No More Learning

She gave her moist (a
lady's) hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old
dingdong again.

--Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell.

George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand.

Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the
Burton, gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables,
flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do.
Best value in Dub.

Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together,
mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the
bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore.
Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between
the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's
legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide them.

Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty.

Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a
lovely. Gravy's rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that
once or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their
harps. I. He. Old. Young.

--Ah, I couldn't, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless.

Strongly.

--Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits.

--_M'appari,_ Simon, Father Cowley said.

Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long
arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he
sang to a dusty seascape there: _A Last Farewell. _ A headland, a ship, a
sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the
wind upon the headland, wind around her.

Cowley sang:

_--M'appari tutt'amor:
Il mio sguardo l'incontr. . . _

She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to
wind, love, speeding sail, return.

--Go on, Simon.

--Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben. . . Well. . .

Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting,
touched the obedient keys.

--No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat.

The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused.

Up stage strode Father Cowley.

--Here, Simon, I'll accompany you, he said. Get up.

By Graham Lemon's pineapple rock, by Elvery's elephant jingly jogged.
Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom
and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider.

Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: _Sonnambula. _ He
heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M'Guckin! Yes. In his way.
Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like.
Never forget it. Never.

Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain.
Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the
piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile.
Sings too: _Down among the dead men. _ Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to
the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him.
Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry
water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign
in dribs and drabs. And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed
refusing to pay his fare. Curious types.

Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived: never. In the
gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note.

Speech paused on Richie's lips.

Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all.

Believes his own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good
memory.

--Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom.

--_All is lost now_.

Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee
murmured: all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth
he's proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two
notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my
motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all.
Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he
whistled. Fall, surrender, lost.

Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase.
Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence
in the moon. Brave. Don't know their danger. Still hold her back. Call
name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That's
why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost.

--A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well.

Never in all his life had Richie Goulding.

He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise
child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me?

Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking
Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his
eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I
did sir. Wouldn't trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise.

Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably.
Stopped again.

Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.

--With it, Simon.

--It, Simon.

--Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind
solicitations.

--It, Simon.

--I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall
endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down.

By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a
lady's grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous _eau de Nil_ Mina
to tankards two her pinnacles of gold.

The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant,
drew a voice away.

--_When first I saw that form endearing_. . .

Richie turned.

--Si Dedalus' voice, he said.

Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow
endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to
Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the
bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting
to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door.

--_Sorrow from me seemed to depart.
_

Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves
in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem
dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their
each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each
seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw,
lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn't expect
it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word.

Love that is singing: love's old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the
elastic band of his packet. Love's old sweet _sonnez la_ gold. Bloom
wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound
it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.

--_Full of hope and all delighted_. . .

Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his
feet. When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He
can't sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him.
What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last
look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How
do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phial of cachous, kissing comfits,
in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent.

Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud.

--_But alas, 'twas idle dreaming_. . .

Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly
man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out
his wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he
doesn't break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing
too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind
soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy.

Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That's the chat.
Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect.

Words? Music? No: it's what's behind.

Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.

Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music
out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her
tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy
the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood,
gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! Language of love.

--. . . _ray of hope is_. . .

Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse
unsqueaked a ray of hopk.

_Martha_ it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel's song.
Lovely name you have. Can't write. Accept my little pres. Play on her
heartstrings pursestrings too. She's a. I called you naughty boy. Still
the name: Martha. How strange! Today.

The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to
Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to
wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part,
how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom's heart.

Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in
Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still
hear it better here than in the bar though farther.

--_Each graceful look_. . .

First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure. Yellow,
black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her.
Fate.

Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she
sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees.

--_Charmed my eye_. . .

Singing. _Waiting_ she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume
of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat
warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy
eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in
shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.

--_Martha! Ah, Martha! _

Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant
to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In
cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For
only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where.
Somewhere.

--_Co-ome, thou lost one!
Co-ome, thou dear one! _

Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return!

_--Come! _

It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb
it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too
long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent,
aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the
etherial bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all
soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness. . .

--_To me! _

Siopold!

Consumed.

Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her,
you too, me, us.

--Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap
clap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said,
cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina
Kennedy, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank
and bronze miss Douce and gold MJiss Mina.

Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before.
Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson,
reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted, as said before just now.
Atrot, in heat, heatseated. _Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la. _
Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too
slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare.

An afterclang of Cowley's chords closed, died on the air made richer.

And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank,
Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two
more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving,
coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind.

--Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you'd
sing, Simon, like a garden thrush.

Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy
served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired,
admired. But Bloom sang dumb.

Admiring.