—Characters:
TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole)
CRAB (a bushranger)
MEDICAL DICK )
and ) (two birds with one stone)
MEDICAL DAVY )
MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier)
FRESH NELLY
and
ROSALIE (the coalquay whore).
He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen:
and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:
—O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift
their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured,
multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!
—The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted
them.
About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.
Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today,
if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must
come to, ineluctably.
My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.
A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting.
—Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.
The portico.
Here I watched the birds for augury. Ængus of the birds. They go, they
come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots
after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.
—The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown’s awe. Did you
see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient
mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.
Manner of Oxenford.
Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.
A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway,
under portcullis barbs.
They followed.
Offend me still. Speak on.
Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds.
Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in
a flaw of softness softly were blown.
Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic:
from wide earth an altar.
Laud we the gods
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our bless’d altars.
[ 10 ]
The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. reset his smooth
watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five
to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy’s name
again? Dignam. Yes. _Vere dignum et iustum est._ Brother Swan was the
person to see. Mr Cunningham’s letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible.
Good practical catholic: useful at mission time.
A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his
crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the
sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very
reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his
purse held, he knew, one silver crown.
Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long,
of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs,
ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey’s words:
_If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have
abandoned me in my old days._ He walked by the treeshade of
sunnywinking leaves: and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy
M.P.
—Very well, indeed, father. And you, father?
Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton
probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at
Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear
that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still
sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful
indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would
come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful man
really.
Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P.
looking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P.
Yes, he would certainly call.
—Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy.
Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the
jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again,
in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste.
Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father
Bernard Vaughan’s droll eyes and cockney voice.
—Pilate! Wy don’t you old back that owlin mob?
A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his
way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish.
Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?
O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial.
Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy
square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were
they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his
name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little
man? His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have.
Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and
pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street.
—But mind you don’t post yourself into the box, little man, he said.
The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed:
—O, sir.
—Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.
Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee’s letter
to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father
Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square
east.
Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate
frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender
trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave
deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady
Maxwell at the corner of Dignam’s court.
Was that not Mrs M’Guinness?
Mrs M’Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the
farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and
saluted. How did she do?
A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to
think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he
say?... such a queenly mien.
Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the
shutup free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will
(D.V.) speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on
him to say a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible
ignorance. They acted according to their lights.
Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular
road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an
important thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.
A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All
raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly.
Christian brother boys.
Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint
Joseph’s church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. Father
Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but
occasionally they were also badtempered.
Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift
nobleman. And now it was an office or something.
Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted
by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father
Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came
from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan’s the
Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful
catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually
happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an
act of perfect contrition.
Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin’s publichouse against the window of
which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted.
Father Conmee passed H. J. O’Neill’s funeral establishment where Corny
Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay.
A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted
the constable. In Youkstetter’s, the porkbutcher’s, Father Conmee
observed pig’s puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in
tubes.
Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a
turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty
straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above
him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of
the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it out
and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor
people.
On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint Francis
Xavier’s church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound
tram.
Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of
saint Agatha’s church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge.
At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for
he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.
Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with
care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a
sixpence and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into
his purse. Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket
inspector usually made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away
the ticket. The solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father
Conmee excessive for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked
cheerful decorum.
It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father
Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee
supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman
with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so
gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and
smiled tinily, sweetly.
Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that
the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the
seat.
Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the
mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head.
At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old
woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the
bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a
marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and
basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed
the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had
always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been
absolved, _pray for me._ But they had so many worries in life, so many
cares, poor creatures.
From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at
Father Conmee.
Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men
and of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission
and of the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and
brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when
their last hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the
Belgian jesuit, _Le Nombre des Élus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a
reasonable plea. Those were millions of human souls created by God in
His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But
they were God’s souls, created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a
pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might say.
At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the
conductor and saluted in his turn.
The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.
The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide,
immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining.
Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day.
Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old
times in the barony.
Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the
Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and
of Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of
Belvedere.
A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel,
Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening,
not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the
jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed
adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with
her husband’s brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned
as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband’s brother.
Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however
for man’s race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our
ways.
Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and
honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at
smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit
clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble,
were impalmed by Don John Conmee.
It was a charming day.
The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages,
curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of
small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French
said. A just and homely word.
Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds
over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of
Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the
cries of the boys’ lines at their play, young cries in the quiet
evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.
Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out.
An ivory bookmark told him the page.
Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had
come.
Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast.
_Deus in adiutorium._
He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he
came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas:
in eternum omnia iudicia iustitiæ tuæ._
A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a
young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised
his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care
detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.
Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his
breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis
formidavit cor meum._
* * *
Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping
eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect,
went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass
furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came
to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes
and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.
Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.
Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat
downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.
Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.
—That’s a fine day, Mr Kelleher.
—Ay, Corny Kelleher said.
—It’s very close, the constable said.
Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth
while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a
coin.
—What’s the best news? he asked.
—I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with
bated breath.
* * *
A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell’s corner, skirting
Rabaiotti’s icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards
Larry O’Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:
—_For England_...
He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted
and growled:
—_home and beauty._
J. J. O’Molloy’s white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in
the warehouse with a visitor.
A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it
into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced
sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself
forward four strides.
He halted and growled angrily:
—_For England_...
Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him,
gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.
He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head
towards a window and bayed deeply:
—_home and beauty._
The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.
The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished
Apartments_ slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm
shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut
shiftstraps. A woman’s hand flung forth a coin over the area railings.
It fell on the path.
One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the
minstrel’s cap, saying:
—There, sir.
* * *
Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming
kitchen.
—Did you put in the books? Boody asked.
Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.
—They wouldn’t give anything on them, she said.
Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles
tickled by stubble.
—Where did you try? Boody asked.
—M’Guinness’s.
Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.
—Bad cess to her big face! she cried.
Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.
—What’s in the pot? she asked.
—Shirts, Maggy said.
Boody cried angrily:
—Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?
Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:
—And what’s in this?
A heavy fume gushed in answer.
—Peasoup, Maggy said.
—Where did you get it? Katey asked.
—Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.
The lacquey rang his bell.
—Barang!
Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:
—Give us it here.
Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey,
sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her
mouth random crumbs:
—A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?
—Gone to meet father, Maggy said.
Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:
—Our father who art not in heaven.
Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:
—Boody! For shame!
A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the
Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed
around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains,
between the Customhouse old dock and George’s quay.
* * *
The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling
fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper
and a small jar.
—Put these in first, will you? he said.
—Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.
—That’ll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.
She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe
shamefaced peaches.
Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the
fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red
tomatoes, sniffing smells.
H. E. L. Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane,
plodding towards their goal.
He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from
his fob and held it at its chain’s length.
—Can you send them by tram? Now?
A darkbacked figure under Merchants’ arch scanned books on the hawker’s
cart.
—Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?
—O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.
The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.
—Will you write the address, sir?
Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.
—Send it at once, will you? he said. It’s for an invalid.
—Yes, sir. I will, sir.
Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers’ pocket.
—What’s the damage? he asked.
The blond girl’s slim fingers reckoned the fruits.
Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He
took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.
—This for me? he asked gallantly.
The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie
a bit crooked, blushing.
—Yes, sir, she said.
Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.
Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the
red flower between his smiling teeth.
—May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.
* * *
_—Ma!_ Almidano Artifoni said.
He gazed over Stephen’s shoulder at Goldsmith’s knobby poll.
Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore,
gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men’s arms frankly round their
stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of
the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.
—_Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee_, Almidano Artifoni said, _quand’ ero
giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è una bestia. È
peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via.
Invece, Lei si sacrifica._
—_Sacrifizio incruento,_ Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in
slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.
_—Speriamo,_ the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. _Ma, dia retta
a me. Ci rifletta_.
By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram
unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.
—_Ci rifletterò,_ Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.
—_Ma, sul serio, eh?_ Almidano Artifoni said.
His heavy hand took Stephen’s firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously
an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.
_—Eccolo,_ Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. _Venga a trovarmi
e ci pensi. Addio, caro._
—_Arrivederla, maestro,_ Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand
was freed. _E grazie._
—_Di che?_ Almidano Artifoni said. _Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!_
Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal,
trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted,
signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling
implements of music through Trinity gates.
* * *
Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of _The Woman in White_
far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her
typewriter.
Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion?
Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.
The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them:
six.
Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:
—16 June 1904.
Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny’s corner and the slab
where Wolfe Tone’s statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L.
Y.’S and plodded back as they had come.
Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens
and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She’s not
nicelooking, is she? The way she’s holding up her bit of a skirt.
Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that
dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle’s. They kick out
grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her.
Hope to goodness he won’t keep me here till seven.
The telephone rang rudely by her ear.
—Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll ring them up after five. Only
those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can
go after six if you’re not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven
and six. I’ll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.
She scribbled three figures on an envelope.
—Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from _Sport_ was in looking for you.
Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he’ll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes,
sir. I’ll ring them up after five.
* * *
Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch.
—Who’s that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?
—Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold.
—Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his
pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps
there.
The vesta in the clergyman’s uplifted hand consumed itself in a long
soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and
mouldy air closed round them.
—How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.
—Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic
council chamber of saint Mary’s abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed
himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin.
O’Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days.
The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and
the original jews’ temple was here too before they built their
synagogue over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were
you?
—No, Ned.
—He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory
serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.
—That’s right, Ned Lambert said. That’s quite right, sir.
—If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to
allow me perhaps...
—Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I’ll
get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here
or from here.
In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the
piled seedbags and points of vantage on the floor.
From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.
—I’m deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won’t trespass
on your valuable time...
—You’re welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next
week, say. Can you see?
—Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.
—Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered.
He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away
among the pillars. With J. J. O’Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary’s
abbey where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut
meal, O’Connor, Wexford.
He stood to read the card in his hand.
—The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint
Michael’s, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He’s writing a book about
the Fitzgeralds he told me. He’s well up in history, faith.
The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging
twig.
—I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O’Molloy said.
Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air.
—God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare
after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? _I’m bloody
sorry I did it,_ says he, _but I declare to God I thought the
archbishop was inside._ He mightn’t like it, though. What? God, I’ll
tell him anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot
members they were all of them, the Geraldines.
The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He
slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried:
—Woa, sonny!
He turned to J. J. O’Molloy and asked:
—Well, Jack. What is it? What’s the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard.
With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an
instant, sneezed loudly.
—Chow! he said. Blast you!
—The dust from those sacks, J. J. O’Molloy said politely.
—No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast your
soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of
draught...
He held his handkerchief ready for the coming...
—I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you call
him... Chow!... Mother of Moses!
* * *
Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his
claret waistcoat.
—See? he said. Say it’s turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On.
He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove,
wobbled a while, ceased, ogling them: six.
Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the
consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying
the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the
admiralty division of king’s bench to the court of appeal an elderly
female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of
great amplitude.
—See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here: Turns Over.
The impact. Leverage, see?
He showed them the rising column of disks on the right.
—Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late
can see what turn is on and what turns are over.
—See? Tom Rochford said.
He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle,
stop: four. Turn Now On.
—I’ll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good
turn deserves another.
—Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I’m Boylan with impatience.
—Goodnight, M’Coy said abruptly. When you two begin...
Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it.
—But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked.
—Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later.
He followed M’Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court.
—He’s a hero, he said simply.
—I know, M’Coy said. The drain, you mean.
—Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole.
They passed Dan Lowry’s musichall where Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.
Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall
Lenehan showed M’Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes
like a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it,
half choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky’s vest
and all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope
round the poor devil and the two were hauled up.
—The act of a hero, he said.
At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past
them for Jervis street.
—This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam’s to
see Sceptre’s starting price. What’s the time by your gold watch and
chain?
M’Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses’ sombre office, then at
O’Neill’s clock.
—After three, he said. Who’s riding her?
—O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is.
While he waited in Temple bar M’Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle
pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy
get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark.
The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal
cavalcade.
—Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons in
there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn’t an
earthly. Through here.
They went up the steps and under Merchants’ arch. A darkbacked figure
scanned books on the hawker’s cart.
—There he is, Lenehan said.
—Wonder what he’s buying, M’Coy said, glancing behind.
—_Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye,_ Lenehan said.
—He’s dead nuts on sales, M’Coy said. I was with him one day and he
bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were
fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and
comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about.
Lenehan laughed.
—I’ll tell you a damn good one about comets’ tails, he said. Come over
in the sun.
They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the
riverwall.
Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s,
carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.
—There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said
eagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord
mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan
Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell d’Arcy sang and Benjamin
Dollard...
—I know, M’Coy broke in. My missus sang there once.
—Did she? Lenehan said.
A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ reappeared on the windowsash of number
7 Eccles street.
He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh.
—But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the
catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife
were there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and
curacoa to which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After
liquids came solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies...
—I know, M’Coy said. The year the missus was there...
Lenehan linked his arm warmly.
—But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after
all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o’clock the
morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter’s
night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one
side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started
singing glees and duets: _Lo, the early beam of morning_. She was well
primed with a good load of Delahunt’s port under her bellyband. Every
jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell’s
delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.
He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:
—I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time.
Know what I mean?
His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in
delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.
—The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She’s a gamey
mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the
comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear
and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I
was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At
last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. _And what star is that,
Poldy?_ says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. _That one, is it?_
says Chris Callinan, _sure that’s only what you might call a pinprick._
By God, he wasn’t far wide of the mark.
Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft
laughter.
—I’m weak, he gasped.
M’Coy’s white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan
walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead
rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M’Coy.
—He’s a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He’s not one
of your common or garden... you know... There’s a touch of the artist
about old Bloom.
* * *
Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of _The Awful Disclosures of Maria
Monk_, then of Aristotle’s _Masterpiece._ Crooked botched print.
Plates: infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of
slaughtered cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the
world. All butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every
minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.
He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: _Tales of the
Ghetto_ by Leopold von Sacher Masoch.
—That I had, he said, pushing it by.
The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter.
—Them are two good ones, he said.
Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth.
He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his
unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain.
On O’Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay
apparel of Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c.
Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. _Fair Tyrants_ by James
Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes.
He opened it. Thought so.
A woman’s voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: the man.
No: she wouldn’t like that much. Got her it once.
He read the other title: _Sweets of Sin_. More in her line. Let us see.
He read where his finger opened.
_—All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on
wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul!_
Yes. This. Here. Try.
—_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands
felt for the opulent curves inside her déshabillé._
Yes. Take this. The end.
—You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare.
The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her
queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played
round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly.