Mr Bloom of
the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing 'Twas rank and fame in
his, Ned Lambert's house.
Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the
lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The
nights Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky cords. Wonderful, more than
all the others.
That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It's in the silence you feel
you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air.
Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the
slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzzed, it twanged. While
Goulding talked of Barraclough's voice production, while Tom Kernan, harking
back in a retrospective sort of arrangement, talked to listening Father
Cowley who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While big Ben
Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus lighting, who nodded as he smoked, who
smoked.
Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his
string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on.
Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat.
Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus
paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing.
Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then.
Snivel. Big Spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her
wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy hair un comb: 'd.
Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in
your? Twang. It snapped.
Jingle into Dorset street.
Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased.
-- Don't make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted.
George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe.
First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And
second tankard told her so. That that was so.
Miss Douce, Miss Lydia, did not believe: Miss Kennedy, Mina, did not
believe: George Lidwell, no: Miss Dou did not: the first, the first: gent
with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, Miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: the tank.
Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted.
Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A
pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut fine. It certainly
is. Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is
this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper,
envelope: unconcerned. It's so characteristic.
-- Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said.
-- It is, Bloom said.
Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two
divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two
plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always find
out this equal to that, symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't see my
mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you think
you're listening to the ethereal. But suppose you said it like: Martha,
seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite flat. It's on
account of the sounds it is.
Instance he's playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like till you
hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear
chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks over barrels, through
wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you're in.
Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two
together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that.
Blumenlied I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came
home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste.
Queer because we both I mean.
Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite
flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went.
It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy
in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstown
harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight with
those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as
a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole.
Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a
moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying.
Down the edge of his Freeman baton ranged Bloom's your other eye,
scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho!
Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking...
Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his Freeman.
Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir.
Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some
pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline imposs. To write today.
Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting
fingers on flat pad Pat brought.
On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accept my poor little pres
enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls.
Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor
little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle,
have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O,
Mairy lost the pin of her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to.
To keep it up. Call me that other. Other world she wrote. My patience are
exhaust. To keep it up. You must believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True.
Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives.
Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found
out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don't
see. Woman. Sauce for the gander.
A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James
of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young
gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George
Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing a
straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great Brunswick
street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and jingled. By Dlugacz'
porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a gallantbuttocked mare.
-- Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom.
-- Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect.
Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You
know now. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he
playing now? Improvising intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will you
pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want to.
Know. O. Course if I didn't I wouldn't ask. La la la ree. Trails off there
sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. P. S. La
la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee.
He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper.
Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:
Miss Martha Clifford
c/o P. O.
Dolphin's barn lane
Dublin.
Blot over the other so he can't read. Right. Idea prize titbit.
Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea per
col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. p.: up.
Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms
Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be.
Wisdom while you wait.
In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyed-auburn. One life is
all. One body. Do. But do.
Done anyhow. Postal order stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now.
Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. House of
mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn't hear. Deaf beetle he is.
Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn't. Settling those napkins.
Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then he'd
be two. Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off.
Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of
his hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He
waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits
while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. Hee
hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait.
Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose.
She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell
she brought.
To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding
seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear.
-- Listen! she bade him.
Under Tom Kernan's ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow.
Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband took
him by the throat. Scoundrel, said he. You'll sing no more lovesongs. He
did, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. Cowley lay back.
Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful.
She held it to her own and through the sifted light pale gold in contrast
glided. To hear.
Tap.
Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more
faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for other,
hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar.
Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened.
Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside.
Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream first
make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn't forget. Fever near
her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with seaweed. Why
do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks their mouth, why? Her
eyes over the sheet, a yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. No admittance
except on business.
The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood is it. Souse
in the ear sometimes. Well, it's a sea. Corpuscle islands.
Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur,
hearing: then laid it by, gently.
-- What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled.
Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled.
Tap.
By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan
turned.
>From the forsaken shell Miss Mina glided to her tankard waiting. No,
she was not so lonely archly Miss Douce's head let Mr Lidwell know. Walks in
the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly answered: with
a gentleman friend.
Bob Cowley's twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord
has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben Lightly he played a light
bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, and for their
gallants, gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one: two, one, three, four.
Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattle market,
cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. Ruttledge's
door: ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he's playing
now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle chambers dancing. Misery.
Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating dockleaves. Nice that is.
Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look at us.
That's joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other
joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows you
are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then know.
M'Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing eat. Like tearing silk.
When she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can't manage men's
intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I'm warm, dark, open. Molly in
qui est homo: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. Want a woman who
can deliver the goods.
Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boy Ian socks skyblue
clocks came light to earth.
O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It
is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. Tinkling.
Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the resonance changes
according as the weight of the water is equal to the law of falling water.
Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain.
Diddle iddle addle addle oodle oodle. Hiss. Now. Maybe now. Before.
One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de
Kock, with a loud proud knocker, with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock.
Tap.
-- Qui sdegno, Ben, said Father Cowley.
-- No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered, The Croppy Boy. Our native Doric.
-- Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true.
-- Do, do, they begged in one.
I'll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To
me. How much?
-- What key? Six sharps?
-- F sharp major, Ben Dollard said.
Bob Cowley's outstretched talons gripped the black deep sounding
chords.
Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must.
Got money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears
lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence tip.
Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting Patty
come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they wait.
But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the
dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic.
The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach,
and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men and
true. The priest he sought, with him would he speak a word.
Tap.
Ben Dollard's voice barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. Croak
of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big ships'
chandler's business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships' lanterns.
Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh home. Cubicle
number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him.
The priest's at home. A false priest's servant bade him welcome. Step
in. The holy father. Curlycues of chords.
Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their
days in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die.
The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered a
lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footstep there, told them the
gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive.
Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he'll win in Answers poets' picture
puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching in a nest.
Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee what domestic
animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he has still. No
eunuch yet with all his belongings.
Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf
Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened.
The chords harped slower.
The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous.
Ben's contrite beard confessed: in nomine Domini, in God's name. He knelt.
He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing: mea culpa.
Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion
corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey,
corpusnomine. Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape.
Tap.
They listened: tankards and Miss Kennedy, George Lidwell eyelid well
expressive, fullbusted satin, Kernan, Si.
The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since easter he had cursed
three 'times. You bitch's bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play.
Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother's rest he had not
prayed. A boy. A croppy boy.
Bronze, listening by the beerpull, gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn't
half know I'm. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking.
Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face?
They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate.
Cockcarracarra.
What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes.
Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked that
best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. Custom
his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. Tootling.
Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses, helpless, gashes in
their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile music hath
jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin's name.
She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore, lowcut, belongings on show.
Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. Told
her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, listening.
Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle, staring down into her with
his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you must hear twice.
Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the tune. Met him pike
hoses. Philosophy. O rocks!
All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his
brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of his
name and race.
I too, last my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No
son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?
He bore no hate.
Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old.
Big Ben his voice unfolded. Great voice, Richie Goulding said, a flush
struggling in his pale, to Bloom, soon old but when was young.
Ireland comes now. My country above the King. She listens. Who fears to
speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough.
-- Bless me, father, Dollard the croppy cried. Bless me and let me go.
Tap.
Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week.
Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those girls,
those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters read out
for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's own Mumpsypum. Laughter in court.
Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you.
Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest
rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by
heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap.
Tap. Tap.
Thrilled, she listened, bending in sympathy to hear.
Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it:
page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. Even
admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, a flute
alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes all women. Goddess I didn't see. They
want it: not too much polite. That's why he gets them. Gold in your pocket,
brass in your face. With look to look: songs without words. Molly that
hurdygurdy boy. She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so like
the Spanish. Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of nature.
Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What?
Will? You? I. Want. You. To.
With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed. Swelling in apoplectic bitch's
bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour's your time to live, your
last.
Tap. Tap.
Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs. For all
things dying, want to, dying to, die. For that all things born. Poor Mrs
Purefoy. Hope she's over. Because their wombs.
A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes,
calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder
river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red rose
rose slowly, sank red rose. Heartbeats her breath: breath that is life. And
all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair.
But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castille. The morn. Ha.
Lidwell. For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here
though. Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties.
On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand lightly, plumply, leave
it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the
polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and finger
passed in pity: passed, repassed and, gently touching, then slid so
smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding through
their sliding ring.
With a cock with a carra.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing.
The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be.
Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass
by her. Can leave that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No.
Walk, walk, walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall
Farrell, Waaaaaaalk.
Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O'er ryehigh blue.
Bloom stood up. Ow. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have sweated:
music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card inside, yes.
By deaf Pat in the doorway, straining ear, Bloom passed.
At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid.
Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to dolorous
prayer.
By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties,
by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and
faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely Bloom.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace.
Breathe a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy.
Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway
heard growls and roars of bravo, fat back-slapping, their boots all
treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to
wash it down. Glad I avoided.
-- Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus said. By God, you're as good as ever you
were.
-- Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad,
upon my soul and honour it is.
-- Lablache, said Father Cowley.
Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and
all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering
castagnettes in the air.
Big Benaden Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben.
Rrr.
And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all
laughing, they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer.
-- You're looking rubicund, George Lidwell said.
Miss Douce composed her rose to wait.
-- Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben's fat back shoulderblade.
Fit as a fiddle, only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his
person.
Rrrrrrsss.
-- Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled.
Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly
he waited. Unpaid Pat too.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankardone.
-- Mr Dollard, they murmured low.
-- Dollard, murmured tankard.
Tank one believed: Miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the
tank.
He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that
is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of Dollard, was it?
Dollard, yes.
Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely,
murmured Mina. And The last rose of summer was a lovely song. Mina loved
that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina.
'Tis the last rose of summer Dollard left Bloom felt wind wound round
inside.
Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J's
one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. Wish I
hadn't promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your nerves. Beerpull.
Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. That rules the world.
Far. Far. Far. Far.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady,
with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went
Poldy on.
Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap.
Cowley, he stunts himself with it; kind of drunkenness. Better give way
only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All ears.
Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. You
daren't budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop.
Fiddlefaddle about notes.
All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you
never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year.
Queer up there in the cockloft alone with stops and locks and keys. Seated
all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or the other
fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing (want to have
wadding or something in his no don't she cried), then all of a soft sudden
wee little wee little pippy wind.
Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom's little wee.
Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning, with fetched pipe. I was with him
this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam's...
-- Ay, the Lord have mercy on him.
-- By the by there's a tuningfork in there on the...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
-- The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked.
-- O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw,
forgot it when he was here.
Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so
exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid minagold.
-- Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out!
-- 'lldo! cried Father Cowley.
Rrrrrr.
I feel I want...
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
-- Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine.
Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely,
last sardine of summer. Bloom alone.
-- Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Bloom went by Barry's. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had.
Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Litigation. Love one another. Piles
of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of attorney. Goulding,
Collis, Ward.
But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation: Micky
Rooney's band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after pig's
cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band part. Pom.
Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses' skins. Welt them through life, then
wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call yashmak or I mean
kismet. Fate.
Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane, came taptaptapping
by Daly's window where a mermaid, hair all streaming (but he couldn't see),
blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid coolest whiff of all.
Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb
and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in Lombard
street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its own, don't you
see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? Cloche. Sonnez la! Shepherd his
pipe. Policeman a whistle. Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o'clock's all's well!
Sleep! All is lost now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait, I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff.
Long John. Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little nominedomine. Pom. It is
music, I mean of course it's all pom pom pom very much what they call da
capo. Still you can hear. As we march we march along, march along. Pom.
I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of
custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he must
have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. Muffled up.
Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown mackin. O, the whore of
the lane!
A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the
day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing.
Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had the?
Heehaw. Shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any chance
of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with you in the
brown costume. Put you off your stroke. That appointment we made. Knowing
we'd never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home sweet home. Sees me,
does she? Looks a fright in the day. Face like dip. Damn her! O, well, she
has to live like the rest. Look in here.
In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold
dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged candlestick melodeon
oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might learn to play. Cheap. Let
her pass. Course everything is dear if you don't want it. That's what good
salesman is. Make you buy what he wants to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish
razor he shaved me with. Wanted to charge me for the edge he gave it. She's
passing now. Six bob.
Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund.
Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking
glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia's tempting last
rose of summer, rose of Castille. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth:
Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and Big Ben Dollard.
Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.
Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks's window. Robert
Emmet's last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is.
-- True men like you men.
-- Ay, ay, Ben.
-- Will lift your glass with us.
They lifted.
Tschink. Tschunk.
Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw
not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie nor
Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see.
Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. When my country takes
her place among.
Prrprr.
Must be the bur.
Fff. Oo. Rrpr.
Nations of the earth. No-one behind. She's passed. Then and not till
then. Tram. Kran, kran, kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm sure
it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. Let my epitaph be. Karaaaaaaa. Written. I
have.
Pprrpffrrppfff.
Done.
Ulysses 12: Cyclops
I WAS JUST PASSING THE TIME OF DAY WITH OLD TROY O THE D.M.P. at the
corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along and
he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the
weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only
Joe Hynes.
-- Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody
chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?
-- Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to?
-- Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give
that fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and
ladders.
-- What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.
-- Devil a much, says I. There is a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the
garrison church at the corner of Chicken Lane - old Troy was just giving me
a wrinkle about him - lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay
three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a hop of my thumb
by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury street.
-- Circumcised! says Joe.
-- Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm
hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out
of him.
-- That the lay you're on now? says Joe.
-- Ay, says I . How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and
doubtful debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a
day's walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain.
Tell him, says he, I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him to send you
round here again or if he does, says he, I'll have him summonsed up before
the court, so will I, for trading without a licence. And he after stuffing
himself till he's fit to burst! Jesus, I had to laugh at the little jewy
getting his shirt out. He drink me my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he
no pay me my moneys?
For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's
parade, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter called the vendor, and sold
and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, Esquire, of 29 Arbour Hill in the city
of Dublin, Arran quay ward, gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser,
videlicet, five pounds avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings
per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal,
at three pence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the said
vendor of one pound five shillings and six pence sterling for value received
which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in weekly
instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence
sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or pledged or
sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall be and remain
and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the said vendor to be
disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the said amount shall have
been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein
set forth as this day hereby agreed between the said vendor his heirs,
successors, trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his
heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the other part.
-- Are you a strict t. t.? says Joe.
-- Not taking anything between drinks, says I.
-- What about paying our respects to our friend? says foe.
-- Who? says I. Sure, he's in John of God's off his head, poor man.
-- Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.
-- Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.
-- Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the
citizen.
-- Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful,
Joe?
-- Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms.
-- What was that, Joe? says I.
-- Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want
to give the citizen the hard word about it.
So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the
courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he has it
but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over that bloody
foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he.
In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There
rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in
life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land it is
in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the gunnard, the
plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the grilse, the dab, the
brill, the flounder, the mixed coarse fish generally and other denizens of
the aqueous kingdom too numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of
the west and of the east the lofty trees wave in different directions their
first class foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted
planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world
with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in
close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely
songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden
ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, creels
of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes voyage from
afar to woo them, from Elbana to Slievemargy, the peerless princes of
unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and
of Cruachan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of
Boyle, princes, the sons of kings.
And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen
by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for that
purpose and thither come all herds and fatlings and first fruits of that
land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain descended from
chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields,
flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon
beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical
potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of
onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of mushrooms and custard marrows
and fat vetches and bere and rape and red green yellow brown russet sweet
big bitter ripe pomellated apples and chips of strawberries and sieves of
gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and
raspberries from their canes.
-- I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty,
you notorious bloody hill and dale robber!
And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed
ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers and
roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and Cuffe's
prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the various
different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus heifers and
polly bullocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime premiated
milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, cackling,
roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, champing, chewing,
of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from pasturelands of Lush and Rush
and Carrickmines and from the streamy vales of Thomond, from M'Gillicuddy's
reeks the inaccessible and lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the
gentle declivities of the place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended
with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and
farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs,
in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with the dun.
So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there sure enough was the
citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody
mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the
way of drink.
There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his
load of papers, working for the cause.
The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps.
Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody
dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a
constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper about
a licence.
-- Stand and deliver, says he.
-- That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here.
-- Pass, friends, says he.
Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he:
-- What's your opinion of the times?
Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to
the occasion.
-- I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down
his fork.
So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:
-- Foreign wars is the cause of it.
And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:
-- It's the Russians wish to tyrannise.
-- Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I, I've a thirst on
me I wouldn't sell for half a crown.
-- Give it a name, citizen, says Joe.
-- Wine of the country, says he.
-- What's yours? says Joe.
-- Ditto MacAnaspey, says I...
-- Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the o