Corny
Kelleher
fell into step at their side.
James Joyce - Ulysses
More dead for her than for me.
One must
outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the
world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow
him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who
knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on
a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But
in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of
hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the
substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back,
waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and
lie no more in her warm bed.
--How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't
seen you for a month of Sundays.
--Never better. How are all in Cork's own town?
--I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert
said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.
--And how is Dick, the solid man?
--Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.
--By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?
--Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said,
pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the
insurance is cleared up.
--Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front?
--Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is
behind. He put down his name for a quid.
--I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought
to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.
--How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?
--Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.
They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind
the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the
slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there
when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment
and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three
shillings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin
into the chapel. Which end is his head?
After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened
light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow
candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a
wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners
knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the
font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper
from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black
hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.
A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a
door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one
hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.
Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.
They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.
Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Domine-namine. _ Bully
about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe
betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst
sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on
him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn:
burst sideways.
_--Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. _
Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem mass.
Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly
place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the
gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too.
What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of
the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot
of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw
beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of
saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a
hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it
rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner.
My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.
The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and
shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you
were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.
_--Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. _
The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course
. . .
Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.
What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal
day a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in
childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls
with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same
thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam
now.
_--In paradisum. _
Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over
everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.
The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny
Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the
coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher
gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed
them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last
folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground
till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the
gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the
trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.
The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here.
--The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.
Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.
--He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But
his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here,
Simon!
--Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched
beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.
Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.
--She's better where she is, he said kindly.
--I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.
Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.
--Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.
Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.
--The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can
do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.
They covered their heads.
--The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think?
Mr Kernan said with reproof.
Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We
are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else.
Mr Kernan added:
--The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more
impressive I must say.
Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.
Mr Kernan said with solemnity:
--_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man's inmost
heart.
--It does, Mr Bloom said.
Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood
every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of
them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn
the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are
dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come
forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day!
Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the
rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of
powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure.
Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.
--Everything went off A1, he said. What?
He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.
--As it should be, Mr Kernan said.
--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.
Mr Kernan assured him.
--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.
Ned Lambert glanced back.
--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.
--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some
time. He was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen
seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good
armful she was.
He looked behind through the others.
--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery
line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.
Ned Lambert smiled.
--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.
--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like
that for? She had plenty of game in her then.
--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.
John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.
The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the
grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.
--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.
Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:
--I am come to pay you another visit.
--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. 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.
outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the
world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow
him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who
knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on
a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But
in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of
hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the
substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back,
waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and
lie no more in her warm bed.
--How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't
seen you for a month of Sundays.
--Never better. How are all in Cork's own town?
--I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert
said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.
--And how is Dick, the solid man?
--Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.
--By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?
--Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said,
pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the
insurance is cleared up.
--Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front?
--Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is
behind. He put down his name for a quid.
--I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought
to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.
--How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?
--Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.
They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind
the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the
slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there
when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment
and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three
shillings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin
into the chapel. Which end is his head?
After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened
light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow
candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a
wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners
knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the
font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper
from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black
hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.
A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a
door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one
hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly.
Who'll read the book? I, said the rook.
They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.
Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Domine-namine. _ Bully
about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe
betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst
sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on
him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn:
burst sideways.
_--Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. _
Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem mass.
Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly
place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the
gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too.
What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of
the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot
of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw
beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of
saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a
hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it
rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner.
My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better.
The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and
shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you
were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it.
_--Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. _
The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course
. . .
Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.
What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal
day a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in
childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls
with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same
thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam
now.
_--In paradisum. _
Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over
everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.
The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny
Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the
coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher
gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed
them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last
folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground
till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the
gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the
trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.
The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here.
--The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.
Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.
--He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But
his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here,
Simon!
--Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched
beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.
Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.
--She's better where she is, he said kindly.
--I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.
Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.
--Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.
Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.
--The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can
do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.
They covered their heads.
--The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think?
Mr Kernan said with reproof.
Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We
are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else.
Mr Kernan added:
--The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more
impressive I must say.
Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.
Mr Kernan said with solemnity:
--_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man's inmost
heart.
--It does, Mr Bloom said.
Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood
every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of
them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn
the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are
dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come
forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day!
Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the
rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of
powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure.
Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.
--Everything went off A1, he said. What?
He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.
--As it should be, Mr Kernan said.
--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.
Mr Kernan assured him.
--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.
Ned Lambert glanced back.
--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She's his wife.
--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some
time. He was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen
seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good
armful she was.
He looked behind through the others.
--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery
line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.
Ned Lambert smiled.
--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper.
--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like
that for? She had plenty of game in her then.
--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.
John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead.
The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the
grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.
--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.
Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:
--I am come to pay you another visit.
--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. 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.
