s wattles wagging.)_ Hello, seventyseven eightfour. Hello. _Freeman’s Urinal_ and _Weekly Arsewipe_ here. Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom? _(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio labelled_ Matcham’s Masterstrokes.) BEAUFOY: _(Drawls.)_ No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it. I don’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak masquerading as a literateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom. BLOOM: _(Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.)_ That bit about the laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... BEAUFOY: _(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.)_ You funny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words! I don’t think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses’ fees, shan’t we? We are considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. BLOOM: _(Indistinctly.)_ University of life. Bad art. BEAUFOY: _(Shouts.)_ It’s a damnably foul lie, showing the moral rottenness of the man! _(He extends his portfolio.)_ We have here damning evidence, the _corpus delicti_, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY: Moses, Moses, king of the jews, Wiped his arse in the _Daily News_. BLOOM: _(Bravely.)_ Overdrawn. BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you rotter! _(To the court.)_ Why, look at the man’s private life! Leading a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age! BLOOM: _(To the court.)_ And he, a bachelor, how... FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll. THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid! _(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)_ SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class? MARY DRISCOLL: _(Indignantly.)_ I’m not a bad one. I bear a respectable character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave owing to his carryings on. FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with? MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself as poor as I am. BLOOM: _(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly.)_ I treated you white. I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station. Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering. There’s a medium in all things. Play cricket. MARY DRISCOLL: _(Excitedly.)_ As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oylsters! FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen? MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour, when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he interfered twict with my clothing. BLOOM: She counterassaulted. MARY DRISCOLL: _(Scornfully.)_ I had more respect for the scouringbrush, so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it quiet. _(General laughter.)_ GEORGE FOTTRELL: _(Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.)_ Order in court! The accused will now make a bogus statement. _(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths’ child, he had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping post, to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell’s wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain ever...._ _(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that they cannot hear.)_ LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: _(Without looking up from their notebooks.)_ Loosen his boots. PROFESSOR MACHUGH: _(From the presstable, coughs and calls.)_ Cough it up, man. Get it out in bits. _(The crossexamination proceeds_ re _Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes. Quite bad. A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather a mess. Not completely. A_ Titbits _back number_.) _(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across his nose, talks inaudibly.)_ J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(In barrister’s grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with a voice of pained protest.)_ This is no place for indecent levity at the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence being quite permitted in my client’s native place, the land of the Pharaoh. _Prima facie_, I put it to you that there was no attempt at carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and somnambulism in my client’s family. If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold—one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from cobbler’s weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact. BLOOM: _(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar’s vest and trousers, apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole’s eyes and looks about him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.)_ Him makee velly muchee fine night. _(He begins to lilt simply.)_ Li li poo lil chile Blingee pigfoot evly night Payee two shilly... _(He is howled down.)_ J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(Hotly to the populace.)_ This is a lonehand fight. By Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically, without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very own daughter. _(Bloom takes J. J. O’Molloy’s hand and raises it to his lips.)_ I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be shown. _(To Bloom.)_ I suggest that you will do the handsome thing. BLOOM: A penny in the pound. _(The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an orange citron and a pork kidney.)_ DLUGACZ: _(Hoarsely.)_ Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13. _(J. J. O’Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the galloping tide of rosepink blood.)_ J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(Almost voicelessly.)_ Excuse me. I am suffering from a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. _(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of Seymour Bushe.)_ When the angel’s book comes to be opened if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar the sacred benefit of the doubt. _(A paper with something written on it is handed into court._) BLOOM: _(In court dress.)_ Can give best references. Messrs Callan, Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon, ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the highest... Queens of Dublin society. _(Carelessly.)_ I was just chatting this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I said... MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.)_ Arrest him, constable. He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as I sat in a box of the _Theatre Royal_ at a command performance of _La Cigale_. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled _The Girl with the Three Pairs of Stays_. MRS BELLINGHAM: _(In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.)_ Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker’s one sleety day during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the information that it was a blossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm. MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him! _(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward.)_ THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: _(Screaming.)_ Stop thief! Hurrah there, Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo! SECOND WATCH: _(Produces handcuffs.)_ Here are the darbies. MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, a buck’s head couped or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (Stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me.) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible opportunity. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(In amazon costume, hard hat, jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she strikes her welt constantly.)_ Also me. Because he saw me on the polo ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob _Centaur._ This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely (his wife, as he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most vicious horsewhipping. MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too. MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too. _(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters received from Bloom.)_ THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Stamps her jingling spurs in a sudden paroxysm of fury.)_ I will, by the God above me. I’ll scourge the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him alive. BLOOM: _(His eyes closing, quails expectantly.)_ Here? _(He squirms.)_ Again! _(He pants cringing.)_ I love the danger. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I’ll make it hot for you. I’ll make you dance Jack Latten for that. MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and stripes on it! MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There’s no excuse for him! A married man! BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Laughs derisively.)_ O, did you, my fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you’ll get the surprise of your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. MRS BELLINGHAM: _(Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)_ Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within an inch of his life. The cat-o’-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him. BLOOM: _(Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien.)_ O cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. Let me off this once. _(He offers the other cheek.)_ MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(Severely.)_ Don’t do so on any account, Mrs Talboys! He should be soundly trounced! THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Unbuttoning her gauntlet violently.)_ I’ll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he was pupped! To dare address me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the public streets. I’ll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a wellknown cuckold. _(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air.)_ Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! Ready? BLOOM: _(Trembling, beginning to obey.)_ The weather has been so warm. _(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)_ DAVY STEPHENS: _Messenger of the Sacred Heart_ and _Evening Telegraph_ with Saint Patrick’s Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of all the cuckolds in Dublin. _(The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. bend low.)_ THE TIMEPIECE: _(Unportalling.)_ Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. _(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)_ THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag. _(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford, Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M’Coy and the featureless face of a Nameless One.)_ THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised her. THE JURORS: _(All their heads turned to his voice.)_ Really? THE NAMELESS ONE: _(Snarls.)_ Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five. THE JURORS: _(All their heads lowered in assent.)_ Most of us thought as much. FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl’s plait cut. Wanted: Jack the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward. SECOND WATCH: _(Awed, whispers.)_ And in black. A mormon. Anarchist. THE CRIER: _(Loudly.)_ Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of assizes the most honourable... _(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic ramshorns.)_ THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! _(He dons the black cap.)_ Let him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty’s pleasure and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. _(A black skullcap descends upon his head.)_ _(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry Clay.)_ LONG JOHN FANNING: _(Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)_ Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot? _(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner’s apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)_ RUMBOLD: _(To the recorder with sinister familiarity.)_ Hanging Harry, your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or nothing. _(The bells of George’s church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)_ THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho! BLOOM: _(Desperately.)_ Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence. Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. _(Breathlessly.)_ Pelvic basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. _(Overcome with emotion.)_ I left the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you want a little more... HYNES: _(Coldly.)_ You are a perfect stranger. SECOND WATCH: _(Points to the corner.)_ The bomb is here. FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse. BLOOM: No, no. Pig’s feet. I was at a funeral. FIRST WATCH: _(Draws his truncheon.)_ Liar! _(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)_ PADDY DIGNAM: _(In a hollow voice.)_ It is true. It was my funeral. Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease from natural causes. _(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)_ BLOOM: _(In triumph.)_ You hear? PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list! BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau. SECOND WATCH: _(Blesses himself.)_ How is that possible? FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism. PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks. A VOICE: O rocks. PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly.)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor’s Walk. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him.)_ A lamp. I must satisfy an animal need. That buttermilk didn’t agree with me. _(The portly figure of John O’Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, holding sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.)_ FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.)_ Namine. Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen. JOHN O’CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.)_ Dignam, Patrick T, deceased. PADDY DIGNAM: _(With pricked up ears, winces.)_ Overtones. _(He wriggles forward and places an ear to the ground.)_ My master’s voice! JOHN O’CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one. _(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail stiffpointed, his ears cocked.)_ PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul. _(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam’s voice, muffled, is heard baying under ground:_ Dignam’s dead and gone below. _Tom Rochford, robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned machine.)_ TOM ROCHFORD: _(A hand to his breastbone, bows.)_ Reuben J. A florin I find him. _(He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.)_ My turn now on. Follow me up to Carlow. _(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes. Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid the rifts of fog. A piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him, twittering, warbling, cooing.)_ THE KISSES: _(Warbling.)_ Leo! _(Twittering.)_ Icky licky micky sticky for Leo! _(Cooing.)_ Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! _(Warbling.)_ Big comebig! Pirouette! Leopopold! _(Twittering.)_ Leeolee! _(Warbling.)_ O Leo! _(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, silvery sequins.)_ BLOOM: A man’s touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here. _(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips down the steps and accosts him.)_ ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He’s inside with his friend. BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack’s? ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s. You might go farther and fare worse. Mother Slipperslapper. _(Familiarly.)_ She’s on the job herself tonight with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck’s turned today. _(Suspiciously.)_ You’re not his father, are you? BLOOM: Not I! ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight? _(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his left thigh.)_ ZOE: How’s the nuts? BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose. One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. ZOE: _(In sudden alarm.)_ You’ve a hard chancre. BLOOM: Not likely. ZOE: I feel it. _(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist lips.)_ BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom. ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh? _(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by note, oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)_ ZOE: You’ll know me the next time. BLOOM: _(Forlornly.)_ I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to... _(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white, still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, strangely murmuring.)_ ZOE: _(Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach, benoith Hierushaloim._ BLOOM: _(Fascinated.)_ I thought you were of good stock by your accent. ZOE: And you know what thought did? _(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)_ BLOOM: _(Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat awkward hand.)_ Are you a Dublin girl? ZOE: _(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.)_ No bloody fear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot? BLOOM: _(As before.)_ Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish device. _(Lewdly.)_ The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder of rank weed. ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it. BLOOM: _(In workman’s corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating tie and apache cap.)_ Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, memory, will, understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our public life! _(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)_ THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin! BLOOM: _(In alderman’s gown and chain.)_ Electors of Arran Quay, Inns Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, from the cattlemarket to the river. That’s the music of the future. That’s my programme. _Cui bono?_ But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in their phantom ship of finance... AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate! _(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)_ THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray! _(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock,_ locum tenens. _They nod vigorously in agreement.)_ LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: _(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral chain and large white silk scarf.)_ That alderman sir Leo Bloom’s speech be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom. COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously. BLOOM: _(Impassionedly.)_ These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for rever and ever and ev... _(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring up. A streamer bearing the legends_ Cead Mile Failte _and_ Mah Ttob Melek Israel _spans the street. All the windows are thronged with sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the King’s own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society of friends. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, the earl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen’s iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward’s staff, the orb and sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom’s boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)_ BLOOM’S BOYS: The wren, the wren, The king of all birds, Saint Stephen’s his day Was caught in the furze. A BLACKSMITH: _(Murmurs.)_ For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He scarcely looks thirtyone. A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s greatest reformer. Hats off! _(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)_ A MILLIONAIRESS: _(Richly.)_ Isn’t he simply wonderful? A NOBLEWOMAN: _(Nobly.)_ All that man has seen! A FEMINIST: _(Masculinely.)_ And done! A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker. _(Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)_ THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and very puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First! ALL: God save Leopold the First! BLOOM: _(In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and Connor, with dignity.)_ Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(In purple stock and shovel hat.)_ Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? BLOOM: _(Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.)_ So may the Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do. MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem._ Leopold, Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed! _(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ church, Saint Patrick’s, George’s and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and genuflecting.)_ THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly worship. _(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception of message.)_ BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess Selene, the splendour of night. _(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of cheering.)_ JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: _(Raises the royal standard.)_ Illustrious Bloom! Successor to my famous brother! BLOOM: _(Embraces John Howard Parnell.)_ We thank you from our heart, John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of our common ancestors. _(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows all that he is wearing green socks.)_ TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour. BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering their warcry _Bonafide Sabaoth_, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man. THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear! JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There’s the man that got away James Stephens. A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo! AN OLD RESIDENT: You’re a credit to your country, sir, that’s what you are. AN APPLEWOMAN: He’s a man like Ireland wants. BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future. _(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. Several paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal sightseers, collapses.)_ THE SIGHTSEERS: _(Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)_ _(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an elongated finger at Bloom.)_ THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don’t you believe a word he says. That man is Leopold M’Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins. BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M’Intosh! _(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing committees, are reported. Bloom’s bodyguard distribute Maundy money, commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,_ billets doux _in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes’ Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days’ indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World’s Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant’s Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let’s All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser’s Vade Mecum (journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who’s Who in Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise’s Way to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe. The lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)_ THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father! THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone. _(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)_ BABY BOARDMAN: _(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.)_ Hajajaja. BLOOM: _(Shaking hands with a blind stripling.)_ My more than Brother! _(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.)_ Dear old friends! _(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.)_ Peep! Bopeep! _(He wheels twins in a perambulator.)_ Ticktacktwo wouldyousetashoe? _(He performs juggler’s tricks, draws red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his mouth.)_ Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. _(He consoles a widow.)_ Absence makes the heart grow younger. _(He dances the Highland fling with grotesque antics.)_ Leg it, ye devils! _(He kisses the bedsores of a palsied veteran.)_ Honourable wounds! _(He trips up a fat policeman.)_ U. p: up. U. p: up. _(He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and laughs kindly.)_ Ah, naughty, naughty! _(He eats a raw turnip offered him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.)_ Fine! Splendid! _(He refuses to accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.)_ My dear fellow, not at all! _(He gives his coat to a beggar.)_ Please accept. _(He takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples.)_ Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls! THE CITIZEN: _(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald muffler.)_ May the good God bless him! _(The rams’ horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)_ BLOOM: _(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and reads solemnly.)_ Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim Meshuggah Talith. _(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town clerk.)_ JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year 1 of the Paradisiacal Era. PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes? BLOOM: Pay them, my friend. PADDY LEONARD: Thank you. NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? BLOOM: _(Obdurately.)_ Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five pounds. J. J. O’MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O’Brien! NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds? PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble? BLOOM: _Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil.,_ 20 minims _Tinct. nux vom.,_ 5 minims _Extr. taraxel. lig.,_ 30 minims. _Aq. dis. ter in die._ CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of Aldebaran? BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. 11. JOE HYNES: Why aren’t you in uniform? BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? BEN DOLLARD: Pansies? BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens. BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive? BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking. LARRY O’ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I’m sending around a dozen of stout for the missus. BLOOM: _(Coldly.)_ You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no presents. CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity. BLOOM: _(Solemnly.)_ You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament. ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys? BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay state. O’MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost. DAVY BYRNE: _(Yawning.)_ Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage. LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing? _(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration. All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare street museum appears, dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)_ FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian seeking to overthrow our holy faith. MRS RIORDAN: _(Tears up her will.)_ I’m disappointed in you! You bad man! MOTHER GROGAN: _(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.)_ You beast! You abominable person! NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs. BLOOM: _(With rollicking humour.)_ I vowed that I never would leave her, She turned out a cruel deceiver. With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There’s nobody like him after all. PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman! BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of Casteele. _(Laughter.)_ LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom! THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Enthusiastically.)_ I’m a Bloomite and I glory in it. I believe in him in spite of all. I’d give my life for him, the funniest man on earth. BLOOM: _(Winks at the bystanders.)_ I bet she’s a bonny lassie. THEODORE PUREFOY: _(In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.)_ He employs a mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature. THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Stabs herself.)_ My hero god! _(She dies.)_ _(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from the top of Nelson’s Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness’s brewery, asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different storeys.)_ ALEXANDER J DOWIE: _(Violently.)_ Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. Caliban! THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox! _(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep’s tails, odd pieces of fat.)_ BLOOM: _(Excitedly.)_ This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin’s Barn. Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, _sgenl inn ban bata coisde gan capall._ I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf. DR MULLIGAN: _(In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow.)_ Dr Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be _virgo intacta._ _(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)_ DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits of wine in the national teratological museum. DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient’s urine. It is albuminoid. Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent. DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The _fetor judaicus_ is most perceptible. DR DIXON: _(Reads a bill of health.)_ Professor Bloom is a finished example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court missionary of the Reformed Priests’ Protection Society which clears up everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby. _(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, I. O. U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets are rapidly collected.)_ BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother. MRS THORNTON: _(In nursetender’s gown.)_ Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll be soon over it. Tight, dear. _(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindorée, Silversmile, Silberselber, Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of high public trust in several different countries as managing directors of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)_ A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? BLOOM: _(Darkly.)_ You have said it. BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger. _(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)_ BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: _(In papal zouave’s uniform, steel cuirasses as breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio._ Moses begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O’Halloran and O’Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat O’Donnell Magnus and O’Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom _et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel._ A DEADHAND: _(Writes on the wall.)_ Bloom is a cod. CRAB: _(In bushranger’s kit.)_ What did you do in the cattlecreep behind Kilbarrack? A FEMALE INFANT: _(Shakes a rattle.)_ And under Ballybough bridge? A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil’s glen? BLOOM: _(Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears falling from his left eye.)_ Spare my past. THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: _(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.)_ Sjambok him! _(Bloom with asses’ ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms, his feet protruding. He whistles_ Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. _Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)_ THE ARTANE ORPHANS: You hig, you hog, you dirty dog! You think the ladies love you! THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: If you see Kay Tell him he may See you in tea Tell him from me. HORNBLOWER: _(In ephod and huntingcap, announces.)_ And he shall carry the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham. _(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their beards at Bloom.)_ MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! Abulafia! Recant! _(George R Mesias, Bloom’s tailor, appears, a tailor’s goose under his arm, presenting a bill.)_ MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. BLOOM: _(Rubs his hands cheerfully.)_ Just like old times. Poor Bloom! _(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)_ REUBEN J: _(Whispers hoarsely.)_ The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. Nip the first rattler. THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap! BROTHER BUZZ: _(Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.)_ Forgive him his trespasses. _(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)_ THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven! BLOOM: _(In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid phoenix flames.)_ Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. _(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles in their hands, kneel down and pray.)_ THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: Kidney of Bloom, pray for us Flower of the Bath, pray for us Mentor of Menton, pray for us Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us Charitable Mason, pray for us Wandering Soap, pray for us Sweets of Sin, pray for us Music without Words, pray for us Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us Friend of all Frillies, pray for us Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. _(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O’Brien, sings the chorus from Handel’s Messiah_ Alleluia for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, _accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes mute, shrunken, carbonised.)_ ZOE: Talk away till you’re black in the face. BLOOM: _(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an emigrant’s red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.)_ Let me be going now, woman of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I’m after having the father and mother of a bating. _(With a tear in his eye.)_ All insanity. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not to be. Life’s dream is o’er. End it peacefully. They can live on. _(He gazes far away mournfully.)_ I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. _(He breathes softly.)_ No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell. ZOE: _(Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.)_ Honest? Till the next time. _(She sneers.)_ Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts! BLOOM: _(Bitterly.)_ Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle. I’m sick of it. Let everything rip. ZOE: _(In sudden sulks.)_ I hate a rotter that’s insincere. Give a bleeding whore a chance. BLOOM: _(Repentantly.)_ I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. Where are you from? London? ZOE: _(Glibly.)_ Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I’m Yorkshire born. _(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.)_ I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a short time? Ten shillings? BLOOM: _(Smiles, nods slowly.)_ More, houri, more. ZOE: And more’s mother? _(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.)_ Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I’ll peel off. BLOOM: _(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled pears.)_ Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed monster. _(Earnestly.)_ You know how difficult it is. I needn’t tell you. ZOE: _(Flattered.)_ What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for. _(She pats him.)_ Come. BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle. ZOE: Babby! BLOOM: _(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair, fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.)_ One two tlee: tlee tlwo tlone. THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me. ZOE: Silent means consent. _(With little parted talons she captures his hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, luring him to doom.)_ Hot hands cold gizzard. _(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)_ THE MALE BRUTES: _(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro.)_ Good! _(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)_ ZOE: _(Her lucky hand instantly saving him.)_ Hoopsa! Don’t fall upstairs. BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. _(He stands aside at the threshold.)_ After you is good manners. ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after. _(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall hang a man’s hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is flung open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes with an ape’s gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a full waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the piano.)_ KITTY: _(Coughs behind her hand.)_ She’s a bit imbecillic. _(She signs with a waggling forefinger.)_ Blemblem. _(Lynch lifts up her skirt and white petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.)_ Respect yourself. _(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which her hair glows, red with henna.)_ O, excuse! ZOE: More limelight, Charley. _(She goes to the chandelier and turns the gas full cock.)_ KITTY: _(Peers at the gasjet.)_ What ails it tonight? LYNCH: _(Deeply.)_ Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe. _(The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)_ KITTY: _(Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.)_ O, excuse! ZOE: _(Promptly.)_ Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift. _(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled catterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)_ STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet’s rest. It may be an old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate _Cœla enarrant gloriam Domini._ It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and David’s tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his almightiness. _Mais nom de nom,_ that is another pair of trousers. _Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at Lynch’s cap, smiles, laughs.)_ Which side is your knowledge bump? THE CAP: _(With saturnine spleen.)_ Bah! It is because it is. Woman’s reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form of life. Bah! STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone! THE CAP: Bah! STEPHEN: Here’s another for you. _(He frowns.)_ The reason is because the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible interval which... THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can’t. STEPHEN: _(With an effort.)_ Interval which. Is the greatest possible ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which. THE CAP: Which? _(Outside the gramophone begins to blare_ The Holy City.) STEPHEN: _(Abruptly.)_ What went forth to the ends of the world to traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow’s noise in the street. Self which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. _Ecco!_ LYNCH: _(With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe Higgins.)_ What a learned speech, eh? ZOE: _(Briskly.)_ God help your head, he knows more than you have forgotten. _(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)_ FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer. KITTY: No! ZOE: _(Explodes in laughter.)_ Great unjust God! FLORRY: _(Offended.)_ Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my foot’s tickling. _(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, yelling.)_ THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist. _(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)_ STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time. _(Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.)_ ALL: What? THE HOBGOBLIN: _(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.) Il vient! C’est moi! L’homme qui rit! L’homme primigène! (He whirls round and round with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks.) Rien va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He springs off into vacuum.)_ FLORRY: _(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.)_ The end of the world! _(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares over coughs and feetshuffling.)_ THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna... _(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it, proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie’s kilts, busby and tartan filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the Three Legs of Man.)_ THE END OF THE WORLD: _(With a Scotch accent.)_ Wha’ll dance the keel row, the keel row, the keel row? _(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah’s voice, harsh as a corncrake’s, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)_ ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God’s time is 12.25. Tell mother you’ll be there. Rush your order and you play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it’s up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It’s a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever was. It’s the whole pie with jam in. It’s just the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That’s it. You call me up by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. _(He shouts.)_ Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! _(He sings.)_ Jeru... THE GRAMOPHONE: _(Drowning his voice.)_ Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh... _(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)_ THE THREE WHORES: _(Covering their ears, squawk.)_ Ahhkkk! ELIJAH: _(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top of his voice, his arms uplifted.)_ Big Brother up there, Mr President, you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems to me I don’t never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. _(He winks at his audience.)_ Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in the brown scapular. My mother’s sister married a Montmorency. It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure. ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it. FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy’s three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the bed. STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes. _(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students’ gowns, four abreast, goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)_ THE BEATITUDES: _(Incoherently.)_ Beer beef battledog buybull businum barnum buggerum bishop. LYSTER: _(In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says discreetly.)_ He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the light. _(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser’s attire, shinily laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a mandarin’s kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda hat.)_ BEST: _(Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.)_ I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. JOHN EGLINTON: _(Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it towards a corner: with carping accent.)_ Esthetics and cosmetics are for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them. _(In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave, holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun MacLir broods, chin on knees. He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by its two talons.)_ MANANAUN MACLIR: _(With a voice of waves.)_ Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. _(With a voice of whistling seawind.)_ Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won’t have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult of Shakti. _(With a cry of stormbirds.)_ Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! _(He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with the vehemence of the ocean.)_ Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter. _(A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)_ THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii! _(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the mantle.)_ ZOE: Who has a fag as I’m here? LYNCH: _(Tossing a cigarette on to the table.)_ Here. ZOE: _(Her head perched aside in mock pride.)_ Is that the way to hand the _pot_ to a lady? _(She stretches up to light the cigarette over the flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie’s green. She puffs calmly at her cigarette.)_ Can you see the beautyspot of my behind? LYNCH: I’m not looking. ZOE: _(Makes sheep’s eyes.)_ No? You wouldn’t do a less thing. Would you suck a lemon? _(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom, then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.)_ VIRAG: _(Heels together, bows.)_ My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. _(He coughs thoughtfully, drily.)_ Promiscuous nakedness is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you perceived? Good. BLOOM: Granpapachi. But... VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a word. Hippogriff. Am I right? BLOOM: She is rather lean. VIRAG: _(Not unpleasantly.)_ Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you can wear today. Parallax! _(With a nervous twitch of his head.)_ Did you hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax! BLOOM: _(An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.)_ She seems sad. VIRAG: _(Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.)_ Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor’s button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. _(More genially.)_ Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel. BLOOM: _(Regretfully.)_ When you come out without your gun. VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either... BLOOM: With...? VIRAG: _(His tongue upcurling.)_ Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in it. Lycopodium. _(His throat twitches.)_ Slapbang! There he goes again. BLOOM: The stye I dislike. VIRAG: _(Arches his eyebrows.)_ Contact with a goldring, they say. _Argumentum ad feminam_, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve’s sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. _(He twitches.)_ It is a funny sound. _(He coughs encouragingly.)_ But possibly it is only a wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. BLOOM: _(Reflecting.)_ Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said... VIRAG: _(Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.)_ Stop twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic. _La causa è santa_. Tara. Tara. _(Aside.)_ He will surely remember. BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a deadhand cures. Mnemo? VIRAG: _(Excitedly.)_ I say so. I say so. E’en so. Technic. _(He taps his parchmentroll energetically.)_ This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? _(With a dry snigger.)_ You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? _(He crows derisively.)_ Keekeereekee! _(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)_ BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is will then morrow as now was be past yester. VIRAG: _(Prompts in a pig’s whisper.)_ Insects of the day spend their brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal nerve in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! _(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally.)_ They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt vinegar. Bear’s buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. _(He coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand.)_ You shall find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L. B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! _(He blows into Bloom’s ear.)_ Buzz! BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I... VIRAG: _(His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.)_ Splendid! Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. _(He gobbles gluttonously with turkey wattles.)_ Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! _(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and reads, his glowworm’s nose running backwards over the letters which he claws.)_ Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will shortly be upon us. I’m the best o’cook. Those succulent bivalves may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. _(He wags his head with cackling raillery.)_ Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. _(He sneezes.)_ Amen! BLOOM: _(Absently.)_ Ocularly woman’s bivalve case is worse. Always open sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman’s milk. Wind their way through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. VIRAG: _(His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.)_ That the cows with their those distended udders that they have been the the known... BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. _(He repeats.)_ Spontaneously to seek out the saurian’s lair in order to entrust their teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. _(Profoundly.)_ Instinct rules the world. In life. In death. VIRAG: _(Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and cries.)_ Who’s moth moth? Who’s dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass tablenumpkin? _(He mews.)_ Puss puss puss puss! _(He sighs, draws back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw.)_ Well, well. He doth rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air.) THE MOTH: I’m a tiny tiny thing Ever flying in the spring Round and round a ringaring. Long ago I was a king Now I do this kind of thing On the wing, on the wing! Bing! _(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily.)_ Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. _(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob’s pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour’s face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his amorous tongue.)_ HENRY: _(In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar.)_ There is a flower that bloometh. _(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards Zoe’s neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the piano.)_ STEPHEN: _(To himself.)_ Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I’m partially drunk, by the way. _(He touches the keys again.)_ Minor chord comes now. Yes. Not much however. _(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous moustachework.)_ ARTIFONI: _Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto._ FLORRY: Sing us something. Love’s old sweet song. STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you the letter about the lute? FLORRY: _(Smirking.)_ The bird that can sing and won’t sing. _(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew Arnold’s face.)_ PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool’s advice. All is not well. Work it out with the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer, the Moira, Larchet’s, Holles street hospital, Burke’s. Eh? I am watching you. PHILIP DRUNK: _(Impatiently.)_ Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. Who was it told me his name? _(His lawnmower begins to purr.)_ Aha, yes. _Zoe mou sas agapo_. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no? FLORRY: And the song? STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You’re like someone I knew once. STEPHEN: Out of it now. _(To himself.)_ Clever. PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: _(Their lawnmowers purring with a rigadoon of grasshalms.)_ Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us. ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of business with his coat buttoned up. You needn’t try to hide, I says to him. I know you’ve a Roman collar. VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. _(Harshly, his pupils waxing.)_ To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. _(He wriggles.)_ Woman, undoing with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man’s lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. _(He cries.) Coactus volui._ Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses woman’s wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman’s fat yadgana. _(He chases his tail.)_ Piffpaff! Popo! _(He stops, sneezes.)_ Pchp! _(He worries his butt.)_ Prrrrrht! LYNCH: I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for shooting a bishop. ZOE: _(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.)_ He couldn’t get a connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush. BLOOM: Poor man! ZOE: _(Lightly.)_ Only for what happened him. BLOOM: How? VIRAG: _(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) Verfluchte Goim!_ He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the pope’s bastard. _(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world.)_ A son of a whore. Apocalypse. KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn’t swallow and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all subscribed for the funeral. PHILIP DRUNK: _(Gravely.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, Philippe?_ PHILIP SOBER: _(Gaily.) C’était le sacré pigeon, Philippe._ _(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whore’s shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)_ LYNCH: _(Laughs.)_ And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated anthropoid apes. FLORRY: _(Nods.)_ Locomotor ataxy. ZOE: _(Gaily.)_ O, my dictionary. LYNCH: Three wise virgins. VIRAG: _(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony epileptic lips.)_ She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. _(He sticks out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork.)_ Messiah! He burst her tympanum. _(With gibbering baboon’s cries he jerks his hips in the cynical spasm.)_ Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk! _(Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stands forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing bagslops.)_ BEN DOLLARD: _(Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels jovially in base barreltone.)_ When love absorbs my ardent soul. _(The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)_ THE VIRGINS: _(Gushingly.)_ Big Ben! Ben my Chree! A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches. BEN DOLLARD: _(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.)_ Hold him now. HENRY: _(Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs.)_ Thine heart, mine love. _(He plucks his lutestrings.)_ When first I saw... VIRAG: _(Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting.)_ Rats! _(He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward push of his parchmentroll.)_ After having said which I took my departure. Farewell. Fare thee well. _Dreck!_ _(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb and gives a cow’s lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)_ THE FLYBILL: K. 11. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. HENRY: All is lost now. _(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)_ VIRAG’S HEAD: Quack! _(Exeunt severally.)_ STEPHEN: _(Over his shoulder to Zoe.)_ You would have preferred the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The agony in the closet. LYNCH: All one and the same God to her. STEPHEN: _(Devoutly.)_ And sovereign Lord of all things. FLORRY: _(To Stephen.)_ I’m sure you’re a spoiled priest. Or a monk. LYNCH: He is. A cardinal’s son. STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw. _(His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:)_ THE CARDINAL: Conservio lies captured He lies in the lowest dungeon With manacles and chains around his limbs Weighing upwards of three tons. _(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_ O, the poor little fellow Hihihihihis legs they were yellow He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake But some bloody savage To graize his white cabbage He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake. _(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_ I’m suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they’d walk me off the face of the bloody globe. _(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, merciful male, melodious:)_ Shall carry my heart to thee, Shall carry my heart to thee, And the breath of the balmy night Shall carry my heart to thee! _(The trick doorhandle turns.)_ THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee! ZOE: The devil is in that door. _(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)_ ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly.)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the rabbits. I’m very fond of what I like. BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, pricks his ears.)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double event? ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil.)_ Fingers was made before forks. _(She breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then turns kittenishly to Lynch.)_ No objection to French lozenges? _(He nods. She taunts him.)_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He opens his mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.)_ Catch! _(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it through with a crack.)_ KITTY: _(Chewing.)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with his lady. The gas we had on the Toft’s hobbyhorses. I’m giddy still. BLOOM: _(In Svengali’s fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.)_ Go, go, go, I conjure you, whoever you are! _(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside. Bloom’s features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)_ BLOOM: _(Solemnly.)_ Thanks. ZOE: Do as you’re bid. Here! _(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.)_ BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate.)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red influences lupus. Colours affect women’s characters, any they have. This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats.)_ Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews. _(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like Minnie Hauck in_ Carmen. _On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)_ BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat. _(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)_ THE FAN: _(Flirting quickly, then slowly.)_ Married, I see. BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid... THE FAN: _(Half opening, then closing.)_ And the missus is master. Petticoat government. BLOOM: _(Looks down with a sheepish grin.)_ That is so. THE FAN: _(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.)_ Have you forgotten me? BLOOM: Nes. Yo. THE FAN: _(Folded akimbo against her waist.)_ Is me her was you dreamed before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now we? _(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)_ BLOOM: _(Wincing.)_ Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ We have met. You are mine. It is fate. BLOOM: _(Cowed.)_ Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s spittle as you probably... _(He winces.)_ Ah! RICHIE GOULDING: _(Bagweighted, passes the door.)_ Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. Liver and kidney. THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ All things end. Be mine. Now. BLOOM: _(Undecided.)_ All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. THE FAN: _(Points downwards slowly.)_ You may. BLOOM: _(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.)_ We are observed. THE FAN: _(Points downwards quickly.)_ You must. BLOOM: _(With desire, with reluctance.)_ I can make a true black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah! _(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers draws out and in her laces.)_ BLOOM: _(Murmurs lovingly.)_ To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s was my love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris. THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight. BLOOM: _(Crosslacing.)_ Too tight? THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you. BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That night she met... Now! _(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)_ BLOOM: _(Mumbles.)_ Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen,... BELLO: _(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.)_ Hound of dishonour! BLOOM: _(Infatuated.)_ Empress! BELLO: _(His heavy cheekchops sagging.)_ Adorer of the adulterous rump! BLOOM: _(Plaintively.)_ Hugeness! BELLO: Dungdevourer! BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed.)_ Magmagnificence! BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.)_ Incline feet forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. On the hands down! BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps.)_ Truffles! _(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most excellent master.)_ BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fat moustache rings round his shaven mouth, in mountaineer’s puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock’s feather, his hands stuck deep in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in.)_ Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of your despot’s glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness. BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats.)_ I promise never to disobey. BELLO: _(Laughs loudly.)_ Holy smoke! You little know what’s in store for you. I’m the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I’ll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be inflicted in gym costume. _(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.)_ ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her.)_ She’s not here. BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes.)_ She’s not here. FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown.)_ She didn’t mean it, Mr Bello. She’ll be good, sir. KITTY: Don’t be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won’t, ma’amsir. BELLO: _(Coaxingly.)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head.)_ There’s a good girly now. _(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.)_ I only want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready. BLOOM: _(Fainting.)_ Don’t tear my... BELLO: _(Savagely.)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging hook, the knout I’ll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian slave of old. You’re in for it this time! I’ll make you remember me for the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins swollen, his face congested.)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson’s fat hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness’s porter. _(He belches.)_ And suck my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed Victualler’s Gazette_. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom squeals, turning turtle.)_ BLOOM: Don’t be cruel, nurse! Don’t! BELLO: _(Twisting.)_ Another! BLOOM: _(Screams.)_ O, it’s hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches like mad! BELLO: _(Shouts.)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That’s the best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don’t keep me waiting, damn you! _(He slaps her face.)_ BLOOM: _(Whimpers.)_ You’re after hitting me. I’ll tell... BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will. FLORRY: I will. Don’t be greedy. KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me. _(The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib, men’s grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)_ MRS KEOGH: _(Ferociously.)_ Can I help? _(They hold and pinion Bloom.)_ BELLO: _(Squats with a grunt on Bloom’s upturned face, puffing cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg.)_ I see Keating Clay is elected vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness’s preference shares are at sixteen three quarters. Curse me for a fool that didn’t buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, curse it. And that Goddamned outsider _Throwaway_ at twenty to one. _(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom’s ear.)_ Where’s that Goddamned cursed ashtray? BLOOM: _(Goaded, buttocksmothered.)_ O! O! Monsters! Cruel one! BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never prayed before. _(He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar.)_ Here, kiss that. Both. Kiss. _(He throws a leg astride and, pressing with horseman’s knees, calls in a hard voice.)_ Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury cross. I’ll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. _(He bends sideways and squeezes his mount’s testicles roughly, shouting.)_ Ho! Off we pop! I’ll nurse you in proper fashion. _(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the, in the saddle.)_ The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop. FLORRY: _(Pulls at Bello.)_ Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked before you. ZOE: _(Pulling at Florry.)_ Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, suckeress? BLOOM: _(Stifling.)_ Can’t. BELLO: Well, I’m not. Wait. _(He holds in his breath.)_ Curse it. Here. This bung’s about burst. _(He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting his features, farts loudly.)_ Take that! _(He recorks himself.)_ Yes, by Jingo, sixteen three quarters. BLOOM: _(A sweat breaking out over him.)_ Not man. _(He sniffs.)_ Woman. BELLO: _(Stands up.)_ No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too! BLOOM: _(Shrinks.)_ Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I tiptouch it with my nails? BELLO: _(Points to his whores.)_ As they are now so will you be, wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you... BLOOM: _(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and nose, leering mouth.)_ I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift. BELLO: _(Jeers.)_ Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds your unskirted thighs and hegoat’s udders in various poses of surrender, eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine. BELLO: _(Guffaws.)_ Christ Almighty it’s too tickling, this! You were a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. _(He guffaws again.)_ Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh? BLOOM: _(Her hands and features working.)_ It was Gerald converted me to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School play _Vice Versa_. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful. BELLO: _(With wicked glee.)_ Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the smoothworn throne. BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. _(Earnestly.)_ And really it’s better the position... because often I used to wet... BELLO: _(Sternly.)_ No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds. THE SINS OF THE PAST: _(In a medley of voices.)_ He went through a form of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn at an address in D’Olier street while he presented himself indecently to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? BELLO: _(Whistles loudly.)_ Say! What was the most revolting piece of obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be candid for once. _(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy’s hag, blind stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, the...)_ BLOOM: Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath... BELLO: _(Peremptorily.)_ Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... BLOOM: _(Docile, gurgles.)_ I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant... BELLO: _(Imperiously.)_ O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak when you’re spoken to. BLOOM: _(Bows.)_ Master! Mistress! Mantamer! _(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)_ BELLO: _(Satirically.)_ By day you will souse and bat our smelling underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won’t that be nice? _(He places a ruby ring on her finger.)_ And there now! With this ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress. BLOOM: Thank you, mistress. BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh’s the cook’s, a sandy one. Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I’ll lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, with the hairbrush. You’ll be taught the error of your ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down their lives. _(He chuckles.)_ My boys will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I’ll have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? _(He points.)_ For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. _(He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom’s vulva.)_ There’s fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a hardon? _(He shoves his arm in a bidder’s face.)_ Here wet the deck and wipe it round! A BIDDER: A florin. _(Dillon’s lacquey rings his handbell.)_ THE LACQUEY: Barang! A VOICE: One and eightpence too much. CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean. BELLO: _(Gives a rap with his gavel.)_ Two bar. Rockbottom figure and cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points. Handle hrim. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His sire’s milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. Whoa, my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! _(He brands his initial C on Bloom’s croup.)_ So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen? A DARKVISAGED MAN: _(In disguised accent.)_ Hoondert punt sterlink. VOICES: _(Subdued.)_ For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid. BELLO: _(Gaily.)_ Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better instincts of the _blasé_ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. BLOOM: _(Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with forefinger in mouth.)_ O, I know what you’re hinting at now! BELLO: What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? _(He stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds of Bloom’s haunches.)_ Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where’s your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It’s as limp as a boy of six’s doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. _(Loudly.)_ Can you do a man’s job? BLOOM: Eccles street... BELLO: _(Sarcastically.)_ I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world but there’s a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He’s no eunuch. A shock of red hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, my lad! Holy ginger, it’s kicking and coughing up and down in her guts already! That makes you wild, don’t it? Touches the spot? _(He spits in contempt.)_ Spittoon! BLOOM: I was indecently treated, I... Inform the police. Hundred pounds. Unmentionable. I... BELLO: Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your drizzle. BLOOM: To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll... We... Still... BELLO: _(Ruthlessly.)_ No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman’s will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. Return and see. _(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)_ SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle! BLOOM: _(In tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond panes, cries out.)_ I see her! It’s she! The first night at Mat Dillon’s! But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he... BELLO: _(Laughs mockingly.)_ That’s your daughter, you owl, with a Mullingar student. _(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and calls, her young eyes wonderwide.)_ MILLY: My! It’s Papli! But, O Papli, how old you’ve grown! BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, aunt Hegarty’s armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and his menfriends are living there in clover. The _Cuckoos’ Rest!_ Why not? How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the goose, my gander O. BLOOM: They... I... BELLO: _(Cuttingly.)_ Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet you bought at Wren’s auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue you carried home in the rain for art for art’s sake. They will violate the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom’s. BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. I will prove... A VOICE: Swear! _(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his teeth.)_ BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You are down and out and don’t you forget it, old bean. BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody...? _(He bites his thumb.)_ BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that’ll send you skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We’ll bury you in our shrubbery jakes where you’ll be dead and dirty with old Cuck Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, whatever the buggers’ names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. _(He explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh.)_ We’ll manure you, Mr Flower! _(He pipes scoffingly.)_ Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli! BLOOM: _(Clasps his head.)_ My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have suff... _(He weeps tearlessly.)_ BELLO: _(Sneers.)_ Crybabby! Crocodile tears! _(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the recreant Bloom.)_ THE CIRCUMCISED: _(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad._ VOICES: _(Sighing.)_ So he’s gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There’s the widow. That so? Ah, yes. _(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.)_ THE YEWS: _(Their leaves whispering.)_ Sister. Our sister. Ssh! THE NYMPH: _(Softly.)_ Mortal! _(Kindly.)_ Nay, dost not weepest! BLOOM: _(Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, with dignity.)_ This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of habit. THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married. BLOOM: _(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.)_ We have met before. On another star. THE NYMPH: _(Sadly.)_ Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann’s wonderful chest exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. BLOOM: You mean _Photo Bits?_ THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my shame. BLOOM: _(Humbly kisses her long hair.)_ Your classic curves, beautiful immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, almost to pray. THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise. BLOOM: _(Quickly.)_ Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive vent. _(He sighs.)_ ’Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage. THE NYMPH: _(Her fingers in her ears.)_ And words. They are not in my dictionary. BLOOM: You understood them? THE YEWS: Ssh! THE NYMPH: _(Covers her face with her hands.)_ What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on? BLOOM: _(Apologetically.)_ I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. THE NYMPH: _(Bends her head.)_ Worse, worse! BLOOM: _(Reflects precautiously.)_ That antiquated commode. It wasn’t her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. _(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)_ THE WATERFALL: Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. THE YEWS: _(Mingling their boughs.)_ Listen. Whisper. She is right, our sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer days. JOHN WYSE NOLAN: _(In the background, in Irish National Forester’s uniform, doffs his plumed hat.)_ Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland! THE YEWS: _(Murmuring.)_ Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? BLOOM: _(Scared.)_ High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession of faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram. THE ECHO: Sham! BLOOM: _(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with badge.)_ I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies’ cloakroom and lavatory, the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days. _(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)_ THE HALCYON DAYS: Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray! _(They cheer.)_ BLOOM: _(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent snowballs, struggles to rise.)_ Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let’s ring all the bells in Montague street. _(He cheers feebly.)_ Hurray for the High School! THE ECHO: Fool! THE YEWS: _(Rustling.)_ She is right, our sister. Whisper. _(Whispered kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.)_ Who profaned our silent shade? THE NYMPH: _(Coyly, through parting fingers.)_ There? In the open air? THE YEWS: _(Sweeping downward.)_ Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward. THE WATERFALL: Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca. THE NYMPH: _(With wide fingers.)_ O, infamy! BLOOM: I was precocious. Youth. The fauna. I sacrificed to the god of the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing time. Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, flaxenhaired, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa’s operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn’t resist it. The demon possessed me. Besides, who saw? _(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with humid nostrils through the foliage.)_ STAGGERING BOB: (_Large teardrops rolling from his prominent eyes, snivels._) Me. Me see. BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need I... _(With pathos.)_ No girl would when I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn’t play... _(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.)_ THE NANNYGOAT: _(Bleats.)_ Megeggaggegg! Nannannanny! BLOOM: _(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and gorsespine.)_ Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. _(He gazes intently downwards on the water.)_ Thirtytwo head over heels per second. Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government printer’s clerk. _(Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion’s Head cliff into the purple waiting waters.)_ THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg! _(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the_ Erin’s King _sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards the land.)_ COUNCILLOR NANNETTI: _(Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.)_ When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have... BLOOM: Done. Prff! THE NYMPH: _(Loftily.)_ We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat electric light. _(She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing her forefinger in her mouth.)_ Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then could you...? BLOOM: _(Pawing the heather abjectly.)_ O, I have been a perfect pig. Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long’s syringe, the ladies’ friend. THE NYMPH: In my presence. The powderpuff. _(She blushes and makes a knee.)_ And the rest! BLOOM: _(Dejected.)_ Yes. _Peccavi!_ I have paid homage on that living altar where the back changes name. _(With sudden fervour.)_ For why should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...? _(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems, cooeeing.)_ THE VOICE OF KITTY: _(In the thicket.)_ Show us one of them cushions. THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Here. _(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)_ THE VOICE OF LYNCH: _(In the thicket.)_ Whew! Piping hot! THE VOICE OF ZOE: _(From the thicket.)_ Came from a hot place. THE VOICE OF VIRAG: _(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over beechmast and acorns.)_ Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull! BLOOM: It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full. THE WATERFALL: Phillaphulla Poulaphouca Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak! THE NYMPH: _(Eyeless, in nun’s white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, softly, with remote eyes.)_ Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. _(She reclines her head, sighing.)_ Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull waves o’er the waters dull. _(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)_ THE BUTTON: Bip! _(Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)_ THE SLUTS: O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers He didn’t know what to do, To keep it up, To keep it up. BLOOM: _(Coldly.)_ You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy but willing like an ass pissing. THE YEWS: _(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms aging and swaying.)_ Deciduously! THE NYMPH: _(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit.)_ Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! _(A large moist stain appears on her robe.)_ Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a pure woman. _(She clutches again in her robe.)_ Wait. Satan, you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. _(She draws a poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his loins.)_ Nekum! BLOOM: _(Starts up, seizes her hand.)_ Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o’ nine lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? _(He clutches her veil.)_ A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, eh Reynard? THE NYMPH: _(With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks.)_ Poli...! BLOOM: _(Calls after her.)_ As if you didn’t get it on the double yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. Your strength our weakness. What’s our studfee? What will you pay on the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. _(The fleeing nymph raises a keen.)_ Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool someone else, not me. _(He sniffs.)_ Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease. _(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)_ BELLA: You’ll know me the next time. BLOOM: _(Composed, regards her.) Passée._ Mutton dressed as lamb. Long in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the dimensions of your other features, that’s all. I’m not a triple screw propeller. BELLA: _(Contemptuously.)_ You’re not game, in fact. _(Her sowcunt barks.)_ Fbhracht! BLOOM: _(Contemptuously.)_ Clean your nailless middle finger first, your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of hay and wipe yourself. BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod! BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor! BELLA: _(Turns to the piano.)_ Which of you was playing the dead march from _Saul?_ ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. _(She darts to the piano and bangs chords on it with crossed arms.)_ The cat’s ramble through the slag. _(She glances back.)_ Eh? Who’s making love to my sweeties? _(She darts back to the table.)_ What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own. _(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom approaches Zoe.)_ BLOOM: _(Gently.)_ Give me back that potato, will you? ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing. BLOOM: _(With feeling.)_ It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma. ZOE: Give a thing and take it back God’ll ask you where is that You’ll say you don’t know God’ll send you down below. BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it. STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question. ZOE: Here. _(She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.)_ Those that hides knows where to find. BELLA: _(Frowns.)_ Here. This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you smash that piano. Who’s paying here? _(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)_ STEPHEN: _(With exaggerated politeness.)_ This silken purse I made out of the sow’s ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. _(He indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.)_ We are all in the same sweepstake, Kinch and Lynch. _Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état_. LYNCH: _(Calls from the hearth.)_ Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me. STEPHEN: _(Hands Bella a coin.)_ Gold. She has it. BELLA: _(Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and Kitty.)_ Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here. STEPHEN: _(Delightedly.)_ A hundred thousand apologies. _(He fumbles again and takes out and hands her two crowns.)_ Permit, _brevi manu_, my sight is somewhat troubled. _(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over Zoe’s neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty’s waist, adds his head to the group.)_ FLORRY: _(Strives heavily to rise.)_ Ow! My foot’s asleep. _(She limps over to the table. Bloom approaches.)_ BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: _(Chattering and squabbling.)_ The gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a moment... this gentleman pays separate... who’s touching it?... ow! ... mind who you’re pinching... are you staying the night or a short time?... who did?... you’re a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid down like a gentleman... drink... it’s long after eleven. STEPHEN: _(At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.)_ No bottles! What, eleven? A riddle! ZOE: _(Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the top of her stocking.)_ Hard earned on the flat of my back. LYNCH: _(Lifting Kitty from the table.)_ Come! KITTY: Wait. _(She clutches the two crowns.)_ FLORRY: And me? LYNCH: Hoopla! _(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.)_ STEPHEN: The fox crew, the cocks flew, The bells in heaven Were striking eleven. ’Tis time for her poor soul To get out of heaven. BLOOM: _(Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and Florry.)_ So. Allow me. _(He takes up the poundnote.)_ Three times ten. We’re square. BELLA: _(Admiringly.)_ You’re such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss you. ZOE: _(Points.)_ Him? Deep as a drawwell. _(Lynch bends Kitty back over the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)_ BLOOM: This is yours. STEPHEN: How is that? _Le distrait_ or absentminded beggar. _(He fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object falls.)_ That fell. BLOOM: _(Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.)_ This. STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks. BLOOM: _(Quietly.)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take care of. Why pay more? STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins.)_ Be just before you are generous. BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts.)_ One, seven, eleven, and five. Six. Eleven. I don’t answer for what you may have lost. STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly.)_ Burying his grandmother. Probably he killed her. BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say. STEPHEN: Doesn’t matter a rambling damn. BLOOM: No, but... STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table.)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a cigarette from the sofa to the table.)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.)_ Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)_ LYNCH: _(Watching him.)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it if you held the match nearer. STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye.)