No More Learning

I don't want
your custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back.

--Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?

--I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke
in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

--They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy
evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After
traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the
drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking
up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:

--And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit like
the man_, says he. _That's not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting
the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked.

--That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes.

--I know, Hynes said. I know that.

--To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure
goodheartedness: damn the thing else.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on good
terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys:
like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks.
_Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I
write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me
writing to Martha? Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be
the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when
the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among
the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to
any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It
might thrill her first. Courting death. . . Shades of night hovering
here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when
churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a descendant I suppose
who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the
same like a big giant in the dark. Will o' the wisp. Gas of graves.
Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so
touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever
seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on
the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up.
Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might
pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones.
Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both
ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to
the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting
to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field
after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing.
Sitting or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some
day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed
the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim
grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well,
so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant
poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic
Gardens are just over there. It's the blood sinking in the earth gives
new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every
man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable
for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor
and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With
thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh,
nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot
quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy
kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of
them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they
are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to
feed on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply
swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little
seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of
power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life.
Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about
the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a. m. this morning. 11 p. m.
(closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men
anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what's in
fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep
out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way.
Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the human
heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuis
nil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral.
Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live
longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.

--How many have-you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.

--Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to
trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping
with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its
nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He
doesn't know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot
over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know? Now I'd
give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never
dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he
could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after he died though he
could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too. First
thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to
life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you
come to look at it.

_O, poor Robinson Crusoe!
How could you possibly do so? _

Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of
them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could
invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that
way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow's.
They're so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from
the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one
coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible
even in the earth. The Irishman's house is his coffin. Embalming in
catacombs, mummies the same idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.
Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's
number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that
I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had
one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was
once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit
of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not
married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the
gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.

Pause.
If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they
say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The
boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in
the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker.
Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next.
Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be
damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone
else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then
darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you
like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid
all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his
lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the
soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the
floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing
him a woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia.
Shall i nevermore behold thee_? Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People
talk about you a bit: forget you. Don't forget to pray for him. Remember
him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow:
dropping into a hole, one after the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the
fire of purgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when
you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near
you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor
mamma, and little Rudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all
the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of
course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have
some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or
a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of
distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well
to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there's no.

The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.

The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its
way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he
traversed the dismal fields.

Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.

--I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your
christian name? I'm not sure.

--L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too. He
asked me to.

--Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the _Freeman_ once.

So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know.
He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads.
Charley, you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does
no harm. I saw to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him
under an obligation: costs nothing.

--And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the. . .

He looked around.

--Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?

--M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that his
name?

He moved away, looking about him.

--No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good
Lord, what became of him?

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.

--O, excuse me!

He stepped aside nimbly.

Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their
spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped
his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The
gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards
the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent
to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates,
walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing.
Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord.
The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand.
Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For
yourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at
whiles to read a name on a tomb.

--Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time.

--Let us, Mr Power said.

They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power's blank voice spoke:

--Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

--Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes,
old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some
charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody
really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then
lump them together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be
at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds.
Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's
door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of
their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the
bucket. More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So,
wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the
pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew.
Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it
Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it.
Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's
acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted.
Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the _Church Times. _ Marriage
ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of
bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more
poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses
nothing. Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch.