J. J. O’Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held
his peace.
—I see, the professor said.
He halted on sir John Gray’s pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson
through the meshes of his wry smile.
DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE
WIMBLES, FLO WANGLES—YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM?
—Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must
say.
—Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty’s
truth was known.
[ 8 ]
Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school
treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His
Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red
jujubes white.
A sombre Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon’s, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.
Heart to heart talks.
Bloo... Me? No.
Blood of the Lamb.
His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druids’ altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of
the church in Zion is coming.
Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome.
Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put
the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the
luminous crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see
him on the wall, hanging. Pepper’s ghost idea. Iron Nails Ran In.
Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to
the pantry in the kitchen. Don’t like all the smells in it waiting to
rush out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of
Spain. Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny.
Very good for the brain.
From Butler’s monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor’s walk.
Dedalus’ daughter there still outside Dillon’s auctionrooms. Must be
selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father.
Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother
goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That’s in their
theology or the priest won’t give the poor woman the confession, the
absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat
you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on
the fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I’d like to see them
do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for
fear he’d collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows
if you could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting
£. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one.
Watching his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence:
mum’s the word.
Good Lord, that poor child’s dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It’s after they feel it.
Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.
As he set foot on O’Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours
it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see
the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats
get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead
drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians.
Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the
things.
Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben
J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and
eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It’s the droll way he comes out with the
things. Knows how to tell a story too.
They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.
He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet
per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of
swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the
day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the
wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.
The hungry famished gull
Flaps o’er the waters dull.
That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has
no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
Solemn.
Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit
Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.
—Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!
His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand.
Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them
up with a rag or a handkerchief.
Wait. Those poor birds.
He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes
for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down
into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all
from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.
Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they
have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down
here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder
what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.
They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw any more. Penny
quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?
His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.
Kino’s
11/—
Trousers
Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
own water really? It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same,
which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All
kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used
to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly
confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t cost him a red like Maginni the
dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or
stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen
a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110
PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.
If he...?