_ Lynx eye. Must get glasses. Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near: far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously.)_ Hm. Sphinx. The beast that has two backs at midnight. Married. ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with him. FLORRY: _(Nods.)_ Mr Lambe from London. STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis pacem._ _(The cigarette slips from Stephen’s fingers. Bloom picks it up and throws it in the grate.)_ BLOOM: Don’t smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe.)_ You have nothing? ZOE: Is he hungry? STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the Gods.) Hangende Hunger, Fragende Frau, Macht uns alle kaputt. ZOE: _(Tragically.)_ Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet! _(She takes his hand.)_ Blue eyes beauty I’ll read your hand. _(She points to his forehead.)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts.)_ Two, three, Mars, that’s courage. _(Stephen shakes his head.)_ No kid. LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and shake. _(To Zoe.)_ Who taught you palmistry? ZOE: _(Turns.)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven’t got. _(To Stephen.)_ I see it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered head.)_ LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.)_ Like that. Pandybat. _(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)_ FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little schemer. See it in your eye. _(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises from the pianola coffin.)_ DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I’m sure that Stephen is a very good little boy! ZOE: _(Examining Stephen’s palm.)_ Woman’s hand. STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_ Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. ZOE: What day were you born? STEPHEN: Thursday. Today. ZOE: Thursday’s child has far to go. _(She traces lines on his hand.)_ Line of fate. Influential friends. FLORRY: _(Pointing.)_ Imagination. ZOE: Mount of the moon. You’ll meet with a... _(She peers at his hands abruptly.)_ I won’t tell you what’s not good for you. Or do you want to know? BLOOM: _(Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.)_ More harm than good. Here. Read mine. BELLA: Show. _(She turns up Bloom’s hand.)_ I thought so. Knobby knuckles for the women. ZOE: _(Peering at Bloom’s palm.)_ Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and marry money. BLOOM: Wrong. ZOE: _(Quickly.)_ O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That wrong? _(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, stretches her wings and clucks.)_ BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. _(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)_ BLOOM: _(Points to his hand.)_ That weal there is an accident. Fell and cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen. ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news. STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. _(He winces.)_ Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money? _(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)_ FLORRY: What? _(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)_ THE BOOTS: _(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers.)_ Haw haw have you the horn? _(Bronze by gold they whisper.)_ ZOE: _(To Florry.)_ Whisper. _(They whisper again.)_ _(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman’s cap and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan’s coat shoulder.)_ LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a few quims? BOYLAN: _(Sated, smiles.)_ Plucking a turkey. LENEHAN: A good night’s work. BOYLAN: _(Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.)_ Blazes Kate! Up to sample or your money back. _(He holds out a forefinger.)_ Smell that. LENEHAN: _(Smells gleefully.)_ Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah! ZOE AND FLORRY: _(Laugh together.)_ Ha ha ha ha. BOYLAN: _(Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear.)_ Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet? BLOOM: _(In flunkey’s prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings and powdered wig.)_ I’m afraid not, sir. The last articles... BOYLAN: _(Tosses him sixpence.)_ Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. _(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom’s antlered head.)_ Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. _(She plops splashing out of the water.)_ Raoul darling, come and dry me. I’m in my pelt. Only my new hat and a carriage sponge. BOYLAN: _(A merry twinkle in his eye.)_ Topping! BELLA: What? What is it? _(Zoe whispers to her.)_ MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I’ll write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed and stamped receipt. BOYLAN: (Clasps himself.) Here, I can’t hold this little lot much longer. (He strides off on stiff cavalry legs.) BELLA: _(Laughing.)_ Ho ho ho ho. BOYLAN: _(To Bloom, over his shoulder.)_ You can apply your eye to the keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times. BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness the deed and take a snapshot? _(He holds out an ointment jar.)_ Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...? KITTY: _(From the sofa.)_ Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What... _(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)_ MINA KENNEDY: _(Her eyes upturned.)_ O, it must be like the scent of geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! Stuck together! Covered with kisses! LYDIA DOUCE: _(Her mouth opening.)_ Yumyum. O, he’s carrying her round the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. KITTY: _(Laughing.)_ Hee hee hee. BOYLAN’S VOICE: _(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.)_ Ah! Godblazeqrukbrukarchkrasht! MARION’S VOICE: _(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat.)_ O! Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? BLOOM: _(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself.)_ Show! Hide! Show! Plough her! More! Shoot! BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee! LYNCH: _(Points.)_ The mirror up to nature. _(He laughs.)_ Hu hu hu hu hu! _(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)_ SHAKESPEARE: _(In dignified ventriloquy.)_ ’Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind. _(To Bloom.)_ Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. Gaze. _(He crows with a black capon’s laugh.)_ Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo! BLOOM: _(Smiles yellowly at the three whores.)_ When will I hear the joke? ZOE: Before you’re twice married and once a widower. BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements were taken next the skin after his death... _(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with deathtalk, tears and Tunney’s tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late husband’s everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds a Scottish widow’s insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy with a crying cod’s mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)_ FREDDY: Ah, ma, you’re dragging me along! SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over! SHAKESPEARE: _(With paralytic rage.)_ Weda seca whokilla farst. _(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare’s beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.)_ MRS CUNNINGHAM: _(Sings.)_ And they call me the jewel of Asia! MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: _(Gazes on her, impassive.)_ Immense! Most bloody awful demirep! STEPHEN: _Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti._ Queens lay with prize bulls. Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was open. BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop. LYNCH: Let him alone. He’s back from Paris. ZOE: _(Runs to stephen and links him.)_ O go on! Give us some parleyvoo. _(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile on his face.)_ LYNCH: _(Pommelling on the sofa.)_ Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmmm. STEPHEN: _(Gabbles with marionette jerks.)_ Thousand places of entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion’s things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with _dessous troublants_. _(He clacks his tongue loudly.)_ _Ho, là là! Ce pif qu’il a!_ LYNCH: _Vive le vampire!_ THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo! STEPHEN: _(Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself.)_ Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy apostles big damn ruffians. _Demimondaines_ nicely handsome sparkling of diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? _(He points about him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to.)_ Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act awfully bestial butcher’s boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on the belly _pièce de Shakespeare._ BELLA: _(Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of laughter.)_ An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the... STEPHEN: _(Mincingly.)_ I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman tongue for _double entente cordiale._ O yes, _mon loup_. How much cost? Waterloo. Watercloset. _(He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger.)_ BELLA: _(Laughing.)_ Omelette... THE WHORES: _(Laughing.)_ Encore! Encore! STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon. ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady. LYNCH: Across the world for a wife. FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries. STEPHEN: _(Extends his arms.)_ It was here. Street of harlots. In Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where’s the red carpet spread? BLOOM: _(Approaching Stephen.)_ Look... STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World without end. _(He cries.) Pater!_ Free! BLOOM: I say, look... STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? _O merde alors! (He cries, his vulture talons sharpened.)_ Hola! Hillyho! _(Simon Dedalus’ voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)_ SIMON: That’s all right. _(He swoops uncertainly through the air, wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard wings.)_ Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes. Wouldn’t let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! _(He makes the beagle’s call, giving tongue.)_ Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! _(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, grey negroes waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)_ THE CROWD: Card of the races. Racing card! Ten to one the field! Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ten to one bar one! Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! I’ll give ten to one! Ten to one bar one! _(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, the Duke of Westminster’s Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky road.)_ THE ORANGE LODGES: _(Jeering.)_ Get down and push, mister. Last lap! You’ll be home the night! GARRETT DEASY: _(Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop.)_ _Per vias rectas!_ _(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, potatoes.)_ THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! _(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the windows, singing in discord.)_ STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street. ZOE: _(Holds up her hand.)_ Stop! PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY: Yet I’ve a sort of a Yorkshire relish for... ZOE: That’s me. _(She claps her hands.)_ Dance! Dance! _(She runs to the pianola.)_ Who has twopence? BLOOM: Who’ll...? LYNCH: _(Handing her coins.)_ Here. STEPHEN: _(Cracking his fingers impatiently.)_ Quick! Quick! Where’s my augur’s rod? _(He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his foot in tripudium.)_ ZOE: _(Turns the drumhandle.)_ There. _(She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel’s grace, his bowknot bobbing.)_ ZOE: _(Twirls round herself, heeltapping.)_ Dance. Anybody here for there? Who’ll dance? Clear the table. _(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of_ My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl. _Stephen throws his ashplant on the table and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve falling from gracing arms, reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and buttons.)_ MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection with Madam Legget Byrne’s or Levenston’s. Fancy dress balls arranged. Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean abilities. _(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee’s feet.) Tout le monde en avant! Révérence! Tout le monde en place!_ _(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels, sinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, fade gold rosy violet.)_ THE PIANOLA: Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, Sweethearts they’d left behind... _(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking mirrors, lifting their arms.)_ MAGINNI: _(Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carré! Avant deux!_ Breathe evenly! _Balance!_ _(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, rising from their shoulders.)_ HOURS: You may touch my. CAVALIERS: May I touch your? HOURS: O, but lightly! CAVALIERS: O, so lightly! THE PIANOLA: My little shy little lass has a waist. _(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)_ MAGINNI: _Avant huit! Traversé! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisé!_ _(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.)_ THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho! ZOE: _(Twirling, her hand to her brow.)_ O! MAGINNI: _Les tiroirs! Chaîne de dames! La corbeille! Dos à dos!_ _(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving, unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.)_ ZOE: I’m giddy! _(She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns with her.)_ MAGINNI: _Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots!_ _(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn cumbrously.)_ MAGINNI: _Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit bouquet à votre dame! Remerciez!_ THE PIANOLA: Best, best of all, Baraabum! KITTY: _(Jumps up.)_ O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the _Mirus_ bazaar! _(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A screaming bittern’s harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling Toft’s cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the room.)_ THE PIANOLA: My girl’s a Yorkshire girl. ZOE: Yorkshire through and through. Come on all! _(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)_ STEPHEN: _Pas seul!_ _(He wheels Kitty into Lynch’s arms, snatches up his ashplant from the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow flashes Toft’s cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall again.)_ THE PIANOLA: Though she’s a factory lass And wears no fancy clothes. _(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)_ TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore! SIMON: Think of your mother’s people! STEPHEN: Dance of death. _(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey’s bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin steel shark stone onehandled Nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram falling bawling. Gum he’s a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)_ _(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.)_ STEPHEN: Ho! _(Stephen’s mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and confessors sing voicelessly.)_ THE CHOIR: Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... Iubilantium te virginum... _(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)_ BUCK MULLIGAN: She’s beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes.)_ Mercurial Malachi! THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death’s madness.)_ I was once the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead. STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck.)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman’s trick is this? BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell.)_ The mockery of it! Kinch dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.)_ Our great sweet mother! _Epi oinopa ponton._ THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of wetted ashes.)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in the world. You too. Time will come. STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.)_ They say I killed you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny. THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth.)_ You sang that song to me. _Love’s bitter mystery._ STEPHEN: _(Eagerly.)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word known to all men. THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the Ursuline manual and forty days’ indulgence. Repent, Stephen. STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena! THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb. ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan.)_ I’m melting! FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen.)_ Look! He’s white. BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more.)_ Giddy. THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes.)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell! STEPHEN: _(Panting.)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones. THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen breath.)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly towards Stephen’s breast with outstretched finger.)_ Beware God’s hand! _(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in Stephen’s heart.)_ STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage.)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn and grey and old.)_ BLOOM: _(At the window.)_ What? STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple!_ The intellectual imagination! With me all or not at all. _Non serviam!_ FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. _(She rushes out.)_ THE MOTHER: _(Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.)_ O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred Heart! STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I’ll bring you all to heel! THE MOTHER: _(In the agony of her deathrattle.)_ Have mercy on Stephen, Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary. STEPHEN: _Nothung!_ _(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)_ THE GASJET: Pwfungg! BLOOM: Stop! LYNCH: _(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand.)_ Here! Hold on! Don’t run amok! BELLA: Police! _(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)_ BELLA: _(Screams.)_ After him! _(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)_ THE WHORES: _(Jammed in the doorway, pointing.)_ Down there. ZOE: _(Pointing.)_ There. There’s something up. BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? _(She seizes Bloom’s coattail.)_ Here, you were with him. The lamp’s broken. BLOOM: _(Rushes to the hall, rushes back.)_ What lamp, woman? A WHORE: He tore his coat. BELLA: _(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.)_ Who’s to pay for that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness. BLOOM: _(Snatches up Stephen’s ashplant.)_ Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he...? BELLA: _(Loudly.)_ Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel. A ten shilling house. BLOOM: _(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.)_ Only the chimney’s broken. Here is all he... BELLA: _(Shrinks back and screams.)_ Jesus! Don’t! BLOOM: _(Warding off a blow.)_ To show you how he hit the paper. There’s not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings! FLORRY: _(With a glass of water, enters.)_ Where is he? BELLA: Do you want me to call the police? BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. _(He makes a masonic sign.)_ Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You don’t want a scandal. BELLA: _(Angrily.)_ Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I’ll charge him! Disgrace him, I will! _(She shouts.)_ Zoe! Zoe! BLOOM: _(Urgently.)_ And if it were your own son in Oxford? _(Warningly.)_ I know. BELLA: _(Almost speechless.)_ Who are. Incog! ZOE: _(In the doorway.)_ There’s a row on. BLOOM: What? Where? _(He throws a shilling on the table and starts.)_ That’s for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. _(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph’s hood and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman’s slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch, John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, Larry O’Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O’Dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d’Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland Row postmistress, C. P. M’Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M’Guinness, Mrs Joe Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general’s, Dan Dawson, dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwidebehindinClonskea tram, the bookseller of_ Sweets of Sin, _Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of Drimmie’s, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles street corner, old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.)_ THE HUE AND CRY: _(Helterskelterpelterwelter.)_ He’s Bloom! Stop Bloom! Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner! _(At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)_ STEPHEN: _(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.)_ You are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory. PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_ Was he insulting you? STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter. Ungenitive. VOICES: No, he didn’t. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs Cohen’s. What’s up? Soldier and civilian. CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to do—you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I’m faithful to the man that’s treating me though I’m only a shilling whore. STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch’s and Kitty’s heads.)_ Hail, Sisyphus. _(He points to himself and the others.)_ Poetic. Uropoetic. VOICES: Shes faithfultheman. CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend. PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn’t half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff him one, Harry. PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy.)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was having a piss? LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)_ Theirs not to reason why. PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry. STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton.)_ I don’t know your name but you are quite right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole. CISSY CAFFREY: _(To the crowd.)_ No, I was with the privates. STEPHEN: _(Amiably.)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every lady for example... PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen.)_ Say, how would it be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw? STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky.)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand.)_ Hand hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_ Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely? DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign of the heroine of Jericho.)_ Rahab. Cook’s son, goodbye. Safe home to Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. _(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_ BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen’s sleeve vigorously.)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting. STEPHEN: _(Turns.)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself.)_ Why should I not speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? _(He points his finger.)_ I’m not afraid of what I can talk to if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular. _(He staggers a pace back.)_ BLOOM: _(Propping him.)_ Retain your own. STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily.)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps his brow.)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king. BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor out of the college. CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that. BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of phraseology. CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite trenchancy. PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward.)_ What’s that you’re saying about my king? _(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner’s and Probyn’s horse, Lincoln’s Inn bencher and ancient and honourable artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s bucket on which is printed_ Défense d’uriner. _A roar of welcome greets him.)_ EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.)_ Peace, perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. _(He turns to his subjects.)_ We have come here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak. _(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously in acknowledgment.)_ PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen.)_ Say it again. STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.)_ I understand your point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn’t want it to die. Damn death. Long live life! EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)_ My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes. STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He falls back a pace.)_ Come somewhere and we’ll... What was that girl saying?... PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one into Jerry. BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly.)_ He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right. STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing.)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors. PRIVATE CARR: I don’t give a bugger who he is. PRIVATE COMPTON: We don’t give a bugger who he is. STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull. _(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day boy’s hat signs to Stephen.)_ KEVIN EGAN: H’lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents jaunes_. _(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince leaf.)_ PATRICE: _Socialiste!_ DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk, two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a mailed hand against the privates.)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! BLOOM: _(To Stephen.)_ Come home. You’ll get into trouble. STEPHEN: _(Swaying.)_ I don’t avoid it. He provokes my intelligence. BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician lineage. THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone. THE BAWD: The red’s as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! Up King Edward! A ROUGH: _(Laughs.)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet. THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)_ May the God above Send down a dove With teeth as sharp as razors To slit the throats Of the English dogs That hanged our Irish leaders. THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing bowels with both hands.)_ I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king. RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)_ Ladies and gents, cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the cellar, the unfortunate female’s throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon to the gallows. _(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim’s legs and drag him downward, grunting: the croppy boy’s tongue protrudes violently.)_ THE CROPPY BOY: Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest. _(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_ RUMBOLD: I’m near it myself. _(He undoes the noose.)_ Rope which hanged the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. _(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.)_ My painful duty has now been done. God save the king! EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and sings with soft contentment.)_ On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won’t we have a merry time, Drinking whisky, beer and wine! PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king? STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands.)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. _(He searches his pockets vaguely.)_ Gave it to someone. PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money? STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off.)_ Will someone tell me where I am least likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ça se voit aussi à Paris._ Not that I... But, by Saint Patrick...! _(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her breast.)_ STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats her farrow! OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro.)_ Ireland’s sweetheart, the king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! _(She keens with banshee woe.)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! _(She wails.)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand? STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where’s the third person of the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow. CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill.)_ Stop them from fighting! A ROUGH: Our men retreated. PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any fucker says a word against my fucking king. BLOOM: _(Terrified.)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure misunderstanding. THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_ _(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce hostility.)_ PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He’s a proboer. STEPHEN: Did I? When? BLOOM: _(To the redcoats.)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by our monarch. THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past.)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a krowawr! O! Bo! _(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars.)_ MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly.)_ Rorke’s Drift! Up, guards, and at them! Mahar shalal hashbaz. PRIVATE CARR: I’ll do him in. PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back.)_ Fair play, here. Make a bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger. _(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.) CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me! CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair. BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best. CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply.)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry saint George for me! STEPHEN: The harlot’s cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet. PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king. BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders.)_ Speak, you! Are you struck dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver! CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Amn’t I with you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. _(She cries.)_ Police! STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)_ White thy fambles, red thy gan And thy quarrons dainty is. VOICES: Police! DISTANT VOICES: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire! _(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M’Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The O’Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open umbrella.)_ FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli._ THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young days. FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a blooddripping host.) Corpus meum._ THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant’s petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot is stuck.)_ My body. THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, Aiulella! _(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ ADONAI: Dooooooooooog! THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! _(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ ADONAI: Goooooooooood! _(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions sing_ Kick the Pope _and_ Daily, daily sing to Mary.) PRIVATE CARR: _(With ferocious articulation.)_ I’ll do him in, so help me fucking Christ! I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe! _(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)_ OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen’s hand.)_ Remove him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be free. _(She prays.)_ O good God, take him! BLOOM: _(Runs to Lynch.)_ Can’t you get him away? LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! _(To Bloom.)_ Get him away, you. He won’t listen to me. _(He drags Kitty away.)_ STEPHEN: _(Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit._ BLOOM: _(Runs to Stephen.)_ Come along with me now before worse happens. Here’s your stick. STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason. CISSY CAFFREY: _(Pulling Private Carr.)_ Come on, you’re boosed. He insulted me but I forgive him. _(Shouting in his ear.)_ I forgive him for insulting me. BLOOM: _(Over Stephen’s shoulder.)_ Yes, go. You see he’s incapable. PRIVATE CARR: _(Breaks loose.)_ I’ll insult him. _(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it up.)_ MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Loudly.)_ Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute! THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking furiously.)_ Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. THE CROWD: Let him up! Don’t strike him when he’s down! Air! Who? The soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted? Don’t manhandle him! He’s fainted! A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers! THE BAWD: Listen to who’s talking! Hasn’t the soldier a right to go with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow. _(They grab at each other’s hair, claw at each other and spit.)_ THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking.)_ Wow wow wow. BLOOM: _(Shoves them back, loudly.)_ Get back, stand back! PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Tugging his comrade.)_ Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here’s the cops! _(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)_ FIRST WATCH: What’s wrong here? PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And assaulted my chum. _(The retriever barks.)_ Who owns the bleeding tyke? CISSY CAFFREY: _(With expectation.)_ Is he bleeding! A MAN: _(Rising from his knees.)_ No. Gone off. He’ll come to all right. BLOOM: _(Glances sharply at the man.)_ Leave him to me. I can easily... SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him? PRIVATE CARR: _(Lurches towards the watch.)_ He insulted my lady friend. BLOOM: _(Angrily.)_ You hit him without provocation. I’m a witness. Constable, take his regimental number. SECOND WATCH: I don’t want your instructions in the discharge of my duty. PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Pulling his comrade.)_ Here, bugger off Harry. Or Bennett’ll shove you in the lockup. PRIVATE CARR: _(Staggering as he is pulled away.)_ God fuck old Bennett. He’s a whitearsed bugger. I don’t give a shit for him. FIRST WATCH: _(Takes out his notebook.)_ What’s his name? BLOOM: _(Peering over the crowd.)_ I just see a car there. If you give me a hand a second, sergeant... FIRST WATCH: Name and address. _(Corny Kelleher, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, appears among the bystanders.)_ BLOOM: _(Quickly.)_ O, the very man! _(He whispers.)_ Simon Dedalus’ son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back. SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher. CORNY KELLEHER: _(To the watch, with drawling eye.)_ That’s all right. I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. _(He laughs.)_ Twenty to one. Do you follow me? FIRST WATCH: _(Turns to the crowd.)_ Here, what are you all gaping at? Move on out of that. _(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)_ CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That’ll be all right. _(He laughs, shaking his head.)_ We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. What? Eh, what? FIRST WATCH: _(Laughs.)_ I suppose so. CORNY KELLEHER: _(Nudges the second watch.)_ Come and wipe your name off the slate. _(He lilts, wagging his head.)_ With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me? SECOND WATCH: _(Genially.)_ Ah, sure we were too. CORNY KELLEHER: _(Winking.)_ Boys will be boys. I’ve a car round there. SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night. CORNY KELLEHER: I’ll see to that. BLOOM: _(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.)_ Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. _(He mumbles confidentially.)_ We don’t want any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand. FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir. SECOND WATCH: That’s all right, sir. FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I’d have to report it at the station. BLOOM: _(Nods rapidly.)_ Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty. SECOND WATCH: It’s our duty. CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men. THE WATCH: _(Saluting together.)_ Night, gentlemen. _(They move off with slow heavy tread.)_ BLOOM: _(Blows.)_ Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?... CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to the car brought up against the scaffolding.)_ Two commercials that were standing fizz in Jammet’s. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan’s car and down to nighttown. BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to... CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs.)_ Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. _(He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.)_ Thanks be to God we have it in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah! BLOOM: _(Tries to laugh.)_ He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don’t know him (poor fellow, he’s laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and I was just making my way home... _(The horse neighs.)_ THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome! CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen’s and I told him to pull up and got off to see. _(He laughs.)_ Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what? BLOOM: No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop. _(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.)_ CORNY KELLEHER: _(Scratches his nape.)_ Sandycove! _(He bends down and calls to Stephen.)_ Eh! _(He calls again.)_ Eh! He’s covered with shavings anyhow. Take care they didn’t lift anything off him. BLOOM: No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick. CORNY KELLEHER: Ah, well, he’ll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I’ll shove along. _(He laughs.)_ I’ve a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the dead. Safe home! THE HORSE: _(Neighs.)_ Hohohohohome. BLOOM: Good night. I’ll just wait and take him along in a few... _(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse harness jingles.)_ CORNY KELLEHER: _(From the car, standing.)_ Night. BLOOM: Night. _(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom’s plight. The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephen’s hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the shoulder.)_ BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again.)_ Mr Dedalus! _(There is no answer.)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends again and, hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate form.)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen! STEPHEN: _(Groans.)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.)_ Who... drive... Fergus now And pierce... wood’s woven shade?... _(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_ BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes the buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat.)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the woodshavings from Stephen’s clothes with light hand and fingers.)_ One pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens.)_ What? STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_ ... shadows... the woods ... white breast... dim sea. _(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom, holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on Stephen’s face and form.)_ BLOOM: _(Communes with the night.)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs.)_... swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts... _(He murmurs.)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows ... _(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the page.)_ BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.)_ Rudy! RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading, kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)_ — III — [ 16 ] Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His (Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman’s shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice. This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his companion _à propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station. Between this point and the high at present unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in Talbot place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as his _fidus Achates_ inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the baker’s it is said. _En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution _re_ the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if you didn’t look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the _demimonde_ ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting _confrères_ but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his brother medicos under all the circs. —And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any kind. Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a _quondam_ friend of his father’s, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge. —Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said. A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches saluted again, calling: —Night! Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley. Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell. Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to tell him where on God’s earth he could get something, anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in. —I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows I’m on the rocks. —There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys’ school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You may mention my name. —Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man. I was never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck twice in the junior at the christian brothers. —I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him. Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he hadn’t said a word about it. Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera_ as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out. —Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him. And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him one of them. —Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back one time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard only the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for the Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a crossing sweeper. Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s, bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and refusing to go with the constable. Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be a very _rara avis_ altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly. The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said, laughingly, Stephen, that is: —He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman. At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana, moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair, whereupon he observed evasively: —Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive? —Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep somewhere. —Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of the question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father’s house? —To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer. —I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of conversation that he had moved. —I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. Why? —A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion, which they did. There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or something like that. —No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in your drink for some ulterior object. He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, pure and simple. —Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking your brains, he ventured to throw out. The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet. Adjacent to the men’s public urinal they perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the parties. —_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_ _—Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più..._ _—Dice lui, però!_ _—Mezzo._ _—Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_ _—Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più..._ Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus _homo_ already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity. —Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description. Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his _protégé_ in an audible tone of voice _à propos_ of the battle royal in the street which was still raging fast and furious: —A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._ Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering from lassitude generally, replied: —To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money. —Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds it. The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tête-à-tête_ put a boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him. —Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time, like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle. Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What’s in a name? —Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across. The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely by asking: —And what might your name be? Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion’s boot but Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected quarter, answered: —Dedalus. The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes, rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old Hollands and water. —You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length. —I’ve heard of him, Stephen said. Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently eavesdropping too. —He’s Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same way and nodding. All Irish. —All too Irish, Stephen rejoined. As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with the remark: —I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his shoulder. The lefthand dead shot. Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain. —Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims. He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. —Pom! he then shouted once. The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation, there being still a further egg. —Pom! he shouted twice. Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding bloodthirstily: _—Buffalo Bill shoots to kill, Never missed nor he never will._ A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness’ sake just felt like asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the Bisley. —Beg pardon, the sailor said. —Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth. —Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He toured the wide world with Hengler’s Royal Circus. I seen him do that in Stockholm. —Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively. —Murphy’s my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe. Know where that is? —Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied. —That’s right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That’s where I hails from. I belongs there. That’s where I hails from. My little woman’s down there. She’s waiting for me, I know. _For England, home and beauty_. She’s my own true wife I haven’t seen for seven years now, sailing about. Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming to the mariner’s roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O’Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way. Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I’ve come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, _post mortem_ child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband W. B. Murphy. The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one of the jarvies with the request: —You don’t happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you? The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was passed from hand to hand. —Thank you, the sailor said. He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow stammers, proceeded: —We come up this morning eleven o’clock. The threemaster _Rosevean_ from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this afternoon. There’s my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S. In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document. —You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked, leaning on the counter. —Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I’ve circumnavigated a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. _Gospodi pomilyou_. That’s how the Russians prays. —You seen queer sights, don’t be talking, put in a jarvey. —Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor same as I chew that quid. He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his teeth, bit ferociously: —Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent me. He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The printed matter on it stated: _Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia._ All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of them) outside some primitive shanties of osier. —Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can’t bear no more children. See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse’s liver raw. His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for several minutes if not more. —Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally. Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying: —Glass. That boggles ’em. Glass. Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as follows: _Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, Chile._ There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in _Maritana_ on which occasion the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat) having detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our friend’s _bona fides_ nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London _via_ long sea not to say that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking down the needful and breaking Boyd’s heart it was not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative. Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies on the job, witness Mrs C P M’Coy type lend me your valise and I’ll post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal consort as leading lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and Moody-Manners, perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of success, providing puffs in the local papers could be managed by some fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and thus combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub. Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the times _apropos_ of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted, was once more on the _tapis_ in the circumlocution departments with the usual quantity of red tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co. It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum months of it and merited a radical change of _venue_ after the grind of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there was a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen so long as it didn’t come down, and in the wilds of Donegal where if report spoke true the _coup d’œil_ was exceedingly grand though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O’Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young men’s fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour’s run from the pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen. —I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, the chinks does. Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures. —And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his back. Knife like that. Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with his character and held it in the striking position. —In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers. Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. _Prepare to meet your God_, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt. His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further questions even should they by any chance want to. —That’s a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable _stiletto_. After which harrowing _dénouement_ sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket. —They’re great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them using knives. At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of _where ignorance is bliss_ Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the strictly _entre nous_ variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, _alias_ the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impression that he didn’t understand one jot of what was going on. Funny, very! There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the natives _choza de_, another the seaman’s discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was just turned fifteen. —Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers. The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape. —Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired. The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or no. —Ah, you’ve touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust, and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn. —What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the boats? Our _soi-disant_ sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering: —I’m tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships. Salt junk all the time. Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the _minutiae_ of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the season when duty called _Ireland expects that every man_ and so on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather. —There was a fellow sailed with me in the _Rover_, the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as gentleman’s valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I’ve on me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I’m game for that job, shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There’s my son now, Danny, run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper’s in Cork where he could be drawing easy money. —What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage. —Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny? He’d be about eighteen now, way I figure it. The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an anchor. —There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts. I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It’s them black lads I objects to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does. Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the mariner’s hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a young man’s sideface looking frowningly rather. —Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek. —Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor. That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the. Someway in his. Squeezing or. —See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn. And in point of fact the young man named Antonio’s livid face did actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this time stretched over. —Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He’s gone too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay. He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression of before. —Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said. —And what’s the number for? loafer number two queried. —Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor. —Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was. And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged end: —As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on my ownio. The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to admit he had washed his wife’s undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too a man’s similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper’s marking ink (hers were, that is) if they really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female’s room more than her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the _Evening Telegraph_ he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper Murphy’s nautical chest and then there was no more of her. —The gunboat, the keeper said. —It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition. Still no matter what the cause is from... Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely remarking: —In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap. The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude, said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a stop to _instanter_ to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, he could truthfully state, he, as a _paterfamilias_, was a stalwart advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of the sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned. —You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you? Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could say: —They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other practical jokes, _corruptio per se_ and _corruptio per accidens_ both being excluded by court etiquette. Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly rejoining: —Simple? I shouldn’t think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for instance to invent those rays Röntgen did or the telescope like Edison, though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as electricity but it’s a horse of quite another colour to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. —O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial evidence. On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in their respective ages, clashed. —Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his original point with a smile of unbelief. I’m not so sure about that. That’s a matter for everyman’s opinion and, without dragging in the sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you _in toto_ there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it’s the big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them like _Hamlet_ and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course I needn’t tell you. Can’t you drink that coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It’s like one of our skipper’s bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what he hasn’t got. Try a bit. —Couldn’t, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the moment refusing to dictate further. Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak of. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something in some dried peas he remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn’t remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble’s Vi-Cocoa on account of the medical analysis involved. —Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being stirred. Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and took a sip of the offending beverage. —Still it’s solid food, his good genius urged, I’m a stickler for solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but regular meals as the _sine qua non_ for any kind of proper work, mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different man. —Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away that knife. I can’t look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history. Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least conspicuous point about it. —Our mutual friend’s stories are like himself, Mr Bloom _apropos_ of knives remarked to his _confidante sotto voce_. Do you think they are genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and lie like old boots. Look at him. Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly accurate gospel. He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage of identical name who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above described. On the other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the schooner _Hesperus_ and etcetera. And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself couldn’t probably hold a proverbial candle to the wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him. —Mind you, I’m not saying that it’s all a pure invention, he resumed. Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn’t straighten their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as gods. There’s an example again of simple souls. However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who reminded him a bit of Ludwig, _alias_ Ledwidge, when he occupied the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the management in the _Flying Dutchman_, a stupendous success, and his host of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic _de rigueur_ off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap. —Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in (technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate accounts for character. That’s why I asked you if you wrote your poetry in Italian. —The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very passionate about ten shillings. _Roberto ruba roba sua_. —Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed. —Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino. —It’s in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare street museum today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it, and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don’t knock against those kind of women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a way you find but what I’m talking about is the female form. Besides they have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly enhances a woman’s natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled stockings, it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it’s a thing I simply hate to see. Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog, collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him. So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt’s rock, wreck of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell remembered it _Palme_ on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original verse of distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish _Times_), breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in commotion petrified with horror. Then someone said something about the case of the s. s. _Lady Cairns_ of Swansea run into by the _Mona_ which was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck. No aid was given. Her master, the _Mona_’s, said he was afraid his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it appears, in her hold. At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat. —Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just gently dropping off into a peaceful doze. He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door, stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship’s rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and, applying its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manœuvre after the counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent home comforts all his life who came in for a cool £ 100 a year at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if—a big if, however—he had contrived to cure himself of his particular partiality. All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no ships ever called. There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently _au fait_. What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day’s work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line. —Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his private potation and the rest of his exertions. That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom’s sharp ears heard him then expectorate the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in he rolled after his successful libation-_cum_-potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into the _soirée_, boisterously trolling, like a veritable son of a seacook: —The biscuits was as hard as brass And the beef as salt as Lot’s wife’s arse. O, Johnny Lever! Johnny Lever, O! After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God’s earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot more surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated _crescendo_ with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her sons. Silence all round marked the termination of his _finale_. The impervious navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed. —Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism. To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper concurred but nevertheless held to his main view. —Who’s the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and generals we’ve got? Tell me that. —The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial blemishes apart. —That’s right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic peasant. He’s the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins? While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long as they didn’t indulge in recriminations and come to blows. From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything, the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, who probably wasn’t the other person at all, he (B.) couldn’t help feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen’s evidence or king’s now like Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south, have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial _liaison_ by plunging his knife into her, until it just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some £. s. d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere of the _Old Ireland_ tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender. —He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his family like me though in reality I’m not. That was one for him. A soft answer turns away wrath. He hadn’t a word to say for himself as everyone saw. Am I not right? He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to glean in a kind of a way that it wasn’t all exactly. —_Ex quibus_, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or four eyes conversing, _Christus_ or Bloom his name is or after all any other, _secundum carnem_. —Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It’s all very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due instalments plan. It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, in the next house so to speak. —Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes’ war, Stephen assented, between Skinner’s alley and Ormond market. Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of thing. —You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn’t remotely... All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of everything, greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop. —They accuse, remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others, who probably… and spoke nearer to, so as the others… in case they… —Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen’s ear, are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don’t want to indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead America. Turks. It’s in the dogma. Because if they didn’t believe they’d go straight to heaven when they die they’d try to live better, at least so I think. That’s the juggle on which the p.p.’s raise the wind on false pretences. I’m, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes _pro rata_ having a comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something in the neighbourhood of £ 300 per annum. That’s the vital issue at stake and it’s feasible and would be provocative of friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least that’s my idea for what it’s worth. I call that patriotism. _Ubi patria_, as we learned a smattering of in our classical days in _Alma Mater, vita bene_. Where you can live well, the sense is, if you work. Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or didn’t say the words the voice he heard said, if you work. —Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work. The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all must work, have to, together. —I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel nowadays. That’s work too. Important work. After all, from the little I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. Each is equally important. —You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may be important because I belong to the _faubourg Saint Patrice_ called Ireland for short. —I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated. —But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important because it belongs to me. —What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the latter portion. What was it you...? Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding: —We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject. At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked down but in a quandary, as he couldn’t tell exactly what construction to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn’t been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister, failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in the bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance there was the case of O’Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual _dénouement_ after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got landed into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, certain names of those subpœnaed being handed in but not divulged for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, putting two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house of lords because early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir apparent, the other members of the upper ten and other high personages simply following in the footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy, as the law stands, was terribly down on though not for the reason they thought they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir. For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation, as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea per column. _My Experiences_, let us say, _in a Cabman’s Shelter_. The pink edition extra sporting of the _Telegraph_ tell a graphic lie lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain’s age, his eyes went aimlessly over the respective captions which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle, Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, £ 200 damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William ✠. Ascot meeting, the Gold Cup. Victory of outsider _Throwaway_ recalls Derby of ’92 when Capt. Marshall’s dark horse _Sir Hugo_ captured the blue ribband at long odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address anyway. —_This morning_ (Hynes put it in of course) _the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue, Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the deceased were present, were carried out_ (certainly Hynes wrote it with a nudge from Corny) _by Messrs H. J. O’Neill and Son, 164 North Strand Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan (brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John Power, eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora_ (must be where he called Monks the dayfather about Keyes’s ad) _Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, Stephen Dedalus B. A., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph M’C Hynes, L. Boom, C P M’Coy,—M’Intosh and several others_. Nettled not a little by L. _Boom_ (as it incorrectly stated) and the line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M’Coy and Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by their total absence (to say nothing of M’Intosh) L. Boom pointed it out to his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints. —Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it. —It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford’s after all managing to. There. While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander’s _Throwaway_, b. h. by _Rightaway-Thrale_, 5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1. Lord Howard de Walden’s _Zinfandel_ (M. Cannon) 2. Mr W. Bass’s _Sceptre_ 3. Betting 5 to 4 on _Zinfandel_, 20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Sceptre_ a shade heavier. It was anybody’s race then the rank outsider drew to the fore, got long lead, beating Lord Howard de Walden’s chestnut colt and Mr W. Bass’s bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. Winner trained by Braime so that Lenehan’s version of the business was all pure buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with 3000 in specie. Also ran: J de Bremond’s (French horse Bantam Lyons was anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) _Maximum II_. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn’t much reason to congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced itself to eventually. —There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said. —Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said. One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read: _Return of Parnell_. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for a time after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with no-one to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his senses. Dead he wasn’t. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on. All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his various different political arrangements were nearing completion or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to change his boots and clothes after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements even before there was absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which were decidedly of the _Alice, where art thou_ order even prior to his starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure, a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So and So who, though they weren’t even a patch on the former man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay, and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in the title _rôle_ how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion when they broke up the type in the _Insuppressible_ or was it _United Ireland_, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said _Thank you_, excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip: what’s bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if they didn’t set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to produce your credentials like the claimant in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, _Bella_ was the boat’s name to the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in as the evidence went to show and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew was it, as he might very easily have picked up the details from some pal on board ship and then, when got up to tally with the description given, introduce himself with: _Excuse me, my name is So and So_ or some such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to the not over effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him, would have been to sound the lie of the land first. —That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor commented. She put the first nail in his coffin. —Fine lump of a woman all the same, the _soi-disant_ townclerk Henry Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man’s thighs. I seen her picture in a barber’s. The husband was a captain or an officer. —Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one. This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his _entourage_. As regards Bloom he, without the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till bit by bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his downfall though the thing was public property all along though not to anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Since their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared her bedroom which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with nothing in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask in the loved one’s smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist between married folk? Poser. Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with affection, carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a high order, as compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday _farewell, my gallant captain_ kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head much in the same way as the fabled ass’s kick. Looking back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream. And then coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he had not been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or south, however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that wouldn’t do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting every shred of decency to the winds. —Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don’t greatly mistake she was Spanish too. —The king of Spain’s daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and so many. —Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it was as she lived there. So, Spain. Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket _Sweets of_, which reminded him by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly finally he. —Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type? Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was _In Old Madrid_, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her (the lady’s) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin’s premier photographic artist, being responsible for the esthetic execution. —Mrs Bloom, my wife the _prima donna_ Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like her then. Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, puritanisme, it does though, Saint Joseph’s sovereign thievery alors (Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn’t art in a word. The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar’s good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm. And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the other’s possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving _embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (_sic_) in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray. The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated, _distingué_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the bunch though you wouldn’t think he had it in him yet you would. Besides he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King’s proctor tries to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made absolute. But as for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being close to Erin’s uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on the historic _fracas_ when the fallen leader’s, who notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery, (leader’s) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the _Insuppressible_ or no it was _United Ireland_ (a by no means by the by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O’Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune’s private morals. Though palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap’s elbow in the crowd that of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you, sir_, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave. On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial moment in a loving position locked in one another’s arms, drawing attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical bias, believed and didn’t make the smallest bones about saying so either that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred on another, the cause of many _liaisons_ between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt. It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim ladies’ society was a _conditio sine qua non_ though he had the gravest possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and walking out leading up to fond lovers’ ways and flowers and chocs. To think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years the other’s senior or like his father but something substantial he certainly ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled. —At what o’clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired though unwrinkled face. —Some time yesterday, Stephen said. —Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow Friday. Ah, you mean it’s after twelve! —The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself. Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected. Though they didn’t see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of years previously when he had been a _quasi_ aspirant to parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely in people’s mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which wouldn’t exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all events was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted with going a step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan’s so that he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word. Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue (somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered. His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn’t what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him was he didn’t know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps’s cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the grasswidower in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn’t appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger’s bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue to that equivocal character’s whereabouts for a few days to come, alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids’) with sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody’s bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra remarks _passim_. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo. —I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while prudently pocketing her photo, as it’s rather stuffy here you just come home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the vicinity. You can’t drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I’ll just pay this lot. The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper of the shanty who didn’t seem to. —Yes, that’s the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less. All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B’s) busy brain, education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. Because he more than suspected he had his father’s voice to bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of that particular red herring just to. The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers’ association dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston for the chief secretary’s lodge or words to that effect. To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why. —Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner put in, manifesting some natural impatience. —And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed. The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears. —Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk queried. —Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading. Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, manner of speaking. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_ was my favourite and _Red as a Rose is She._ Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what, found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial remark. To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark. —Come, he counselled to close the _séance_. Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the shelter or shanty together and the _élite_ society of oilskin and company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their _dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door. —One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs upside down, on the tables in cafés. To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment’s hesitation, saying straight off: —To sweep the floor in the morning. So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same time apologetic to get on his companion’s right, a habit of his, by the bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit weak on his pins. —It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in a moment. The only thing is to walk then you’ll feel a different man. Come. It’s not far. Lean on me. Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen’s right and led him on accordingly. —Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and all that. Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings. So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante’s _Huguenots_, Meyerbeer’s _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart’s _Twelfth Mass_ he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and I will live thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of Rossini’s _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels and putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers’ church in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_, a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel’s air in _Martha, M’appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the lips of Stephen’s respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in reply to a politely put query, said he didn’t sing it but launched out into praises of Shakespeare’s songs, at least of in or about that period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an instrument he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite recall though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their _dux_ and _comes_ conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen’s chapel or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull. On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground, brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a striking coincidence. By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other’s sleeve gently, jocosely remarking: —Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller. They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn’t a lump of sugar but, as he wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan’s, of the same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it was no animal’s fault in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen’s words while the ship of the street was manœuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old. —What’s this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging _in medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind. He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen, image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as he was perhaps not that way built. Still, supposing he had his father’s gift as he more than suspected, it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall’s Irish industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general. Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_ about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, which boggled Bloom a bit: Von der Sirenen Listigkeit Tun die Poeten dichten. These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding, said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which he did. A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons, which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entrée_ into fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society’s sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their musical and artistic _conversaziones_ during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record—in fact, without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin’s musical world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus omne_. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city’s esteem where he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped up a too much fêted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat of any sort, hung on to him at all. The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on the _fools step in where angels_ principle, advising him to sever his connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it which in Bloom’s humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of a person’s character, no pun intended. The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had ended, patient in his scythed car. Side by side Bloom, profiting by the _contretemps_, with Stephen passed through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad. Und alle Schiffe brücken. The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, _to be married by Father Maher_. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again continuing their _tête à tête_ (which, of course, he was utterly out of) about sirens, enemies of man’s reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the sleeper car who in any case couldn’t possibly hear because they were too far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street _and looked after their lowbacked car_. [ 17 ] What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning? Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left, Gardiner’s place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before George’s church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than the arc which it subtends. Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary? Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman, prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the presabbath, Stephen’s collapse. Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective like and unlike reactions to experience? Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual magnetism. Were their views on some points divergent? Stephen dissented openly from Bloom’s views on the importance of dietary and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen’s views on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom assented covertly to Stephen’s rectification of the anachronism involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt († 266 A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first no bigger than a woman’s hand. Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative? The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees. Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in the past? In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard’s corner and Leonard’s corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue. In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony of Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on the lounge in Matthew Dillon’s house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour of his (Bloom’s) house in Lombard street, west. What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885, 1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at their destination? He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations. As in what ways? From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received: existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived. What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination? At the housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number 7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey. Was it there? It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on the day but one preceding. Why was he doubly irritated? Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget. What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly (respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple? To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock. Bloom’s decision? A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for the impact of the fall. Did he fall? By his body’s known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman, pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three hundred and twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9, dominical letters C B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV. Did he rise uninjured by concussion? Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free inflammable coal gas by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame which, by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a portable candle. What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive? Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man leaving the kitchen holding a candle. Did the man reappear elsewhere? After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle. Did Stephen obey his sign? Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed softly along the hallway the man’s back and listed feet and lighted candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom’s house. What did Bloom do? He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs Flower and M’Donald of 14 D’Olier street, kindled it at three projecting points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air. Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think? Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two, had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss Julia Morkan at 15 Usher’s Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie (Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil street: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of Saint Francis Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the physics’ theatre of university College, 16 Stephen’s Green, north: of his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father’s house in Cabra. What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from the fire towards the opposite wall? Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope, stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of ladies’ grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer extremities and the third at their point of junction. What did Bloom see on the range? On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left (larger) hob a black iron kettle. What did Bloom do at the range? He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to let it flow. Did it flow? Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of 2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial plant cost of £ 5 per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers, solvent, sound. What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator’s projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90 % of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine % marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon. Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he return to the stillflowing tap? To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of Barrington’s lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller. What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom’s offer? That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the month of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language. What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot? The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress? Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed. Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest? Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and recuperation. What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the agency of fire? The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat (radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such combustion, was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source of calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal units needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50° to 212° Fahrenheit. What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature? A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at both sides simultaneously. For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled? To shave himself. What advantages attended shaving by night? A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours: quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman’s double knock, a paper read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut and humected and applied adhered: which was to be done. Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise? Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine feminine passive active hand. What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting influence? The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic surgery. What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom? On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of Plumtree’s potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and Co’s white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue paper, a packet of Epps’s soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch’s choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one, the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy’s cream, a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr Bloom’s and Mrs Fleming’s breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences. What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser? Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets, numbered 8 87, 88 6. What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow? Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction, preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official and definitive result of which he had read in the _Evening Telegraph_, late pink edition, in the cabman’s shelter, at Butt bridge. Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected, been received by him? In Bernard Kiernan’s licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street: in David Byrne’s licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in O’Connell street lower, outside Graham Lemon’s when a dark man had placed in his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah, restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy of the current issue of the _Freeman’s Journal_ and _National Press_ which he had been about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction. What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations? The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally from a successful interpretation. His mood? He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he was satisfied. What satisfied him? To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to others. Light to the gentiles. How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile? He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps’s soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity prescribed. What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his guest? Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly), he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion (Molly). Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of hospitality? His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps’s massproduct, the creature cocoa. Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed, reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to complete the act begun? The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right side of his guest’s jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four lady’s handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable condition. Who drank more quickly? Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and taking, from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent’s one, six to two, nine to three. What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act? Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life. Had he found their solution? In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, the answers not bearing in all points. What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him, potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively for competition by the _Shamrock_, a weekly newspaper? An ambition to squint At my verses in print Makes me hope that for these you’ll find room. If you so condescend Then please place at the end The name of yours truly, L. Bloom. Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him? Name, age, race, creed. What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? Leopold Bloom Ellpodbomool Molldopeloob Bollopedoom Old Ollebo, M. P. What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the 14 February 1888? Poets oft have sung in rhyme Of music sweet their praise divine. Let them hymn it nine times nine. Dearer far than song or wine. You are mine. The world is mine. What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G. Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years, entitled _If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now_, commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the valley of diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand annual Christmas pantomime _Sinbad the Sailor_ (produced by R. Shelton 26 December 1892, written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by George A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan under the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir, harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist, principal girl? Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest, the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded 1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market: secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the duke and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru (imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street: fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist’s non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical expression of countenance and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist’s revelations of white articles of non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous allusions from _Everybody’s Book of Jokes_ (1000 pages and a laugh in every one): sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous, associated with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket Barton. What relation existed between their ages? 16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen’s present age Stephen was 6. 16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom’s present age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54 their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13 1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in 1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then 1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom, being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, 969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would attain that age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in the year 81,396 B.C. What events might nullify these calculations? The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a new era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable. How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance? Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon’s house, Medina Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen’s mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin’s hotel on a rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen’s father and Stephen’s granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older. Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and afterwards seconded by the father? Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined. Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a third connecting link between them? Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the house of Stephen’s parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City Arms Hotel owned by Elizabeth O’Dowd of 54 Prussia street where, during parts of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of Bloom who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the employment of Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence of sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular road. Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her? He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low’s place of business where she had remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from the city to the Phoenix Park and _vice versa_. Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity? Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe. What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years deceased? The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers. Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the more desirable? The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow’s _Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility. Had any special agility been his in earlier youth? Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he had excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed abdominal muscles. Did either openly allude to their racial difference? Neither. What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom’s thoughts about Stephen’s thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen’s thoughts about Bloom’s thoughts about Stephen? He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he knew that he knew that he was not. What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective parentages? Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest surviving male consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary, daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier). Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or layman? Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A., alone, in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James O’Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Did they find their educational careers similar? Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively through a dame’s school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the royal university. Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university of life? Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him. What two temperaments did they individually represent? The scientific. The artistic. What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards applied, rather than towards pure, science? Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump. Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of kindergarten? Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard, catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, historically costumed dolls. What also stimulated him in his cogitations? The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James, the former by his 1d bazaar at 42 George’s street, south, the latter at his 6 1/2d shop and world’s fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30 Henry street, admission 2d, children 1d: and the infinite possibilities hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility (divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to convince, to decide. Such as? K. 11. Kino’s 11/— Trousers. House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes. Such as not? Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle power. Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot street. Bacilikil (Insect Powder). Veribest (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner). Such as never? What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss. Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants’ quay, Dublin, put up in 4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot, registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. Plamtroo. Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably conduce to success? His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be seated engaged in writing. What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen? Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She sits. She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks. On solitary hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs. Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads. Solitary. What? In sloping, upright and backhands: Queen’s Hotel, Queen’s Hotel, Queen’s Hotel. Queen’s Ho... What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom? The Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated, in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of 2 parts of aconite liniment to 1 of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on the morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, Ennis. Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or intuition? Coincidence. Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see? He preferred himself to see another’s face and listen to another’s words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament relieved. Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to him, described by the narrator as _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_ or _The Parable of the Plums_? It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms (e.g. _My Favourite Hero_ or _Procrastination is the Thief of Time_) composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy or Doctor Dick or Heblon’s _Studies in Blue_, to a publication of certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday, 21 June (S. Aloysius Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m. Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other frequently engaged his mind? What to do with our wives. What had been his hypothetical singular solutions? Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial activity as pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically controlled: social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity: courses of evening instruction specially designed to render liberal instruction agreeable. What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution? In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned the implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by false analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), _alias_ (a mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture). What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things? The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment. How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance? Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other’s ignorant lapse. With what success had he attempted direct instruction? She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated with error. What system had proved more effective? Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest. Example? She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat. Accepting the analogy implied in his guest’s parable which examples of postexilic eminence did he adduce? Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, author of _More Nebukim_ (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there arose none like Moses (Maimonides). What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by Stephen? That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher, name uncertain. Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a selected or rejected race mentioned? Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist). What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts by guest to host and by host to guest? By Stephen: _suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin_ (walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care). By Bloom: _Kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m’baad l’zamatejch_ (thy temple amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate). How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages made in substantiation of the oral comparison? By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior literary style, entituled _Sweets of Sin_ (produced by Bloom and so manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1, 4, and 100. Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical? Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary. What points of contact existed between these languages and between the peoples who spoke them? The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara), Massor, Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, Book of Kells: their dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. Mary’s Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve’s tavern): the proscription of their national costumes in penal laws and jewish dress acts: the restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution. What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, ethnically irreducible consummation? Kolod balejwaw pnimah Nefesch, jehudi, homijah. Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich? In consequence of defective mnemotechnic. How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency? By a periphrastic version of the general text. In what common study did their mutual reflections merge? The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions (Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic). Did the guest comply with his host’s request? Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters. What was Stephen’s auditive sensation? He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation of the past. What was Bloom’s visual sensation? He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a future. What were Stephen’s and Bloom’s quasisimultaneous volitional quasisensations of concealed identities? Visually, Stephen’s: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted by Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair. Auditively, Bloom’s: The traditional accent of the ecstasy of catastrophe. What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with what exemplars? In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage, modern or Shakespearean: exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian, Osmond Tearle († 1901), exponent of Shakespeare. Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange legend on an allied theme? Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream plus cocoa, having been consumed. Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend. Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all Went out for to play ball. And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played He drove it o’er the jew’s garden wall. And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played He broke the jew’s windows all. [Illustration] How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part? With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw the unbroken kitchen window. Recite the second part (minor) of the legend. Then out there came the jew’s daughter And she all dressed in green. “Come back, come back, you pretty little boy, And play your ball again.” I can’t come back and I won’t come back Without my schoolfellows all. For if my master he did hear He’d make it a sorry ball.” She took him by the lilywhite hand And led him along the hall Until she led him to a room Where none could hear him call. She took a penknife out of her pocket And cut off his little head. And now he’ll play his ball no more For he lies among the dead. [Illustration] How did the father of Millicent receive this second part? With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew’s daughter, all dressed in green. Condense Stephen’s commentary. One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, consenting. Why was the host (victim predestined) sad? He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him should by him not be told. Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still? In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy. Why was the host (secret infidel) silent? He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism. From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not totally immune? From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain, sleeping. Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member of his family? Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent (Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an exclamation of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night attire with a vacant mute expression. What other infantile memories had he of her? 15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks her moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo, tlee: a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark, she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British navy. What endemic characteristics were present? Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct line of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals. What memories had he of her adolescence? She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke’s lawn, entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the 15th anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year not stated). Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him? Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped. What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly, if differently? A temporary departure of his cat. Why similarly, why differently? Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male (Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the habitation. In other respects were their differences similar? In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness. As? Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake in Stephen’s green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf mousewatching cat). Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and consequences of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair (cf earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences were similar. In what way had he utilised gifts (1) an owl, 2) a clock, given as matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her? As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and the shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, _videlicet_, 5 5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression. In what manners did she reciprocate? She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part. What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make to Stephen, noctambulist? To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of his host and hostess. What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation of such an extemporisation? For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation. Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew’s daughter? Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother through daughter. To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest return a monosyllabic negative answer? If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney Parade railway station, 14 October 1903. What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the host? A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding), 26 June 1903, vigil of the anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag). Was the proposal of asylum accepted? Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined. What exchange of money took place between host and guest? The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money (£ 1-7-0), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to the former. What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed? To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate a series of static, semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident in the same place), the _Ship_ hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street (W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, a public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line drawn between their residences (if both speakers were resident in different places). What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually selfexcluding propositions? The irreparability of the past: once at a performance of Albert Hengler’s circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his (the clown’s) papa. The imprevidibility of the future: once in the summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2/-) with three notches on the milled edge and tendered it in payment of an account due to and received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, circuitous or direct, return. Was the clown Bloom’s son? No. Had Bloom’s coin returned? Never. Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him? Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and international animosity. He believed then that human life was infinitely perfectible, eliminating these conditions? There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and death: the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital criminality, decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make terror the basis of human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres of which are located in densely populated regions: the fact of vital growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis, from infancy through maturity to decay. Why did he desist from speculation? Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena to be removed. Did Stephen participate in his dejection? He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational reagent between a micro and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the incertitude of the void. Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom? Not verbally. Substantially. What comforted his misapprehension? That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. In what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation effected? Lighted Candle in Stick borne by BLOOM Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by STEPHEN With what intonation _secreto_ of what commemorative psalm? The 113th, _modus peregrinus: In exitu Israël de Egypto: domus Jacob de populo barbaro_. What did each do at the door of egress? Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his head. For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? For a cat. What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden? The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his companion of various constellations? Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius (alpha in Canis Maior) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could be contained: of moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity. Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast? Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the incalculable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached. Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result? Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9, that, the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of every series containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers. Did he find the problems of the inhabitability of the planets and their satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and moral redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution? Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism, normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though an apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another would probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity. And the problem of possible redemption? The minor was proved by the major. Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered? The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white, yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy: their magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions: the waggoner’s star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, Galle: the systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes of distances and squares of times of revolution: the almost infinite compressibility of hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive and reentrant orbits from perihelion to aphelion: the sidereal origin of meteoric stones: the Libyan floods on Mars about the period of the birth of the younger astroscopist: the annual recurrence of meteoric showers about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence (martyr, 10 August): the monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old moon in her arms: the posited influence of celestial on human bodies: the appearance of a star (1st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating by night and day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and amalgamation in incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the period of the birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent neversetting constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (2nd magnitude) of similar origin but of lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about the period of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of (presumably) similar origin which had (effectively or presumably) appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of Andromeda about the period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the constellation of Auriga some years after the birth and death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in and from other constellations some years before or after the birth or death of other persons: the attendant phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, from immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of human beings. His (Bloom’s) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing for possible error? That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from the known to the unknown: an infinity renderable equally finite by the suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and of different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space, remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a present before its probable spectators had entered actual present existence. Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle? Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the satellite of their planet. Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological influences upon sublunary disasters? It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of dreams, the sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity. What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible. What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom’s, who attracted Stephen’s, gaze? In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom’s) house the light of a paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller blind supplied by Frank O’Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street. How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp? With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with suggestion. Both then were silent? Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces. Were they indefinitely inactive? At Stephen’s suggestion, at Bloom’s instigation both, first Stephen, then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom’s, then Stephen’s, elevated to the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow. Similarly? The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations were dissimilar: Bloom’s longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter, who in his ultimate year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the institution, 210 scholars: Stephen’s higher, more sibilant, who in the ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption an insistent vesical pressure. What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the invisible audible collateral organ of the other? To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity. To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised (1 January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails. What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed? A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the Tress of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo. How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal departer? By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress. How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation? Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles. What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands? The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells in the church of Saint George. What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard? By Stephen: Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet. Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat. By Bloom: Heigho, heigho, Heigho, heigho. Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south to Glasnevin in the north? Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in bed), Ned Lambert (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed), John Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in bed), Paddy Dignam (in the grave). Alone, what did Bloom hear? The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth, the double vibration of a jew’s harp in the resonant lane. Alone, what did Bloom feel? The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn. Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind him? Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct: Percy Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis, Jervis Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin Bay), Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart (phthisis, Mater Misericordiae hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount). What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain? The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the apparition of a new solar disk. Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena? Once, in 1887, after a protracted performance of charades in the house of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition of the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the direction of Mizrach, the east. He remembered the initial paraphenomena? More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer, the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon. Did he remain? With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room, hallfloor, and reentered. What suddenly arrested his ingress? The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered. Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of furniture. A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an alteration which he had frequently intended to execute): the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard (a projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had been moved from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but more perilous position in front of the door: two chairs had been moved from right and left of the ingleside to the position originally occupied by the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table. Describe them. One: a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. The other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of white plaited rush. What significances attached to these two chairs? Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial evidence, of testimonial supermanence. What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard? A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin supporting a pair of long yellow ladies’ gloves and an emerald ashtray containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in the key of G natural for voice and piano of _Love’s Old Sweet Song_ (words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications _ad libitum, forte_, pedal, _animato_, sustained pedal, _ritirando_, close. With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects? With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on a large dull passive and a slender bright active: with solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan’s scheme of colour containing the gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual discolouration. His next proceeding? From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus (illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to facilitate total combustion. What followed this operation? The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the mantelpiece? A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper. What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and Bloom? In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle. What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his attention? The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man. Why solitary (ipsorelative)? Brothers and sisters had he none. Yet that man’s father was his grandfather’s son. Why mutable (aliorelative)? From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal procreator. What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror? The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles on the two bookshelves opposite. Catalogue these books. _Thom’s Dublin Post Office Directory_, 1886. Denis Florence M’Carthy’s _Poetical Works_ (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5). Shakespeare’s _Works_ (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled). _The Useful Ready Reckoner_ (brown cloth). _The Secret History of the Court of Charles II_ (red cloth, tooled binding). _The Child’s Guide_ (blue cloth). _The Beauties of Killarney_ (wrappers). _When We Were Boys_ by William O’Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217). _Thoughts from Spinoza_ (maroon leather). _The Story of the Heavens_ by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth). Ellis’s _Three Trips to Madagascar_ (brown cloth, title obliterated). _The Stark-Munro Letters_ by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve) 1904, due 4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white letternumber ticket). _Voyages in China_ by “Viator” (recovered with brown paper, red ink title). _Philosophy of the Talmud_ (sewn pamphlet). Lockhart’s _Life of Napoleon_ (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist). _Soll und Haben_ by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24). Hozier’s _History of the Russo-Turkish War_ (brown cloth, 2 volumes, with gummed label, Garrison Library, Governor’s Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover). _Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland_ by William Allingham (second edition, green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner’s name on recto of flyleaf erased). _A Handbook of Astronomy_ (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates, antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal clues brevier, captions small pica). _The Hidden Life of Christ_ (black boards). _In the Track of the Sun_ (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent title intestation). _Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ by Eugen Sandow (red cloth). _Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry_ written in French by F. Ignat. Pardies and rendered into Engliſh by John Harris D. D. London, printed for R. Knaplock at the Biſhop’s Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory epiſtle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, eſquire, Member of Parliament for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requeſting the perſon who should find it, if the book should be loſt or go aſtray, to reſtore it to Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Enniſcorthy, county Wicklow, the fineſt place in the world. What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of the inverted volumes? The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document behind, beneath or between the pages of a book. Which volume was the largest in bulk? Hozier’s _History of the Russo-Turkish War._ What among other data did the second volume of the work in question contain? The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered). Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question? Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to consult the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the military engagement, Plevna. What caused him consolation in his sitting posture? The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor’s Walk. What caused him irritation in his sitting posture? Inhibitory pressure of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alterations of mass by expansion. How was the irritation allayed? He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black hairs extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over the circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral vertebrae, thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one incomplete. What involuntary actions followed? He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a sting inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee. He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin (1 shilling), placed there (presumably) on the occasion (17 October 1903) of the interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade. Compile the budget for 16 June 1904. Debit £. s. d. 1 Pork kidney 0—0—3 1 Copy Freeman’s Journal 0—0—1 1 Bath and Gratification 0—1—6 Tramfare 0—0—1 1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam 0—5—0 2 Banbury cakes 0—0—1 1 Lunch 0—0—7 1 Renewal fee for book 0—1—0 1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes 0—0—2 1 Dinner and Gratification 0—2—0 1 Postal Order and Stamp 0—2—8 Tramfare 0—0—1 1 Pig’s Foot 0—0—4 1 Sheep’s Trotter 0—0—3 1 Cake Fry’s Plain Chocolate 0—0—1 1 Square Soda Bread 0—0—4 1 Coffee and Bun 0—0—4 Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded 1—7—0 BALANCE 0—16—6 ————— 2—19—3 Credit £. s. d. Cash in hand 0—4—9 Commission recd. Freeman’s Journal 1—7—6 Loan (Stephen Dedalus) 1—7—0 ————— 2—19—3 Did the process of divestiture continue? Did the process of divestiture continue? Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick, then, with satisfaction, threw away the lacerated ungual fragment. Why with satisfaction? Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs Ellis’s juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation. In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions now coalesced? Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English, or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation £ 42), of grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa, described as _Rus in Urbe_ or _Qui si sana_, but to purchase by private treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, connected with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable prospect from balcony with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent pastures and standing in 5 or 6 acres of its own ground, at such a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as to render its houselights visible at night above and through a quickset hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less than 1 statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time limit of not more than 15 minutes from tram or train line (e.g., Dundrum, south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to resemble the terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical subjects), the premises to be held under feefarm grant, lease 999 years, the messuage to consist of 1 drawingroom with baywindow (2 lancets), thermometer affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms, 2 servants’ rooms, tiled kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary, transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured leather, gloss renewable with a minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed mural paper at 10/- per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral design and top crown frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with steppedup panel dado, dressed with camphorated wax: bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining and shower: water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, armrests, footstool and artistic oleograph on inner face of door: ditto, plain: servants’ apartments with separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general and betweenmaid (salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of £ 2, with comprehensive fidelity insurance, annual bonus (£ 1) and retiring allowance (based on the 65 system) after 30 years’ service), pantry, buttery, larder, refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if entertained to dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply throughout. What additional attractions might the grounds contain? As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and nurserymen, agents for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper), an orchard, kitchen garden and vinery, protected against illegal trespassers by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various inventoried implements. As? Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and so on. What improvements might be subsequently introduced? A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2 hammocks (lady’s and gentleman’s), a sundial shaded and sheltered by laburnum or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious waterbutt, a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with hydraulic hose. What facilities of transit were desirable? When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14 h). What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence? Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold’s. Flowerville. Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville? In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling a weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the scent of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving longevity. What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible? Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the celestial constellations. What lighter recreations? Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways, ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation), vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with inspection of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers’ fires of smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor: discussion in tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal problems: lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house carpentry with toolbox containing hammer, awl, nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers, bullnose plane and turnscrew. Might he become a gentleman farmer of field produce and live stock? Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip pulper etc. What would be his civic functions and social status among the county families and landed gentry? Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto _(Semper paratus_), duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C., K. P., L. L. D. (_honoris causa_), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left Kingstown for England). What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity? A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality, of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality. Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth. To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in