Martha

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

know.

He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell

and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it

because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then

walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and

there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your

cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear

roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s

perfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it

back in his sidepocket.

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did

she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like

me, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary.

Thank you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round

corners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic.

Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course.

Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time.

Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.

Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:

pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses

without thorns.

Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in

the Coombe, linked together in the rain.

O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers.

She didn’t know what to do

To keep it up,

To keep it up.

It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all

day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your

wife use. Now could you make out a thing like that?

To keep it up.

Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or

faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious.

Also the two sluts in the Coombe would listen.

To keep it up.

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:

quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have

been, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the

supper: fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like

the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I

go to the trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell

her: more and more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.

Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly

in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered

away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank.

Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the

same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure

cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be

made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change

his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A

million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart,

eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of

porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen

millions of barrels of porter.

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

same.

An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.

Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The

bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing

together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy

pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.

He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the

porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it

again behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work

M’Coy for a pass to Mullingar.

Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.

on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the

conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious.

The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the

true religion. Save China’s millions. Wonder how they explain it to the

heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for

them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy

with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo.

Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock.

Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking.

Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of

that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’re taught that.

He’s not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to

baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing.

Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced,

listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.

The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,

pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place

to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow

music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the

benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch

knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring,

holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a

communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it

neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her

hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent

down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next

one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse.

Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They

don’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a

corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by

one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in

its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear.

We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here

and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for

it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it’s that

sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes

them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it’s called.

There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you

feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one

family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’m

sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit

spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes

cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.

Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind

faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time

next year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an

instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace

affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know what

to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S.

Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have

suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with

a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here

with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the

sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the

invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion

every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I

am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six

children at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those

crawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always something

shiftylooking about them. They’re not straight men of business either.

O, no, she’s not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear up

that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.

The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs

smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank

what they are used to Guinness’s porter or some temperance beverage

Wheatley’s Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale

(aromatic). Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other.

Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they’d have one

old booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer

the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is.

Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.

Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make

that instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say he

had in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _Stabat

Mater_ of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or

Pilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music they wanted.

Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice

against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the

people looking up:

_Quis est homo._

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words.

Mozart’s twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music,

on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example

too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting,

regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse.

Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick.

What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own

strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feel anything after.

Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don’t they? Gluttons,

tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it.

He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and

bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom

glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand

up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again

and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the

altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered

each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a

card:

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

Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them

the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious

and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More

interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful

organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants

to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon

in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I

schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look

down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears.

Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes.

Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy

Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation

army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting.

How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they

work the whole show. And don’t they rake in the money too? Bequests

also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Masses

for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.

Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the

witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.

Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of

the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

—Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be our

safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God

restrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly

host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those

other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of

souls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women

remained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate

perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.

He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the

time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there’s a

(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked.

Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don’t. Why didn’t you tell me

before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south.

He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the

main door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black

marble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive

hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott’s

dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourning myself.

He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet.

Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time.

Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold

beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of

the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other

trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair.

O well, poor fellow, it’s not his fault. When was it I got it made up

last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it

must have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions

book.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he

seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’s

stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy

then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your

character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants.

All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te

Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor Whack.

He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first

fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples.

Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns

blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping

draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the

pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least

expect it. Clever of nature.

—About a fortnight ago, sir?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the

dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling

your aches and pains.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then

orangeflower water...

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

—And white wax also, he said.

Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her

eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my

cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the

teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.

Skinfood. One of the old queen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had only

one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to

make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your?

_Peau d’Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these

soaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner.

Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a

nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious

longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time

for massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum.

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

bottle?

—No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day and

I’ll take one of these soaps. How much are they?

—Fourpence, sir.

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

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

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

come back.

—Good, Mr Bloom said.

He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the

coolwrappered soap in his left hand.

At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said:

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

Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look

younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.

Bantam Lyons’s yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a

wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’

soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.

—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam

Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?

He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.

Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the

paper and get shut of him.

—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.

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

second.

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

Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.

—What’s that? his sharp voice said.

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

that moment.

Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread

sheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms.

—I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.

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

Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap

in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it

lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large

tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming

embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now.

They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.

He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a

mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He

eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist

doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it

round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the

hub big: college. Something to catch the eye.

There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands:

might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower?

How do you do, sir?

Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.

Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it

here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the

Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in

their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M’Carthy took the

floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, which

in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all.

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid

stream. This is my body.

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of

warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk

and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward,

lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of

his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father

of thousands, a languid floating flower.

[ 6 ]

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking

carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in

after him, curving his height with care.

—Come on, Simon.

—After you, Mr Bloom said.

Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:

—Yes, yes.

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

Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to

after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm

through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow

at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman

peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she

was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad

to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them.

Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’d

wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming

making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know

who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the

nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same

after. Unclean job.

All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am

sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better

shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.

All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer:

then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and

swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of

the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar.

At walking pace.

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were

passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels

rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook

rattling in the doorframes.

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

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

Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.

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

out.

All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by

passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the

smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man,

clad in mourning, a wide hat.

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

—Who is that?

—Your son and heir.

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

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway

before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back

to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus

fell back, saying:

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

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.

—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding

faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lump

of dung, the wise child that knows her own father.

Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the

bottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls

the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing

in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the

landlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night.

Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife

ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they

are. About six hundred per cent profit.

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a

contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks

all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll

make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother

or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a

gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

He cried above the clatter of the wheels:

—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’s

son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely.

He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power’s mild

face and Martin Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy

selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If

little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.

Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange

feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that

morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs

at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning

up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us

a touch, Poldy. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins.

Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.

I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent.

Learn German too.

—Are we late? Mr Power asked.

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

Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping

Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be a

woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too.

Life, life.

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

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

—He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Do

you follow me?

He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away

crustcrumbs from under his thighs.

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

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

said.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless

leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward

and said:

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

—It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite

clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.

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

—Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of

his beard gently.

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

—And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.

—At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.

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

The carriage halted short.

—What’s wrong?

—We’re stopped.

—Where are we?

Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.

—The grand canal, he said.

Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got

it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame

really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed

tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss

this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos,

Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave.

A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’s

dogs usually are.

A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower

spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a

colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.

—The weather is changing, he said quietly.

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

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

out.

Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled

a mute curse at the sky.

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

—We’re off again.

The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed

gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.

—Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking

him off to his face.

—O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear

him, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of _The Croppy Boy_.

—Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simple

ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the

whole course of my experience._

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

retrospective arrangement.

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

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

—In the paper this morning.

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

for her.

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

Mr Bloom’s glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the

deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what

Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton,

Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper.

Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief

of his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month’s mind:

Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy.

It is now a month since dear Henry fled

To his home up above in the sky

While his family weeps and mourns his loss

Hoping some day to meet him on high.

I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it

in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry

fled. Before my patience are exhausted.

National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.

Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round

with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their

hats.

A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against a

tramway standard by Mr Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent something

automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow

would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job

making the new invention?

Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a

crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law

perhaps.

They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s, under the railway

bridge, past the Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene

Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see _Leah_ tonight, I

wonder. I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes Opera

Company. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun on

the Bristol_. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have

to stand a drink or two. As broad as it’s long.

He’s coming in the afternoon. Her songs.

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

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

salute.

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

—Who? Mr Dedalus asked.

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

Just that moment I was thinking.

Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the

white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed.

Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right

hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?

Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes

feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am

just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body

getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes

that? I suppose the skin can’t contract quickly enough when the flesh

falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders.

Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the

cheeks behind.

He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant

glance over their faces.

Mr Power asked:

—How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?

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

idea, you see...

—Are you going yourself?

—Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the

county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the

chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.

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

Have you good artists?

—Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we’ll have all

topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in

fact.

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

Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and

clasped them. Smith O’Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.

Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage

wheeling by Farrell’s statue united noiselessly their unresisting

knees.

Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his

mouth opening: oot.

—Four bootlaces for a penny.

Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.

Same house as Molly’s namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford.

Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too.

Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake.

O’Callaghan on his last legs.

And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing

her hair, humming: _voglio e non vorrei_. No: _vorrei e non_. Looking

at the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un poco

il_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A

throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that.

His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power’s goodlooking face. Greyish over

the ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way.

Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the

woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it

told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played

out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her

a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury’s. Or the

Moira, was it?

They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form.

Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.

—Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner

of Elvery’s Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his

spine.

—In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.

Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:

—The devil break the hasp of your back!

Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as

the carriage passed Gray’s statue.

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

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

—Well, nearly all of us.

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

—That’s an awfully good one that’s going the rounds about Reuben J and

the son.

—About the boatman? Mr Power asked.

—Yes. Isn’t it awfully good?

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

—There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to

send him to the Isle of Man out of harm’s way but when they were

both.....

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

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

to drown.....

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

Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.

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

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely:

—Reuben J and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on

their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got

loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey.

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

—Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished

him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father

on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there.

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

—And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for

saving his son’s life.

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

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

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

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

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

Nelson’s pillar.

—Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!

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

Mr Dedalus sighed.

—Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn’t grudge us a laugh.

Many a good one he told himself.

—The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his

fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last

and he was in his usual health that I’d be driving after him like this.

He’s gone from us.

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

very suddenly.

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.

He tapped his chest sadly.

Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.

Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent

colouring it.

Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

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

—The best death, Mr Bloom said.

Their wide open eyes looked at him.

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

No-one spoke.

Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,

temperance hotel, Falconer’s railway guide, civil service college,

Gill’s, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or

wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the

late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.

White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,

galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning

coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for

a nun.

—Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.

A dwarf’s face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy’s was. Dwarf’s

body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society

pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant

nothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. If

not from the man. Better luck next time.

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

The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his

bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.

—In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.

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

life.

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

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

—Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We

must take a charitable view of it.

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

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

Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham’s

large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent.

Like Shakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy

on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to

drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’t

broken already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the

riverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of

a wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then

pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the

life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday

morning. Start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have

looked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about

the place and capering with Martin’s umbrella.

And they call me the jewel of Asia,

Of Asia,

The geisha.

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

That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The

room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight

through the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner’s sunlit ears, big

and hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw

like yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the

bed. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son

Leopold.

No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.

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

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

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

—I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow

in Germany. The Gordon Bennett.

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

As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent

over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has

anybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._

He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The

_Mater Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place.

Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for the

dying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They

look terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the

spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student

that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He’s gone over to the

lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other.

The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.

—What’s wrong now?

A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching

by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony

croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their

fear.

—Emigrants, Mr Power said.

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

Huuuh! out of that!

Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold

them about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for

old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter

lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a

year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries,

soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off

the train at Clonsilla.

The carriage moved on through the drove.

—I can’t make out why the corporation doesn’t run a tramline from the

parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken

in trucks down to the boats.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite

right. They ought to.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have

municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line

out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage

and all. Don’t you see what I mean?

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

diningroom.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.

—Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decent

than galloping two abreast?

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

—And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that when

the hearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road.

—That was terrible, Mr Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fell

about the road. Terrible!

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

—Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.

Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy

Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too

large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s up

now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides

decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also.

With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal up all.

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

Dunphy’s corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A

pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull up

here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation.

Elixir of life.

But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in

the knocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. Depends on

where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery.

It would be better to bury them in red: a dark red.

In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted

by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.

Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.

Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping

barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a

slacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._

Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on

his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of

reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar,

Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or

cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at

the auction but a lady’s. Developing waterways. James M’Cann’s hobby to

row me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats.

Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without

writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by

lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his

brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam.

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

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

—Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.

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

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

The carriage steered left for Finglas road.

The stonecutter’s yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of

land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands,

knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence:

appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder

and sculptor.

Passed.

On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton’s, an old tramp sat,

grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown

yawning boot. After life’s journey.

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

Mr Power pointed.

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

—So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off.

Murdered his brother. Or so they said.

—The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.

—Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That’s the maxim of the

law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent

person to be wrongfully condemned.

They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered,

tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully

condemned. Murder. The murderer’s image in the eye of the murdered.

They love reading about it. Man’s head found in a garden. Her clothing

consisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used.

Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed.

Murder will out.

Cramped in this carriage. She mightn’t like me to come that way without

letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with

their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen.

The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars,

rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the

trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain

gestures on the air.

The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put

out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with

his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.

Change that soap now. Mr Bloom’s hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly

and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket.

He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand

still held.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the same.

Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death.

Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and

fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead.

Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out.

He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes

walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took

out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy.

Where is that child’s funeral disappeared to?

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread,

dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a

granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted.

Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at

it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck,

pressing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out

here every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount

Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere

every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick.

Thousands every hour. Too many in the world.

Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy,

hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl’s face stained with dirt

and tears, holding the woman’s arm, looking up at her for a sign to

cry. Fish’s face, bloodless and livid.

The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So

much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First

the stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy

followed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the

brother-in-law.

All walked after.

Martin Cunningham whispered:

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

—What? Mr Power whispered. How so?

—His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the

Queen’s hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare.

Anniversary.

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

He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed

towards the cardinal’s mausoleum. Speaking.

—Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked.

—I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavily

mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane.

—How many children did he leave?

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

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

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

—Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed.

Has the laugh at him now.

He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had

outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must

outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the

world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you’ll soon follow

him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who

knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on

a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in

the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of

hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the

substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back,

waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground:

and lie no more in her warm bed.

—How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven’t

seen you for a month of Sundays.

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

—I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert

said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.

—And how is Dick, the solid man?

—Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.

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

—Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said,

pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the

insurance is cleared up.

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

—Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife’s brother. John Henry Menton is

behind. He put down his name for a quid.

—I’ll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought

to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.

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

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

They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood

behind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and

at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was

he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last

moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe

three shillings to O’Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the

coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head?

After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened

light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow

candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a

wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners

knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the

font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper

from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black

hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.

A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a

door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with

one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad’s

belly. Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book

with a fluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Dominenamine._ Bully

about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe

betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst

sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on

him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn:

burst sideways.

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

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem

mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.

Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning

in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a

toad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after

cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an

infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they

get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the

vaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have

to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn

it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you’re a goner.

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

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy’s

bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end

and shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As

you were before you rested. It’s all written down: he has to do it.

_—Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be

better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course

...

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed

up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.

What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day

a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in

childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls

with little sparrows’ breasts. All the year round he prayed the same

thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam

now.

_—In paradisum._

Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over

everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny

Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the

coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny

Kelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All

followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom

came last folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at

the ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal

wheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt

boots followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.

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

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

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

—He’s at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O’. But

his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here,

Simon!

—Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I’ll soon be stretched

beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.

Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little

in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.

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

—I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in

heaven if there is a heaven.

Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to

plod by.

—Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.

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

—The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can

do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.

They covered their heads.

—The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don’t you think?

Mr Kernan said with reproof.

Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret

eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We

are the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else.

Mr Kernan added:

—The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more

impressive I must say.

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

Mr Kernan said with solemnity:

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

heart.

—It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two

with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.

Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood

every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of

them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn

the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you

are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves.

Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last

day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and

the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning.

Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy

measure.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

—Everything went off A1, he said. What?

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

your tooraloom tooraloom.

—As it should be, Mr Kernan said.

—What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.

Mr Kernan assured him.

—Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I

know his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

—Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the

soprano. She’s his wife.

—O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for some

time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen

seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown. And a good

armful she was.

He looked behind through the others.

—What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationery

line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

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

—In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like

that for? She had plenty of game in her then.

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

John Henry Menton’s large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the

grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.

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

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

—I am come to pay you another visit.

—My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don’t want

your custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin

Cunningham’s side puzzling two long keys at his back.

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

—I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The

caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke

in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

—They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy

evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for

Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After

traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the

drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was

blinking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

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

resumed:

—And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit like

the man_, says he. _That’s not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher,

accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as

he walked.

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

—I know, Hynes said. I know that.

—To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It’s pure

goodheartedness: damn the thing else.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on

good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort.

Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout

checks. _Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral.

Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she

disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead

letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’s

the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross.

Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the

gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard.

Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death.

Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The

shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be

a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy

man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’

the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at

all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to

make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a

pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d

kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards.

Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here.

Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In

the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the

poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their

vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window.

Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field

after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing.

Sitting or kneeling you couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up some

day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed

the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim

grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so

it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant

poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic

Gardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in the earth gives

new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy.

Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure,

invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William

Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds

thirteen and six. With thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh,

nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot

quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a

tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing

out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever

they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically.

Nothing to feed on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply

swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little

seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of

power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at

life. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one

about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11

p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the

men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what’s

in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep

out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way.

Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the human

heart. Daren’t joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuis

nil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral.

Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live

longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.

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

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

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to

trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole,

stepping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin

and set its nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

Burying him. We come to bury Cæsar. His ides of March or June. He

doesn’t know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot

over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know? Now I’d

give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never

dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he

could. Still he’d have to get someone to sod him after he died though

he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too.

First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was

true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a

Thursday if you come to look at it.

O, poor Robinson Crusoe!

How could you possibly do so?

Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of

them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could

invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that

way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow’s.

They’re so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the

holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one

coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible

even in the earth. The Irishman’s house is his coffin. Embalming in

catacombs, mummies the same idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.

Twelve. I’m thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen.

Death’s number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the

chapel, that I’ll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had

one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he

was once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey

suit of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It’s dyed. His wife I forgot he’s

not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for

him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the

gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.

Pause.

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they

say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The

boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in

the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly

caretaker. Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which

will go next. Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It’s the moment

you feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can’t believe it at first. Mistake

must be: someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I

haven’t yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering

around you. Would you like to see a priest? Then rambling and

wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. His

sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose

pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull the

pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he’s doomed. Devil in

that picture of sinner’s death showing him a woman. Dying to embrace

her in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee_?

Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you.

Don’t forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even

Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole, one

after the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you’re well and

not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the

fire of purgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do

when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy’s warning.

Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma,

poor mamma, and little Rudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in

on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all

the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of

course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some

law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a

telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of

distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well

to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there’s no.

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

The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of

it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves

without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make

its way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground,

he traversed the dismal fields.

Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he

knows them all. No: coming to me.

—I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your

christian name? I’m not sure.

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

asked me to.

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

So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good

idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He

died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads.

Charley, you’re my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does

no harm. I saw to that, M’Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave

him under an obligation: costs nothing.

—And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was

over there in the...

He looked around.

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

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

name?

He moved away, looking about him.

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

Didn’t hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all

the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good

Lord, what became of him?

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

—O, excuse me!

He stepped aside nimbly.

Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.

A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested

their spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped

his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The

gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards

the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One

bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his

mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing.

Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord.

The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand.

Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For

yourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying

at whiles to read a name on a tomb.

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

—Let us, Mr Power said.

They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr

Power’s blank voice spoke:

—Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled

with stones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

—Parnell will never come again, he said. He’s there, all that was

mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,

broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes,

old Ireland’s hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on

some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does

anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a

coalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls’ day.

Twentyseventh I’ll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He

keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his

shears clipping. Near death’s door. Who passed away. Who departed this

life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of

them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you what

they were. So and So, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid

five shillings in the pound. Or a woman’s with her saucepan. I cooked

good Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that

poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest

the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren’s. The great physician called him

home. Well it’s God’s acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly

plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the

_Church Times._ Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths

hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money.

Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome,

never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the

wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him.

Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even

sadder. Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen

matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.

The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be

sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was

dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this

infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket

of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the

boy. Apollo that was.

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.

As you are now so once were we.

Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the

voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in

the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather.

Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain

hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph

reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn’t remember the face after

fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that

died when I was in Wisdom Hely’s.

Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop!

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

goes.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the

pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey

alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it.

Good hidingplace for treasure.

Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was

buried here by torchlight, wasn’t he? Making his rounds.

Tail gone now.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones

clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat

gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that

_Voyages in China_ that the Chinese say a white man smells like a

corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the

other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the

plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to

ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by

birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See

your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can’t

bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news

go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.

We learned that from them. Wouldn’t be surprised. Regular square feed

for them. Flies come before he’s well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They

wouldn’t care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of

corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips.

The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.

Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I

was here was Mrs Sinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills.

And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I

read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running

gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after

death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after

death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like

that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and

feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their

maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds:

warm fullblooded life.

Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.

Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor,

commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office.

Mat Dillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl,

cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got

his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside

him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to

me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the

lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are

by.

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

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

They stopped.

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

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

—There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.

John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed

the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head

again.

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

John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.

—Thank you, he said shortly.

They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a

few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin

could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his

seeing it.

Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.

Get the pull over him that way.

Thank you. How grand we are this morning!

[ 7 ]