—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs

to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold

by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle.

—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

—I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.

—Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.

That’s an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old

lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he’d adorn a

sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse’s apron on him. And

then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as

limp as a wet rag.

—But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not

life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that

it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.

—What? says Alf.

—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says

he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is

there. If he comes just say I’ll be back in a second. Just a moment.

Who’s hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.

—A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.

—Well, says John Wyse. Isn’t that what we’re told. Love your neighbour.

—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,

moya! He’s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.

Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A

loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle.

M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow.

Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with

the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man

in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King

loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor.

You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person

because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.

—Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power,

citizen.

—Hurrah, there, says Joe.

—The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.

And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.

—We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket.

What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women

and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text _God is love_

pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit

in the _United Irishman_ today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting

England?

—What’s that? says Joe.

So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts

reading out:

—A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented

yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in

Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the

heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in

his dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of

which the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely

translated by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod

Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the

cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire,

stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an

illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of

England’s greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief

woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the

august hand of the Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of

firstshot usquebaugh to the toast _Black and White_ from the skull of

his immediate predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty

Warts, after which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and

signed his mark in the visitors’ book, subsequently executing a

charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which he swallowed

several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl hands.

—Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn’t doubt her. Wonder did he put that

bible to the same use as I would.

—Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land

the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.

—Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.

—No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only

initialled: P.

—And a very good initial too, says Joe.

—That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.

—Well, says J. J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the

Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man

what’s this his name is?

—Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.

—Yes, that’s the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and

flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they

can out of them.

—I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.

—Who? says I.

—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on

_Throwaway_ and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.

—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a

horse in anger in his life?

—That’s where he’s gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back

that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip.

Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He’s the

only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse.

—He’s a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.

—Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.

—There you are, says Terry.

Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the

yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was

letting off my _(Throwaway_ twenty to) letting off my load gob says I

to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in

Slattery’s off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings

is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was

telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have

done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube _she’s

better_ or _she’s_ (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool

if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!)

Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody

(there’s the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.

So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it

was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper

all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off

of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk

about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that

puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show.

Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody

mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before

him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that

poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country

with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms.

Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No

security. Gob, he’s like Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go a piece of the

road with every one.

—Well, it’s a fact, says John Wyse. And there’s the man now that’ll

tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham.

Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power

with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the

collector general’s, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the

registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the

country at the king’s expense.

Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their

palfreys.

—Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party.

Saucy knave! To us!

So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.

Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.

—Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.

—Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds.

And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.

—Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare

larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.

—How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant

countenance, So servest thou the king’s messengers, master Taptun?

An instantaneous change overspread the landlord’s visage.

—Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king’s

messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The

king’s friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my

house I warrant me.

—Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty

trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?

Mine host bowed again as he made answer:

—What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of

venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s

head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a

flagon of old Rhenish?

—Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!

—Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare

larder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.

So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.

—Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.

—Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen

about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?

—That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.

—Who made those allegations? says Alf.

—I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.

—And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like

the next fellow?

—Why not? says J. J., when he’s quite sure which country it is.

—Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the

hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.

—Who is Junius? says J. J.

—We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.

—He’s a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was

he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know

that in the castle.

—Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.

—Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the

father’s name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the

father did.

—That’s the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints

and sages!

—Well, they’re still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that

matter so are we.

—Yes, says J. J., and every male that’s born they think it may be their

Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe,

till he knows if he’s a father or a mother.

—Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.

—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his

that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying

a tin of Neave’s food six weeks before the wife was delivered.

—_En ventre sa mère_, says J. J.

—Do you call that a man? says the citizen.

—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.

—Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.

—And who does he suspect? says the citizen.

Gob, there’s many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed

middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a

month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I’m

telling you? It’d be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like

of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it

would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of

stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind

your eye.

—Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can’t wait.

—A wolf in sheep’s clothing, says the citizen. That’s what he is. Virag

from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.

—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.

—You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.

—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,

says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our

shores.

—Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my

prayer.

—Amen, says the citizen.

—And I’m sure He will, says Joe.

And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with

acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and

subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors

and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto,

Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and

Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines,

Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter

Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet

led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and

friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers,

minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of

Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks

of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the

christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice.

And after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr

and S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and

S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites

and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S.

Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent

de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and

S. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard

and S. Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and

S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous

and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O’Toole and S. James of Dingle and

Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S.

Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S.

Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and

S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of

Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of

holy youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John

Berchmans and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S.

Bride and S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam

and S. Finbarr and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus

and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo

and S. Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid

and S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and

the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S.

Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came

with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords

and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of

their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes,

trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys,

dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives,

soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches,

forceps, stags’ horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a

dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way

by Nelson’s Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little

Britain street chanting the introit in _Epiphania Domini_ which

beginneth _Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual

_Omnes_ which saith _de Saba venient_ they did divers wonders such as

casting out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes,

healing the halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had

been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and

prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the

reverend Father O’Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the

good fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard

Kiernan and Co, limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale

grocers, wine and brandy shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine

and spirits for consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the

house and censed the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults

and the arrises and the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and

the engrailed arches and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the

lintels thereof with blessed water and prayed that God might bless that

house as he had blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and

make the angels of His light to inhabit therein. And entering he

blessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessed

answered his prayers.

—_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._

—_Qui fecit cœlum et terram._

—_Dominus vobiscum._

—_Et cum spiritu tuo._

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he

prayed and they all with him prayed:

—_Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde

super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et

voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem

sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animæ tutelam Te auctore

percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._

—And so say all of us, says Jack.

—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.

—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.

I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike

when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a

hurry.

—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope

I’m not...

—No, says Martin, we’re ready.

Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver.

Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There’s

a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to

five.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen.

—Beg your pardon, says he.

—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It’s a

secret.

And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.

—Bye bye all, says Martin.

And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or

whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be

all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car.

—Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop

the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off

forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely

nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the

sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the

cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the

equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds

them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas

they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so

did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters.

And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark

clave the waves.

But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the

citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the

dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and

candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little

Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him.

—Let me alone, says he.

And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls

out of him:

—Three cheers for Israel!

Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’ sake

and don’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s

always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about

bloody nothing. Gob, it’d turn the porter sour in your guts, so it

would.

And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and

Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and

Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews

and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him

to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a

patch over his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew,

jew, jew_ and a slut shouts out of her:

—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!

And says he:

—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And

the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.

—Whose God? says the citizen.

—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a

jew like me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy

name. By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

—Stop! Stop! says Joe.

A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from

the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid

farewell to Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander

Thom’s, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for

the distant clime of Százharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of

Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _éclat_ was

characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll

of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to

the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the

community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket,

tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work

which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob.

The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of

those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of

Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of _Come Back to Erin_,

followed immediately by _Rakóczsy’s March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires

were lighted along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the

Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains

of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the

Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of

M’Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid

cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a

big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills,

the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final

floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were

present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river,

escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and

Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical

power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light.

_Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!_ Gone but not

forgotten.

Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin

anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he

shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen’s

royal theatre:

—Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.

—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other

way and off with him.

—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the

sun was in his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent

it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old

mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting

and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.

The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The

observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the

fifth grade of Mercalli’s scale, and there is no record extant of a

similar seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534,

the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to

have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn’s Quay

ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres,

two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in

the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble

edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal

debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it

is to be feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the

reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were

accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic

character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the

much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a

silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat

of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of

quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been

discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island

respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant’s

causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in

the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other

eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of

enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying

velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of

condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the

different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously

pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_ shall be

celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral

church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority

of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who

have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of

salvage, removal of _débris,_ human remains etc has been entrusted to

Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T.

and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and

officers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry under the general

supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir

Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C.,

K. C. B., M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I.

A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P.

I. and F. R. C. S. I.

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that

lottery ticket on the side of his poll he’d remember the gold cup, he

would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and

battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by

furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And

he let a volley of oaths after him.

—Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

—After him, Garry! After him, boy!

And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old

sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his

lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.

Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise

you.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld

the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in

the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having

raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they

durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling:

_Elijah! Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ And

they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels

ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees

over Donohoe’s in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.

[ 13 ]

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious

embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of

all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud

promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on

the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on

the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the

stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a

beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening

scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and

oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy

chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy

Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and

Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits

with caps to match and the name _H. M. S. Belleisle_ printed on both.

For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very

noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little

fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They

were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building

castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy

as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to

and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with

delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a

tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy

Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty

dimple in his chin.

—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of

water.

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of

children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could

never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that

held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown

bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But

to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in

his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort,

was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life,

always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her

cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman

laughed too at the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and

Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to

this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand

which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go

wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like

the Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky

was selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman’s

house is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose

that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the

coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master

Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.

—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,

Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I

catch you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for

their big sister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he

was too after his misadventure. His little man-o’-war top and

unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the

art of smoothing over life’s tiny troubles and very quickly not one

speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue

eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed

away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and

said if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancing

in admonition.

—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

—What’s your name? Butter and cream?

—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your

sweetheart?

—Nao, tearful Tommy said.

—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

—Nao, Tommy said.

—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from

her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty is

Tommy’s sweetheart.

—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy

Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman

couldn’t see and to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,

gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a

specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was

pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said,

she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and

graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had

been taking of late had done her a world of good much better than the

Widow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those discharges

she used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face

was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth

was a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely

veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and

queen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she used

to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple

told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black

out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their

little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told

her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or

she’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There

was an innate refinement, a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which

was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.

Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in

her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education

Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the

land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow

and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their

devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that

lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed

meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful

eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery?

Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and

dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily

seductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful

page of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try

eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so

becoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then

there was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increase

your height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That would

suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’s crowning

glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a

natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the

new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of

luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And

just now at Edy’s words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest

rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet

girlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair land of Ireland did not

hold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was

about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.

Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.

The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out

into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young

May morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy

say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a

lovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about

the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding

up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in

the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate

that was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a

doctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who

was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little

recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart

sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he

might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family

and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed

Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an

exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the

shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would

know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the

bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice

perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size

too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so

frightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front

of her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of

Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be

out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because

it was expected in the _Lady’s Pictorial_ that electric blue would be

worn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket

(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her

favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy

threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful

figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of

wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue

chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday

week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she

found what she wanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightly

shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny.

She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on

then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to

her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew

that that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes

were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she

was very _petite_ but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a

five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one

smart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed

its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount

and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with

highspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty’s

chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet

seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in

his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty

stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with

different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen,

and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the

wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because

she wouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorching

the things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her

own colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on

her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because his

father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and

because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was

dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside

out and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put those things

on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so

long as it wasn’t of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is

there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give

worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving

way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings

though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the

mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls

upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain.

Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage

has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.

C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs

Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was

wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox

was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in

love, a woman’s birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer’s

(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an

arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her

little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the

first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from

the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength

of character had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who would

woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting,

always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be

over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous

love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who

had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey,

and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her

to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort

her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she

yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be

his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in

health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was

just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his

little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue

in the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she

would be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature

comforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked

that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue

and queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden

opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a

fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same

direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of

eggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any people

that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something

poetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifully

appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photograph

of grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was

so human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in

Clery’s summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be

tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a

husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed

sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their

honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in

a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would both

have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves and

before he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey a

good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then

she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run

off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy

said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with

the ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green but Tommy said

it was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if

you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy

Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off

now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.

—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her

finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand

and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.

—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and played

here’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbread

carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper

chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way

like that from everyone always petting him.

—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’t

say.

—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy

saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her

life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was

sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared

Ciss.

—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of

her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look at

him.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.

For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea

and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces on

her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to

go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the

Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget

her the evening she dressed up in her father’s suit and hat and the

burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a

cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was

sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever

made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the

pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreat

conducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary,

sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there

gathered together without distinction of social class (and a most

edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,

after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the

immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her

to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin

of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoided

the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders

the drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling in

her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that

as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp

because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window

dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking.

But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had

cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in

the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen

her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself

completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it

was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of

kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,

Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard

her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman

off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like

himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him

any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a

father because he was too old or something or on account of his face

(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the

pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor

father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me,

Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they

had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supper

and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that died

suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her

mother’s birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom

and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have

had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now

he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a

warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’t even go to the

funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him

the letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,

artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and

always bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the

house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in

gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was

it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’t

like her mother’s taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single

thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the

world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas

at the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of

that place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime

Mr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days

where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a

threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with

oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a

story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a

soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in

chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them

dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own

arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and

thought about those times because she had found out in Walker’s

pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the

halcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till

at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no

getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he

could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was

not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was

sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted

the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries

and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it

to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then

threw it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the

slope and stopped right under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by the

rock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it

away and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she

wished their stupid ball hadn’t come rolling down to her and she gave a

kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.

—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her

pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted

her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball

a jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it

down towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else

to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She

felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell,

surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged

glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she

ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the

twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had

ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted

and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain

of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray

for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And

careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many

who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all

that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told

them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary,

the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it was not recorded in

any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever

abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of

childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with

baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.

Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was

Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my

word, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say

papa.

—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for

eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of

health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out

to be something great, they said.

—Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to

sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried

out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half

blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most

obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all

no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the

geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave

him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen

was quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out

of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little

brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the

paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured

chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out,

the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and

to hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they

burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart

went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning

in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her

through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,

superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer.

She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face

that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin

Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred

because she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they

two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not see

whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly _retroussé_ from where he

was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story

of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given

worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still,

and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel

buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the

toes down. She was glad that something told her to put on the

transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was

far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he

who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him

because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very

heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she

knew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against

than sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked

man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could

convert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted

healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty

girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they

hadn’t got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if she

could make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of the

past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man,

crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for

herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Well

has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy

can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge

for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her

own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the

stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue

banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality and Father Conroy was helping

Canon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes

cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet

and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever

she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come

to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time

when she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots

of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was

only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature’s laws, he

said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from the

nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady

herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to

Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and

thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design

for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the

mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little

house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the

forty hours’ adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a

present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or

some place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky

threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little

monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them

a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of

them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they

were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.

—Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very

last time she’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and

she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had

a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the

thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn’t get it to grow

long because it wasn’t natural so she could just go and throw her hat

at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn’t rip

up her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a

lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece

whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and just

because she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see

all the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as

possible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped up

over something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French

heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_

That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like that

to witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,

they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy

handed the thurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense and

censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and

she was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she

didn’t because she thought he might be watching but she never made a

bigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking

that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O’Hanlon handed

the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the

Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and she

just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to

the _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for those

stockings in Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Monday

before Easter and there wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he was

looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had

neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his

head to see the difference for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with

her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a

streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought

only a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her

petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a

moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown

tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—a radiant little vision,

in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel

many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She

could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes

that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she

could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster

for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was

eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her that

she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet

swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a

glorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,

half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the

baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was

why no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no

concern of hers. And she said to Gerty:

—A penny for your thoughts.

—What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I

was only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they’d take the snottynosed twins and

their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just

gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy

asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was

half past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know

because they were told to be in early.

—Wait, said Cissy, I’ll run ask my uncle Peter over there what’s the

time by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his

hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his

watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was

Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment

he had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and

the next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol

expressed in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the

right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to

it and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry

his watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the

sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in

measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones.

Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said

his waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the _Tantum ergo_ and Canon O’Hanlon

got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he

told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire

to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and

she could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the

works and she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting

darker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he was

winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it

back and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a

sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalp

and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be coming on

because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account of

the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her

every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was

undisguised admiration in a man’s passionate gaze it was there plain to

be seen on that man’s face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you

know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty

noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect

because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place

to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins’ caps and tidied

their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O’Hanlon

stood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed

him the card to read off and he read out _Panem de coelo praestitisti

eis_ and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and

asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just

answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she

heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply.

A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn

immeasurable. It hurt—O yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet

way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the confounded

little cat she was. Gerty’s lips parted swiftly to frame the word but

she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,

so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of.

She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle

like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and

for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears.

Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she

sparkled back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them

to see.

—O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head

flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the

ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young

voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As

for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck

him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as

much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a

dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him

one look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot.

Miss puny little Edy’s countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty

could see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a

towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft

had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was

something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and

never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it

so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked

in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because

the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told

him too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and

baby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and

Cissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby,

without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and

sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

—O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight _contretemps_ claimed her attention but in two twos she set

that little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy

asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was

flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed

it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction

because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet

seashore because Canon O’Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that

Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the

Blessed Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse

of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time

a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither,

thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of

the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of

paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the

lamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church

grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked

and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn

his freewheel like she read in that book _The Lamplighter_ by Miss

Cummins, author of _Mabel Vaughan_ and other tales. For Gerty had her

dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a

keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the

coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of

her toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was

scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure

trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose

scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to

change when her things came home from the wash and there were some

beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in

Hely’s of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if

she could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her so

deeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening

round the potherbs. _Art thou real, my ideal?_ it was called by Louis J

Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about _twilight, wilt

thou ever?_ and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient

loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the

years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one

shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an

accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it.

But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there

would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would

make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his

thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his

days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was

dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife

or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land

of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But

even if—what then? Would it make a very great difference? From

everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively

recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the

accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and

coarse men with no respect for a girl’s honour, degrading the sex and

being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be

just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other

in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was

an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She

thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men

were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white

hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would

follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he

was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was

the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be

wild, untrammelled, free.

Canon O’Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and

genuflected and the choir sang _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_ and then

he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and

Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked

wasn’t she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:

—O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over

the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

—It’s fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,

helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy

holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn’t fall running.

—Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It’s the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and

call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she

could see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set

her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance,

and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face,

passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were

left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he

could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of

inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working

and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the

fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall

back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she

revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply

soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his

heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of

men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead

secret and made her swear she’d never about the gentleman lodger that

was staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had

pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and

she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imagine

sometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing

like that because there was all the difference because she could almost

feel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of his

handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn’t do

the other thing before being married and there ought to be women

priests that would understand without your telling out and Cissy

Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes

so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors’

photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on

the way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned

back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent

and they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was

and she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something

queer was flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And

she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in

the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went

higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up

after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused

with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see

her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the

skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven,

on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and

then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was

trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full

view high up above her knee where no-one ever not even on the swing or

wading and she wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t either to look in that

immodest way like that because he couldn’t resist the sight of the

wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so

immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She

would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms

to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow, the cry of a

young girl’s love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry

that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot

blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh

of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a

stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all

greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet,

soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She

glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of

piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl.

He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is

he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes.

What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called

to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he

had been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in

those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and

sinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That

was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there

was none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly

through the evening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to

show what a great person she was: and then she cried:

—Gerty! Gerty! We’re going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love’s little ruses. She slipped a hand into

her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of

course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he’s too

far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet

again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her

dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their

souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her

heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet

flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile,

a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,

to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was

darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and

slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic

of her but with care and very slowly because—because Gerty MacDowell

was...

Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’s

left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was

wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse

in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was

on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity like

a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is

delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I

have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all

right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla

convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the

end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha,

she. Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t all

women menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends

on the time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out

of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of

that. Damned glad I didn’t do it in the bath this morning over her

silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this

morning. That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife

engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for

small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it

themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured

out of offices. Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you.

Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves. A dream of

wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel

street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls did

with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake? _Lingerie_

does it. Felt for the curves inside her _déshabillé._ Excites them also

when they’re. I’m all clean come and dirty me. And they like dressing

one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly’s new blouse.

At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her

the violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and

turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we

met. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman

loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy

lost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part

of their charm. Just changes when you’re on the track of the secret.

Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer

refused. She wasn’t in a hurry either. Always off to a fellow when they

are. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably. They

believe in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined to

give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other’s

necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about

nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs

and their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what they

can’t get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write to me. And I’ll write to

you. Now won’t you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr Right comes along,

then meet once in a blue moon. _Tableau!_ O, look who it is for the

love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with

yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in

each other’s appearance. You’re looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing

their teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn’t lend each

other a pinch of salt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that’s coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.

Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my

foot. O that way! O, that’s exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest

once in a way. Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then. Safe in one

way. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering

plants I read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she

wears she’s a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like

that you often meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look

at. Always know a fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and

lions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or

something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike

rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me.

Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap with

bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid

gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn’t

let her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly

men marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can’t be so if Molly.

Took off her hat to show her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face,

meeting someone might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers

to smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly’s combings when

we were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her

money. Why not? All a prejudice. She’s worth ten, fifteen, more, a

pound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion.

Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent

to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie’s without a necktie. Wrangle

with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he’s

another. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four.

Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was

that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that

little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not

pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don’t care.

Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night

prayers with the kiddies. Well, aren’t they? See her as she is spoil

all. Must have the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music.

The name too. _Amours_ of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud

Branscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered

with pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel.

The strength it gives a man. That’s the secret of it. Good job I let

off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was.

Otherwise I couldn’t have. Makes you want to sing after. _Lacaus esant

taratara_. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you

don’t know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they ask

you another. Good idea if you’re stuck. Gain time. But then you’re in a

cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she’s

on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I

nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath

street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of

course. My arks she called it. It’s so hard to find one who. Aho! If

you don’t answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they

harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings.

Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn’t

called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a

single girl! That’s what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman.

Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other

chap’s wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today

spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook.

Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don’t think.

Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they

change the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you like

mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you what

someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if I

went the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. Because I did.

She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want something

awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have been

thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she came

to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. The

propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by

their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till

their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the

Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts

were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when

we drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord

mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up

like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,

waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in

mother’s clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world.

And the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she

could whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass

whore in Jammet’s wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind,

please, telling me the right time? I’ll tell you the right time up a

dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for

fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game.

Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn’t look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn’t give that

satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls.

Fine eyes she had, clear. It’s the white of the eye brings that out not

so much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting

beyond a dog’s jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high

school drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call

that innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her.

Never see them sit on a bench marked _Wet Paint_. Eyes all over them.

Look under the bed for what’s not there. Longing to get the fright of

their lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at

the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like,

twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that?

Typist going up Roger Greene’s stairs two at a time to show her

understandings. Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean.

Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the

mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman’s eye

on a mirror. And when I sent her for Molly’s Paisley shawl to

Prescott’s by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her

stocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carries

parcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand,

shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you

learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don’t they

know! Three years old she was in front of Molly’s dressingtable, just

before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who

knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway

not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are.

Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.

Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in

Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads

and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see

and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the

rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion.

Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan’s, Dignam’s. For

this relief much thanks. In _Hamlet,_ that is. Lord! It was all things

combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of

my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He’s right. Might have made a

worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I

will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It

couldn’t be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however

like my name and the address Dolphin’s barn a blind.

Her maiden name was Jemina Brown

And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.

Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if

it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw

anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram’s horn. Sad however

because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping

and papa’s pants will soon fit Willy and fuller’s earth for the baby

when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them

out of harm’s way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam.

Children’s hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even

closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds.

Oughtn’t to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up

with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is

nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly

was in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O’Hare I noticed her

brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too,

marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City

Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat.

Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in

the morning: was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault the

husband. Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another like

glue. Maybe the women’s fault also. That’s where Molly can knock spots

off them. It’s the blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, the

figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance those

others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to

introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript,

wouldn’t know what to call her. Always see a fellow’s weak point in his

wife. Still there’s destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own

secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman

didn’t take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of a

shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he matched

them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes one.

Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and repent

in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is

not back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the

short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.

Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic

influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I

suppose, at once. Cat’s away, the mice will play. I remember looking in

Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism.

Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement.

And time, well that’s the time the movement takes. Then if one thing

stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it’s all

arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, the

stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come.

Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up

and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if

you’re a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look

and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third

person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw

stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at

the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine

voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like

flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the

paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her

slipper on the floor so they wouldn’t hear. But lots of them can’t kick

the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all

round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave

you this to think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it?

Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of that

kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her,

with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the

dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She

was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good

conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there’s some connection.

For instance if you go into a cellar where it’s dark. Mysterious thing

too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself,

slow but sure. Suppose it’s ever so many millions of tiny grains blown

across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this

morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It’s like a fine

fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you

call it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine as

anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything

she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little

kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff

in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too.

Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There

or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes

and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something.

Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years.

Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm.

Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that

way. We’re the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have

their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on.

Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the

grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long

John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink

gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because

priests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like

flies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The

tree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to.

That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life.

And it’s extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.

Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that’s the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never

went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag

this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could

mention Meagher’s just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph.

Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he’ll have. Call tomorrow. How much do

I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving

credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run

up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into

somewhere else.

Here’s this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as

far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had

a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper

walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government

sit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today.

Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as

women don’t mock what matter? That’s the way to find out. Ask yourself

who is he now. _The Mystery Man on the Beach_, prize titbit story by Mr

Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that

fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his

kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain

they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body

feels the atmosphere. Old Betty’s joints are on the rack. Mother

Shipton’s prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the

twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills

seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or

they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of

the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds

flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt

you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through

the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against.

Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in

the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest.

Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,

violet. A star I see. Venus? Can’t tell yet. Two. When three it’s

night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom

ship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of

the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native

land, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white

fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his

way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold,

sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the

position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don’t

know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green

apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it’s the only time we cross

legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy

chairs under them. But it’s the evening influence. They feel all that.

Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes,

in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat

Dillon’s garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length

oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns.

History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again.

Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her

lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity.

They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The

rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the

plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change:

that’s all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of

me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it

comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the

same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing

new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin’s Barn. Are you not happy in

your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’s

house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy,

Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the

old major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I

an only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run into

yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he

and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip:

tear in Henny Doyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle:

cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She

leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in

Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty

from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a

tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you

could be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he

goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very

likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him

out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray

for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition.

Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there’s the

light in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the

mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Two

houses they have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder

why they come out at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds are

like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit

still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of

a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with

tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey

white. Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example

like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants

to stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning

on the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with

three colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the

_City Arms_ with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different

colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That’s how that

wise man what’s his name with the burning glass. Then the heather goes

on fire. It can’t be tourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry

rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the furze act

as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory’s not

so bad.

Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects? That bee last

week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be

the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what

they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they

have to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms,

telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of

oceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing out like

seacows. _Faugh a ballagh!_ Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in

vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake

when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at

the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because it’s round.

Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it till

Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail

end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor’s

weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well.

And the tephilim no what’s this they call it poor papa’s father had on

his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into

the house of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when

you go out never know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of

a beam for grim life, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and

that’s the last of his nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish

ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,

crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down so

peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of

funds for Mercer’s hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of

violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The

shepherd’s hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to

house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o’clock

postman, the glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaming here and there

through the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted

lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy’s terrace. By screens of lighted

windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: _Evening

Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races!_ and from

the door of Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat

flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,

grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum

rhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift,

ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep

and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the

anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish

Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and

breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in

the Erin’s King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the

zoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking

overboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in

their faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing.

Don’t know what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean.

But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I

didn’t want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with

masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I’ll murder you.

Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can

people aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only

troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that.

After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What

do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with

the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking.

Little hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when

you touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I

remember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is

more sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves

out if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening

me. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first. Poor child!

Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar.

Looking from Buena Vista. O’Hara’s tower. The seabirds screaming. Old

Barbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men

to cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she told me. Evening like

this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I’d marry a lord or a rich

gentleman coming with a private yacht. _Buenas noches, señorita. El

hombre ama la muchacha hermosa_. Why me? Because you were so foreign

from the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you

dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for

_Leah, Lily of Killarney._ No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital

to see. Hope she’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral,

house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then that

bawler in Barney Kiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what

I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought

to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in

company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me.

Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he

meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he

hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty.

Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of

the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early

morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he

kissed the cow. But Dignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so

depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must

call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for

granted we’re going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it

outside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but

progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? What do

you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to

see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five children

poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly

woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and

a large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a

pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.

Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we

die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the

trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed.

Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She

had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does?

Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone.

Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. Work

Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in

them. What’s that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He

brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can’t read. Better go.

Better. I’m tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and

pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with

story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children

always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the

waters. What’s this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here

tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers

do. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write

a message for her. Might remain. What?