What among other data did the second volume of the work in question
contain?
The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a
decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered).
Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question?
Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an
interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to
consult the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of
the military engagement, Plevna.
What caused him consolation in his sitting posture?
The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a
statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus
purchased by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor’s Walk.
What caused him irritation in his sitting posture?
Inhibitory pressure of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two
articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and
inelastic to alterations of mass by expansion.
How was the irritation allayed?
He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible
stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He
unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers,
shirt and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black
hairs extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over
the circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the
medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral
vertebrae, thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in
circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the
summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of
six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one
incomplete.
What involuntary actions followed?
He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice
in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a
sting inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee.
He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of
prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly
abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of
his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin (1 shilling),
placed there (presumably) on the occasion (17 October 1903) of the
interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade.
Compile the budget for 16 June 1904.
Debit
£. s. d.
1 Pork kidney 0—0—3
1 Copy Freeman’s Journal 0—0—1
1 Bath and Gratification 0—1—6
Tramfare 0—0—1
1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam 0—5—0
2 Banbury cakes 0—0—1
1 Lunch 0—0—7
1 Renewal fee for book 0—1—0
1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes 0—0—2
1 Dinner and Gratification 0—2—0
1 Postal Order and Stamp 0—2—8
Tramfare 0—0—1
1 Pig’s Foot 0—0—4
1 Sheep’s Trotter 0—0—3
1 Cake Fry’s Plain Chocolate 0—0—1
1 Square Soda Bread 0—0—4
1 Coffee and Bun 0—0—4
Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded 1—7—0
BALANCE 0—16—6
—————
2—19—3
Credit
£. s. d.
Cash in hand 0—4—9
Commission recd. Freeman’s Journal 1—7—6
Loan (Stephen Dedalus) 1—7—0
—————
2—19—3
Did the process of divestiture continue?
Did the process of divestiture continue?
Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended
his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and
salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking
repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded
the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his
two boots for the second time, detached the partially moistened right
sock through the fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again
effracted, raised his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic
sock suspender, took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right
foot on the margin of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently
lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail, raised the part
lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick, then,
with satisfaction, threw away the lacerated ungual fragment.
Why with satisfaction?
Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other
ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs
Ellis’s juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief
genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation.
In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions
now coalesced?
Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English,
or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of
acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation £ 42), of
grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage
drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa,
described as _Rus in Urbe_ or _Qui si sana_, but to purchase by private
treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse
of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor,
connected with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy
or Virginia creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish
and neat doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and
gable, rising, if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable
prospect from balcony with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and
unoccupyable interjacent pastures and standing in 5 or 6 acres of its
own ground, at such a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as
to render its houselights visible at night above and through a quickset
hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less
than 1 statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time
limit of not more than 15 minutes from tram or train line (e.g.,
Dundrum, south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by
trial to resemble the terrestrial poles in being favourable climates
for phthisical subjects), the premises to be held under feefarm grant,
lease 999 years, the messuage to consist of 1 drawingroom with
baywindow (2 lancets), thermometer affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms,
2 servants’ rooms, tiled kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge
hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase
containing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary,
transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong,
alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver
with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground
and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with
massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed
timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart,
comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby
plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen
and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured leather, gloss renewable
with a minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and
pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with
fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed mural paper at 10/-
per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral design and top crown
frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at successive right angles,
of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and risers, newel, balusters and
handrail, with steppedup panel dado, dressed with camphorated wax:
bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining and shower: water closet on
mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup seat,
bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, armrests, footstool and artistic
oleograph on inner face of door: ditto, plain: servants’ apartments
with separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general and
betweenmaid (salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of £ 2,
with comprehensive fidelity insurance, annual bonus (£ 1) and retiring
allowance (based on the 65 system) after 30 years’ service), pantry,
buttery, larder, refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with
winebin (still and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if
entertained to dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply
throughout.
What additional attractions might the grounds contain?
As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse
with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery
with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval
flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of
scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet
William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James
W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and
nurserymen, agents for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper),
an orchard, kitchen garden and vinery, protected against illegal
trespassers by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock
for various inventoried implements.
As?
Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone,
clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth
rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot,
brush, hoe and so on.
What improvements might be subsequently introduced?
A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2
hammocks (lady’s and gentleman’s), a sundial shaded and sheltered by
laburnum or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese
tinkle gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious
waterbutt, a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler
with hydraulic hose.
What facilities of transit were desirable?
When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their
respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound
velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar
attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart
phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14 h).
What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence?
Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold’s. Flowerville.
Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville?
In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful
garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned
young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling
a weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the
scent of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom,
achieving longevity.
What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible?
Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative
to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the
celestial constellations.
What lighter recreations?
Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways,
ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and
unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge
anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation),
vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with
inspection of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers’
fires of smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor:
discussion in tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal
problems: lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house
carpentry with toolbox containing hammer, awl, nails, screws, tintacks,
gimlet, tweezers, bullnose plane and turnscrew.
Might he become a gentleman farmer of field produce and live stock?
Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and
requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip
pulper etc.
What would be his civic functions and social status among the county
families and landed gentry?
Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that
of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his
career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest
and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto _(Semper paratus_),
duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C.,
K. P., L. L. D. (_honoris causa_), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned
in court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have
left Kingstown for England).
What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity?
A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: the
dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes,
incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social
inequality, of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered
with mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the
uttermost farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to
the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated
by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance
of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all
simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a
preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution),
the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law
merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in
contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass
and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by
desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all
perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of
domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic
connubiality.
Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth.
To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his
disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his
father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the
Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting
Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of
Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in
1888. To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882 during a juvenile
friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he
had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of
colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of
Charles Darwin, expounded in _The Descent of Man_ and _The Origin of
Species_. In 1885 he had publicly expressed his adherence to the
collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan
Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J. F. X. O’Brien and others,
the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of
Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City), the programme of peace,
retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M. P. for
Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions, had
climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree on
Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February 1888) into the
capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000
torchbearers, divided into 120 trade corporations, bearing 2000 torches
in escort of the marquess of Ripon and (honest) John Morley.
How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence?
As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised
Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum of
£ 60 per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from giltedged
securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of £ 1200
(estimate of price at 20 years’ purchase), of which 1/3 to be paid on
acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. £ 800 plus
2 1/2 % interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual
instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for
purchase within a period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of
£ 64, headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession of the
lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale,
foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure
to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the
absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of
years stipulated.
What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate
purchase?
A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash
system the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase)
of 1 or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1
at 3 hr 8 m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received
and available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink
time). The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value
(precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7
schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue
paper, perforate, Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official,
rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical
ring, unique relic) in unusual repositories or by unusual means: from
the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised
remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam,
lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A
Spanish prisoner’s donation of a distant treasure of valuables or
specie or bullion lodged with a solvent banking corporation 100 years
previously at 5% compound interest of the collective worth of £
5,000,000 stg (five million pounds sterling). A contract with an
inconsiderate contractee for the delivery of 32 consignments of some
given commodity in consideration of cash payment on delivery per
delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d to be increased constantly in the
geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d, 1/2d, 1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s 4d, 2s 8d
to 32 terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of
probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular
problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium £ 1,000,000
sterling.
Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels?
The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the
prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 15, by the
cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation.
The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement
possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the
first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third,
every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing
annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed
animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035, the total
population of Ireland according to census returns of 1901.
Were there schemes of wider scope?
A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour
commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power),
obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at
head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main
streams for the economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity.
A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at
Dollymount and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links
and rifle ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting
galleries, hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for
mixed bathing. A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the
delivery of early morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish
tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled
riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge and
Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure
steamers for coastwise navigation (10/- per person per day, guide
(trilingual) included). A scheme for the repristination of passenger
and goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed from weedbeds. A
scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road
and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East
Wall), parallel with the Link line railway laid (in conjunction with
the Great Southern and Western railway line) between the cattle park,
Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western Railway 43 to 45
North Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of
Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam
Packet Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and
Glasgow Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam
Packet Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company,
Dublin and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway
Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of
Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers
from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and
for Liverpool Underwriters’ Association, the cost of acquired rolling
stock for animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the
Dublin United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers’
fees.
Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes
become a natural and necessary apodosis?
Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of gift
and transfer vouchers during donor’s lifetime or by bequest after
donor’s painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha,
Rothschild, Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller)
possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and
joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done.
What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth?
The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore.
For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation?
It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic
relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil
recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for
the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and
renovated vitality.
His justifications?
As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human
life at least 2/7, viz. 20 years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher
he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an
infinitesimal part of any person’s desires has been realised. As a
physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant
agencies chiefly operative during somnolence.
What did he fear?
The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of
the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence
situated in the cerebral convolutions.
What were habitually his final meditations?
Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in
wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded,
reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span
of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life.
What did the first drawer unlocked contain?
A Vere Foster’s handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent)
Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked _Papli_,
which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in
profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot:
2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud
Branscombe, actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing
on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend
_Mizpah_, the date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M.
Comerford, the versicle: _May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and
peace and welcome glee_: a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax,
obtained from the stores department of Messrs Hely’s, Ltd., 89, 90, and
91 Dame street: a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt “J”
pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm: an old sandglass
which rolled containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy (never
unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences
of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone’s Home Rule bill of
1886 (never passed into law): a bazaar ticket, No 2004, of S. Kevin’s
Charity Fair, price 6d, 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small
em monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you
note of interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new
paragraph signature with flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo
brooch, property of Ellen Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: a cameo
scarfpin, property of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag), deceased: 3
typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row,
addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. Dolphin’s Barn: the
transliterated name and address of the addresser of the 3 letters in
reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated quadrilinear cryptogram
(vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. MH/Y. IM: a press
cutting from an English weekly periodical _Modern Society_, subject
corporal chastisement in girls’ schools: a pink ribbon which had
festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled rubber
preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box 32, P.
O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid envelopes
and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3: some assorted
Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged
Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards
showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation,
superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior
position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes
abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by
post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: a press cutting
of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: a 1d adhesive stamp,
lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of the measurements
of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months’
consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley’s pulley exerciser (men’s 15/-,
athlete’s 20/-) viz. chest 28 in and 29 1/2 in, biceps 9 in and 10 in,
forearm 8 1/2 in and 9 in, thigh 10 in and 12 in, calf 11 in and 12 in:
1 prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world’s greatest remedy for
rectal complaints, direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South
Place, London E C, addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief
accompanying note commencing (erroneously): Dear Madam.
Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for
this thaumaturgic remedy.
It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking
wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant
relief in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural
action, an initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth
living. Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise
when they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring
water on a sultry summer’s day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen
friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker.
Were there testimonials?
Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city
man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar.
How did absentminded beggar’s concluding testimonial conclude?
What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers
during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been!
What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects?
A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.)
from Martha Clifford (find M. C.).
What pleasant reflection accompanied this action?
The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic
face, form and address had been favourably received during the course
of the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie
Powell), a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid,
Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown).
What possibility suggested itself?
The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not
immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in
the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately
mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin.
What did the 2nd drawer contain?
Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment
assurance policy of £ 500 in the Scottish Widows’ Assurance Society,
intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 years as
with profit policy of £ 430, £ 462-10-0 and £ 500 at 60 years or death,
65 years or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy
(paidup) of £ 299-10-0 together with cash payment of £ 133-10-0, at
option: a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch
showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December 1903, balance
in depositor’s favour: £ 18-14-6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings
and sixpence, sterling), net personalty: certificate of possession of £
900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty):
dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries’ (Glasnevin) Committee, relative to
a graveplot purchased: a local press cutting concerning change of name
by deedpoll.
Quote the textual terms of this notice.
I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin,
formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice
that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all
times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom.
What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the
2nd drawer?
An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold
Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their
(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar,
Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex
spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual
prayers for Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen’s Hotel,
Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: _To My Dear
Son Leopold_.
What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words
evoke?
Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be
... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all
for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always...
of me... _das Herz... Gott... dein_...
What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive
melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom?
An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered,
sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses
of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the
face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison.
Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse?
Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain
beliefs and practices.
As?
The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the
hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete
mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of male
infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the
ineffability of the tetragrammaton: the sanctity of the sabbath.
How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him?
Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than
other beliefs and practices now appeared.
What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?
Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a
retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between
Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with
statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia,
empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having
taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves).
Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant
consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by
suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in
the various centres mentioned.
Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these
migrations in narrator and listener?
In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of
narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence
of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.
What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of
amnesia?
Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat.
Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an
inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of
food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of
paper.
What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent?
The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon
repletion.
What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences?
The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the
possession of scrip.
Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which
these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values
to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity.
Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor
hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and
doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy:
that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1/4d in
the £, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant,
insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated
bailiff’s man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric
public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded
perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man’s House (Royal
Hospital), Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson’s Hospital for reduced but
respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of
misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic
pauper.
With which attendant indignities?
The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the
contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the
simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of
illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of
decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less
than nothing.
By what could such a situation be precluded?
By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place).
Which preferably?
The latter, by the line of least resistance.
What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable?
Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects.
The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The
necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of
arrest.
What considerations rendered departure not irrational?
The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which
being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if
not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication,
which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting
parties, which was impossible.
What considerations rendered departure desirable?
The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in
special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and
hachures.
In Ireland?
The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant’s Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the
pastures of royal Meath, Brigid’s elm in Kildare, the Queen’s Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.
Abroad?
Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for
Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing Lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame
street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate
of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique
birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude
Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled
international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where
O’Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no
human being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters
of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller
returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea.
Under what guidance, following what signs?
At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of
intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior
produced and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the
rightangled triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the
line alpha delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical
moon, revealed in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the
posterior interstice of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose
negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the cloud by day.
What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the
departed?
£ 5 reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street,
missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy),
height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since
grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will
be paid for information leading to his discovery.
What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and
nonentity?
Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman.
What tributes his?
Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph
immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman.
Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?
Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his
cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic
planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of
space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere
imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey
the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of
the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the
constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of
peregrination return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on
malefactors, a dark crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial
resources (by supposition) surpassing those of Rothschild or the silver
king.
What would render such return irrational?
An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through
reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible
time.
What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable?
The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity of
the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares,
rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the
proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of
warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and
rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo,
desired desire.
What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an
unoccupied bed?
The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human
(mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation
of matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in
the case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between
the spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit
section).
What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of
accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate?
The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering): intestinal congestion
and premeditative defecation (holy of holies): the bath (rite of John):
the funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of Alexander Keyes
(Urim and Thummim): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek): the
visit to museum and national library (holy place): the bookhunt along
Bedford row, Merchants’ Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah): the
music in the Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a
truculent troglodyte in Bernard Kiernan’s premises (holocaust): a blank
period of time including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a
leavetaking (wilderness): the eroticism produced by feminine
exhibitionism (rite of Onan): the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina
Purefoy (heave offering): the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs
Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone street, lower, and subsequent brawl and chance
medley in Beaver street (Armageddon): nocturnal perambulation to and
from the cabman’s shelter, Butt Bridge (atonement).
What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to
conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend?
The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by
the insentient material of a strainveined timber table.
What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering
multicoloured multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily
apprehending, not comprehend?
Who was M’Intosh?
What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30
years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the
extinction of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend?
Where was Moses when the candle went out?
What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, charged with
collected articles of recently disvested male wearing apparel,
silently, successively, enumerate?
A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement: to obtain
a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook,
Robertson and Co, 5 Dame Street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing Lane, London E.
C.): to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in
the case of Hellenic female divinities: to obtain admission (gratuitous
or paid) to the performance of _Leah_ by Mrs Bandmann Palmer at the
Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street.
What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall?
The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin’s Barn.
What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by hypothesis?
Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens
street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines
meeting at infinity, if produced: along parallel lines, reproduced from
infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the
Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning.
What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were
perceived by him?
A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies’ hose, a pair of new
violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies’ drawers of India mull, cut on
generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti’s Turkish
cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded
curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion
underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed
irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened,
having capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its
fore side in white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy).
What impersonal objects were perceived?
A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne
cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady’s black straw hat.
Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware
and ironmongery manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore street, disposed
irregularly on the washstand and floor and consisting of basin,
soapdish and brushtray (on the washstand, together), pitcher and night
article (on the floor, separate).
Bloom’s acts?
He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining
articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the
bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the
proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to
the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the
bed.
How?
With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or
not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress
being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous
under stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of
lust or adders: lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of
conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of
marriage, of sleep and of death.
What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter?
New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form,
female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs,
some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.
If he had smiled why would he have smiled?
To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to
enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if
the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first,
last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor
alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.
What preceding series?
Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell
d’Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father
Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society’s Horse Show,
Maggot O’Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of
Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an
unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon
Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman
John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a
bootblack at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so
each and so on to no last term.
What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and
late occupant of the bed?
Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a
billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a
boaster).
Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal
proportion and commercial ability?
Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding
members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably
transmitted, first with alarm, then with understanding, then with
desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene
comprehension and apprehension.
With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections
affected?
Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity.
Envy?
Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the
superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic
piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of
a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental
female organism, passive but not obtuse.
Jealousy?
Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately
the agent and reagent of attraction. Because attraction between
agent(s) and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion
of increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial
reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of
attraction produced, if desired, a fluctuation of pleasure.
Abnegation?
In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the
establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden
Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and
reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of
ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d)
extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial
prerogative, e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current
expenses, net proceeds divided.
Equanimity?
As as natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or
understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in
accordance with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar
similarity. As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the
planet in consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less
reprehensible than theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and
animals, obtaining money under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement,
misappropriation of public money, betrayal of public trust,
malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel, blackmail,
contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny on the high seas,
trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice, desertion
from armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence
with the king’s enemies, impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter,
wilful and premeditated murder. As not more abnormal than all other
parallel processes of adaptation to altered conditions of existence,
resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism and
its attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits,
indulged inclinations, significant disease. As more than inevitable,
irreparable.
Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity?
From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but
outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially
violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the
adulterously violated.
What retribution, if any?
Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by
combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice
(automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witnesses),
not yet. Suit for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault
with evidence of injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly.
Hushmoney by moral influence, possibly. If any, positively, connivance,
introduction of emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency of
publicity: moral, a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation,
alienation, humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from
the other, protecting the separator from both.
By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void of
incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments?
The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed
intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion
between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and
the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done: the fallaciously
inferred debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the
variations of ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by
inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite
proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic
transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into
its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine
subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past
participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice:
the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual
production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest
or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of
nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.
In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and
reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge?
Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial
hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored
(the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of
Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female
hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and
seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude,
insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression,
expressive of mute immutable mature animality.
The visible signs of antesatisfaction?
An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a
tentative revelation: a silent contemplation.
Then?
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each
plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure
prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a
solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.
What followed this silent action?
Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation,
catechetical interrogation.
With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation?
Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between
Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in
the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co,
Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and
response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty),
surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs
Bandmann Palmer of _Leah_ at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South
King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn’s (Murphy’s) Hotel, 35, 36
and 37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical
tendency entituled _Sweets of Sin_, anonymous author a gentleman of
fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement
in the course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since
completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author,
eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an
aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a
witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of
decision and gymnastic flexibility.
Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications?
Absolutely.
Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration?
Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.
What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were
perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the
course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration?
By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been
celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8
September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with
female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated
on the 10 September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse,
with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last
taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29
December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894,
aged 11 days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days
during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without
ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a
limitation of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete
mental intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place
since the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage,
of the female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there
remained a period of 9 months and 1 day during which, in consequence of
a preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the
consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of
action had been circumscribed.
How?
By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine
destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration
for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences,
projected or effected.
What moved visibly above the listener’s and the narrator’s invisible
thoughts?
The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of
concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow.
In what directions did listener and narrator lie?
Listener, S. E. by E.: Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel of
latitude, N., and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45° to
the terrestrial equator.
In what state of rest or motion?
At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being
each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by
the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of
neverchanging space.
In what posture?
Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right leg
extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the
attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator:
reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index
finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose,
in the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn,
the childman weary, the manchild in the womb.
Womb? Weary?
He rests. He has travelled.
With?
Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and
Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and
Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and
Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and
Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.
When?
Going to dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc’s
auk’s egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of
Darkinbad the Brightdayler.
Where?
•
[ 18 ]
Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his
breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the _City Arms_ hotel when
he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his
highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan
that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing
all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was
actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all
her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and
earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God
help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and
lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was
pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like
her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a
welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here
and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her
dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats
especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that
and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always
if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much
better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I
suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have
a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till
they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as
much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre
sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was
O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he
sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day
I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones
she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into
a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying
on account of her to never see thy face again though he looked more
like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same
besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor
paring his corns afraid hed get bloodpoisoning but if it was a thing I
was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman hides it
not to give all the trouble they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by
his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her
so either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was
really and the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it
planning it Hynes kept me who did I meet ah yes I met do you remember
Menton and who else who let me see that big babbyface I saw him and he
not long married flirting with a young girl at Pooles Myriorama and
turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite conscious what
harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well done to
him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever
met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle
in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in
with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as
I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a
letter when I came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the
paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the
blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business so very probably
that was it to somebody who thinks she has a softy in him because all
men get a bit like that at his age especially getting on to forty he is
now so as to wheedle any money she can out of him no fool like an old
fool and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it not that I
care two straws now who he does it with or knew before that way though
Id like to find out so long as I dont have the two of them under my
nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace
padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell
of those painted women off him once or twice I had a suspicion by
getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat
without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was
drinking water 1 woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of
course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table
on Christmas day if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing
my potatoes and the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see her aunt if
you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had something on
with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he said you
have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of oysters
but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to be
alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I
found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a
little bit too much her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave
her her weeks notice I saw to that better do without them altogether do
out the rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out
the dirt I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I
couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar
and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the
place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because
he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere
and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan
gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there
steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb
to squeeze back singing the young May moon shes beaming love because he
has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out
and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the
satisfaction in any case God knows hes a change in a way not to be
always and ever wearing the same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking
boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id
confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my
garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I
know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging
drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this
that and the other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would
because I told him about some dean or bishop was sitting beside me in
the jews temples gardens when I was knitting that woollen thing a
stranger to Dublin what place was it and so on about the monuments and
he tired me out with statues encouraging him making him worse than he
is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of who is it
tell me his name who tell me who the german Emperor is it yes imagine
Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me what
he never will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply
ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it
till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your
lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with all the talk of the
world about it people make its only the first time after that its just
the ordinary do it and think no more about it why cant you kiss a man
without going and marrying him first you sometimes love to wildly when
you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help yourself I wish
some man or other would take me sometime when hes there and kiss me in
his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul
almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to
Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and
I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my
child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where
you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and have done
with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever way he put
it I forget no father and I always think of the real father what did he
want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had a nice fat
hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither would he
Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know me in
the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never
turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost
for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them
Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense
off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if youre
married hes too careful about himself then give something to H H the
pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didnt
like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall though
I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of
his fathers I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it
who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of
drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they
stick their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking
green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with
the opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American
that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do
to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took
the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt
lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I
popped straight into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful
to us I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us when
I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in
Gibraltar as if the world was coming to an end and then they come and
tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing
about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that
evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it
brought its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to
church mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only
grey matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I
lit the lamp because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that
tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or
whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is
not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my
hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a
thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think
a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life
felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must
have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with
a big hole in the middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into
you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious
look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a
tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull out and do it on
me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt
washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice
invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if
someone gave them a touch of it themselves theyd know what I went
through with Milly nobody would believe cutting her teeth too and Mina
Purefoys husband give us a swing out of your whiskers filling her up
with a child or twins once a year as regular as the clock always with a
smell of children off her the one they called budgers or something like
a nigger with a shock of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a black the
last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and
bawling you couldnt hear your ears supposed to be healthy not satisfied
till they have us swollen out like elephants or I dont know what
supposing I risked having another not off him though still if he was
married Im sure hed have a fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has
more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting
Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him
off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good I
know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene he was dancing
and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming
and then he wanted to ram it down my neck it was on account of not
liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup row over
politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a
carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive
about everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for
I knew he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he
annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot
of mixedup things especially about the body and the inside I often
wanted to study up that myself what we have inside us in that family
physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room was
crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had a coolness on with
her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever
he asked who are you going to and I said over to Floey and he made me
the present of Byrons poems and the three pairs of gloves so that
finished that I could quite easily get him to make it up any time I
know how Id even supposing he got in with her again and was going out
to see her somewhere Id know if he refused to eat the onions I know
plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or touch
him with my veil and gloves on going out 1 kiss then would send them
all spinning however alright well see then let him go to her she of
course would only be too delighted to pretend shes mad in love with him
that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and ask her do you love
him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool me but he might
imagine he was and make a declaration to her with his plabbery kind of
a manner like he did to me though I had the devils own job to get it
out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could hold in and
wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me too the
night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I
want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper
with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let out too
much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let him know
more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me Josie
whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and when I
said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me and did you wash
possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on thick
when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on the
indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what
spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at
that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked though he was
too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged
afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of
laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling
out one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great
humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it
meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us
not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault
she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes
got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her
face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she
must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment
she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk
about him to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes
he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him
just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that that might
murder you any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes
mad Poldy anyhow whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when
he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he
always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like then and
now hes going about in his slippers to look for £ 10000 for a postcard
U p up O sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff
to extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what
could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than
marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like
me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and
he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick
that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man
yes it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and
do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating
drive you mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask
us to marry them for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because
they cant get on without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off
flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say
its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before she must have
been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being
hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do
besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they