... shadows... the woods
... white breast... dim sea.
_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom,
holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the
distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks
down on Stephen’s face and form.)_
BLOOM: _(Communes with the night.)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother.
In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A
girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs.)_... swear
that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts,
art or arts... _(He murmurs.)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a
cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows
...
_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure
appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed
in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a
book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling,
kissing the page.)_
BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.)_ Rudy!
RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading,
kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has
diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory
cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat
pocket.)_
— III —
[ 16 ]
Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a
bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr
Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry
water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit
upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the
cabman’s shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt
bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk
and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce
he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon
him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and
means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he
was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly
advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in
their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen,
always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly
after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having
forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together
along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence
debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But
as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for
hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some
fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was
no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was
anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by
emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head,
twice.
This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it
which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the
Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the
direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped
by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had,
to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though,
entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made
light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed
for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it
cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they
dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a
fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s
sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his
companion _à propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of
some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of
course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the
backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say
gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the
Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its
C division police station. Between this point and the high at present
unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen,
associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in Talbot
place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as
his _fidus Achates_ inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of
James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were,
the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities
of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of
life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the
baker’s it is said.
_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in
complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact
disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution _re_ the dangers of
nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely
permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of
the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age
particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence
of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as
even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if
you didn’t look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the
scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for
that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or,
failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day
before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant
to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got
bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those
policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in
the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or
two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole
through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet
parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law
were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to
protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping
soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off
at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians
should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away
your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character
besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
_demimonde_ ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the
greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the
much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old
wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing
aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch
believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably
drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of
your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he
commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting
_confrères_ but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his
brother medicos under all the circs.
—And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing
whatsoever of any kind.
Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a
brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one
attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord
stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren
cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just
make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom
of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had
been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small
effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
_quondam_ friend of his father’s, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew
nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.
—Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.
A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches
saluted again, calling:
—Night!
Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the
compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch
as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but
nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety
though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he
knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next
to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising
peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply
marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell
swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there
to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.
Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him
and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of
inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a
certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His
grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of
a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot.
Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of
the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably
fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or
some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had
enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This
therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though
dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with
facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley.
Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends
had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called
him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of
other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of
Stephen to tell him where on God’s earth he could get something,
anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the
washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they
were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences
happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete
fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in.
—I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows
I’m on the rocks.
—There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys’
school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.
—Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man. I was
never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck
twice in the junior at the christian brothers.
—I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.
Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to
do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody
tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs
Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but
M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over
in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person
addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he
hadn’t said a word about it.
Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he
knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was
hardly deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum
miseris succurrere disco etcetera_ as the Latin poet remarks especially
as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the
month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of
fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream
of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was
living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful.
Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of
finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a
bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get
sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his
chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the
result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the
moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse
in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough
search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly
remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did
he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in
the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out.
—Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.
And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him
one of them.
—Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back one
time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse
in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good
word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard only
the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three
weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for the
Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as
a crossing sweeper.
Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six
he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky
that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s,
bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with
O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he
was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and
disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.
Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation
watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him,
was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own
private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same
time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired
interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though
where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the
remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give
points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on
his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally
testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his
hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one
preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put
it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street
chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the
option of a fine would be a very _rara avis_ altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that
hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.
The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he
said, laughingly, Stephen, that is:
—He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:
—Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it
his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?
—Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.
—Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he
invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according
to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he
with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of
the question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what
occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I
don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why
did you leave your father’s house?
—To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.
—I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.
—I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?
—A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great
pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he
hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row
terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan,
that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred
their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally
station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion,
which they did.
There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it
was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell
cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he
could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings
they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and
Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells
and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in
accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on
the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or
something like that.
—No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element,
Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your
shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all
probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals.
Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion
me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic
was put in your drink for some ulterior object.
He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified,
bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future
as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services
in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from
certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid
at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an
exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that
frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be
at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or
jealousy, pure and simple.
—Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking
your brains, he ventured to throw out.
The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by
friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the
problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge
by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about
saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to
himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that
effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities
though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both
ends meet.
Adjacent to the men’s public urinal they perceived an icecream car
round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were
getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a
particularly animated way, there being some little differences between
the parties.
—_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_
_—Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più..._
_—Dice lui, però!_
_—Mezzo._
_—Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_
_—Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più..._
Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been
before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few
hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat
Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual
facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few
moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet
corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous
collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the
genus _homo_ already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified
by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked
curiosity.
—Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the
shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description.
Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order
these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores or
whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes
apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous
individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still
stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention
to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech,
he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute,
though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his
_protégé_ in an audible tone of voice _à propos_ of the battle royal in
the street which was still raging fast and furious:
—A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious
and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._
Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering
from lassitude generally, replied:
—To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.
—Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the
inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that
surrounds it.
The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tête-à-tête_ put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the
table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed.
After which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to
have a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For
which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he
did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was
temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him.
—Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time,
like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What’s in a name?
—Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name
was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.
The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded
Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely
by asking:
—And what might your name be?
Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion’s boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected
quarter, answered:
—Dedalus.
The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old
Hollands and water.
—You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.
—I’ve heard of him, Stephen said.
Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.
—He’s Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.
—All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.
As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when
the sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the
shelter with the remark:
—I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his
shoulder. The lefthand dead shot.
Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.
—Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.
He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then
he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the
night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.
—Pom! he then shouted once.
The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.
—Pom! he shouted twice.
Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:
_—Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,