No More Learning

The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless
kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He
slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he
lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed
against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed
quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His
hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved.
Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand,
dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand
again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in
spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway.
Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That
man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my
face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red
carpet spread. You will see who.

Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet
out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler
strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the
ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and
shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed.
Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides
her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway
where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in
O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O,
my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags.
Fumbally's lane that night: the tanyard smells.

_White thy fambles, red thy gan
And thy quarrons dainty is.
Couch a hogshead with me then.
In the darkmans clip and kiss. _


Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, _frate porcospino_.
Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: _thy quarrons
dainty is_. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber
on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets.

Passing now.

A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I
am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming
sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps,
trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in
her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, _oinopa
ponton_, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep
the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of
death, ghostcandled. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. He comes, pale vampire,
through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth to her
mouth's kiss.

Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.

No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss.

His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb.
Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched:
ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring
wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's
letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off.
Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and
scribbled words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library
counter.

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till
the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness
shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there
with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid
sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars.
I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back.
Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who
ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field.
Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne
took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with
coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat:
yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat
I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in
stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is
in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our
sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the
more.

She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue
hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of
the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges
Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you
were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the
braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief
and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a
pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and
yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings,
_piuttosto_. Where are your wits?

Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me
soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone.
Sad too. Touch, touch me.

He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled
note and pencil into a pock his hat. His hat down on his eyes. That is
Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. _Et
vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona_. Alo! _Bonjour_. Welcome as the flowers
in May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the
southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal
noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the
tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far.

_And no more turn aside and brood. _

His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs,
_nebeneinander_. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein
another's foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in
tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's
shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. _Tiens, quel petit pied! _
Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde's love that dare not speak its
name. His arm: Cranly's arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I
am. As I am. All or not at all.

In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering
greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float
away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the
low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a
fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of
waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops:
flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It
flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and
sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water
swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night:
lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to,
they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting,
awaiting the fullness of their times, _diebus ac noctibus iniurias
patiens ingemiscit_. To no end gathered; vainly then released,
forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of
lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a
toil of waters.

Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he
said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose
drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising
saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward.
There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery
floor. We have him. Easy now.

Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a
spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly.
God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed
mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a
urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes
upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to
the sun.

A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
known to man. Old Father Ocean. _Prix de paris_: beware of imitations.
Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect,
_Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum_. No. My cockle hat and staff and
hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.

He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying
still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make
their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest
day.
Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn
Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Gia_. For the old hag with the yellow teeth.
And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Gia_. My teeth are very
bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a
dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the
superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps?

My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?

His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one.

He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
carefully. For the rest let look who will.

Behind. Perhaps there is someone.

He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the
air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees,
homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship. +




-- II --

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.
He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart,
liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all
he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of
faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting
her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the
kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel
a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like
her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off
the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat,
its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked
stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

--Mkgnao!

--O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the
table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my
head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see:
the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her
tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his
knees.

--Milk for the pussens, he said.

--Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we
understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too.
Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder
what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

--Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the
chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.

--Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively
and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to
the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him,
poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.

--Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped
three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they
can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or
kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this
drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a
mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better
a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped
slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough?
To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round
him. No.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by
the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter
she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.

He said softly in the bare hall:

--I'm going round the corner. Be back in a minute.

And when he had heard his voice say it he added:

--You don't want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered:

--Mn.

No. She didn't want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,
as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled.
Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar.
Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for
it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's auction.
Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At
Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it.
Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was
farseeing.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat
and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback
pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do.
The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's
high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip
of paper. Quite safe.

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.
In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe.
No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled
the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped
gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I
come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number
seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a
warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black
conducts, reflects, (refracts is it? ), the heat. But I couldn't go in
that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as
he walked in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our
daily but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.
Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at
dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep
it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand,
strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old
Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander
through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet
shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled
pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel,
sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well,
meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among the
pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal,
the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from
her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark language. High
wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's
new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those instruments
what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass.

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track
of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What
Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_ leader: a
homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank
of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule
sun rising up in the north-west.

He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the
flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out
whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the
end of the city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as
position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from
the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot.

Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger.