No More Learning

There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn
some time.

Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's
the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there
some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to
professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to:
man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman
proud to be descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it
on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt
out what you know you're not to: what's parallax? Show this gentleman
the door.

Ah.

His hand fell to his side again.

Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,
crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid:
then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock,
like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she said. I
believe there is.

He went on by la maison Claire.

Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there
is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon.
She was humming. The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side
of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch.
Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.

Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.

Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court.

With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here
middle of the day of Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend,
M Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or _cherchez la
femme_. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the
rest of the year sober as a judge.

Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him
good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the
Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon
face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies,
eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking,
laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat.
Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white
hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp
that once did starve us all.

I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She
twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could
never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding
water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then.
Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy?
Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library.

Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,
silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the
baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope
the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to
the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of
plumb.

He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades
of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a
flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that
here. _La causa e santa_! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must
be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.

Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all
over the place. Needles in window curtains.

He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today
anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.
Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't
like it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.

Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk
stockings.

Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.

High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home and
houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim.
Wealth of the world.

A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded.
Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he
mutely craved to adore.

Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.

He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds.
Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields,
tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas,
creaking beds.

--Jack, love!

--Darling!

--Kiss me, Reggy!

--My boy!

--Love!

His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink
gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See
the animals feed.

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables
calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy
food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced
young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New
set of microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round
him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his
plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump
chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten
off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see
us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone!
That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself
at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something
galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn't
swallow it all however.

--Roast beef and cabbage.

--One stew.

Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish
cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale
of ferment.

Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all
before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing
the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then
on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it
off the plate, man! Get out of this.

He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of
his nose.

--Two stouts here.

--One corned and cabbage.

That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended
on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his
three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a
silver knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means
born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.

An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates.
Rock, the head
bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well
up: it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright,
elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift
across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something
with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un
thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?

Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said:

--Not here. Don't see him.

Out. I hate dirty eaters.

He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap.
Keep me going. Had a good breakfast.

--Roast and mashed here.

--Pint of stout.

Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.

He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat
or be eaten. Kill! Kill!

Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down
with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the
street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every
mother's son don't talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women
and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From
Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union,
lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My
plate's empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir
Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the microbes with your handkerchief.
Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O'Flynn would make
hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number one. Children
fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as big as the
Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Hate
people all round you. City Arms hotel _table d'hote_ she called it.
Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then
who'd wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids
that time. Teeth getting worse and worse.

After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from
the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp
of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw
fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe
to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering
bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobbly lights. Give us that
brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed
sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling
nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces,
young one.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed.
Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.

Ah, I'm hungry.

He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now
and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?

--Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook.

--Hello, Flynn.

--How's things?

--Tiptop. . . Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and. . . let me
see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham
and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home
without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the
obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam's potted meat.
Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like
pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be
tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. _There was
a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the
reverend Mr MacTrigger_. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what
concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle
find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what
they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and
war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and
geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards
full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese.

--Have you a cheese sandwich?

--Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of
burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber,
Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served
me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made
food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.

--Wife well?

--Quite well, thanks. . . A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

--Yes, sir.

Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.

--Doing any singing those times?

Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.
Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him.
Does no harm. Free ad.

--She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard
perhaps.

--No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up?

The curate served.

--How much is that?

--Seven d. , sir. . . Thank you, sir.

Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. _Mr MacTrigger_. Easier
than the dreamy creamy stuff. _His five hundred wives. Had the time of
their lives. _

--Mustard, sir?

--Thank you.

He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. _Their lives_. I have
it. _It grew bigger and bigger and bigger_.

--Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part
shares and part profits.

--Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket
to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan
mixed up in it?

A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He
raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock
five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.

His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,
longingly.