No More Learning

And Prosper Lore's huguenot name.
By Bassi's blessed virgins Bloom's dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white
under, come to me. God they believe she is: or goddess. Those today. I
could not see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus' son.
He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of
fellows in: her white.

By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets.

Of sin.

In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy
your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let
freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other,
high piercing notes.

Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down.

Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and
gigglegiggled. Miss Douce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her
nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping,
her fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed,
spluttered out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter,
coughing with choking, crying:

--O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried.
With his bit of beard!

Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman,
delight, joy, indignation.

--Married to the greasy nose! she yelled.

Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each
each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze,
shrilldeep, to laughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I
knows. Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and
pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O! ),
panting, sweating (O! ), all breathless.

Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom.

--O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I
wished

I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet.

--O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!

And flushed yet more (you horrid! ), more goldenly.

By Cantwell's offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi's virgins, bright of
their oils. Nannetti's father hawked those things about, wheedling at
doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I want.
Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On.
Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five
guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets
of sin.

Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled.

Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his
rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled.

--O, welcome back, miss Douce.

He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?

--Tiptop.

He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor.

--Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the
strand all day.

Bronze whiteness.

--That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed
her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males.

Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away.

--O go away! she said. You're very simple, I don't think.

He was.

--Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they
christened me simple Simon.

--You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did the
doctor order today?

--Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I'll trouble
you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky.

Jingle.

--With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed.

With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane's
she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from
her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought
pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky
fifenotes.

--By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must
be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at
last, they say. Yes. Yes.

Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid's, into the
bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute.

None nought said nothing. Yes.

Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling:

--_O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas! _

--Was Mr Lidwell in today?

In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex
bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write.
Buy paper. Daly's. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on
the rye.

--He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said.

Lenehan came forward.

--Was Mr Boylan looking for me?

He asked. She answered:

--Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?

She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her
gaze upon a page:

--No. He was not.

Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the
sandwichbell wound his round body round.

--Peep! Who's in the corner?

No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her
stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess.

Jingle jaunty jingle.

Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice
while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:

--Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your
bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?

He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.

He sighed aside:

--Ah me! O my!

He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod.

--Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.

--Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked.

Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who?

--Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard.

Dry.

Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe.

--I see, he said. I didn't recognise him for the moment. I hear he is
keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately?

He had.

--I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In
Mooney's _en ville_ and in Mooney's _sur mer. _ He had received the rhino
for the labour of his muse.

He smiled at bronze's teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes:

--The _elite_ of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh

MacHugh, Dublin's most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy
of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the
O'Madden Burke.

After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and

--That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see.

He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his
glass.

He looked towards the saloon door.

--I see you have moved the piano.

--The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking
concert and I never heard such an exquisite player.

--Is that a fact?

--Didn't he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too,
poor fellow. Not twenty I'm sure he was.

--Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said.

He drank and strayed away.

--So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled.

God's curse on bitch's bastard.

Tink to her pity cried a diner's bell. To the door of the bar and
diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond.
Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served.

With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for
jinglejaunty blazes boy.

Upholding the lid he (who? ) gazed in the coffin (coffin? ) at the oblique
triple (piano! ) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her
hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt
advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action.
Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in
Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought. Are you not
happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means
something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is.
Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed
on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke
mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: lovelorn. For some man.
For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a
jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence.

Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay.
Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out.

--Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say.

--Aha. . . I was forgetting. . . Excuse. . .

--And four.

At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go.
Ternoon. Think you're the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all.

For men.

In drowsy silence gold bent on her page.

From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the
tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now
poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly
and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call.

Pat paid for diner's popcorked bottle: and over tumbler, tray and
popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss

Douce.

--_The bright stars fade_. . .

A voiceless song sang from within, singing:

--. . . _the morn is breaking. _

A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive
hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording,
called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's
leavetaking, life's, love's morn.

--_The dewdrops pearl_. . .

Lenehan's lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy.

--But look this way, he said, rose of Castile.

Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped.

She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile: fretted, forlorn,
dreamily rose.

--Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her.

She answered, slighting:

--Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.

Like lady, ladylike.

Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode.
Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and
hailed him:

--See the conquering hero comes.

Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered
hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked
towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting.

--_And I from thee_. . .

--I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan.

He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled
on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer
hair, a bosom and a rose.

Smart Boylan bespoke potions.

--What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a
sloegin for me. Wire in yet?

Not yet. At four she. Who said four?

Cowley's red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff's office.

Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting.

Wait.

Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What,
Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there.
See, not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom
followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince.

Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her
bust, that all but burst, so high.

--O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!

But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.

--Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan.

Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his
lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him? ), and
syrupped with her voice:

--Fine goods in small parcels.

That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.

--Here's fortune, Blazes said.

He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang.

--Hold on, said Lenehan, till I. . .

--Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.

--Sceptre will win in a canter, he said.

--I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you
know. Fancy of a friend of mine.

Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce's
lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled.

Idolores. The eastern seas.

Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave),
bearing away teatray. Clock clacked.

Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It
clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till
and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For
me.

--What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four?

O'clock.

Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged Blazes
Boylan's elbowsleeve.

--Let's hear the time, he said.

The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables.
Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near
the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come:
whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited.

Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes.

--Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's no-one. He never heard.

--. . . _to Flora's lips did hie. _

High, a high note pealed in the treble clear.

Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought

Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes.

--Please, please.

He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal.

--_I could not leave thee_. . .

--Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly.

--No, now, urged Lenehan. _Sonnezlacloche! _ O do! There's no-one.

She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling
faces watched her bend.

Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord,
and lost and found it, faltering.

--Go on! Do! _Sonnez! _

Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted
them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes.

_--Sonnez!