The halldoor turned
gradually
on its hinges.
James Joyce - Ulysses
Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his
1440 legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of
Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency
as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years
numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking
likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure which
came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the
best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said,
have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of
the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female
form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later
than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, 1450 perfectly
developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give
the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes,
puritanisme, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors
(Bandez! ) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply
wasn't art in a word.
The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's good
example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for
itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for
himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the
camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional
etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet
wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm.
And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a
kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion.
Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased
by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away
thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the
other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving
_embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like
the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact
with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp
which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of
his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and
the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (_sic_) in it which must
have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot
with apologies to Lindley Murray.
The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,
_distingue_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the
bunch though you wouldn't think he had it in him yet you would. Besides
he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though
at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of
makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur
with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial
tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest
stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole
business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up
between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye
was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and
compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly
cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and
relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course
intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King's proctor tries to show
cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made absolute. But as
for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one
another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till
the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for
the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being
close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on
the historic _fracas_ when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to
his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery,
(leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or
possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the
_Insuppressible_ or no it was _United Ireland_ (a by no means by the
by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or
something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from
the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging
occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though
palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though
carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went
a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast
discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a
pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were
particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a
minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that
of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach,
fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was
inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was
the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence
meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost
celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away
from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a
stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more
for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone
instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of
knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to
the donor and thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you,
sir_, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the
legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the
course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after
the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory
after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave.
On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes
of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing 1530
immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the
wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case
for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate
husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from
the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial
moment in a loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing
attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic
rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and
master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not
receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook
the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though
possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite
possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical
bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either
that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting
list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world
and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when,
neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on
for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on
her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred
on another, the cause of many _liaisons_ between still attractive
married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as
several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt.
It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of
brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time
with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him
his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take
unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim
ladies' society was a _conditio sine qua non_ though he had the gravest
possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen
about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who
brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he
would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea
and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or
triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and
walking out leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To
think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any
stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things
he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years the
other's senior or like his father but something substantial he certainly
ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal
nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.
--At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired
though unwrinkled face.
--Some time yesterday, Stephen said.
--Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow
Friday. Ah, you mean it's after twelve!
--The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself.
Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected.
Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there
somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the
one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly
some score of years previously when he had been a _quasi_ aspirant to
parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in
retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had
a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the
evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely in
people's mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a copper
or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which wouldn't
exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all events was in
thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern
opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his mistake, he was
subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted with going a
step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time
inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly
resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our
friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he,
though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of
mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give
him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics
themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties
invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity
and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on
fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word.
Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it
was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it
was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue
(somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash
altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed
unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or
the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he
very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the
other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount
or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of
the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him
to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered.
His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over
effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn't what you
call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him was
he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he
did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal
pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some
wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding,
eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and
a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat
doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as
a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm
in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up.
A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the grasswidower
in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn't appear in any
particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly beloved Queenstown
and it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties
where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue
to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to come,
alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber
revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze
the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms
betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large
potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who
he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra
remarks _passim_. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle
repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew.
People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled
them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender
Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he
came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo.
--I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while
prudently pocketing her photo, as it's rather stuffy here you just come
home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the
vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I'll just
pay this lot.
The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain
sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper
of the shanty who didn't seem to.
--Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of
that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less.
All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B's) busy brain,
education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits,
up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed
with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian
with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other
things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the
housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted.
Because he more than suspected he had his father's voice to bank his
hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as
well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of
that particular red herring just to.
The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former
viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association
dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this
thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared
to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell
had left Euston for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect.
To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why.
--Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner
put in, manifesting some natural impatience.
--And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.
The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles
which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears.
--Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk
queried.
--Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was
a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen
portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading.
Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark,
manner of speaking. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_ was my favourite
and _Red as a Rose is She. _
Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what,
found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a
hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which
time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied
loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched
him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were
sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions,
that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial
remark.
To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first
to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first
and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for
the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine
host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were
not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a
grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in
four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously
spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him
in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well
worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark.
--Come, he counselled to close the _seance_.
Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the
shelter or shanty together and the _elite_ society of oilskin and
company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their
_dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and
fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door.
--One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of
the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs
upside down, on the tables in cafes. To which impromptu the neverfailing
Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off:
--To sweep the floor in the morning.
So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same
time apologetic to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the
bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The
night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit
weak on his pins.
--It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in
a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man.
Come. It's not far. Lean on me.
Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on
accordingly.
--Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange
kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and
all that.
Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where
the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and
purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming
of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the
analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the
part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the
time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the
selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings.
So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made
tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though
confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to
follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's _Huguenots_,
Meyerbeer's _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart's _Twelfth Mass_
he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the acme
of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into
a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic
church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as
those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and i will live
thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of
Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers,
in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable
sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laureis and
putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church
in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the
doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the
unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it
to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was
a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring
preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_,
a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface
knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And
talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old
favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel's air in _Martha,
M'appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be
more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the
lips of Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the
number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in
reply to a politely put query, said he didn't sing it but launched
out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that
period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the
herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an instrument he was
contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite
recall though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas
and Farnaby and son with their _dux_ and _comes_ conceits and Byrd
(William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's chapel or
anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and
John Bull.
On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond
the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground,
brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not
perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive
guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political
celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a
striking coincidence.
By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom,
who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other's sleeve
gently, jocosely remarking:
--Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.
They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth
anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite
near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh
because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a
taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the
lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such
a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he
wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency
that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a
horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected,
take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy
horror to face. But it was no animal's fault in particular if he was
built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes
into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or
trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a
harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the
joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely
reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat
distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was
manoeuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old.
--What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging
_in medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your
acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.
He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,
image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome
blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as
he was perhaps not that way built.
Still, supposing he had his father's gift as he more than suspected,
it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall's Irish
industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general.
Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has
End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows
come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_
about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men,
which boggled Bloom a bit:
_Von der Sirenen Listigkeit
Tun die Poeten dichten. _
These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding,
said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which
he did.
A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily,
if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production
such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain,
command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for
its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entree_ into fashionable
houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large
way of business and titled people where with his university degree of
B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more
influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct
success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the
purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended
to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a
youthful tyro in--society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a
little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a
matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their
musical and artistic _conversaziones_ during the festivities of the
Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes
of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation,
cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record--in fact, without
giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could
easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument
by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition
fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need
necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy
space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or
nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his
dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to
be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped.
Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original
music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly
have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical
world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a
confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus
omne_. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in
his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win
a high place in the city's esteem where he could command a stiff figure
and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King
street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him
upstairs, so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the
goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often
tripped-up a too much feted prince of good fellows. And it need not
detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would
have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when
desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or
containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself
alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason
why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat
of any sort, hung on to him at all.
The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he
purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on
the _fools step in where angels_ principle, advising him to sever his
connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was
prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious
pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it
which in Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of
a person's character, no pun intended.
The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and,
rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on
the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking
globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full
crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had
ended, patient in his scythed car.
Side by side Bloom, profiting by the _contretemps_, with Stephen passed
through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping
over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower,
Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad.
_Und alle Schiffe brucken. _
The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely
watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black,
one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, _to be married by
Father Maher_. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again
continuing their _tete-a-tete_ (which, of course, he was utterly out
of) about sirens enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other
topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind
while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the
sleeper car who in any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too
far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street _and
looked after their lowbacked car_.
What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?
Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they
followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and
Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left,
Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of
Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing
right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching,
disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before
George's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than
the arc which it subtends.
Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?
Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman,
prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and
glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed
corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church,
ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers,
the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the
presabbath, Stephen's collapse.
Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective
like and unlike reactions to experience?
Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to
plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner
of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both
indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of
heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox
religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted
the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual
magnetism.
Were their views on some points divergent?
Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's views on the importance of dietary
and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views
on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom
assented covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism
involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to
christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus,
son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of
Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (died
266 A. D. ), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty
and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to
gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of
adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and
the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen
attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both
from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first
no bigger than a woman's hand.
Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative?
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining
paraheliotropic trees.
Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in
the past?
In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public
thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's
corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue.
In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall
between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony
of Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and
prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class
railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian
Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on
the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once
in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour
of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street, west.
What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885,
1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at
their destination?
He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual
development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction
of the converse domain of interindividual relations.
As in what ways?
From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received:
existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence
to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived.
What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number
7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket
of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.
Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.
Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.
What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly
(respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple?
To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock.
Bloom's decision?
A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the
area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at
the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its
length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches
of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by
separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for
the impact of the fall.
Did he fall?
By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in
avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for
periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman,
pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast
of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year
one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five
thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three
hundred and twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9,
dominical letters C B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV.
Did he rise uninjured by concussion?
Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by
the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force
at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied
at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the
subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free
inflammable coal gas by turningon the ventcock, lit a high flame which,
by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a
portable candle.
What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?
Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent
kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a
candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man
leaving the kitchen holding a candle.
Did the man reappear elsewhere?
After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible
through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the
halldoor.
The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space
of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle.
Did Stephen obey his sign?
Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed
softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted
candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down
a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's
house.
What did Bloom do?
He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its
flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for
Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when
necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid
resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons
of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs
Flower and M'Donald of 14 D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting
points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing
the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and
hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air.
Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think?
Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two,
had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the
college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the
county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room
of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street:
of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss
Julia Morkan at 15 Usher's Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie
(Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil
street: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of
number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of
Saint Francis Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the
physics' theatre of university College, 16 Stephen's Green, north: of
his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra.
What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from
the fire towards the opposite wall?
Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope,
stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the
chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs
folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of
ladies' grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual
position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer
extremities and the third at their point of junction.
What did Bloom see on the range?
On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left
(larger) hob a black iron kettle.
What did Bloom do at the range?
He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron
kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to
let it flow.
Did it flow?
Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of
2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of
filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial
plant cost of 5 pounds per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown,
Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan,
a distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of
relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at
Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth
and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below
the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and
waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E. , on the instructions of
the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for
purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of
recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals
as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding
their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch
meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by
a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of
the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the
detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers,
solvent, sound.
What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier,
returning to the range, admire?
Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature
in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's
projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific
exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface
particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence
of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic
quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides:
its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar
icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance:
its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its
indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region
below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability
of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve
and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of
tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and
islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas
and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and
volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns:
its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones:
its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and
confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic
currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence
in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies,
freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers,
cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts:
its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and
latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments
and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown
gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its
composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part
of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead
Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate
dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst
and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and
paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow,
hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs
and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and
archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and
arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility
in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power
stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals,
rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality
derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level
to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe),
numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its
ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness
of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded
flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon.
Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he
return to the stillflowing tap?
To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of
Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought
thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh
cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a
long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller.
What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer?
That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by
submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the month
of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of
glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language.
What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and
prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a
preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with
rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region
in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most
sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot?
The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius.
What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress?
Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric
energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the
lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed.
Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest?
Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and
recuperation.
What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the
agency of fire?
The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of
ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was
communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral
masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the
foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn
derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat
(radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous
ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such
combustion, was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source
of calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated
through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part
reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising
the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in
temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal
units needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50 degrees to 212 degrees
Fahrenheit.
What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature?
A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at
both sides simultaneously.
For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled?
To shave himself.
What advantages attended shaving by night?
A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from
shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly
encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours:
quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when
awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and
perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper
read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a
shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might
cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with
precision cut and humected and applied adhered: which was to be done.
Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise?
Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine
feminine passive active hand.
What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting
influence?
The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human
blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their
natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic
surgery.
What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the
kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom?
On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal
breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a
moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white
goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly
copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf
a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four
conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of
Plumtree's potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and
containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and
Co's white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue
paper, a packet of Epps's soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's
choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical
canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one,
the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with
augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's cream,
a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured
adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and
semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr
Bloom's and Mrs Fleming's breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total
quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish
containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of
jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences.
What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser?
Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets,
numbered 8 87, 88 6.
What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow?
Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction,
preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official
and definitive result of which he had read in the _Evening Telegraph_,
late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge.
Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected,
been received by him?
In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 little Britain
street: in David Byrne's licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in O'Connell
street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had placed in
his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah,
restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of
F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick
M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and
restituted the copy of the current issue of the _Freeman's Journal and
National Press_ which he had been about to throw away (subsequently
thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of
the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the light of
inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the
secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.
What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations?
The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event
followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the
electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss
by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding
originally from a successful interpretation.
His mood?
He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he
was satisfied.
What satisfied him?
To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to
others. Light to the gentiles.
How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile?
He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's
soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed
on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the
prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity
prescribed.
What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his
guest?
Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation
Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly),
he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served
extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the
viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion
(Molly).
Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of
hospitality?
His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted
them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct,
the creature cocoa.
Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed,
reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to
complete the act begun?
The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right
side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four
lady's handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable
condition.
Who drank more quickly?
Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and taking,
from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady
flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent's one, six to
two, nine to three.
What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act?
Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was
engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from
literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had
applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the
solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life.
Had he found their solution?
In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages,
aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text,
the answers not bearing in all points.
What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him,
potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering
of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively for competition by the
_Shamrock_, a weekly newspaper?
_An ambition to squint
At my verses in print
Makes me hope that for these you'll find room? .
If you so condescend
Then please place at the end
The name of yours truly, L. Bloom. _
Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him?
Name, age, race, creed.
What anagrams had he made on his name in youth?
Leopold Bloom
Ellpodbomool
Molldopeloob
Bollopedoom
Old Ollebo, M. P.
What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic
poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the 14 February 1888?
_Poets oft have sung in rhyme
Of music sweet their praise divine.
Let them hymn it nine times nine.
Dearer far than song or wine.
You are mine. The world is mine. _
What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G.
Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years,
entitled _If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now_,
commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48,
49 South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the
valley of diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand
annual Christmas pantomime _Sinbad the Sailor_ (produced by R Shelton
26 December 1892, written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by George
A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan under
the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir,
harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist, principal
girl?
Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest,
the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded
1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market:
secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the
questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the
duke and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru
(imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and
professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand
Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street:
fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist's
non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical expression of countenance
and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist's revelations of white
articles of non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing
while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the
difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous
allusions from _Everybody's Book of Jokes_ (1000 pages and a laugh in
every one): sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous, associated
with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high
sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket
Barton.
What relation existed between their ages?
16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen
was 6. 16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present
age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54
their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13
1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according
as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in
1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then
1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen
would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when
Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom,
being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have
surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah,
969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would
attain that age in the year 3072 A. D. , Bloom would have been obliged to
have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in
the year 81,396 B. C.
What events might nullify these calculations?
The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a
new era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent
extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.
How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance?
Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house, Medina
Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen's
mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his
hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a
rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen's father
and Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older.
Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and
afterwards seconded by the father?
Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative
gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined.
Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a
third connecting link between them?
Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the
house of Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and
had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City Arms
Hotel owned by Elizabeth O'Dowd of 54 Prussia street where, during parts
of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of Bloom
who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the
employment of Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence of
sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular road.
Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her?
He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow
of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair
with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North
Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she had
remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular
fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles
equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems,
private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from
the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa.
Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity?
Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel
of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with
continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds,
velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round
and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe.
What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years
deceased?
The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her
suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient
catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue
of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles
Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers.
Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation
which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the
more desirable?
The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently
abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's _Physical Strength and How to
Obtain It_ which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in
sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in
front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of
muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant
relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility.
Had any special agility been his in earlier youth?
Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full
circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he
had excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever
movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed
abdominal muscles.
Did either openly allude to their racial difference?
Neither.
What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts
about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen's thoughts about
Bloom's thoughts about Stephen?
He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he
knew that he knew that he was not.
What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective
parentages?
Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently
Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and
Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born
Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest surviving male
consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary,
daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier).
Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or
layman?
Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A. , alone,
in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James
O'Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump
in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C. , in
the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend
Charles Malone C. C. , alone, in the church of the Three Patrons,
Rathgar.
Did they find their educational careers similar?
Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively
through a dame's school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for
Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory,
junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the
matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the
royal university.
Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university
of life?
Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation
had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him.
What two temperaments did they individually represent?
The scientific. The artistic.
What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards
applied, rather than towards pure, science?
Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining
in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his
appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once
revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting
telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water
siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump.
Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of
kindergarten?
Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard,
catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the
twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature
mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical
to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls,
historically costumed dolls.
What also stimulated him in his cogitations?
The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James,
the former by his 1d bazaar at 42 George's street, south, the latter
at his 6 1/2d shop and world's fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30
Henry street, admission 2d, children 1d: and the infinite possibilities
hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed
in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility
(divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of
magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to
convince, to decide.
Such as?
K. II. Kino's 11/- Trousers. House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes.
Such as not?
Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive
gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle power.
Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot street.
Bacilikil (Insect Powder). Veribest (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined
pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner).
Such as never?
What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete.
With it an abode of bliss.
Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants' quay, Dublin, put up in
4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P. , Rotunda
Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries
of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot,
registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat.
Plamtroo.
Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that
originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably
conduce to success?
His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn
by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be
seated engaged in writing.
What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen?
Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark
corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary.
