No More Learning

Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they
have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down
here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder
what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.

They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny
quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?

His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

_Kino's_ 11/- _Trousers_

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which
in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of
places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck
up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr
Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self
advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for
that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight.
Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose
burning him.

If he. . . ?

O!

Eh?

No. . . No.

No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.
Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never
exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek:
parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her
about the transmigration. O rocks!

Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's right
after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound.
She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking.
Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone
voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a
barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as
witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get
outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number
one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him
along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like
that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He
read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his
foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our
staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after
street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are
not Boyl: no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either.
I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I
bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the
eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of
them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women
too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he
didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a
false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted
under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What?
Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson,
I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser _Kansell,_ sold
by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a
job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent.
That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small
head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes.
Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her
devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world.
Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name
too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had
married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of
money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for
them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves
in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the
pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover
cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil
Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom's.
Got the job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago:
ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon
was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying
the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the
inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have
already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly
had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with
selfcovered buttons. She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle
first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old
Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies' picnic
too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove,
shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we
had that day. People looking after her.

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper.
Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American
soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she
looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's
daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always
squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron's saint
Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen
. . . ? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he
couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day.

Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home
after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her
that song _Winds that blow from the south_.
Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on
about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supperroom or
oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew
out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didn't.
Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin
linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell
concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and
may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar
up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her
skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed
in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up
those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she
liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth
unclamping the busk of her stays: white.

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her.
Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two
taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy.
That was the night. . .

--O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?

--O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?

--No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for
ages.

--In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in
Mullingar, you know.

--Go away! Isn't that grand for her?

--Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How
are all your charges?

--All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said.

How many has she? No other in sight.

--You're in black, I see. You have no. . .

--No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.

Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he
die of? Turn up like a bad penny.

--O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation.

May as well get her sympathy.

--Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly,
poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.

_Your funeral's tomorrow While you're coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum Diddlediddle. . . _

--Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily.

Now that's quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.

--And your lord and master?

Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow.

--O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's
in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me
heartscalded. Wait till I show you.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured
out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's
gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar,
or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot
arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of
hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork
chained to the table.

Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on
those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open.
Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain.
Husband barging. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are
you feeding your little brother's family? Soiled handkerchief:
medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she? . . .

--There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you
know what he did last night?

Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in
alarm, yet smiling.

--What? Mr Bloom asked.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

--Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.

Indiges.

--Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.

--The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.

She took a folded postcard from her handbag.

--Read that, she said. He got it this morning.

--What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U. P. ?

--U. P. : up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great
shame for them whoever he is.

--Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.

She took back the card, sighing.

--And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an
action for ten thousand pounds, he says.

She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.

Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its
best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old
grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a
tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than
Molly.

See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.

He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.
Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry
on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek.
Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell
that was. In Luke Doyle's long ago. Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U. P. :
up.

Change the subject.

--Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked.

--Mina Purefoy? she said.

Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' Club. Matcham often thinks of
the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.

--Yes.

--I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the
lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three
days bad now.

--O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that.

--Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very stiff
birth, the nurse told me.

---O, Mr Bloom said.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in
compassion. Dth! Dth!

--I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's
terrible for her.

Mrs Breen nodded.

--She was taken bad on the Tuesday. . .

Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her:

--Mind! Let this man pass.

A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a
rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a
skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat,
a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.

--Watch him, Mr Bloom said.