Mr Kernan glanced in
farewell
at his image.
James Joyce - Ulysses
This.
Here.
Try.
--_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands
felt for the opulent curves inside her deshabille. _
Yes. Take this. The end.
--_You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare.
The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her
queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played
round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly. _
Mr Bloom read again: _The beautiful woman. _
Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply
amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched
themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (_for Him! For Raoul! _).
Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (_her heaving embonpoint! _).
Feel! Press! Crushed! Sulphur dung of lions!
Young! Young!
An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of
chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in
the lord chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the
admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the
Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal
reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident
and Guarantee Corporation.
Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy
curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven
reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the
floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it,
and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.
Mr Bloom beheld it.
Mastering his troubled breath, he said:
--I'll take this one.
The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.
--_Sweets of Sin,_ he said, tapping on it. That's a good one.
* * * * *
The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell
twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.
Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the
bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely
curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any
advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings.
The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:
--Barang!
Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint.
J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched
necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library.
Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row. He
halted near his daughter.
--It's time for you, she said.
--Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said.
Are you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon
shoulder? Melancholy God!
Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and
held them back.
--Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine.
Do you know what you look like?
He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders
and dropping his underjaw.
--Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you.
Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.
--Did you get any money? Dilly asked.
--Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin
would lend me fourpence.
--You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes.
--How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek.
Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along
James's street.
--I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now?
--I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns
taught you to be so saucy? Here.
He handed her a shilling.
--See if you can do anything with that, he said.
--I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.
--Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of
them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother
died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from
me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I
was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead.
He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat.
--Well, what is it? he said, stopping.
The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs.
--Barang!
--Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.
The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but
feebly:
--Bang!
Mr Dedalus stared at him.
--Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to
talk.
--You got more than that, father, Dilly said.
--I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave
you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there's all I have. I got
two shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the
funeral.
He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously.
--Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said.
Mr Dedalus thought and nodded.
--I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell
street. I'll try this one now.
--You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning.
--Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk
for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly.
He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on.
The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of
Parkgate.
--I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said.
The lacquey banged loudly.
Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing
mincing mouth gently:
--The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do
anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica!
* * * * *
From the sundial towards James's gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the
order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James's street,
past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr
Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other
establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive.
Lovely weather we're having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those
farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best
gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that
General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And
heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal
thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most
scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the
firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever
allowed a boat like that. . . Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins.
You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look
at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we were
bad here.
I smiled at him. _America,_ I said quietly, just like that. _What is
it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true? _
That's a fact.
Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's
always someone to pick it up.
Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy
appearance. Bowls them over.
--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter
Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson
street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built
under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street
club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian
bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he
remembered me.
Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road.
Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom
again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying
has it.
North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains,
sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the
ferrywash, Elijah is coming.
Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course.
Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy
body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned
Lambert's brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn
it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash
like that. Damn like him.
Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good
drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his
fat strut.
Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope.
Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife
drove by in her noddy.
Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too.
Fourbottle men.
Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight
burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the
wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn
down here. Make a detour.
Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by
the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin
Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood,
the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary
bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse.
Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John
Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the
office of Messrs Collis and Ward.
Mr Kernan approached Island street.
Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those
reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all
now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No
cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table
by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major
Sirr. Stables behind Moira house.
Damn good gin that was.
Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that
sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were
on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that
is: Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad
touchingly. Masterly rendition.
_At the siege of Ross did my father fall. _
A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping,
leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.
Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily.
His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a
pity!
* * * * *
Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers
prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust
darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept
on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies,
leprous and winedark stones.
Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights
shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of
their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest
them.
She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman,
rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed
silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her
hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg.
Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it
and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating
on a stolen hoard.
And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words
of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat
standing from everlasting to everlasting.
Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through
Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella,
one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled.
The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the
powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always
without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I
between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I.
Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me
you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A
look around.
Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say
right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed.
Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against
his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan
boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood
round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed
gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes'
hearts.
He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart.
--Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.
Tattered pages. _The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Cure of
Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney. _
I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. _Stephano Dedalo,
alumno optimo, palmam ferenti. _
Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet
of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers.
Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses.
Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read.
Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for
white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the
following talisman three times with hands folded:
--_Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen. _
Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter
Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's
charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your
wool.
--What are you doing here, Stephen?
Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress.
Shut the book quick. Don't let see.
--What are you doing? Stephen said.
A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It
glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her
of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a
pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. _Nebrakada femininum. _
--What have you there? Stephen asked.
--I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing
nervously. Is it any good?
My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring.
Shadow of my mind.
He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer.
--What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French?
She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips.
Show no surprise. Quite natural.
--Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on you.
I suppose all my books are gone.
--Some, Dilly said. We had to.
She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will
drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me,
my heart, my soul. Salt green death.
We.
Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite.
Misery! Misery!
* * * * *
--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley
brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand.
--What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said.
--Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon, with
two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance.
--Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it?
--O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance.
--With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked.
--_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands
felt for the opulent curves inside her deshabille. _
Yes. Take this. The end.
--_You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare.
The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her
queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played
round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly. _
Mr Bloom read again: _The beautiful woman. _
Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply
amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched
themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (_for Him! For Raoul! _).
Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (_her heaving embonpoint! _).
Feel! Press! Crushed! Sulphur dung of lions!
Young! Young!
An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of
chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in
the lord chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the
admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the
Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal
reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident
and Guarantee Corporation.
Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy
curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven
reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the
floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it,
and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.
Mr Bloom beheld it.
Mastering his troubled breath, he said:
--I'll take this one.
The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.
--_Sweets of Sin,_ he said, tapping on it. That's a good one.
* * * * *
The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell
twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.
Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the
bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely
curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any
advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings.
The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:
--Barang!
Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint.
J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched
necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library.
Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row. He
halted near his daughter.
--It's time for you, she said.
--Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said.
Are you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon
shoulder? Melancholy God!
Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and
held them back.
--Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine.
Do you know what you look like?
He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders
and dropping his underjaw.
--Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you.
Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.
--Did you get any money? Dilly asked.
--Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin
would lend me fourpence.
--You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes.
--How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek.
Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along
James's street.
--I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now?
--I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns
taught you to be so saucy? Here.
He handed her a shilling.
--See if you can do anything with that, he said.
--I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.
--Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of
them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother
died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from
me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I
was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead.
He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat.
--Well, what is it? he said, stopping.
The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs.
--Barang!
--Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.
The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but
feebly:
--Bang!
Mr Dedalus stared at him.
--Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to
talk.
--You got more than that, father, Dilly said.
--I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave
you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there's all I have. I got
two shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the
funeral.
He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously.
--Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said.
Mr Dedalus thought and nodded.
--I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell
street. I'll try this one now.
--You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning.
--Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk
for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly.
He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on.
The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of
Parkgate.
--I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said.
The lacquey banged loudly.
Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing
mincing mouth gently:
--The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do
anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica!
* * * * *
From the sundial towards James's gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the
order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James's street,
past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr
Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other
establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive.
Lovely weather we're having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those
farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best
gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that
General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And
heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal
thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most
scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the
firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever
allowed a boat like that. . . Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins.
You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look
at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we were
bad here.
I smiled at him. _America,_ I said quietly, just like that. _What is
it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true? _
That's a fact.
Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's
always someone to pick it up.
Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy
appearance. Bowls them over.
--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter
Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson
street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built
under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street
club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian
bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he
remembered me.
Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road.
Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom
again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying
has it.
North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains,
sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the
ferrywash, Elijah is coming.
Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course.
Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy
body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned
Lambert's brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn
it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash
like that. Damn like him.
Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good
drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his
fat strut.
Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope.
Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife
drove by in her noddy.
Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too.
Fourbottle men.
Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight
burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the
wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn
down here. Make a detour.
Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by
the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin
Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood,
the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary
bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse.
Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John
Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the
office of Messrs Collis and Ward.
Mr Kernan approached Island street.
Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those
reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all
now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No
cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table
by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major
Sirr. Stables behind Moira house.
Damn good gin that was.
Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that
sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were
on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that
is: Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad
touchingly. Masterly rendition.
_At the siege of Ross did my father fall. _
A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping,
leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.
Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily.
His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a
pity!
* * * * *
Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers
prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust
darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept
on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies,
leprous and winedark stones.
Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights
shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of
their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest
them.
She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman,
rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed
silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her
hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg.
Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it
and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating
on a stolen hoard.
And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words
of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat
standing from everlasting to everlasting.
Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through
Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella,
one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled.
The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the
powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always
without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I
between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I.
Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me
you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A
look around.
Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say
right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed.
Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against
his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan
boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood
round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed
gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes'
hearts.
He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart.
--Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.
Tattered pages. _The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Cure of
Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney. _
I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. _Stephano Dedalo,
alumno optimo, palmam ferenti. _
Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet
of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers.
Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses.
Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read.
Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for
white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the
following talisman three times with hands folded:
--_Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen. _
Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter
Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's
charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your
wool.
--What are you doing here, Stephen?
Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress.
Shut the book quick. Don't let see.
--What are you doing? Stephen said.
A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It
glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her
of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a
pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. _Nebrakada femininum. _
--What have you there? Stephen asked.
--I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing
nervously. Is it any good?
My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring.
Shadow of my mind.
He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer.
--What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French?
She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips.
Show no surprise. Quite natural.
--Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on you.
I suppose all my books are gone.
--Some, Dilly said. We had to.
She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will
drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me,
my heart, my soul. Salt green death.
We.
Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite.
Misery! Misery!
* * * * *
--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?
--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.
They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley
brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand.
--What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said.
--Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon, with
two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance.
--Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it?
--O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance.
--With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked.
