No More Learning

J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught up
on the others and walked abreast.

--When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty
fingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the
railings.

--Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two old
Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar.

SOME COLUMN! --THAT'S WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID


--That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies
Dargle. Two old trickies, what?

--But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see
the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines'
blue dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them
giddy to look so they pull up their skirts. . .

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES


--Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We're in the
archdiocese here.

--And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue
of the onehandled adulterer.

--Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the
idea. I see what you mean.

DAMES DONATE DUBLIN'S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, BELIEF


--It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too
tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between
them and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with
their handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and
spitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings.

He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden
Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's.

--Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse.

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH
MOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP.


--You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of
Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were
bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble
and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of
beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.

Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.

They made ready to cross O'Connell street.

HELLO THERE, CENTRAL!


At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless
trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines,
Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend
and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines,
all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery
waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water floats with
rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly.

WHAT? --AND LIKEWISE--WHERE?


--But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get the
plums?

VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES.


--Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to
reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: _deus nobis haec otia fecit. _

--No, Stephen said. I call it _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the
Parable of The Plums. _

--I see, the professor said.

He laughed richly.

--I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land.
We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy.

HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY


J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held
his peace.

--I see, the professor said.

He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson
through the meshes of his wry smile.

DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE WIMBLES,
FLO WANGLES--YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM?


--Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must
say.

--Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's
truth was known.


Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school
treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His
Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red
jujubes white.


A sombre Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.

Heart to heart talks.

Bloo. . . Me? No.

Blood of the Lamb.

His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druids' altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of
the church in Zion is coming.

_Is coming! Is coming! ! Is coming! ! ! All heartily welcome. _ Paying game.
Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put the stopper
on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix.
Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall,
hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in.


Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the
pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush
out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain.
Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good
for the brain.

From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk.
Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be
selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father.
Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother
goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their
theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the
absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat
you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the
fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do
the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear
he'd collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you
could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting l. s. d.
out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching
his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence: mum's the
word.

Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it.
Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.

As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it,
I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the
brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in
too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on
the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking
that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things.

Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben
J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and
eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the
things. Knows how to tell a story too.

They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.

He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet
per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of
swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the
day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the
wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.

_The hungry famished gull
Flaps o'er the waters dull. _

That is how poets write, the similar sounds.
But then Shakespeare has
no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
Solemn.


_Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit
Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth. _
--Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!


His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians
they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag
or a handkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for
a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into
the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from
their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they
have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down
here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder
what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.

They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny
quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?

His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

_Kino's_ 11/- _Trousers_

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which
in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of
places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck
up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr
Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self
advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for
that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight.
Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose
burning him.

If he. . . ?

O!

Eh?

No. . . No.

No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.
Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never
exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek:
parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her
about the transmigration. O rocks!

Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's right
after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound.
She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking.
Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone
voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a
barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as
witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get
outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number
one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him
along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like
that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He
read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his
foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our
staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after
street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are
not Boyl: no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either.
I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I
bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the
eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of
them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women
too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he
didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a
false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted
under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What?
Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson,
I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser _Kansell,_ sold
by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a
job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent.
That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small
head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes.
Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her
devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world.
Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name
too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had
married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of
money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for
them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves
in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the
pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover
cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil
Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom's.
Got the job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago:
ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon
was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying
the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the
inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have
already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly
had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with
selfcovered buttons. She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle
first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old
Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies' picnic
too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove,
shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we
had that day. People looking after her.

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper.
Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American
soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she
looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's
daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always
squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman.